Masayuki Tadokoro ranks the top 20 private companies by valuation and explains why SpaceX at ¥60T now exceeds Toyota, Japan's most valuable public company.

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Summary based on the YouTube transcript and episode description.

Masayuki Tadokoro ranks the top 20 private companies by valuation and explains why SpaceX at ¥60T now exceeds Toyota, Japan’s most valuable public company.

  • SpaceX leads at ~¥60T valuation, surpassing Toyota (~¥46T); two-thirds of revenue comes from Starlink satellite internet, not rocket launches.
  • OpenAI hit 700M monthly active users in under 3 years and raised at a ¥45T valuation via the SoftBank-led Stargate Project.
  • Safe Superintelligence (SSI), co-founded by ex-OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and Daniel Gross, raised ¥150B at a ¥1T valuation with no product yet.
  • ByteDance revenue exceeds ¥20T; TikTok Shop is driving e-commerce growth in the US and Japan, but US divestiture pressure keeps it private.
  • Fanatics holds ¥5T valuation by outsourcing full merchandise operations for pro sports teams — stadium shops, e-commerce, and licensed goods production.
  • Japanese startups face stronger IPO pressure than US peers because domestic VC funds have 10-year hard maturities; Sequoia-style evergreen funds do not.
  • Recurring-revenue models (Canva, Miro, Starlink) consistently produce higher private valuations because low churn reduces investor discount rates.

2026-01-07 · Watch on YouTube

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