DG Daiwa Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
DG Daiwa Ventures (DGDV) is a Tokyo-headquartered venture capital firm formed in July 2016 as a joint venture between Digital Garage (a Japanese internet pioneer and startup incubator) and Daiwa Securities Group (one of Japan's largest brokerages). The firm's stated mission is to invest in and provide business-development support to startups with next-generation technology, positioning itself as a Japan-originated but globally-facing VC. DGDV pairs balance-sheet capital from a major securities house with Digital Garage's startup-building network, which lets it offer portfolio companies both capital and go-to-market support in Japan, including help with Japan market entry for overseas startups.
Sector Focus
DGDV is a generalist deep-tech and frontier-technology investor rather than a single-vertical fund. Its roughly 150-company portfolio clusters around: AI/ML and AI agents (a large and growing share of 2024-2026 deals), blockchain/crypto and cybersecurity infrastructure, fintech and neobanking, digital health and healthtech, robotics and physical AI, semiconductors, synthetic biology/biomanufacturing, XR/VR and gaming content, climate and energy (including CCUS and EV infrastructure), construction/proptech DX, and logistics. Recent 2025-2026 activity skews heavily toward applied AI (AI agents for recruiting, GPU infrastructure, QA/testing, enterprise automation) alongside continued blockchain and healthcare bets.
Stage Focus
DGDV invests primarily at seed through Series A, with visible activity at pre-seed, seed, and pre-Series A (labelled explicitly in Japanese announcements as "シードラウンド" and "プレシリーズA"), plus selective Series A leads and opportunistic follow-on participation in later rounds (Series B/C) for existing portfolio companies as they scale internationally.
Check Size
DGDV does not publish a formal check-size range. Based on portfolio breadth (150+ companies) against a total fund AUM of roughly ¥30 billion (~$200M) across its DG Lab Fund I, II, and the newly closed Fund III, typical initial checks appear to fall in the low hundreds of thousands to low single-digit millions of dollars, consistent with seed and pre-Series A rounds, with larger commitments reserved for rounds where DGDV leads.
Lead Tendency
DGDV both leads and follows. Several 2025-2026 announcements are explicit about leading ("リード出資" / "リード投資家として出資") in seed and pre-Series A rounds (e.g., robottte, CAPER, SAMANSA's Series A, Morus), while many other investments are participations alongside larger international co-investors such as Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Accel India, Polychain Capital, QED Investors, and Peter Thiel/HOF Capital.
Recent Activity
DGDV closed its third fund (DGDV3号ファンド) in October 2025 above ¥10 billion, bringing total assets under management across all funds to roughly ¥30 billion (~$200M), explicitly earmarked to accelerate both domestic and international deployment. Since that close, the firm has maintained a high cadence of new investments: Tellus Global and HireThomas (Thomas) in August-September 2026, LiSTie (lithium-recovery materials) and Lekondo (AI fashion/social) in July 2026, a lead pre-Series A in robottte (essential-worker recruiting AI) and a seed in BEAM Technologies (space-based semiconductor manufacturing) in mid-2026, and earlier-2026 investments in Peex, Project Pluto, CULTA, First Coffee, Skild AI, and CAPER. The firm was also selected as an NVIDIA Inception VC Alliance partner and participated in NVIDIA GTC 2026's VC reverse-pitch program, underscoring its continued push into AI infrastructure.
Portfolio Highlights
Notable exits and milestones include BastionZero (acquired by Cloudflare, 2024), Curv (acquired by PayPal, 2021), 1plusX (acquired by TripleLift), Akili Interactive (SPAC merger with Social Capital), Goodpatch and GNEXT (both IPO'd on Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers), and Lifelog Technology/Calomeal (acquired into the Omron Healthcare group, July 2026). Standout active names include Skild AI (general-purpose robotics foundation models), Rebellions (AI-specialized semiconductor/NPU design), River Financial and Blockstream (bitcoin infrastructure), MICIN (Japanese digital-health platform, raised a ¥4B+ Series C), WHILL (personal mobility devices with FDA clearance), and slice/GaragePreneurs (Indian credit-card fintech that reached unicorn status backed by Tiger Global).
Team
- Junichi Nakajima and Katsuyasu Murata, Representative Directors (co-CEOs); Nakajima joined 2018 from Lone Star Funds/Marubeni/Cool Japan Fund, Wharton MBA
- Yamato Watanabe, Managing Director / Head of Investment, ex-Dentsu and Dentsu Ventures
- Yuta Sanada, Senior Director, Head of Domestic Investment, ex-Daiwa Securities SMBC IPO underwriting
- Makoto Ibi, Senior Director, Head of Overseas Investment, ex-Rakuten, INSEAD MBA
- Danny Kwak, Principal, ex-SMBC Nikko M&A
- Makito Masuyama and Teppei Ando, Principals
- Kenji Makiguchi, Vice President, ex-Microsoft Japan and Disney Japan
- Jaesoon Kim, Kota Shindo, Arisa Makihara, Senior Associates
- Ryutaro Nojima, Shunichi Kimuro (blockchain lead), Kurumi Takahashi, Venture Partners
- Hitomi Mizutani, Chief Assistant & PR
Decision Process
DGDV operates as a full partnership/committee structure with a dedicated domestic-investment head, overseas-investment head, and a bench of principals and associates covering distinct sector and geography mandates (blockchain, AI, healthcare, fintech), rather than a solo-GP model.
Founder Preferences
DGDV backs both Japanese founders building for global markets and overseas founders seeking a bridge into Japan, with a strong tilt toward technical/deep-tech founding teams (AI, robotics, semiconductors, synthetic biology) and repeat operators who have prior startup or scale-up experience.
Geographic Focus
DGDV is explicitly global: alongside a large Japan-based book, it has active positions across the United States, Southeast Asia (Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines), India, South Korea, Africa (Nigeria), and Europe, and regularly co-hosts cross-border events (Tokyo Unicorn Summit, Global Founders Summit, Tokyo Climate Bridge) to connect its international portfolio with the Japanese market.