Nekonome

Nekonome raised ¥110 million in Series A funding from EX Innovation Fund (TV Asahi HD), Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and SMBC Venture Capital, bringing total funding to ¥200 million. Company is launching competitive shogi game 'KIOU' this month.

Leadership read: The structural fact in this raise is the investor composition, not the size. Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and SMBC Venture Capital are balance-sheet-backed institutional funds; EX Innovation Fund carries TV Asahi HD as LP. That combination, two major Japanese financial institutions alongside a national broadcaster's strategic vehicle, commits Nekonome to a distribution and monetisation logic it wasn't accountable to at seed stage. TV Asahi's LP position is a media-distribution signal, not merely a financial one: KIOU now has an implicit obligation to demonstrate cross-platform audience reach, not just in-game engagement metrics. The related-signal set is thin for this specific corridor. Twelve capital-raising signals tracked in the last 90 days span fusion energy, medtech, AI infrastructure, and fintech; only Drilo Ventures, a $30M fund targeting early-stage mobile game studios, sits in adjacent gaming territory. The pattern here is narrower and more Japan-specific: strategic co-investment between broadcasters, major bank-affiliated VCs, and IP-native game studios, a structure common in Japanese media-entertainment financing but underrepresented in this period's global deal flow. Companies at this stage of competitive gaming development in Japan, particularly those carrying broadcast-affiliated strategic capital, face increasing demand for commercial leadership at the intersection of IP licensing, platform partnerships, and community-driven live-ops, functional areas where the gap between game studio capability and media-group expectation tends to widen fastest.

curated · 2026-06-09 · context →