Build with Japan

"Our technology is going to be used for basically all the AI server products and supply chain."

In the third episode of Build with Japan, Coral Capital Partner Rie Yano and Founding Partner & CEO James Riney sit down with Shinya Shimizu, co-founder & CEO of Elephantech, whom James calls the “Japanese Jensen.” Shinya founded Elephantech in 2014 to print electronic circuits with copper nanoparticles instead of etching them, before he had a clear application in mind. Twelve years later, the AI server boom has turned that technology into a fix for one of AI hardware’s biggest bottlenecks, and Elephantech recently shipped its first printer to a mass-production site.

Also:

• Japan’s real semiconductor story: about 50% of the world market in the ’80s, then a retreat into the supply chain, where it still holds 50%+ of segments like photoresist and silicon wafers

• Rapidus as the speedboat to TSMC’s supertanker: single-wafer processing, feedback loops measured in months instead of years, and first chips targeted for the second half of 2027

• Elephantech’s tech, explained with a layer cake: printing copper into vias 3–4x deeper than existing methods, and why 3D stacking is the new frontier as chip shrinking runs out of room

• Why Japan’s fragmented manufacturing base is a hidden strength, from Ajinomoto’s near-100% share in build-up film to Elephantech’s partnerships with Mitsubishi Electric and Epson

• Top-down adoption: why AI chip developers care more about performance than price, and why supporting factories across Asia is the real test on the road to mass production

• Who Elephantech is hiring globally, and the story behind Shinya’s suit

Disclosure: Coral Capital is an investor in Elephantech.

Connect with us:

Shinya Shimizu

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shimizu-shinya/

https://x.com/shinyashimizu_j

James Riney

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesriney/

https://x.com/james_riney

Rie Yano

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rieyano/

https://x.com/rieglobe?lang=en

Coral Capital: https://coralcap.co/?lang=en

Chapters

00:00 Intro

01:00 Why Japan Never Left Semiconductors

12:00 Elephantech - The Future of Nanomaterials

“We think in terms of years, not quarters.”

At Japan Go IPO, Coral Capital Founding Partner & CEO James Riney joins General Atlantic VP Anthony Costa and SmartHR Director & CFO Yuji Mori. The four of them break down the deal that sits between them: General Atlantic’s nearly $100M purchase of SmartHR shares from Coral, called the largest venture secondary in Japan’s history. James tells how Coral, which had “bet the farm” on SmartHR through an SPV, planned to sell a third of its stake and ended up selling half. It took no discount, at a time when most secondary buyers were demanding steep ones.

Moderator:

Jordan Fisher (Founder and Managing Partner, Shiza Ventures)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanfisher/

X: https://x.com/Jordan_J_Fisher

Speakers:

Anthony Costa (VP, General Atlantic)

Yuji Mori (Director and CFO, SmartHR)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuji-mori-b71b74b2/

X: https://x.com/yjmr_1101

James Riney (Founding Partner and CEO, Coral Capital)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesriney/

X: https://x.com/james_riney

Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction to Japanese Secondaries

(02:20) Panel introduction and SmartHR case study

(08:02) Why General Atlantic invested in SmartHR

(12:44) LP Perspectives and managing management time

(18:27) Financial due diligence and deal valuation

(26:41) Cap table management and future IPO strategy

(30:00) Future blueprint for Japanese secondaries

"Leave it to Silicon Valley to put a sexy name on something that's existed for decades."In the second episode of Build with Japan, Coral Capital Partner Rie Yano and Founding Partner & CEO James Riney go inside Coral's seed bet on Kyoto Fusioneering. It's the "picks-and-shovels" fusion company whose customers include many of the big reactor projects being announced abroad. James tells how Coral landed the deal by writing about fusion before anyone pitched them. The teammate who led the investment loved fusion so much that he ended up joining the company to run it. James also explains why he thinks fusion gets cracked in the 2030s and why Kyoto Fusioneering could become a $10 billion-plus company.Also:• MUFG setting criteria for defense lending, and the nemawashi playbook behind it: government-related capital first, then the megabanks, then everyone else• Why AI startups go global sooner, and why Japan is the largest software market open to American companies (Factory's $200M raise and new Japan GM Seiji Sasaki)• A modern-day oyatoi gaikokujin: James's pitch for Japan to bring in frontier AI researchers, the way Meiji Japan paid foreign experts after Perry's black ships• Japan's immigration reality check: foreign residents up from 1 million to 4 million, a points system, and why tourists (10 million to 40 million) drive most of the backlash• Takahiro Anno's viral "My Shelf Life as an AI Researcher Is One Year," Telexistence's English-first hiring, and CADDi's $1.2B Series D• SIers vs. FDEs: why Japan's system integrators were doing "forward deployment" all along, and why James thinks the pendulum will swing backConnect with us:James Riney:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesriney/https://x.com/james_rineyRie Yano:https://www.linkedin.com/in/rieyano/https://x.com/rieglobe?lang=en Coral Capital: https://coralcap.co/?lang=en

"What happens when the cost of intelligence goes to zero?"

Tiffany Kayo is joined by Bilal Zuberi, founder and managing partner of Red Glass Ventures. Bilal has spent 18 years in venture. He was part of General Catalyst's early team, where he helped build its deep tech portfolio, and later backed around 70 companies as a GP at Lux Capital. He then raised a $150M first fund to write first checks into companies at the intersection of AI and the physical world, with LPs including Toyota's Woven Capital and Sojitz Corporation.

He shares:

• How venture turned into a barbell of lottery-ticket seed funds and mega-fund asset allocators, and the missing middle it left behind

• Why he backs founders he'd still fund if they changed ideas, and how he tells missionaries from mercenaries

• Why physical AI is much bigger than robots, from software-designed hardware to the intelligence layer on top

• How he wrote the first check into Nominal at a $5M post, then invested again at $1B

• Why physical AI startups go global, and come to Japan, much earlier than software companies ever did

Connect with Bilal Zuberi:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bzuberi/

• https://x.com/bznotes

Connect with Tiffany Kayo:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanykayo/

• https://x.com/tiffanykayo

If you're working on something ambitious and Building with Japan, we'd love to hear from you!

Get in touch with us here: https://coralcap.co/contact/?lang=en

“Things happen slowly in Japan until they don’t.”

In the first episode of Build with Japan, Coral Capital Partner Rie Yano sits down with Founding Partner & CEO James Riney to unpack Japan's defense tech awakening. James tells the inside story of how a firm that is "not a defense tech investor per se" ended up helping unwind the decades-old side letter restrictions keeping venture money out of defense, a change he expected to take three years that landed in six months.

Also:

• Why Coral is investing in Defense

• Inside the 2026 bōei hakusho, and why Japan is adopting AI and drones out of demographic necessity

• The public vibe shift: Rakuten stepping into defense drones, boycott calls fizzling, and support for strengthening the SDF tripling since 2009

• Terra Drone's interceptor drone win

• Anduril's plan to pour hundreds of millions, maybe billions, into building in Japan

Connect with us:

James Riney:

• LinkedIn

• X

Rie Yano:

• LinkedIn

• X

Coral Capital: https://coralcap.co/

Chapters

00:00 Intro

01:06 Why We Are Looking at Defense

09:33 The 2026 Defense White Paper

16:37 Rakuten Enters the Defense Sector

20:20 Terra Drone Deep Dive

27:40 Who Should Build Japan's Defense Base?

31:03 Key Players in Japan’s Defense Tech

"How do you use AI to generate anything you want?"

That's the question Cristóbal Valenzuela, Co-Founder and CEO of Runway, has spent almost eight years answering, building what has grown from a niche creative tool into a company now expanding into enterprise partnerships and physical AI, backed by a fresh $40M commitment to Japan.

In this episode, Cris breaks down why video models are quietly becoming the missing brain behind robotics, and why he believes the next era of AI will be won by companies that can continue to outrun their own success.

He shares:

• How Runway skipped the traditional Japan playbook and still won enterprise deals

• Why Japan is already Runway's third-largest market

• Why VLAs struggle to scale, and how world models can become the brains of every robot

• How some of the biggest AI labs are "storytelling labs"

• Why Runway aims to reinvent itself every two to three months

Connect with Cristóbal Valenzuela:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/cvalenzuelab/

• https://x.com/c_valenzuelab

Connect with Tiffany Kayo:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanykayo/

• https://x.com/tiffanykayo

If you're working on something ambitious and Building with Japan, we'd love to hear from you!

Get in touch with us here: https://coralcap.co/contact/?lang=en

"I don't want AI being controlled by Beijing or the Bay Area, and I want Japan to have the opportunity to shine."

¥10 trillion. That's how serious Japan is about building its next generation of unicorns. Grace Isford and James Riney have been watching this shift happen in real time, and in this episode, they break down exactly what it means.

Japan dominates 90% of the global photoresist market. It supplies 90% of the steel that builds the world's nuclear reactors. And now, with government backing at an unprecedented scale, it's betting big on becoming a deep tech superpower.

In this episode, Grace Isford and James Riney break down why the world can't build without Japan.

They share:

• Why Japan never actually stopped innovating; it just went invisible

• How the US-Japan partnership is becoming the most critical alliance in global tech

• Why sovereign AI matters and who controls it

• Japan's ¥10T roadmap for building its next generation of unicorns

• Why defense, nuclear, and semiconductors are Japan's next frontier

Connect with Grace Isford:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-isford-04123081/

• https://www.linkedin.com/company/lux-capital/

Connect with James Riney:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesriney/

• https://www.linkedin.com/company/coralcapital/

Connect with Tim Romero:

• https://www.disruptingjapan.com/tim/

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/timromero/

If you're working on something ambitious or Building with Japan, we'd love to hear from you!

Get in touch with us here: https://coralcap.co/?lang=en

"There was no company to invest in. It would have to be started."

Scott Nolan spent all of 2023 looking for a company solving America's nuclear fuel crisis. When he couldn't find one, he started General Matter instead. The US once supplied 86% of the world's enriched uranium. Today it has zero. Russia controls half the market, with China accelerating fast.

General Matter just closed a $900M DOE contract and a $2.4B EXIM financing deal to supply Japan, announced the same week the Strait of Hormuz closed.

In this episode, Scott makes the case that nuclear fuel is the linchpin of the entire energy transition, and that getting it wrong is a national security issue not just for America but for every allied nation.

He shares:

• How America handed the uranium market to Russia without anyone noticing

• The SpaceX playbook applied to nuclear enrichment

• What the $2.4B US-Japan deal means for energy security

• Why Japan keeps falling into the same energy trap

• What the next five years at General Matter actually look like

• Will the west be able to regain its control?

Connect with Scott Nolan:

• https://x.com/ScottNolan

• https://x.com/generalmatter

Connect James Riney:

• https://x.com/james_riney

• https://x.com/coral_capital

If you're working on something ambitious or Building with Japan, we'd love to hear from you!

Get in touch with us here: https://coralcap.co/?lang=en

"There is no company that has this portfolio."

Michael Spranger isn't exaggerating. As COO at Sony Research and president of Sony AI, he's watched Sony transform from a TV company into a $166B entertainment empire.

In this episode with Tiffany Kayo, Michael breaks down Sony's AI strategy: what they choose to build (and what they ignore).

Key insights:

• Sony's shift from electronics to entertainment

• Why PlayStation is now their biggest business

• GT Sophy: the racing AI agent

• Sony sensors are inside half the world's smartphones

• Japan's 10-year manufacturing window

• Why kando drives everything Sony builds

Connect with us here:

• Michael Spranger

• Tiffany Kayo

“We thought it would be too hard to build.”

That’s how Mikey Shulman, Co-Founder of Suno, describes the early days of building what is now a $200M revenue company with 100M users. Suno has since partnered with Warner Music Group and is redefining how music gets made.

In this episode, Mikey envisions a future where passive listeners become active collaborators, and where your favorite artist might perform a fan-made version of their own song live on stage.

He shares:

- Why they almost built a completely different company

- The future of "interactive music" (music you play with, not just play)

- How Warner Music Group became Suno's partner

- Japan's unique embrace of Suno

Connect with Mikey:

X: https://x.com/MikeyShulman

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeyshulman/

Connect with Tiffany:

X: https://x.com/tiffanykayo

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanykayo/

If you're working on something ambitious, we’d love to hear from you at Coral Capital!

Get in touch with us here: https://coralcap.co/contact/?lang=en