VC Firm World Innovation Lab Raises $1B for Japan-Focused Tech

World Innovation Lab, a venture capital firm that invests in software as a service (SaaS) companies in the business-to-business (B2B) market, Tuesday (June 14) announced it raised $1 billion in new capital.

The Palo Alto, California, fund said in its announcement that it will deploy the capital across multiple funds including WiL Ventures III, a growth fund; WiL Strategic Partners funds; and corporate venture capital funds.

According to the firm, its capital commitments across all funds surpass $1.9 billion.

Although World Innovation Labs is global, the fund focuses on investments in Japan and has offices in Tokyo. It teams with limited partners (LPs) at large Japanese corporations and government agencies. The fund stated in its announcement that its business proposition there largely is helping companies based in the United States and Europe scale in Japan, while also funding early-stage Japanese startups.

The firm reports having funded 15 companies that met the unicorn goal, or $1 billion in market capitalization.

Gen Isayama, co-founder and chief executive of World Innovation Labs, said in a prepared statement: “So far, we have predominantly invested in the B2B SaaS space. Those solutions can be used by our entire LP base. This enables our founders to easily attract their lighthouse customers in the Japan market, while at the same time helping our LPs with their digital transformation efforts. We aim to strengthen this partnership between our LPs and founders.”

In the United States, the company said, its investments have tended to be in later-stage companies in sectors including: FinTech, InsurTech, automation and productivity, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure and developer tools. More-recent investments have been in sustainability, climate, health and Web3.

The Strategic Partners funds, unlike World Innovation Labs’ others, do not invest directly in companies. Intead, they invest in existing venture funds.

World Innovation Labs was founded in 2014.

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