Who Is Investable and Why
ISSUE 13 | A Journey to Uncover Gender Inequality in Entrepreneurship
Article Highlights
⭐ From Amherst to Tokyo: Perspective of a female liberal arts student from the U.S. spending two months immersed in Japan’s venture capital ecosystem.
⭐ Western Scholarship in Context: Insights from courses in economics and sociology—how academic debates on inequality, bias, and systemic barriers shaped my lens on entrepreneurship.
⭐ Key Moment of Insight: Lessons from the BWA Pitch Contest, where women entrepreneurs challenged social norms and highlighted how inclusion fuels innovation.
⭐ A Global Challenge: Why gender inequality in venture capital is not unique to Japan - how higher education, representation, and role models (or their absence) shape who is seen as ‘investable.’
⭐ Hope in Action: Uncovering initiatives within Japan’s investment ecosystem that point toward progress.
🧠 Personal Insight Into the Meaning of ‘Entrepreneur’
My passion for exploring female entrepreneurship in Japan began in intimate Amherst College courses that deconstruct inequality in sociology and more interdisciplinary economics seminars. These discussions revealed the disconnect between abstract economic logic and lived realities. I became fascinated by how language itself can mask systemic inequality. For example, the term ‘entrepreneur’ glosses over structural barriers, social expectations, and even violence that prevent many from making a societal impact. Such biases shape decisions at the earliest funding stages, influencing both (1) who becomes an entrepreneur and (2) who is supported as a successful one.
Japan emerged as an ideal opportunity for examining these dynamics in a traditionally conservative society with non-Western capitalist frameworks and deeply ingrained norms. Transitioning from a curious liberal arts student to an active intern at SIIF Impact Capital (SIIFIC), a venture capital firm co-founded by Reiri Miura and Kazu Umeda, I began applying my interest in decision-making biases through the combined lens of behavioral economics and sociology in the high-risk investment ecosystem context. I learned a lot from the privilege of working in the same office space as Reiri and Kazu and their generous mentorship, exposure, and thoughtful guidance. Providing Kai and me with name cards facilitated our respectful and fruitful interactions with entrepreneurs and other stakeholders. Through this trust, they made it possible to attend the fund investment committee meetings, the IVS conference, founder/president interviews, and the BWA pitch contest - experiences that sharpened my understanding of who is considered ‘investable’ and why.
At SIIFIC, I found a rare example of gender-balanced leadership in finance. Co-founder Reiri’s partnership with Kazu stood in sharp contrast to sobering statistics and narratives of exclusion that defined the wider ecosystem. That contrast left me determined to bridge my feminist economics training with hands-on venture experience and imagine a future where women in entrepreneurship and finance are no longer the exception but the norm.
🔀 Taking a Step Back: Turning Points in My Western Scholarship
Two ideas from my academic background were especially influential in shaping how I engaged with Japan:
1.💡 “Lost Einsteins”
My fascination with the concept of "human capital" was ignited when I read Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation in my economics class. This paper reframes the label "entrepreneur" by revealing the profound structural and environmental forces underlying innovation, using data on over one million U.S. inventors.
Two findings particularly stood out to me. First, the stark racial and gender disparities in innovation:
“Whites are more than three times as likely to become inventors as blacks. And 82% of 40-year-old inventors today are men. This gender gap in innovation is shrinking gradually over time, but at the current rate of convergence, it will take another 118 years to reach gender parity.”1
Second, the evidence on role models:
“If girls were as exposed to female inventors in their childhood CZs [(commuting zones)] as boys are to male inventors, female innovation rates would rise by 164% and the gender gap in innovation would fall by 55%.”2
2. 🔍 Marxist Feminism
This spring, I was fortunate to co-lead a lecture on “Race, Gender, and Neoliberal Development” under the guidance of my professor, where I critiqued the framing of “Gender Equality as Smart Economics” in the 2012 World Development Report.
Specifically, I was introduced to Marxist feminism frameworks, viewing “gender as a social construction that is firmly and inseparably rooted in the historical development of capitalist society.”3 This framed the aim to historicize, de-naturalize, and re-politicize business cases for gender equality.4
💸 The rhetoric relates to “Smart Economics”, popularized in terms of “the greatest profits can be extracted from those spaces that the formal market has not yet colonized” and “the disproportionate numbers of women who exist in these spaces, then, are the world's most ‘under-utilized resource’”5.
🧩 Connecting the Dots in Japan
The BWA Women’s Pitch Contest (Newsletter Issue 8 BWA Pitch Contest 2025) was a turning point. Organised by Figaro Japon under the theme “Turning Thoughts into Words,” the contest has quickly become a platform for elevating female entrepreneurs in Japan. Now in its fourth year, it drew a record 160 applications from across Japan and abroad, with six finalists presenting their ideas before a panel of judges and an engaged audience at Potluck Yaesu in Tokyo. Unlike traditional business competitions, the BWA contest focuses less on scale and more on personal entrepreneurial stories, such as how women turn everyday challenges into opportunities to create richer, more inclusive ways of living. The awards included the Dream Award for early-stage ventures, the Professional Award for scalable business models, and the Audience Award chosen by public vote.
Entering the event, I carried optimism from my month at SIIFIC, yet I was confronted with a daunting question: “Who does the Japanese investment ecosystem truly support—and why?” Towards the end, my view of Japan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem was shaken by the shocking statistics presented by the Japan Inclusive Ventures Lab at Morgan Stanley.
The data spoke volumes: only 2% of female CEOs reached IPO (2021); just 2% of funding among the top 50 fundraising companies went to female founders (2019); and a mere 1% of venture capitalists in Japan were women (2021)6. These figures underscored the systemic exclusion of women at multiple levels and positions in the entrepreneurial journey.
The contrast with the United States was equally striking. From a research report on M&A between large companies and startups by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2019 exit findings showed that in Japan, around 68% of venture capital exits occur via IPO, compared with only 9% in the U.S. Meanwhile, 32% of Japanese exits are M&A, versus 91% in the U.S.7. In conjunction with Japanese self-reliance tendencies and disagreements on valuations8, some of this difference stems from the structural gap in market capitalization: the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market has a median IPO market cap of just 6 billion yen (around $40 million)9, compared to a median constituent market capitalization of $1,744 million on the S&P SmallCap 60010.
From my vantage point inside a venture capital fund, I began to grasp the complexity of what it takes to reach IPO: creative due diligence, including cap table modeling, extensive meetings, research, and an intricate network of relationships built over years. It is a time-consuming and high-stakes process, yet one that systematically favors male founders in Japan.
This disparity prompted deeper reflection: why is Japan particularly vulnerable to such gendered inequality? Contributing factors include limited access to funding, imbalanced work-life structures, weaker mentorship networks for women, and a scarcity of visible role models. At the cultural level, societal attitudes toward failure, marriage, and motherhood—reinforced by the “patriarchal family paradigm” 11 - further constrain women’s entrepreneurial opportunities.
Importantly, this is not a uniquely Japanese issue but part of a global systemic challenge. For example, in 2021, only 30.6% of board seats in EU-based companies were held by women12, while in Japan, the figure was just 12.7% for the Nikkei 225 in June 202213. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report ranked Japan 118 out of 146 countries overall, with women holding only 15.5% of board seats14, which is a striking contradiction as the world’s fourth-largest economy15.
From the perspective of a venture capital firm, I’ve come to understand how many layers feed into the potential outcome of an IPO: the due diligence process with cap table modeling, extensive meetings, trust, and the deep web of relationships that must align over time. It's a cumulative, high-stakes moment in venture capital. The personal experience, data, and narratives inspired me to dig further into the mechanics of investment in women.
🇯🇵 Japanese Venture Capital’s Positionality
The venture capital market in Japan is expanding rapidly. It was valued at USD 20.0 billion in 2024, and it is projected by IMARC Group to reach USD 85.8 billion by 2033, reflecting a robust CAGR of 17.59%16.
This growth masks persistent challenges in accessibility and transparency within the industry. A survey of industry professionals revealed barriers such as: lack of information on VC careers (48.3%), scarcity of publicly posted job openings (41.4%), limited mid-career entry points to leverage prior experience (34.5%), dependence on personal connections and networks (24.1%), shortage of entry-level roles or internships (13.8%), and reports of gender-related bias or discrimination in the application process (10.3%)17.
Within this context, female participation in Japanese venture capital remains limited. Women account for 15.9% of all VC investors and just 7.4% of decision-makers across the 109 VCs included in the Tokyo VC Study sample—though these figures have been gradually improving over time18. Notably, this underrepresentation is not unique to Japan: in the United States, female decision-makers made up only 16.1% of the VC industry in 202219.
✨ Hope in Action: Japanese Efforts to Create Change
In 2023, Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, announced the goal that women would hold at least 30% of executive roles by 2030, a significant response to the stark reality that, at the time, women occupied just 0.8% of executive positions across the 1,643 firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Prime Market20.
However, my own experience contrasted with these national figures due to the unique environment at SIIFIC. I was particularly moved by the partnership of Reiri Miura and Kazu Umeda, whose complementary expertise was reintroduced together by Noriko Sawai. Reiri’s resilient career path especially inspired me through spending over 17 years at Mitsubishi Corporation, where the acceptance rate for new hires was 1 in 100, and only 12 of 150 hires in her cohort were women. Today, women make up 23.5% of general positions at Mitsubishi, with the company pledging greater childcare support, flexible work options, and more transparent promotion processes21. Despite these unfavorable statistical odds, Reiri carved her path into venture capital, where she and Kazu now stand as a rare example of a balanced and collaborative leadership duo.
Under their thoughtful mentorship, I was introduced to a network of inspiring female role models across Japan’s investment ecosystem. Over lunches with passionate venture capitalists, I heard about their visions for the country’s entrepreneurial landscape. I was particularly inspired by Taka Nakamura, Japan’s youngest impact fund partner and the founder/CEO of Taliki Inc., who curated a session with in the “EMPOWER Her” stage at IVS 2025, Japan’s largest start-up conference. Similarly, Rina Hong, Founder/CEO of Kukulcan Inc., shared how her grandmother’s struggles with poverty and minority status drove her to build a company tackling agricultural inequality through AI-based yield forecasting, technology transfer, and food waste reduction.
At IVS 2025, while sourcing deal flow with Kai, I also met ambitious female founders working in femtech and childcare - clear evidence of how women are carving out space in markets long dominated by men, and developing solutions to meet unmet female needs.
I learned that the Japan Venture Capital Association had recently mandated public harassment policies for all its members, a critical response to scandal and a step toward building safer industry standards.
Beyond SIIFIC, my interactions with SIIF deepened my sense of optimism. At SIIF, I also found a warm sense of female community, particularly from Lena Ryuji, who invited me to share my perspectives on gender and economics with Your Choice Project. Our discussion ranged from gender representation in clinical trials to my U.S. academic experiences, and even to how Japan’s high power distance index may help explain the absence of 360-degree performance reviews.
🤔Conclusion
To conclude, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to explore gender dynamics in Japan - from universities to entrepreneurship and venture capital. As a woman and mentored by women in venture capital, I was able to experience the investment ecosystem through my economics and sociology lens at Amherst in the US. While I remain hopeful about the possibilities for change, it is clear that meaningful progress will require structural reforms, deeper cultural shifts, and more female role models grounded by initiatives to nourish female talent.
Bell, A. M., Chetty, R., Jaravel, X., Petkova, N., & Van Reenen, J., “Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 24062, Nov. 2017; revised Jan. 2019.
Ibid., p. 27.
Roberts, A., & Soederberg, S., “Gender equality as smart economics? A critique of the 2012 World Development Report,” Third World Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 5, p. 956, Jun. 2012. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2012.677310. [Accessed: 22-Aug-2025].
Ibid., p. 965.
Ibid., p. 954.
Financial Services Agency (FSA) Open Policy Lab, Proposals to Solve Gender Diversity Challenges in Japan’s Startup Ecosystem, slide 5, Jul. 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.fsa.go.jp/en/about/openpolicylab/dei_startup01.pdf.
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), “大企業×スタートアップのM&Aに関する調査報告書,” p. 4, Mar. 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.meti.go.jp/meti_lib/report/2020FY/000058.pdf.
Ibid, p. 3.
Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) Listing Department, Considerations Regarding Listing Criteria for the Growth Market, slide 4, Mar. 22, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.jpx.co.jp/english/equities/follow-up/b5b4pj000004yqcc-att/dh3otn0000002r3v.pdf.
"Why Market Cap Matters," Fidelity Viewpoints, Fidelity, 2024. Available online: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/markets-sectors/why-market-cap-matters. Accessed September 1, 2025.
A. Van Langendonck, Women Entrepreneurship in the EU and Japan. EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, Dec. 2022, p. 12. [Online]. Available: https://cdnw8.eu-japan.eu/sites/default/files/publications/docs/2022-12-Women-Entrepreneurship.pdf
European Parliament, Parliament approves landmark rules to boost gender equality on corporate boards, Nov. 22, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20221118IPR55706/parliament-approves-landmark-rules-to-boost-gender-equality-on-corporate-boards
Asian Corporate Governance Association, Open Letter on Japan Gender Diversity in TSE Prime Market Boards, Oct. 19, 2022, p. 2. [Online]. Available: https://www.acga-asia.org/pdf/japan-gender-diversity-letter-en-2022
World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2025, Jun. 11, 2025, pp. 227–228. [Online]. Available: https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2025.pdf
Silver, C., “Ranking the richest countries in the world,” Investopedia, Jan. 29, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.investopedia.com/insights/worlds-top-economies/.
IMARC Group, Japan Venture Capital Investment Market Size, Share, Trends and Forecast by Sector, Fund Size, Funding Type, and Region, 2025–2033, Report ID: SR112025A31756, Mar. 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.imarcgroup.com/japan-venture-capital-investment-market.
Tokyo Women in VC, Japan Venture Ecosystem: Female VCs & Female Founders Report 2024 March, p. 15, Mar. 2024. [Online]. Available: https://docsend.com/view/jfkyvy2idqqhye9h.
Ibid., p. 9.
Ibid., p. 11.
McCurry, J., “Japan pledges to have women in third of top boardroom roles by 2030,” The Guardian, Apr. 28, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/28/japan-pledges-to-have-women-in-third-of-top-boardroom-roles-by-2030.
コトラ（広報チーム）, “三菱商事が目指す未来：「女性管理職比率15％以上」の挑戦,” KOTORA JOURNAL, Jun. 9, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.kotora.jp/c/90066-2/#co-index-1.