South Korea’s Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) and the Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development (KISED) brought 13 promising deep-tech startups to Tokyo this week for a comprehensive investment roadshow designed to break into the Japanese market.

The three-day “2025 Super Gap Project Global IR in Tokyo” event, which began Wednesday at the Tokyo Innovation Base, represents a strategic push to connect Korean startups with Japanese venture capital firms and major corporations. The initiative goes well beyond traditional pitch sessions, offering technology matching programs, reverse pitching by local investors, and specialized mentoring in legal and intellectual property matters.

The participating startups, all at Series A stage or beyond, showcase advanced technologies in sectors experiencing high investment demand in Japan, including artificial intelligence, robotics, future mobility, system semiconductors, and eco-friendly energy. Their participation follows a two-month preparatory program in Korea that included seminars with founders who had previously entered the Japanese market, one-on-one mentoring sessions with Japanese investors, and preliminary technology meetups with Japanese conglomerates.

The event launched Wednesday with intensive technology matching sessions featuring 10 leading Japanese conglomerates, including NTT DATA, PayPay, Rakuten, Panasonic, and OKI. These one-on-one meetings focused on practical collaboration models and potential proof-of-concept approaches, with Japanese companies showing particular interest in the Korean startups’ AI, robotics, and semiconductor technologies.

Thursday’s main event featured an IR demo day where the 13 Korean startups presented their technologies and business models to major Japanese VCs and CVCs. The session began with a reverse pitching format, allowing Japanese investment firms to introduce their strategies and areas of interest before the Korean companies made their presentations. Major investment institutions participating included Salesforce Ventures, Global Brain, Toshiba TEC, 500 Global, and Shinhan Venture Investment.

An expert panel discussion provided deeper insights into Japan’s deep-tech investment ecosystem, covering topics such as the growth potential of Japanese startups within the global manufacturing value chain, trends in government-led funds, and case studies of Korea-Japan open innovation collaboration.

The program concludes Friday with one-on-one mentoring sessions covering legal affairs, intellectual property, accounting, and marketing strategies specifically tailored for the Japanese market. These sessions address key barriers to market entry, including go-to-market strategies, IP-based exit scenarios, and critical considerations for forming local partnerships.

“The 2025 Super Gap Project Global IR in Tokyo is a comprehensive IR program designed to help promising domestic deep-tech startups concretize business opportunities in Japan, a major economic market, and accelerate their entry into the global value chain based on technological competitiveness,” said CHO Kyung-won, Director General for Startup Policy at MSS.

The ministry emphasized its commitment to strengthening systematic follow-up support and global linkage programs to ensure Korean startups can achieve sustained growth in key international markets. The comprehensive approach reflects South Korea’s broader strategy to position its deep-tech companies as key players in the global innovation ecosystem, leveraging Japan’s role as a gateway to Asian markets and its strong manufacturing and technology infrastructure.