On Thursday, July 10, 2025, JAFCO held its conference for seed-stage entrepreneurs, JAFCO SEED 2025, at Bellesalle Onarimon Tower.

Held for the second time this year, JAFCO SEED is a conference spotlighting seed-stage entrepreneurs, aimed at fostering startups from Japan that can lead the world. Following Part 1, which reported on three sessions by entrepreneurs in high-growth sectors, this second part will cover the seed-stage entrepreneur pitch contest.

Out of 245 applicants, five finalists who passed the initial document screening and interview selection process gave a five-minute pitch. From these, the winners of the Grand Prize and Future Award were determined by votes from the judges and the audience.

The judging panel consisted of Yoshinori Fukushima, CEO of LayerX, Inc.; Takeshi Kaneko, a partner at East Ventures Co., Ltd.; and Tomoko Numata, Chief Capitalist at JAFCO Group Co., Ltd.

Led by entrepreneur Taiyo Nakayama (born in 2003), AIVALIX Inc. is a startup founded in 2024 that develops INFRAI, a failure prediction AI specialized for piping infrastructure. In its first year, the company built up its financial and technical strength through commissioned AI development and R&D, before officially launching the INFRAI business in April 2025.

Mr. Nakayama explained the challenges facing Japan's infrastructure, noting that water pipes laid during the country's period of high economic growth are now all reaching their replacement age. The total length of pipes that have already exceeded their service life is equivalent to four trips around the Earth. However, due to insufficient financial resources and personnel, the current reality is that pipes are "fixed after they break." Accurately prioritizing replacements has become a pressing issue.

The company's product, INFRAI, is a cutting-edge AI model trained on various data from pipes, which calculates a "breakage risk score" for each individual pipe. The company aims to provide the service to 300 water and sewage utilities by fiscal year 2030, targeting annual sales of 15 billion yen. Since its full-scale launch, inquiries regarding Proof of Concept (PoC) development have surged. He also spoke of future expansion from water to gas, plants, and buildings, and from the domestic market to overseas.

The company brings together a diverse range of experts, from AI engineers and consultants to specialists in IT, business, infrastructure, and finance. "We can make this happen because we are a dream team," Mr. Nakayama declared in closing his pitch.

Ryohei Nishida, CEO of KenRi, Inc., and a lawyer himself, began by asking the audience for their "impression of legal departments and lawyers." After suggesting they might feel that lawyers are "slow to respond" or that "reviewing contracts doesn't change anything," he pointed out that neglecting legal checks on documents can lead to damage claims worth tens of millions of yen.

The company's service, KenRi Legal Department, combines a legal-specific AI SaaS with legal BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) services from legal experts formerly of the "Big Four" law firms. Conventional legal tech has struggled with issues such as not accurately considering the context within documents and being unable to handle the detailed requests of individual companies. In contrast, KenRi Legal Department fully utilizes generative AI technology and lawyer expertise. He explained that it is a service that adapts to the specific needs of each company and evolves into a customized AI the more it is used.

The service has been provided to over 40 law firms, successfully replacing 50% of their conventional work. The company now plans to enter the corporate legal domain, a market estimated to be worth 1 trillion yen, and offer a "low-cost, fast, high-quality legal DX service" at a price that is one-fifth to one-tenth of typical lawyer fees.

Mr. Nishida touched upon the term "20% justice," which refers to the fact that only 20% of people with legal problems can afford to hire a lawyer due to high fees. He powerfully declared that he would eliminate that barrier and "eradicate the issue of people giving up on their rights all across Japan."

Founded in 2024, AIONA Inc. is a startup developing an "AI Reviewer" that enhances design quality and accelerates development speed under the theme of "the sustainable development of manufacturing to be passed down through generations."

In recent years, the manufacturing industry has frequently seen losses of tens to hundreds of billions of yen due to product recalls. This is attributed to a background where past know-how is not being fully utilized, caused by the personalization of design processes and the difficulty of keyword searches due to inconsistent expressions in technical documents.

To solve this issue, the company's AI Reviewer is a service that uses AI to automate: (1) the search of technical documents, (2) DRBFM (a design process to predict potential defects during design changes and take countermeasures in advance) and proposal of solutions, and (3) the creation and updating of technical documents. The service was explained using a demo video.

The target customers are major machinery and equipment manufacturers in industries such as automotive, transportation equipment, home appliances, and semiconductors. It is estimated that the service will reduce an engineer's workload by more than 500 hours per year. With strengths in its specialization in design and development, its comprehensive problem-solving approach combining AI solutions with consulting, and its high functional extensibility, the company aims to expand its business, eventually considering entry into sectors like the construction industry and overseas markets.

INDX Co., Ltd. is an AI & data platformer that just launched in April 2025. CEO Katsuya Ito, a graduate of the University of Tokyo with experience at an AI startup and in AI projects at Mitsui & Co., took the stage.

Mr. Ito explained that even with the recent emergence of many AI companies, the reason large corporations are not fully leveraging AI in their management comes down to two issues: "data" and "security." He stated that 90% of the data held by large enterprises is unstructured, and only 8.2% of Japanese companies listed on the Prime Market have been able to build an RAG (AI that utilizes in-house data).

The company has developed its own unique, next-generation data structuring platform from scratch. Its strengths lie in being lightweight, highly customizable, and operable on-premise or self-hosted. It has been well-received by clients where "data" and "security" have been hurdles to AI adoption—such as financial institutions, major general trading companies, and large retail chains—and is being used for sales and marketing analysis, and operational efficiency improvements.

In closing, Mr. Ito expressed his enthusiasm for achieving true data-driven management through his business, stating, "I want everyone on the front lines to gain fresh insights from data every day."

AREYO Inc. aims to solve a deep-rooted problem for startups: "lead depletion." With the explosive increase in SaaS in recent years, rising advertising costs and longer lead times for closing deals have become prominent, and the difficulty of acquiring new customers for SaaS companies is increasing year by year.

The company has focused on referral marketing. Although lead generation through referrals occurs in most companies, it is not systematized, preventing a strategic increase in referrals. To solve this, they are developing Jolt, a referral management SaaS.

Jolt is a SaaS that allows users to manage contracts with partners who introduce potential customers, share referral links, manage referrals, design compensation, and handle reward payments all online. After introducing the service, CEO Yu Tanaka highlighted the market's potential, stating, "The global referral marketing SaaS market is valued at 100 billion yen in 2024 and is expected to more than double by 2033."

After the service launch, once a certain number of companies have adopted Jolt, the plan is to turn it into a marketplace where partners from various companies can introduce products across the board. The company also aims to further boost growth through business partnerships with sales agencies and media, evolving into a referral platform for all industries.

Mr. Fukushima of LayerX, who served as a judge, commented, "Every company was naturally using AI, which made me feel the changing of the times. The result of a pitch has no relation to the success or failure of a business. I want everyone to accept today's results for what they are and to sincerely face their customers and the market to achieve great success."

Mr. Kaneko of East Ventures shared his expectations: "The common themes among the five presenting companies were 'AI' and 'B2B.' I haven't had many opportunities to meet with B2B startups recently, so it was refreshing. There's a saying that there are only about 20 entrepreneurs in Japan who are founders, major shareholders, active managers, and have aimed for an operating profit of 10 billion yen. I hope all of you will strive for that."

JAFCO's Ms. Numata also remarked, "I was surprised by the high quality of the pitches. I also felt a great sense of speed, with some companies starting PoCs with potential customers just a few months after their founding. I am looking forward to seeing what you all do in the future."

The Grand Prize was awarded to Mr. Nakayama of AIVALIX, and the Future Award was given to Mr. Nishida of KenRi. AIVALIX also received prizes from sponsoring companies Amazon Web Services Japan G.K., SoVa, Inc., and WAKAZE Inc.

The conference concluded with a networking reception where participating seed-stage entrepreneurs, representatives from major corporations, angel investors, and capitalists enjoyed food and drinks together. JAFCO SEED 2025 closed after many new encounters that will surely lead to future business creation and growth.