SusHi Tech Tokyo isn’t a conference — it’s a deal room with 60,000 people

There’s a model of a tech conference the place you fly someplace costly, sit by means of panels, acquire enterprise playing cards you’ll by no means observe up on, and fly residence. SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 was intentionally designed to be the alternative of that.

When 60,000 attendees descend on Tokyo Big Sight April 27–29, the headline numbers are laborious to disregard: 750 startup exhibitors, 151 classes, metropolis leaders from 49 nations. But the stat that tells you what sort of occasion this really is? It’s 10,000 facilitated enterprise conferences — brokered, booked, and tracked earlier than most attendees even land.

The infrastructure of deal-making

SusHi Tech’s official app is much less occasion information and extra matchmaking engine. Before the conference opens, attendees register their profile and describe what they’re in search of. The app’s AI surfaces suggestions, opens a direct message channel, and allows you to pre-book one of many venue’s expanded assembly areas. On the ground, QR code enterprise card change replaces the fumbling-for-a-card second. It’s a small factor that alerts a bigger philosophy: Remove the friction between the people who must be speaking.

That deal-making ethos extends to the startup pitch competitors. TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield program supervisor, Isabelle Johannessen, will choose one standout startup well-suited to the North American market from the semifinalists to advance to the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield 200, a launchpad to one of many business’s most prestigious levels. 

Corporates are pitching to startups — not the opposite approach round

One of SusHi Tech’s extra fascinating structural selections is the reverse pitch format. Rather than startups lining as much as impress huge firms, corporates and metropolis governments take the stage to current their unsolved challenges and invite startups to suggest options.

This yr, Moreton Bay and Rome are each working reverse pitch classes — primarily issuing public RFPs to a international startup viewers. On the company aspect, 62 companion firms — together with Sony, Google, Microsoft, and Mizuho — are internet hosting devoted Open Innovation reveals and classes, actively looking for collaborators. Twelve domain-specific clusters spanning logistics, life sciences, railways, and local weather tech are additionally exhibiting for the primary time, every trying to co-create with startups somewhat than merely observe them.

750 startups, 400 of them worldwide

Of the 750 exhibitors, 400 come from outdoors Japan — a real cross-section of the worldwide startup ecosystem. City companions from 25 nations and areas convey their very own cohorts with an express mandate to attach startups to Japanese companions and capital. A brand new group of 45 “SusHi Tech Global Startups” — growth-stage Japanese firms backed by Tokyo Metropolitan Government — are making their international debut in a devoted pavilion.

For worldwide founders and buyers who’ve been watching Japan from the surface, SusHi Tech is essentially the most environment friendly entry level the market has ever supplied. The enterprise card you change on April 27 doesn’t have to finish up in a drawer.

Can’t make it to Tokyo? You can nonetheless be there

Missing SusHi Tech Tokyo doesn’t must imply lacking out. Remote contributors get greater than a livestream — on-site workers will stroll the ground in your behalf, carrying a gadget that shows your face so you’ll be able to work together with attendees and exhibitors in actual time, face-to-face. It’s the closest factor to truly being there.

Apply for distant participation with on-site workers assist right here.

Can’t swing that both? Ticket holders can stream classes on-line and faucet into the programming from wherever they’re. Browse the total session checklist right here.

Note: Some classes will not be out there for on-line streaming.

SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 runs April 27–29 at Tokyo Big Sight. Business days are April 27–28; Public Day (free admission) is April 29. Register right here.