Sushi Tech Tokyo Isn’t A Conference — It’s A Deal Room With 60,000 People

There’s a type of a tech convention wherever you alert location expensive, beryllium done panels, cod business cards you’ll ne'er travel up on, and alert home. SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 was deliberately designed to beryllium nan other of that.

When 60,000 attendees descend connected Tokyo Big Sight April 27–29, nan header numbers are difficult to ignore: 750 startup exhibitors, 151 sessions, metropolis leaders from 49 countries. But nan stat that tells you what benignant of arena this really is? It’s 10,000 facilitated business meetings — brokered, booked, and tracked earlier astir attendees moreover land.

The infrastructure of deal-making

SusHi Tech’s charismatic app is little arena guideline and much matchmaking engine. Before nan convention opens, attendees registry their floor plan and picture what they’re looking for. The app’s AI surfaces recommendations, opens a nonstop connection channel, and lets you pre-book 1 of nan venue’s expanded gathering spaces. On nan floor, QR codification business paper speech replaces nan fumbling-for-a-card moment. It’s a mini point that signals a larger philosophy: Remove nan clash betwixt nan group who should beryllium talking.

That deal-making ethos extends to nan startup transportation competition. TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield programme manager, Isabelle Johannessen, will prime 1 standout startup well-suited to the North American market from nan semifinalists to beforehand to nan TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield 200, a launchpad to 1 of nan industry’s astir prestigious stages. 

Image Credits:Kimberly White / Getty Images

Corporates are pitching to startups — not nan different measurement around

One of SusHi Tech’s much absorbing structural choices is nan reverse transportation format. Rather than startups lining up to impressment large companies, corporates and metropolis governments return nan shape to coming their unsolved challenges and induce startups to propose solutions.

This year, Moreton Bay and Rome are some moving reverse transportation sessions — fundamentally issuing nationalist RFPs to a world startup audience. On nan firm side, 62 partner companies — including Sony, Google, Microsoft, and Mizuho — are hosting dedicated Open Innovation exhibits and sessions, actively hunting for collaborators. Twelve domain-specific clusters spanning logistics, life sciences, railways, and ambiance tech are besides exhibiting for nan first time, each looking to co-create pinch startups alternatively than simply observe them.

750 startups, 400 of them international

Of nan 750 exhibitors, 400 travel from extracurricular Japan — a genuine cross-section of nan world startup ecosystem. City partners from 25 countries and regions bring their ain cohorts pinch an definitive instruction to link startups to Japanese partners and capital. A caller group of 45 “SusHi Tech Global Startups” — growth-stage Japanese companies backed by Tokyo Metropolitan Government — are making their world debut successful a dedicated pavilion.

For world founders and investors who’ve been watching Japan from nan outside, SusHi Tech is nan astir businesslike introduction constituent nan marketplace has ever offered. The business paper you speech connected April 27 doesn’t person to extremity up successful a drawer.

Can’t make it to Tokyo? You tin still beryllium there

Missing SusHi Tech Tokyo doesn’t person to mean missing out. Remote participants get much than a livestream — on-site unit will locomotion nan level connected your behalf, carrying a instrumentality that displays your look truthful you tin interact pinch attendees and exhibitors successful existent time, face-to-face. It’s nan closest point to really being there.

Apply for distant information pinch on-site unit support here.

Can’t plaything that either? Ticket holders tin watercourse sessions online and pat into nan programming from wherever they are. Browse nan afloat convention database here.

Note: Some sessions whitethorn not beryllium disposable for online streaming.

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