Startups

Japan's leading provider of conference rooms is paying approximately 50 billion yen ($446 million) to jump into the shared office market, an intensely competitive industry now that venture capital companies like SoftBank Group are putting billions of dollars into startups like WeWork of the U.S.

Top Japanese manufacturers including Toyota Motor and Hitachi are forging ties with Chinese startups, following Western giants like Airbus and Intel that have already harnessed innovation coming out of the world's No. 2 economy.

Rising entrepreneurs are often treated like heroes, with the media lionizing the way their startups lure sizable investments and how their innovative products might change the world.

U.S. private equity firm KKR will increase investment in startups driving technological innovation, says co-founder Henry Kravis, highlighting a strategic expansion beyond its traditional targets of big corporations.

SoftBank Group has invested $7 million in ClimaCell, a U.S. weather startup that uses cellular signals in making detailed weather forecasting.

The Incubate Fund, a Tokyo-based venture capital specialist, will launch a new fund this summer with the aim of investing in promising Indian startups.

Late February was a productive time for startups, with two important events taking place in Japan: Slush Tokyo 2019, a major nonprofit conference, and Tohoku Growth Accelerator Demo Day in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, a smaller festival that also offers advice to fledgling startups. Here are a few projects from the events that garnered attention.

A group of investors led by SoftBank Group Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. is in talks to invest $1 billion or more into Uber Technologies Inc.’s self-driving vehicle unit, which would value the unit at $5 billion to $10 billion, said two people familiar with the talks.

KYOTO - Despite there being a long history of bug-eating in rural parts of Japan, for the average consumer nowadays stomaching creepy-crawlies is too much to ask.

Uhuru, a Japanese startup backed by SoftBank that helps connect devices to cloud services, is considering listing in London as it looks to grow outside of Japan.