Japan

Japan Investment Corporation (JIC) will invest JPY2 billion ($12.7 million) in Red No. 1 Healthcare Investment Limited Partnership, which focuses on biotech, medical devices, and healthcare services startups.

India's River Mobility has closed a $120 million Series C round comprising equity and venture debt, among the largest private investments in India's electric two-wheeler sector.

Japan's Honda Motor is set to book ¥1.97 trillion ($12.5 billion) in EV-strategy losses across fiscal years 2026 and 2027, equal to roughly three years of operating profit and more than a full year of total R&D spending.

Tokyo-based workforce platform X Mile has raised JPY 3.17 billion ($20 million) in a Series C round led by Vertex Growth, the growth-stage platform of the Vertex global venture capital network, bringing the company's total funding to JPY6.96 billion.

Japan's sogo shosha ITOCHU has established a Global Tech Center (GTC) and formed a partnership with FPT Software, the software contractor under Vietnam's technology giant FPT to drive AI transformation across its overseas group companies.

Japan's JCB International and Malaysia's Fiuu, a payment processing platform formerly known as Razer Merchant Services, have entered into a direct acquiring partnership covering Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, enabling JCB card payments across online and offline merchant channels in the three markets.

Berlin-based multimodal travel booking platform Omio has raised $10 million in a strategic investment from Granite-Integral to accelerate its expansion in Japan and strengthen its presence across Southeast Asia.

The widening gap between AI governance at board and management level and the pace of technological advancement will continue to constrain the speed and scale of enterprise AI adoption in Asia-Pacific,

Singapore's Energy Market Authority (EMA) and Japan's Electricity and Gas Market Surveillance Commission (EGC) will strengthen collaboration on energy market regulation, promote information exchange on gas and electricity markets, and facilitate knowledge sharing on market surveillance approaches, regulation design, and system stability measures.

Gobi Partners, a pan-Asian investment firm managing $2 billion across more than 30 funds, and Japan's technology firm NTT will jointly explore opportunities in startup matching, business validation, proof-of-concept initiatives, and cross-border commercial engagement between Japan and Southeast Asia.