Tokyo is vying to become an innovation hub for entrepreneurs and investors, challenging Japan's reputation as an environment that fails to nurture entrepreneurship, and a new nonprofit organization is hoping to play a leading role.

The recently launched Venture Cafe Tokyo aims to help innovators break away from a culture that stresses conformity and fears failure, by bringing them together with potential investors in the business district of Toranomon.

"Ideas, talent, money are a simple recipe for innovation. I want to organize programs and events so that those elements mix and circulate smoothly, like innovation dating," said Yasuhiro Yamakawa, representative director of Venture Cafe Tokyo and entrepreneurship associate professor at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, speaking to over 300 attendees at an outdoor opening event at Toranomon Hills.