Tokyo’s startup ecosystem is having a moment, and it’s not by accident. At SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026, TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Editor Isabelle Johannesen was on the ground scouting for the world’s most disruptive early-stage companies to compete on the Startup Battlefield stage, and Tokyo was very much on the radar. With over 700 startups gathering at Tokyo Big Sight – roughly half of them from overseas – the scale and international ambition of the event made one thing clear: this city has made a deliberate, policy-driven bet on innovation, and it is starting to pay off.
Image Credits:SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 / SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 (opens in a new window)
Johannesen had the opportunity to sit down with Governor of Tokyo, KOIKE Yuriko, Tokyo’s first female governor and the architect of the city’s startup ambitions, to discuss how Tokyo built this momentum and where it is headed. Governor Koike’s answer was grounded in three pillars: building the right overall ecosystem, leveraging SusHi Tech as the annual global showcase, and establishing the Tokyo Innovation Base as a permanent, year-round startup hub that keeps momentum going between conferences.
The results are tangible. Tokyo’s public-private partnership initiative — one of three targets under Governor Koike’s 10x10x10 vision — was set to grow tenfold, but reached 28 times its original size in just two years. The Tokyo Startup Gateway, designed to bring first-time founders into the ecosystem, has grown fourfold, with a notable rise in female participation. Governor Koike extended a direct invitation to overseas women founders specifically, expressing her hope that they would come to Tokyo and serve as inspiration for Japanese women building companies locally — a personal message that carries particular weight coming from a trailblazer in her own right.
On the persistent challenge of helping Japanese startups scale beyond their home market, Governor Koike was candid about the gap and the response. Tokyo has launched Startup Strategy 2.0, explicitly focused on two priorities: globalization and scale-up. Long-term financial support and deepened collaboration with international partners, including partnerships with organizations such as Station F in Paris, are central to that effort. For international founders considering Tokyo as a base, her pitch was equally clear: in a world of geopolitical uncertainty, Tokyo offers something increasingly rare: stability, economic scale, and a government that is actively invested in startup success.
Image Credits:SusHi Tech Tokyo / SusHi Tech Tokyo (opens in a new window)
That case for Tokyo’s global ambitions was perhaps best embodied by Johannesen’s own scouting conclusion. After listening to the semi-finalists of the ‘SusHi Tech Challenge 2026’ startup pitch contest, she selected LIFESCAPES to represent Japanese innovation on the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield stage in San Francisco. The Tokyo-based medtech startup is using brain-machine interface technology, powered by neuroscience and AI, to help stroke patients recover from severe paralysis and regain lost motor function. It is exactly the kind of company Governor Koike’s ecosystem was designed to produce: deeply technical, globally relevant, and built on Japan’s unique strengths at the intersection of precision medicine and advanced technology.
AloJapan.com