Tokyo Financial Award 2025: Announcement of Applicants Selected in the First Stage Screening for the Financial Innovation Category Support Program

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) is pleased to announce that 15 companies have passed the initial screening for the Tokyo Financial Award Financial Innovation Category (*), which seeks proposals for innovative financial services and technologies that enhance the convenience of Tokyo residents' lives. This year, a record 157 applicants from Japan and abroad submitted entries for the award.

With the aim to grow Tokyo into an “Innovation and Finance Hub in Asia,” the TMG is working on initiatives to transform the city into “Global Financial City: Tokyo”, the leading city for sustainable finance and the city where global startups are born. The Tokyo Financial Award, held as part of this initiative, recognizes efforts that contribute to the realization of the “Global Financial City: Tokyo” vision. 

The award aims to enhance Tokyo’s presence as a global financial center, foster innovation in the financial sector, and, through the power of finance to promote a sustainable society, further financial activity and improve convenience and quality of life for Tokyo residents. Furthermore, through these initiatives, the TMG will enhance the convenience and the investment environment for global investors, allowing us to build a brighter future together.
    
The following is a list of the companies that have passed the first stage screening. They will refine and elaborate their business ideas through the Award’s Support Program (including mentorship, business matching, overseas PR and communication). Awards will be granted to the top three companies selected in the subsequent final screening.

*A business plan contest, organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government since 2018, that recognizes ideas making use of the latest financial technology to offer solutions for the societal issues facing Tokyo residents and society at large. Tokyo is seeking input from residents and businesses within the city on their needs and challenges related to financial services in daily life, and is inviting proposals for solutions from financial service providers both in Japan and abroad.
 

1. Companies selected in first stage screening (listed in alphabetical order, juridical personalities omitted)

 

Company name	Services details (to succeed in)
Alterna Trust	Provides asset owners, including real estate owners, with an end-to-end service for structuring, managing, and selling digital securities backed by their assets, significantly reducing the time required for product structuring through AI.
Clarity AI (US)	Provides institutional investors with an AI-driven tool that enables evaluation, analysis, and reporting of the sustainability of investment targets, visualizing sustainability assessments while ensuring compliance regulations in multiple countries.
EduCare	Provides an education finance platform that leverages functions such as future income prediction for students, enabling those facing financial burdens to access education loans and scholarship repayment services from financial institutions and corporations.
Henry	Provides factoring services that enable rapid screening and funding as a financing option for small and medium-sized hospitals, while also offering a management infrastructure equipped with features such as automated electronic medical billing.
Impact Circle	Provides tools that enable the automatic generation of impact indicators for financial institutions and institutional investors requiring quantitative impact data, supporting the evaluation and selection of investment targets through rapid visualization of social impact.
Japan Asset Management Platform	Provides a comprehensive white-label* service covering ETF structuring, establishment, and operational management. This allows asset management companies considering the development and launch of ETFs to focus on high-value activities such as investment decision-making and portfolio management. *A business strategy in which core infrastructure is provided by one company, while the participating firm offers the product to investors under its own brand.
Moroku (Australia)	Provides financial institutions with a digital banking platform that leverages gamification* and personalization, enhancing customer engagement through the services they experience. *The application of game elements in non-game contexts (such as business) for purposes including motivation enhancement.
MynaWallet	Adds a payment function using stablecoins*1 and other digital assets to the Individual Number Card*2, providing a new payment method while also offering implementation support for both businesses and consumers. *1 An electronic payment method that utilizes blockchain, designed to maintain a stable value and backed by assets such as FIAT. *2 An individual-number ID card issued by Japanese municipalities, usable as an official ID for online administrative procedures and diverse private sector transactions.
Plutas　Analytics (India)	Provide insurance companies with real-time climate and environmental data, along with an AI-powered digital platform for operating parametric insurance* related to weather and environmental risks, empowering insurance companies & individuals and enabling swift claim settlements. *Insurance that pays out a predetermined fixed amount promptly when the conditions set at the time of contract are met.
PolicyStreet (Malaysia)	Contributes to labor stability by customizing, reinsuring, and distributing insurance products covering accidents, medical care, and income protection, which gig workers* can be automatically enrolled in through platform providers or service operators that engage gig workers. *A worker who takes on one-off jobs through an online platform.
Recept	Enhances its existing certificate digitization service by adding a digital wallet application function, enabling the collection and centralized management of consumer data across multiple services. The aggregated consumer behavior data is then offered for sale to municipalities and other relevant entities.
SBI Securities	SBI SECURITIES Co., Ltd., Tokio Marine Asset Management Co., Ltd., Shinsei Trust & Banking Co., Ltd., and BOOSTRY Co., Ltd. have jointly structured a publicly offered digital security designed for individual investors. The product enables small-lot, diversified investments across multiple domestic private equity (PE) funds. By opening access—previously limited to qualified institutional investors—to individual investors who are able to tolerate a certain level of risk, this initiative aims to provide new sources of risk capital to Japan’s PE market.
Soramitsu CBDC	Provides a blockchain-based digital platform that enables foreign visitors, international students, migrant workers, and small to medium-sized enterprises in Tokyo to seamlessly convert various CBDCs into Japanese yen, offering integrated services for domestic and cross-border payments, remittances, and trade finance.
Xpansiv (Australia)	Operates one of the world’s largest digital platforms for carbon credits, primarily covering North America, Australia, and Europe, and, through its partnership with enechain, provides Japanese customers with access to the international carbon credit market via JCEX*. *Japan Climate Exchange (JCEX): A Japanese carbon credit market platform
YOUR RIGHTS	Provides a platform that fractionalizes and sells partial copyrights of anime works as NFTs, granting purchasers the right to participate in production decisions through voting and to receive a share of viewing revenues, while enabling production studios to secure funding such as production costs in advance.

2. Schedule

*The details regarding the award ceremony will be announced at a later date.

 

Please see the Tokyo Financial Award website (https://www.finaward.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/) for details.   

Reference: Tokyo Financial Award
The TMG is promoting initiatives to establish Tokyo as an “Innovation and Finance Hub in Asia” that strives for a sustainable society. Leveraging the Financial and Asset Management Special Zone, which was approved in June 2024, Tokyo aims to foster a city where sustainable finance thrives, and global startups are born.
As part of this initiative, the Tokyo Financial Award recognizes efforts that contribute to fostering innovation in the financial sector and achieving a sustainable society through the power of finance.
 

This project is to promote the “Tokyo 2050 Strategy”, Tokyo’s long-term strategy.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Strategy 12: Global Finance “Establishing Tokyo's presence as a global financial city”