Spike Studio Inc. Raises JPY 370 Million in Seed Round to Accelerate Enterprise-Wide Business Transformation
Tokyo, Japan — Spike Studio Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and CEO: Shigeru Kuroyanagi; Representative Director and COO: Hirohide Sano), a developer of AI agents, today announced the close of a JPY 370 million seed round. The round includes equity, debt, and venture debt financing from investors including B Dash Ventures Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and Representative Director: Hiroyuki Watanabe), Aozora Corporate Investment Co., Ltd. (Representative Director and CEO: Akifumi Kubo), and Japan Finance Corporation.
Background and Purpose of the Financing
Since its founding in December 2023, Spike Studio has supported enterprise AI adoption through AI agents that operate 24/7, 365 days a year. Our agents are now used by customers across a wide range of industries — including manufacturing, finance, advertising, retail, and fitness — and we have seen firsthand how rapidly the demand for AI is expanding across every sector.
The rapid evolution of generative AI and its accelerating real-world adoption have brought every company to the same fundamental question: how to harness AI and embed it throughout their organization. Spike Studio goes beyond technology delivery. By deeply understanding each customer's operations, we develop AI agents that work alongside frontline teams, providing hands-on, partnership-driven support that unlocks the potential of every individual.
With this round of financing, we will further strengthen the foundation that enables more companies and more people to harness the power of AI and unlock their own potential.
Use of Proceeds
The funds raised in this round will be allocated to the following purposes:
1. Expanding engineering talent
We will actively recruit engineers with deep expertise in AI agent and generative AI development to grow our engineering organization. We will build a team that combines the technical depth to tackle complex cross-industry challenges with the product instincts to stay close to our customers' needs.
2. Advancing AI agent and product capabilities
To serve the diverse needs of our customers, we will continue to expand the capabilities of our AI agents. Our product development will focus on AI that is genuinely useful in real-world business operations and that amplifies human initiative — including multi-agent functionality and external system integrations that drive meaningful business transformation.
Comment from Hiroyuki Watanabe, President and Representative Director,
B Dash Ventures Inc.
As AI becomes a natural part of society, we believe every company will be required to build management strategies that assume AI adoption from the outset. In this context, Spike Studio manages the full journey — from strategy formulation through system development and AI agent implementation — and has already delivered AI implementations for organizations ranging from large enterprises to small and medium-sized businesses across a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, finance, and media. We believe these achievements stem from the deep trust the company has earned from clients — not only through the reassurance of its thorough, on-the-ground partnership, but also as a partner capable of taking a management-level perspective. We look forward to continuing to support Spike Studio on its journey of further growth.
Comment from Akifumi Kubo, Representative Director and CEO,
Aozora Corporate Investment Co., Ltd.
In Japan, where a falling birthrate, an aging population, and deepening labor shortages are an acute challenge, the skills and judgment of seasoned frontline experts are being lost without successors — turning the risk of proprietary expertise becoming "lost technology" into reality. Spike Studio addresses the core of this challenge by formalizing the tacit knowledge of experts and transferring it to AI, and it possesses both the technical capability and a track record already validated through quantitative results on the frontlines. Convinced that the irreversible structural shift in demographics will serve as a tailwind, and that the company's competitive advantage will only become more pronounced over time, we have decided to make this investment. We will continue to provide strong support as Spike Studio grows into a company that underpins Japan's real economy.
Comment from Shigeru Kuroyanagi, Representative Director and CEO,
Spike Studio Inc.
We are building AI agents not as "tools," but as a "workforce."
Across Japan, there are workplaces where only a single veteran, nearing retirement, can still perform the work — and where the business itself grinds to a halt the moment that person leaves. Workers are scarce, and even those who wish to carry on often cannot. This is not a story about technology. It is a story about people.
What we are building is the workforce that fills that gap: one that never sleeps, never tires, and quietly carries out the work it has learned. This kind of workforce is needed not only at large enterprises, but precisely at the sites that need it most — regional small and medium-sized businesses short-handed, and workplaces searching for someone to carry a craft forward.
This round of financing exists to extend that reach.
These workplaces still remain, all across Japan. We will not stop until we have reached every one of them.
Looking Ahead
We are working toward a future in which AI is not the domain of a handful of specialists, but a partner that expands what is possible for everyone. Regardless of industry or scale, we will remain a partner that engages genuinely with each customer's unique challenges and supports the creation of new value through AI. With this financing as a catalyst, we will help more companies and more people move forward — and together build a future that keeps advancing.