<article>Japanese venture capital firm Global Brain Corporation has launched its sixth fund, and is aiming to raise $175 million its founder and CEO Yasuhiko Yurimoto announced at the firm&#8217;s  annual  Alliance Forum.</article>

Japanese venture capital firm Global Brain Corporation has launched its sixth fund, and is aiming to raise $175 million its founder and CEO Yasuhiko Yurimoto announced at the firm&#8217;s  annual  Alliance Forum.
Incepted in 2001, the corpus of Global Brain&#8217;s first and second fund totalled $17.5 million. This latest fund has made a first close at $130 million, with the final close expected by June 2017.
With this new fund, Global Brain will be targeting investments in startup ventures operating in the sectors such as the internet of things (IoT), hardware, enterprise, robotics, education, and commerce solutions. The fund will aim to invest in a portfolio of between 70 to 80 companies, with ticket sizes ranging from 200 million yen ($1.7 million) to 1 billion yen ($8.67 million) each.
Commenting on the fund, Yurimoto stated: “With the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics happening in 2020, Japan is in a time of change. We want to create an ecosystem that links [this progress] to a future beyond the Olympics,” emphasising an interest in ventures that could solve Japan&#8217;s societal and economic issues.
Japan&#8217;s <a style="color: #000080;" href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/02/japans-population-is-shrinking-what-does-it-mean-for-the-economy/" target="_blank">decreasing population is having an economic impact</a>, with the <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/japans-economy-contracts-in-4q-1455494532" target="_blank">economy shrinking</a> as <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-frugality-idUSKBN13Y074" target="_blank">domestic consumption remains lacklustre</a> due to more frugal lifeless and corresponding expenditures by Japanese Millennials.
In a March 2015 <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/asia-pacific/japan-lessons-from-a-hyperaging-society" target="_blank">content piece</a>, management consultancy McKinsey observed: &#8220;Most forecasts suggest that Japan’s economy will continue to grow at roughly 1 percent a year, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that this rate of growth will extend until 2040. Without dramatic change, primarily in service-sector productivity, this seems quite optimistic to us.&#8221;
It adds, &#8220;If labor productivity (measured as GDP per capita) continues to increase at only 1.2 percent a year, that sort of economic expansion will require a working population of 62 million in 2040. We, on the other hand, estimate that if labor-market dynamics remain unchanged, in that year the working population will have shrunk to 49 million—21 percent lower than what’s needed.&#8221;
Given this backdrop, the latest fund includes a strong international focus, with Global Brain planning to deploy capital in the startup ecosystems of Japan, Silicon Valley, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and Israel. Southeast Asia in particular represents strong growth prospects for this fund, given the prevailing growth narrative of economies in the region.
The fund is also focused on investing in ventures that can strengthen Japanese tourism in the 2017-2019 period, given the upcoming Tokyo Olympics in 2020. This is reflected in the composition of the funds&#8217; limited partners (LPs); the Cool Japan Fund, travel service conglomerate JTB, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC),  Sumitomo Forestry, and Information Services International-Dentsu as well as university endowments are backing the latest fund.
According to the Nikkei Asian Review, JTB is planning to <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://asia.nikkei.com/Japan-Update/JTB-to-participate-in-venture-investment-fund" target="_blank">invest several billion yen and partner with enterprises</a> in the funds&#8217; portfolio to leverage on augmented reality and virtual reality technology to disseminate tourism information and draw more visitors to Japan. Fintech will apparently be another focus sector, specifically settlement services.
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Global Brain Corporation has launched a $175M fund targeting investments in, hardware, IoT, enterprise, robotics and commerce Internationally.

Japan: Global Brain launches $175m sixth fund

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