Tokyo-based venture capital firm Genesia Ventures has announced the final close of its fourth fund, Genesia Venture Fund IV Investment Limited Partnership (Fund IV), at $113 million.
The fund, which seeks to back seed-stage startups in Japan, Southeast Asia, and India, secured backing from domestic and international institutional investors and financial institutions, Genesia said.
The vehicle will invest in early-stage companies across Asia, with a focus on startups shaped by AI, energy transition, and structural shifts, per the announcement.
“While remaining firmly committed to investing in seed-stage startups, we will continue backing founders operating at the intersection of these transformational changes,” said Genesia Ventures founder and general partner Soichi Tajima.
Tajima said fundraising beyond Series A has become more difficult, requiring seed-stage founders to show stronger traction and build resilient teams earlier.
He added that Genesia will be more selective in Fund IV, allowing it to invest more deeply in each company.
The final close comes about a year after Genesia launched the vehicle. The predecessor fund closed at $110 million in 2023, with limited partners including Canal Ventures, GREE, Japan Investment Corporation, Mizuho Bank, Mizuho Capital, and Oriental Land Innovations.
The firm, founded in 2016 by Soichi Tajima, has offices in Tokyo, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, and Bengaluru. It said the new fund will continue its “Asia Origin” strategy of backing companies emerging from the region’s structural changes.
Despite being a Japanese VC, Genesia Ventures has established a solid position as an entity that supports business and capital alliances between startups in Southeast Asia and Japanese companies.
Genesia said it does not invest in fixed sectors, but instead targets founders building businesses around long-term market shifts.
Its portfolio includes Indonesia-based doctor platform Docquity, insurtech firm Qoala, Vietnam’s Buymed and KAMEREO, Japan’s Tensor Energy, and ElevationSpace.
The firm has also recorded exits, including Timee’s listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market in July 2024 and HRBrain’s secondary exit to European investment firm EQT in November 2023.
Genesia’s head of overseas investments, Takahiro Suzuki, said the firm will continue linking Japan, Southeast Asia, and India through cross-border collaboration between startups and large corporations.
“At a time when AI, energy transition, and Asia’s economic rise are happening simultaneously, long-standing barriers that once prevented industrial progress and latent demand from emerging are being removed at unprecedented speed,” Suzuki said.
