Tag - startups

 
 

STARTUPS

SoftBank Group will make a tender offer allowing OpenAI employees to cash in shares if they choose.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 28, 2024
SoftBank seeks to buy $1.5 billion OpenAI shares from employees
SoftBank will make a tender offer for the stock, allowing OpenAI employees to cash in shares if they choose.
A view of the city skyline and Huangpu river in Shanghai on Feb. 24, 2022
BUSINESS / Markets
Nov 25, 2024
China's startups suffer as investors exercise redemption rights
The situation conflicts with the government's resolve to foster innovation and achieve technological self-reliance in systemically important industries.
Elon Musk during a campaign event at Madison Square Garden in New York on Oct. 27
WORLD / Politics
Nov 10, 2024
Silicon Valley’s Trump supporters envision ascendant startups and Vance 2028
The surge of GOP support and contributions set records in the largely left-leaning tech industry, splintering once-clubby relationships.
Japan controlled half or more of the global chips market through the 1980s but has less than a tenth of the market today.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 5, 2024
Japan taps U.S. chip startup Tenstorrent to help train new wave of engineers
The contract is part of Japan's effort to reinvigorate its semiconductor industry.
Tech entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist Masayoshi Son made his fortune by becoming a bridge between California's technology culture and Japan.
COMMENTARY
Oct 31, 2024
Masayoshi Son may be the oddest of the oddball billionaires
Masayoshi Son made his fortune by becoming a bridge between Californian tech culture and Japan.
Capsule hotels were created as a way to deal with the amount of overwork employees tend to do in Japan. Can't commute home? Then spend the night in an tiny, affordable sleeping space.
BUSINESS / Tech / Longform
Oct 12, 2024
Japan wakes up to the market for a proper sleep
After years of sleep deficits and drowsy mornings, a growing number of products and services are being developed to help us rest easier.
A factory operated by metal processing company Iwanuma Seiko, which has been entrusted with work involving the space industry for the first time
BUSINESS / Companies / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Sep 17, 2024
Small firms in Tohoku showcase technologies in growing space sector
The government plans to boost the space technology market, leading to hopes of a space industry ecosystem in the region.
An Nvidia Quantum-X800 InfiniBand Platform designed for artificial intelligence on display in Taipei in June
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 9, 2024
Nvidia-backed Sakana AI eyes strategic partnerships in Japan
Growing geopolitical risks are heightening interest in the Tokyo-based startup.
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (center) and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, disembark from their campaign bus in Savannah, Georgia, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 29, 2024
VCs want Harris to prioritize abortion rights and pro-tech policies
Of about 800 venture capitalists who signed an open letter of support, 225 detailed their reasons for endorsing Harris and the policies they favor in a survey.
An artificial intelligence process sign in the Samsung Electronics hall at the IFA Consumer Electronics and Home Appliances trade fair in Berlin in 2022
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 27, 2024
Is that voice real or AI? One startup says it can tell the difference
The latest wave of artificial intelligence technology can mimic the voice of almost anyone.
Sarvam AI, often described as India’s OpenAI, introduced software for businesses that can interact with customers using spoken voice rather than just text.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 26, 2024
Cheap AI voice bots are suddenly everywhere in India
Startups may turn India into a proving ground for what could be the next frontier of generative artificial intelligence products.
An AI-driven smartphone application, jointly developed by a tech startup and researchers at Nihon University, purports to tell when cats feel pain. It was being demonstrated during a vet examination in Fujisawa on June 11.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 23, 2024
Japan should go big or go home on startups
As of last month, Japan had just 10 unicorns, according to Pitchbook data, compared to 714 in the U.S., 316 in China and 62 in India.
The listing ceremony of Ola Electric Mobility at the National Stock Exchange in Mumbai, India, on Aug. 9
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 19, 2024
Mumbai debuts deliver for SoftBank after market retreat from AI trims gains
Three firms backed by SoftBank have made solid debuts in the past week, in a positive sign after the Vision Fund fell to a loss of ¥204.3 billion in the June quarter.
Polina Oba enjoys the food in Fukuoka, but still finds herself traveling to Tokyo often as that’s where most of the decision-makers are based. 
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Aug 12, 2024
Polina Oba: ‘Try quick, fail quick, learn quick and you need to always pivot’
Networking is at the core of Polina Oba's GourmetPro startup. Not only is it great meeting new people but you'll never know where those connections may lead.
Even small and indirect sums from the Government Pension Investment Fund would help startups to get their businesses going.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 29, 2024
Japanese pension funds tiptoe into moonshot tech investments
More sources of funding would help the country’s on-again-off-again quest to monetize pioneering research.
Joining the revolution brought by the era-defining release of ChatGPT requires a supply of cash that only tech behemoths like Microsoft can provide.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 29, 2024
AI startups swap independence for Big Tech's deep pockets
In the past few months promising companies have seen founders and key executives quietly exit the stage to join the world's dominant tech companies.
Ryo Ogawa (right), chief executive officer of Timee, and Tomoaki Yagi, chief financial officer, strike the trading bell during the company's listing ceremony at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo on Friday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 26, 2024
Shares of job app firm Timee jump in Japan stock trading debut
The stock surged to as high as ¥1,855 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Growth market.
Entrepreneurs who participated in the Beyond Japan Zero to X program last year share their experiences in the United States during a meeting in May in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 23, 2024
Japanese startups advised to internationalize to get some global mojo
Occupying the No. 1 spot in the Japanese market affords many comforts, but global dominance is unlikely to be one of them.
Goki Kusunoki, CEO and co-founder of Samansa, with the company's Loverse app in Tokyo on May 10. The app allows interaction only with generative artificial intelligence.
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2024
Tiny Japanese startup is bringing AI dating to the masses
Loverse is the latest in a long line of digital solutions to Japan’s loneliness crisis.
An Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. facility in Fujairah, which uses technology developed by 44.01, a startup backed by Sam Altman
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 16, 2024
Sam Altman-backed startup scaling technology to store CO2 in rocks
A type of rock found under every continent holds the potential key to permanently trapping planet-warming carbon dioxide under the Earth’s surface.

Longform

The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo is a popular place to foster curiosity in the natural sciences.
Can Japan's scientific community rebound from a Nobel nosedive?