Women Building the Future: Why Japan's Gender Gap Is a Capital Allocation Problem

Female founders in Japan receive less than 3% of venture capital funding.

The country produces women entrepreneurs. The money does not follow them. Two sessions at Tech for Impact Summit 2026 take up why.

The Data

Kathy Matsui’s Womenomics research at Goldman Sachs estimated that closing Japan’s gender gap in workforce participation could raise GDP by up to 15%. Twenty-five years on, workforce participation has improved a great deal. Capital flows to women-led companies have not.

Main Stage: Women Building the Future

Miwa Seki (General Partner, MPower Partners) and Rika Nakazawa (Chief Commercial Innovation, NTT) lead a session titled “Women Building the Future: Capital, Boards, and the Pipeline Problem.”

Three questions on the table:

• Boards: Japan’s Corporate Governance Code now calls for board diversity, and many companies are treating it as a box to tick. What does real governance reform look like next to window dressing?
• Funding: Women-led startups tend to do well on capital efficiency and still receive a fraction of the investment. Which biases in Japan’s VC ecosystem account for that?
• Role models: How do women who have reached the top in venture capital, corporate leadership, and entrepreneurship open the path for the next cohort?

Fireside Chat: Womenomics to Founder-nomics

Later in the day, Kathy Matsui sits down for a fireside chat on the move from research to investing. As General Partner of MPower Partners, Japan’s first ESG-focused global venture capital fund, she now writes the checks she spent decades arguing for.

For Investors

Research has repeatedly found that diverse founding teams deliver stronger returns and that companies with women in senior leadership score higher on profitability.

For global investors looking at Japan:

• Risk: Companies that do not diversify leadership face governance pressure from institutional investors and may trail peers.
• Opportunity: Women-founded startups in Japan compete for a fraction of the capital that male-founded peers receive, and are priced accordingly.

Beyond Returns

Japan’s population is shrinking and its workforce is aging. The speakers at Tech for Impact Summit 2026 treat women’s economic participation as part of the answer to that, and will say so on stage.

Tech for Impact Summit 2026 takes place April 26 at Kioi Conference, Tokyo. Join the 2027 waitlist →