Blackbox Press Event and Regional Government Roundtable

"Being our first event, we started by explaining Blackbox's mission statement and the social context that led to our launch." General Manager Taiki Iwasaki spoke about the growing support for startups—especially foreign ones—in Japan in recent years.

"We are approximately halfway through former Prime Minister Kishida's five-year startup development plan, and the landscape is changing." Currently, more than 700 startup visas have been issued, of which more than half have become full-time business management visas.

However, Japan remains a complicated place for foreigners, especially in the business realm. Even information intended exclusively for non-Japanese—such as the application process for a new business visa—is often available only in Japanese, and frequently fragmented and buried across various regional government websites.

This is what BlackBox seeks to solve: through directory pages for each featured city, users can find information on visas, government support programs, local organizations, news, and interviews with local entrepreneurs, all in English.

Startup City Project
Toru Udagawa, a representative from the Cabinet Office's Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy Secretariat, was also present and gave a presentation on the Government's roadmap for further developing Japan's startup ecosystem. The phase of creating new businesses is, of course, very exciting, but the ecosystem is expected to mature further.

Roundtable with regional delegates
The highlight of the afternoon was a roundtable with representatives from Shibuya, Nagoya, Kobe, Kyoto, and Sapporo, all cities included in Special Economic Zones offering visas for new businesses.

During the event, there was discussion about how the different cultural and historical backgrounds of the various areas have affected new businesses, as well as their future projects. Nagoya, with its long history of heavy industry and manufacturing, is poised to expand into global hubs like the U.S., Europe, and Singapore, while the port city of Kobe emphasizes collaboration within Japan and its immediate area, such as Taiwan and Korea. Shibuya, as a premier global destination, strives to attract foreign capital and venture capital firms, while Hokkaido's quality of life acts as a draw for human resources.

Acknowledgments
Blackbox recently celebrated its second year of operations, and they are constantly growing and devising new ways to demystify the startup landscape in Japan.