Scrum Ventures

The firm was founded by Tak Miyata and investment activity is executed by a team that includes Michael Yan and Mike Proman, based on founder testimonials published on the firm’s website. The firm describes its partners as former founders and investors who understand entrepreneurship and commit to hands-on portfolio support through hiring help, strategic advice, and fundraising assistance.

Scrum Ventures runs a thematic research process to identify emerging trends and discover industry-changing startups, according to its own description. Its Studio accelerator programs — Full Bloom in Shibuya and HFX in Hokkaido — act as recruitment channels by attracting global startups that want access to Japanese corporate partners, creating proprietary sourcing beyond conventional venture networks.

Scrum Studio takes a stage-agnostic approach rather than running fixed cohorts. It connects startups with leading Japanese corporations — including Panasonic, Biprogy, Fujitsu, and DeNA — for co-innovation and market entry. The two active programs, Full Bloom in Tokyo and Hokkaido F Village X, embed startups inside local deeptech hubs and support implementation from proof of concept through full commercial deployment.

No. The firm invests across both the U.S. and Japan and explicitly structures its operations to bridge the two markets. Its headquarters are in San Francisco and Tokyo, with additional satellite offices in Minneapolis, New York, and Illinois. The Studio programs are built specifically to place global portfolio companies into Japanese industrial ecosystems.

The firm invests across enterprise software, AI and machine learning, robotics and automation, digital health, media and entertainment, and space technology. Its portfolio includes Apptronik in humanoid robotics, Earth AI in mineral exploration, Olio Labs in digital health, Ozlo in consumer hardware, and GlobalComix in digital media distribution.

Scrum Ventures structures its corporate partnerships — with Panasonic, Biprogy, Fujitsu, and DeNA — primarily through the Studio accelerator programs rather than as passive limited partners. These relationships create co-innovation and market-access paths for portfolio companies but the firm has not publicly detailed whether the corporates commit capital to the fund vehicles.

The Full Bloom program operates at the heart of SAKURA DEEPTECH SHIBUYA, a deeptech innovation hub in Shibuya, Tokyo, positioning Scrum Ventures as an active participant in Japan’s state-aligned deeptech commercialization infrastructure. The Hokkaido F Village X program similarly aligns with regional economic development goals by implementing foreign startup technology locally.