Venture capital in Japan

In business world, there have always been people willing to start business, and other people willing to back them and share the risks and rewards of enterprises, so in a sense there has always been entrepreneurship and venture capital (VC). Despite Japanese VC has gone through ups and downs, Japanese VC continues to lead Asia and is second only to USA. Japanese government has recognized the economic benefits of fostering the creation and development of venture firms, and has applied themselves assiduously to the task of creating a supportive environment. Although relative to the U.S., the Japanese VC industry is still a young, small industry, in another word, it shows that there is still a substantial room for further development, which makes VC still a promising industry in Japan. This paper discusses the Japanese VC history, development trend and some new operation characteristics in Japan which give us a new perspective to understand the current development of VC industry in Japan.