Samurai Incubate creating new fund for startups in Israel and Japan

Another Monday, another new fund announcement from a Japanese venture capital firm. The Bridge is reporting that Samurai Incubate is restocking its funds, this time with an added focus on Israeli startups.

The fund, Samurai Incubate’s fifth, currently stands at JPY 500 million (US$4.17 million) but is expected to close in June at double, or even quadruple, that amount. According to The Bridge, Japanese seed stage startups can expect to receive about JPY 4.5 million (US$38,000) and Israeli pre-seed startups will average around JPY 1 million (US$8,300).

For close observers of Japan’s startup scene, the news is not entirely surprising. Since last summer, the founder of Samurai Incubate – Kentaro Sakakibara – has been working in Tel Aviv. Having VC funds to work with is the next logical step considering there is already a Samurai House in the city.

Sprinting ahead to Israel while most Japanese VCs are focused on their home turf and Southeast Asia is not surprising for someone like Sakakibara. He started Samurai Incubate in 2008, several years before many of the incubators, accelerators, and corporate venture funds which dot Japan’s startup landscape popped up. Sakakibara’s instincts may prove right once again as interest between Japan and Israel seems to be mutual, and growing. In addition to big news items like Rakuten’s acquisition of Viber, trade between the two countries rose 9.3 percent in 2014 to US$1.7 billion.

Samurai Incubate’s new initiative will invest in plenty of Israeli startups over the next year, but the firm isn’t waiting for the fund to close. Using an undisclosed amount of cash from its current fund, it invested in two Japanese-founded, Israel-based services – Aniwo, which connects startups to investors and users, and Zerobillbank, a micro-donation ecosystem.