Disrupting Japan

Makuake is one of Japan's largest crowdfunding platforms. It was spun out of CyberAgent in 2013 with Ryotaro Nakayama (or Naka as his foreign friends call him) as CEO. Crowdfunding has taken off more slowly in Japan than it has in the US, and it has followed a different growth path. It started out primarily as a way to raise money for charitable causes and at the moment crowdfunding seems to be having a more significant impact on corporate Japan than on smaller Japanese ventures.