Updated:
Kiraboshi Bank
Kiraboshi Bank was established in May 2018 through the three-way merger of Tokyo Tomin Bank, Yachiyo Bank, and ShinGinko Tokyo, consolidating a branch network...
Kiraboshi Bank
Kiraboshi Bank was established in May 2018 through the three-way merger of Tokyo Tomin Bank, Yachiyo Bank, and ShinGinko Tokyo, consolidating a branch network spread across the Tokyo metropolitan area and surrounding prefectures. The institution functions primarily as a regional bank serving small and medium-sized enterprises, but its lineage includes ShinGinko Tokyo — a bank originally chartered in 2005 to support Tokyo-based startups — which gave the merged entity an embedded startup-lending mandate uncommon among Japanese regional banks. Unlike most Japanese regional lenders that restrict venture exposure to small blind-pool commitments, Kiraboshi operates a dedicated venture-debt practice making direct loans to early-stage and growth-stage companies. The strategy spans fintech, enterprise software, and services businesses, with the bank underwriting credit against recurring-revenue metrics rather than hard-asset collateral — a structural departure from traditional Japanese banking. Publicly disclosed borrowers have included Money Forward and other Tokyo-headquartered SaaS companies that fit the bank's revenue-based underwriting model. The geographic mandate is concentrated in Japan, with activity centered on Tokyo's venture ecosystem and select borrowers in Kanagawa and Saitama prefectures. Total assets for the consolidated entity exceeded ¥5 trillion as of its last fiscal disclosure, though the bank does not publicly break out venture-debt deployment separately from its broader commercial loan book. Staffing information for the venture-lending team is not publicly disclosed. Kiraboshi maintains a conventional branch-banking footprint alongside its venture activities, and its philanthropic or foundation-side vehicles, if any, are not publicly documented. No fund-structure vehicles (GP stakes, blind-pool venture funds) have been publicly announced by the bank. Kiraboshi's structural distinction lies in conducting startup lending inside a regulated deposit-taking institution rather than through a separately capitalized credit fund or asset-management subsidiary. That architecture subjects venture-loan origination to Japanese banking-regulator capital-adequacy scrutiny, producing a conservative underwriting cadence uncommon among independent venture-debt managers — and a cost of capital derived from retail deposits rather than limited-partner commitments.
General information
Firm type
Bank / Wealth / Trust
Year founded
2018
Location
Region
Asia
Country
Japan
City
Tokyo
Corporate office
Tokyo, Japan
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
How does Kiraboshi Bank underwrite venture debt differently from a traditional Japanese regional bank?
Kiraboshi underwrite venture loans against recurring-revenue metrics and enterprise-software unit economics rather than requiring hard-asset collateral — a credit model more common among US venture-debt funds than among Japanese deposit-taking institutions. This approach traces back to ShinGinko Tokyo, one of the three predecessor banks, which was chartered specifically to serve Tokyo startups and transferred its startup-lending expertise into the merged entity. The resulting credit book sits on-balance-sheet alongside conventional SME loans, subject to the same Bank of Japan and FSA capital requirements.
Does Kiraboshi Bank raise external venture funds, or is all lending done from its balance sheet?
All known venture lending is conducted from Kiraboshi's own balance sheet using deposit funding rather than through externally raised blind-pool vehicles. The bank has not publicly launched a venture-capital fund, GP-stake vehicle, or separately capitalized credit fund. This balance-sheet model means portfolio exposure is constrained by regulatory capital ratios and the bank's broader asset-liability management framework — producing a slower origination pace than a dedicated venture-debt fund but a permanently available capital base not subject to fund-life limits.
What kinds of startups does Kiraboshi typically lend to?
Kiraboshi targets early-stage and growth-stage Japanese companies with predictable recurring revenue, predominantly in fintech, enterprise software, and technology-enabled services. Publicly disclosed borrowers include Money Forward, a Tokyo-based accounting-software and fintech platform. The bank focuses on ventures headquartered in the Tokyo metropolitan area and surrounding prefectures, and selects for companies that have progressed beyond the seed stage to demonstrate revenue traction that can support debt service.
Is Kiraboshi Bank a single-family office or a multi-family office?
Kiraboshi Bank is neither a single-family nor a multi-family office. It is a publicly regulated deposit-taking institution listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, operating as a regional bank in the Tokyo metropolitan area with a conventional commercial-banking license. Its venture-debt activities are conducted within the bank's corporate-lending division, not through a family-office structure.
How is Kiraboshi different from Silicon Valley Bank or other startup-focused lenders?
Kiraboshi operates inside Japan's regulated regional-banking framework rather than as a standalone innovation-banking charter, meaning its venture loans are funded by retail deposits and subject to Japanese FSA capital-adequacy standards — a structure more conservative than Silicon Valley Bank's US model. The bank's startup-lending mandate originated with predecessor ShinGinko Tokyo's 2005 charter, giving it a policy-driven startup focus embedded within a conventional regional lender rather than the venture-ecosystem integration model that defined SVB. Kiraboshi does not take equity warrants as standard practice, a further departure from US venture-debt norms.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
Need institutional-grade insight on asset managers?
Altss delivers:
Prefer a guided tour?
We’ll walk you through: