Tohoku University Venture Partners has achieved a first close for its third vehicle, the THVP3 Fund, with an anchor commitment from Tohoku University.
Shin Nippon Air Technologies and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation are also limited partners in the fund, which has a ¥6 billion target size and a ¥10 billion cap. The current size has not been disclosed.
Tohoku University Venture Partners invests in spinouts from its affiliated institution and other Japanese universities located in the region, which covers a large part of the country’s northeast.
It focuses on early-stage deep tech investments, investing in areas such as semiconductors, material sciences, and life sciences. It takes a hands-on approach, helping fledgling companies build management structures.
Tohoku University Venture Partners, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the university, was launched in 2015. It raised the ¥9.69 billion THVP1 Fund that year, backed by eight limited partners as well as the university.
In 2020, it raised the ¥7.8 billion THVP2 Fund, again backed by the university and eight other limited partners.
Japan has a mature university venture fund landscape
Japan boasts an increasingly sophisticated ecosystem of spinout investment funds. Unusually, this also includes funds backing each other.
Specifically, UTokyo Innovation Platform, a venture capital arm of the University of Tokyo, invests in funds at other institutions via the Academic Startup Acceleration Fund, closed in November 2025.
The institution also has a separate venture capital firm, University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners, which started raising its sixth fund a year ago.
Other recent fund launches include Kyoto University Innovation Capital’s Fund III, the Hiroshima University-aligned HIC Fund I, and Kobe University Capital’s KUC2 Fund.
