Startup Failures in Japan

Japan's most lovable robot couldn't make its creators love the unit economics.

Japan's AI marketing darling went from IPO star to penny stock in 18 months.

Japan's first streaming pioneer survived 18 years before Netflix and corporate restructuring killed it.

SoftBank-backed drone empire that expanded to 30 countries and imploded.

Japan's messaging giant burned billions to lose the payments war to SoftBank's PayPay.

Japan's edge AI pioneer built a clever platform, then Nvidia and Google commoditized the entire market.

Elegant mobility devices for elderly and disabled users — a genuine social mission that didn't scale to VC returns.

Sony's award-winning IoT toy was too clever, too niche, and too expensive for classrooms.

Japan's micro-mobility pioneer was strangled by traffic laws built for the automobile era.

Liquid survived a $97M hack only to be finished off by FTX's collapse erasing its $120M lifeline.

Japan's esports production pioneer died when COVID killed live events and sponsors disappeared.

Japan's first mobile bank absorbed before it could change Japanese banking.

Japan's robo-advice revolution met a wall of conservative investors and compliance costs.

A billionaire's bodysuit dream became a billion-yen nightmare.

Seven Dreamers Laboratories developed Laundroid, a robot designed to wash, dry, iron, and fold laundry for home use.

$534 million vanished overnight because basic crypto security was ignored.

Won DARPA's hardest robot challenge — Google bought them, then killed them anyway.

The exchange that handled 70% of all Bitcoin transactions — and lost 850,000 BTC to hackers while the CEO claimed everything was fine

Sony launched e-readers a year before Kindle — then Amazon built the bookstore Sony forgot to build.

Technically superior to the CD, cheaper than DAT — beaten by a compressed audio file.

Sony's iTunes competitor — built to protect the record labels, not to serve the listener.

The Japanese crypto exchange survived a $90M hack by borrowing from FTX, then collapsed entirely when its savior filed for bankruptcy.

Japanese BNPL pioneer acquired by PayPal for $2.7B but the product ceased independent development

Japan's QR payment startup drowned by SoftBank's $100M cashback campaign

Japan's US-style AI startup that discovered Japanese enterprises buy technology differently

Japanese document AI startup acqui-hired after failing to crack enterprise sales

Buy-now-pay-later for Japanese consumers without credit cards