Demand
Japanese demand comes from old systems, too few engineers and fast AI adoption
Japan's legacy system backlog exceeds its engineering capacity. AI coding moved from trials to daily use in 2025, and named Japanese companies now publish results.
Legacy systems still take most IT budgets
METI's September 2018 DX Report warned of the 2025年の崖 (nisen nijūgo-nen no gake, 2025 digital cliff): up to ¥12 trillion annual losses after 2025 without legacy replacement. JUAS found about 80% of IT budgets supported existing business. METI's May 2025 committee report found 61% of user companies still running legacy systems.
Japan expects a large shortfall of IT workers
METI's March 2019 study counted 1.03 million IT workers in 2018, projecting a 2030 shortfall of 164,000 to 787,000 depending on demand. IPA's DX動向2025 (DX dōkō, DX trends) found 85.1% of Japanese companies lacked DX staff, above the US and Germany.
Most engineers work at IT vendors
In 2015, ICT companies employed 72.0% of Japan's ICT workers, versus 34.6% in the US (IPA, MIC's 2019 white paper). Foreign vendors sell through integrators. Cognition signed SHIFT as master partner (February 2026), SB C&S as distributor with about 15,000 companies in its network (March 2026), and reached Mizuho Securities through ULS Consulting.
AI coding became daily work in 2025
Gartner Japan's July 2025 survey of 400 developers found 49% using AI for code generation or completion. Each development stage showed 31.8% to 49.0% adoption, versus 12.8% to 21.2% in June 2024. Qiita's エンジニア白書2026 (enjinia hakusho, Engineer White Paper 2026) found 64% using generative AI always or almost daily.
Named Japanese buyers publish results
LY Corporation gave GitHub Copilot to about 7,000 engineers (October 2023), after trials saved 1 to 2 coding hours daily. Kakaku.com deployed Cursor to roughly 500 engineers (April 2025). Cognition reported about 3,000 DeNA users, over 85 Mizuho Securities projects and over 35% of Works Applications sprint code changes using Devin (June 2026).
Spending on development software is growing
IDC Japan put application development and deployment software at about ¥1.35 trillion in 2024, up 15.8%. It grew 16.8% to ¥765.9 billion in the first half of 2025; application development software grew 11.1%. ITR put low-code and no-code at ¥99.4 billion in FY2024, growing 12.9% annually to FY2029.
Who sells it in Japan
Who sells AI coding and developer tools in Japan now
GitHub opened Tokyo in 2015. Cognition and Factory launched Japan operations under named leaders in 2026. Kong and Postman have Japanese companies; local firms compete in AI test automation.
| Company | What it sells | In Japan | Japan leader (public record) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Code hosting and collaboration, and the GitHub Copilot AI coding assistant | GitHub Japan G.K., Tokyo, June 2015; first non-US office; about 2.8 million Japanese users, up 31% (November 2023) | 角田賢治, Senior Director, Enterprise, Japan and Korea, from March 2024 (romanised name not confirmed) | |
| DevSecOps platform for source code, CI/CD and security | Japan entry April 2020; Renesas Electronics, Suzuki and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance users (November 2023); recruiting customer success staff, 28 October 2026 | No public successor. Shoji Ozawa (小澤正治), Japan sales head November 2023, became Glean's Japan Country Manager June 2026 | |
| Devin autonomous AI software engineer and the Windsurf agentic IDE | Cognition AI Japan GK (合同会社, gōdō gaisha), Yurakucho, Tokyo, launched 9 April 2026; partners SHIFT, SB C&S and ULS Consulting | Takumi Masai (正井拓己), President and General Manager, Japan, since April 2026; previously president of Datadog Japan | |
| Droids, autonomous AI agents that design, build, review, test and release software | Tokyo office announced 31 August 2026 as part of an Asia expansion; Japanese website; no Japanese customers or partners named | Seiji Sasaki, President and GM of Japan, since August 2026 | |
| API management: Kong Gateway, Konnect; Kong AI Gateway controls LLM access | Kong株式会社 (Kong KK), Minato-ku, November 2023 Japan Cloud joint venture; NTT DATA distributor July 2024; HPE Japan partner April 2026 | 有泉大樹, Representative Director and President, named in July 2024 (romanised name not confirmed) | |
| API platform for designing, testing and documenting APIs | Postman K.K., December 2023; Japanese-language product; over 400,000 Japan developers and 82% of Nikkei 225 companies used it at launch | Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, President and Representative Director, from December 2023; no later public update found | |
| Cloud platform for building and deploying web applications | Has hired a new Country Manager in Japan. The appointment has not yet been announced publicly. | Vercel has hired an excellent Japan Country Manager, someone I placed earlier in their career. I will update this page with their name once it is public. Murray Clarke, 3 November 2026 | |
| AI test automation (Autify Nexus, Aximo, NoCode) and a managed QA service | Japanese company (オーティファイ株式会社); customer logos include Rakuten, Nomura Research Institute, LY Corporation, ZOZO, NTT and SOMPO | Japanese company, no country manager seat | |
| Web and mobile AI test automation; AI agent writes and edits tests | 株式会社MagicPod (kabushiki kaisha); says more than 500 companies use it, including NTT Docomo, DeNA, Money Forward, Sansan and TIS | Japanese company, no country manager seat |
Japanese system integrators appear on this page as partners and resellers of foreign tools; their own AI coding products were not covered.
Coming to Japan
Companies preparing a Japan entry
These companies have a dated public Japan signal in 2026 but no Japan head named publicly.
| Company and backers | What it sells | Public signal |
|---|---|---|
a16zThrive CapitalAcquired by SpaceX, August 2026 | AI code editor and coding agents | Country Leader, Japan advert, 17 June 2026, since closed. Nine Japan roles listed, 3 November 2026. Kakaku.com deployed Cursor to all engineers in April 2025. |
 Replita16zPrysm CapitalUS$250M round, September 2025 | Browser-based coding and app-building platform with an AI agent | Japan Growth Lead (Tokyo) to establish commercial presence. Premium Support Engineer (Tokyo), posted 13 August 2026, remote until an office opens; advert since closed. |
GICSeries F, June 2026 | Postgres database and backend platform for developers | Database Support Engineer (Japanese Speaking) ad, remote with Japan preferred and Japan business hours, applications close 22 November 2026. |
Scale Venture PartnersSeries B, US$60M | AI pull-request reviews on GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Bitbucket | XLsoft (エクセルソフト, Ekuserusofuto) signed a reseller agreement and began Japan sales on 20 May 2026, with yen quotes, invoice payment and Japanese support. |
| Development productivity analytics; used by 9 of the top 16 universal banks | Country Manager, Japan (Yokohama), live 3 November 2026: launch through SIers, distributors and direct CTO/CIO sales. Base ¥15M to ¥16M plus incentive; native Japanese required. | |
 ParadevUnion Square VenturesSeed, October 2026 | Workspace for running Claude Code, Codex and other coding agents in parallel | Japanese-language website live at paradev.com/ja on 3 November 2026, a week after its US$11.5M seed round on 26 October 2026. |
Only public signals are listed: job ads, company registrations, partner announcements and press. A company on this list has not told us it is entering Japan, and none of them is named here as a client.
Who our clients are backed by
Investors behind companies we have worked with.
Venture and private equity firms behind clients we have run Japan searches for. Under each firm is the client it backs. These firms are not our clients and have not endorsed us.
Case studies
How companies like these built their Japan business.
The Cognition launch in Japan
Our case study on the timing of Cognition's Japan launch.
Read it →Case study · CollaborationHow Slack built its Japan business
Our case study on how Slack built its business in Japan.
Read it →Research · Market entryWhen to move first in Japan
When to build slowly in Japan and when to invest early.
Read it →More Japan market briefs
Next step
Talk to the partner who would run the search.
Thirty minutes on your Japan plan, the market for the role and what it will take to hire well. You leave with our view of that market whether or not it becomes a search.
- Placing Country Managers and presidents in Japan since 2003
- More than 70 Country Managers and go-to-market leaders placed
- ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN) bought his last search firm and made it Experis Executive
- Developer platform searches include GitHub's first Japan Country Manager
- Eleven years recruiting in Japan, on executive and senior appointments across consulting, technology and manufacturing
- Partner appointments into a Big 4 consulting firm in Japan
- Country Manager appointments for overseas firms setting up in Japan
Partner, Managing Director and Director searches inside consulting firms.
How this page was researched. We produced this page with AI under Murray Clarke's direction. Every figure links to its original source, and the page was checked against those sources on 3 November 2026. Most sources are METI, IPA and MIC publications, IDC Japan, ITR and Gartner Japan releases, vendor press releases on PR TIMES, CodeZine, ITmedia and ASCII articles, and Japan job postings. Murray Clarke is accountable for what the page says. If you find an error, tell us at hello@aspiringpartners.jp and we will correct it.
Aspiring Partners K.K. Licensed by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for fee-charging employment placement, licence 13-ユ-318925. Company names on this page describe the Japanese market and are not clients unless we say so. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or investment advice. aspiringpartners.jp