At Hello Tomorrow Japan last week, I sat down with Sakyasingha Dasgupta, PhD , founder and CEO of EdgeCortix , one of our portfolio companies at TDK Ventures .
What struck me most was the clarity of thinking around how a deeptech company can be built in Japan and still aim unapologetically for global leadership.
For Japanese entrepreneurs who aspire to build companies that matter on the world stage, here are four golden nuggets from that conversation that are worth sitting with.
Be global from day one, not “international later”
Japan is an extraordinary place to start a deeptech company, especially in hardware and semiconductors. The manufacturing heritage, technical rigor, and long-term mindset are real advantages.
But Sakya was very clear: Japan works best as a launchpad. EdgeCortix was designed from day one for global customers, global talent, and global standards. Language, geography, and culture were treated as enablers.
Build solutions, not components
In semiconductors and AI, optimizing a single layer is no longer enough. Sakya explained why EdgeCortix chose a full-stack, software-first platform approach instead of stopping at “just hardware.”
The insight is simple but profound: customers do not buy chips, models, or code in isolation. They buy outcomes.
For Japanese founders, this is an important shift. World-class components are a strength here. Turning them into system-level solutions is how global leadership will be earned.
Energy efficiency is not a feature, it is the strategy
As AI moves from data centers into the physical world with robots, factories, vehicles, satellites, the real bottleneck is no longer compute alone. It is power, latency, and reliability.
Edge AI is where AI becomes real, and energy efficiency is the currency that decides who scales and who does not.
Sakya framed this beautifully: inference at the edge is not a scaled-down cloud problem. It is a different physics problem altogether.
This is where deep, patient engineering wins.
Choose investors for conviction, not just capital
One of the strongest signals of maturity I see in founders is how deliberately they choose their investors.
Sakya shared that EdgeCortix did not distinguish between “VC” and “Corporate VC” labels. Instead, they looked for partners who could amplify their voice, extend their ecosystem, and think in orders of magnitude, not incremental gains.
Capital starts the journey. Conviction sustains it.
My closing reflection
Japan is closer to a deeptech inflection point than many realize. The ingredients are here: talent, discipline, manufacturing excellence, and increasingly, aligned capital.
What conversations like this reinforce for me is that global success from Japan is not an exception waiting to happen. It is a pattern waiting to be repeated by founders who design boldly, think system-level, and commit early to the world as their market.
If you are a Japanese entrepreneur building deeptech with global ambition, this is your moment. And if you are willing to play the long game, Japan can be a powerful place to start.
