Foreign founders are changing how Japanese start startups

For the last 150 years, Japan has made a science of borrowing the best ideas from the West and transforming them into her own. The startup world is no exception. Japanese startup culture is heavily shaped by foreign influence, but not in the traditional top down way where leadership chooses which changes are introduced. Japan's startup ecosystem is being shaped by bottom-up experimentation by both Japanese and foreign founders on the ground here in Japan. Today we talk with Sandeep Casi, an entrepreneur and Partner at Antler. We talk about the challenges foreign founders still face in Japan and how they are changing Japanese entrepreneurship for the better. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

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Foreign founders are changing how Japanese start startups is an episode from Disrupting Japan by Tim Romero.

This episode is 34:13 long.

This episode was published on Jul 21, 2025.

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