Japanese venture investors invest heavily in IT within the country. In 2016, the volume of investment in biotech, medicine and health increased by 17.3%, which together with investments in the IT sector accounted for 71.2% of all investments.
Japanese investments in overseas companies, compared to investments within the country, focused more on biotech, medical technology, goods and services. Compared to 2015, in 2016 Japan invested heavily in companies from North America and Western Europe, the volume of investments increased by 17 percentage points.
If we consider the stages of investments in terms of the volume of investments from the total amount of invested funds, it turns out that in 2016, investments at the Seed and Early stages (2-3 years after the company was founded) accounted for 68.6% of the total volume.
The share of investments at these 2 stages has been growing year after year over the past three years (for reference, in 2014 it was 57.2%, in 2015 it was already 62.8%). On average, the size of 1 investment deal within the country was $9.1 million, compared to $8.21 million in 2015, an increase of 10.9%.
This increase in the average deal size indicates that Japanese investors have learned to better assess the investment potential of Japanese venture companies.