mint

Three general partners — Tomoki Shirakawa, Keisuke Kogure, and Hironori Takeda — lead the investment team. Shirakawa focuses on SaaS, consumer, and entertainment; Kogure on entertainment, Web3, consumer, and media. The firm also employs a principal, investment managers, and associates, but the general partners maintain a disclosed, sector-defined allocation of coverage.

Mint is an independent venture capital firm, not a family office. It raises external capital and operates a standard fund-based structure, deploying equity into pre-seed and seed-stage startups primarily in Japan.

Mint does not explicitly state whether it leads or follows. Given its early-stage focus and the operational support it bundles — office space, design, PR — the firm likely takes a hands-on, lead-or-active-participant posture, though no public term sheets confirm this.

Mint operates a free office and community program called FLAP, connects founders to a vetted network of UI/UX designers, software engineers, branding specialists, and PR advisors, and facilitates co-creation partnerships with established corporations seeking open-innovation channels.

No. Mint’s website describes only its venture investment activities and associated community programs. There is no disclosed philanthropic foundation, donor-advised fund, or impact-investing vehicle attached to the firm.

Mint does not publish a negative list. However, its disclosed portfolio and partner focus areas — SaaS, consumer, entertainment, Web3, AI — suggest it has no current activity in deep tech, hardware, life sciences, or infrastructure.

Sourcing appears to run through its general partners’ networks, the FLAP entrepreneur community, and corporate-partner channels. The firm’s public calls for FLAP applications and its emphasis on co-creation with large enterprises imply a funnel built on relationship-driven, inbound referral flow rather than a proprietary data-scraping engine.