TechCrunch Partners with SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026
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- TechCrunch is partnering with SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 (April 27–29 at Tokyo Big Sight), with Startup Battlefield program manager Isabelle Johannessen serving as a judge for the SusHi Tech Challenge pitch competition.
- A TechCrunch editor will select one standout semifinalist from the SusHi Tech Challenge to advance to the Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt, one of the industry's most prestigious startup stages.
- SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 is billed as Asia's largest innovation conference in its fourth year, featuring 750 startup exhibitors from 60 countries, more than 10,000 facilitated business meetings, and an expected 60,000 attendees.
- The SusHi Tech Challenge attracted 820 applications (437 international, 383 from Japan); 20 semifinalists pitch April 27, seven advance to the April 28 final, competing for a ¥10,000,000 Grand Prix.
- SusHi Tech 2026 is organized around four frontier domains — AI, Robotics, Resilience, and Entertainment — with speakers from Nvidia, AWS, Trend Micro, Applied Intuition, 500 Global, MPower Partners, and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.
- Sixty-two corporate partners including Sony, Google, Microsoft, and Mizuho are hosting reverse pitches on the expo floor to recruit startup collaborators, while city leaders from 55 cities across five continents gather for the G-NETS Leaders Summit on climate resilience.
- SusHi Tech Tokyo extends beyond the convention floor with classical music performances from La Folle Journée, Tokyo Bay waterfront cruises, and the Tokyo Innovation NIGHTs networking series, with a free Public Day on April 29.
Why it matters: For the lone semifinalist selected, the prize is a direct ticket to TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield 200 — a stage that has launched companies like Dropbox and Cloudflare — making this partnership a real pipeline from Tokyo's sustainability-tech scene to global venture capital visibility, with ¥10 million and a slot at Disrupt on the line for 20 teams from a 820-application pool.
