#Startup

Japan's Rangle Pro hovers hands-free in pipes and sewers where GPS dies. A racing team turned its autonomous-control tech into an inspection drone taking on DJI.

An Osaka University startup, Endoluminal Solutions, has built a 4mm single-use endoscope aimed at replacing barium gastric-cancer screening. A look at the miniaturization behind it and where it fits in an endoscope industry Japan's Olympus dominates.

Toyota and America's Joby Aviation are setting up a California joint venture to mass-produce eVTOL air taxis, with Toyota holding 51% and Joby 49%. Now that the flying is largely solved, the race hinges on whether anyone can build these aircraft cheaply and at scale. Here is why Toyota's production system is the bet, how China pulled ahead, and why Europe's pure-play startups collapsed.

Resonac, BEAM and Nippon LEO signed an MOU to manufacture compound semiconductors in low Earth orbit. Why build chips in microgravity, and how Japan's bet compares to the US and China.

Japan's SKYDRIVE eVTOL flew stably at 100 km/h, a speed that sounds modest but marks a key step toward type certification. We unpack why a compact, wingless multirotor is a deliberate bet, and how Japan stacks up against China's already-flying EHang and US rivals Joby and Archer.

Japan's Koroyawa floor stays hard when you walk and softens only when you fall. Science Tokyo proved it prevents elderly hip fractures using a world-first simulation built from a real patient's CT data.

A Japanese radiative cooling film that stays below air temperature in direct sun, with zero electricity. How SPACECOOL dumps heat into space, its 29% energy cut in Saudi trials, and why passive cooling matters as the planet warms.

Tohoku University spinoff Space Quarters has demonstrated its DAIQ orbital assembly robot system on a ground model, showing three kinds of small robots cooperating to pick, place, and weld building panels into a larger structure. We look at how it compares to NASA's cancelled OSAM-1 and DARPA's NOM4D, and what makes Japan's robotics approach distinct.

A Chiba startup has rebuilt yokan into an energy bar now test-selling in Japan and Australia. Here is why this centuries-old confection is one of the smartest survival foods ever made.

ROHM and Quanmatic put quantum annealing to work on a chip fab's front-end process, lifting output about 3%. Here's why a number that sounds small is actually a big deal on a factory floor.

Katsuhiro Harada launched VS Studio under SNK. Shinji Mikami's Unbound was absorbed by Korea's SHIFT UP. Daisuke Taka burned through his savings to go solo. As Japan's most celebrated game creators strike out on their own, the capital keeping them afloat is overwhelmingly Saudi and Korean. Here's why Japan's own giants can't fund their stars, and why foreign money can.

Japan's Business-Value-Based Financing Promotion Act took effect on May 25, 2026, creating an enterprise value charge that lets companies pledge their whole business, including intangibles and future cash flow. We compare it with US venture debt and Korean and Singaporean IP finance, and ask whether banks have the skills to use it.

Yokohama National University spinoff LQUOM has closed a 1.23 billion yen ($7.7M) Series B to build quantum repeaters, the missing piece of the quantum internet. Here is what that means, and how it stacks up against Aliro in the US, USTC in China, and Japan's planned Tokyo-Osaka quantum backbone.

Kyoto University spinoff Toregem Biopharma kicks off Phase 2 trials this summer for TRG035, the world's first regenerative tooth drug, after raising an additional ¥850 million ($5.3M). Twenty-four pediatric patients with severe congenital tooth agenesis will receive the antibody. Here is what the deal tells us about Japan's deep-tech biotech funding stack — and how a super-aging society is becoming a uniquely positioned market for medical innovation.

A black, sponge-like slab that floats with just lamp light has racked up 1.8 million views in a week. Developed at Nagoya University by Tomonaga Ueno, the carbon-nanotube aerogel is lighter than air and could quietly reshape EVs, eVTOL aircraft, drones and spacecraft. Here's how it actually works—and why the startup Sora Material thinks it's an industrial workhorse, not just a viral trick.

In spring 2026, Honda wrote off roughly $10 billion in EV development. That same season, the final modules of ITER's 3,000-tonne central solenoid arrived in France, the UK's Pulsar Fusion ignited the first plasma inside a fusion rocket engine, and Kyoto Fusioneering moved to bring its integrated fusion fuel cycle pilot online in Canada. Stack the candidates in watt-hours per kilo and the picture is brutal: nothing beats gasoline in a form you can put in a car — except one category up, fusion, at 7.8 million times the density. Win the bet and you unlock effectively free electricity, working climate reversal, Mars in two months, lunar helium-3, and the solar system as a shipping route. Honda's mistake alone covers nearly 40 percent of ITER's budget. Maybe it's time to stop arguing about EVs and just go build the sun.

Terra Drone, ranked #1 globally among industrial drone service companies, has solo-won a roughly $2.6M contract for pipeline security surveillance in eastern Saudi Arabia. We unpack how Japan's drone champion is pivoting from inspection into AI-driven security patrols—and how it's threading the needle between Skydio's NDAA-compliant U.S. push and DJI's collapsing U.S. market share.

Terra Drone has unveiled flight footage of its fixed-wing interceptor drone Terra A2 — 75km range, 312km/h top speed, 40-minute endurance. CEO Toru Tokushige outlined the layered air defense vision in a United24 Media interview. Inside the modern methods of stopping Shahed-type kamikaze drones and the new air defense economics being shaped by a Japanese startup.

Tsubame Industries' Archax — a 4.5-meter, 3.5-ton piloted transforming robot — has released new transformation footage. We break down the $2.5M price tag, the Gundam-inspired engineering team behind it, and where Japan-bound travelers can actually see one.

Japanese printing giant TOPPAN is leveraging semiconductor thin-film stacking technology to launch its 3D-printed cultured meat business, targeting commercialization beyond 2031. The vision: a home 'Meat Maker' that prints marbled wagyu from data and recipes — the ultimate local production for local consumption. We unpack TOPPAN's strategy alongside Integriculture's cell-agriculture platform, SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026, and the upcoming 2nd Japanese Society for Cellular Agriculture conference in Osaka.