Sakana plans IPO as early as fall 2027 on Tokyo or Nasdaq, with Goldman Sachs as adviser

Japanese startup Sakana, which develops generative models, is preparing for a possible stock market listing as early as fall 2027, businesskorea.co.kr reports. businesskorea.co.krbusinesskorea.co.krbusinesskorea.co.krOpen source ↗ If completed, it would be the first listing of a Japanese company specializing in generative technology. According to market expectations, its capitalization on the first trading day could exceed the 680 billion yen (about $4.3 billion) recorded by Mercari in 2018. The venue, timing, offering size and valuation have not been finalized.

Sakana has selected Goldman Sachs as IPO adviser and is in discussions with Daiwa Securities and SMBC Nikko Securities in Japan. It is considering the Tokyo Stock Exchange or Nasdaq in the United States. The company plans to use the proceeds to develop Japanese-made models, recruit talent and expand sales.

Founders and funding

Sakana was founded in 2023 by David Ha and Llion Jones, former Google researchers, and Ren Ito, a former Mercari executive. About a year after its founding it reached a valuation of more than $1 billion. In November 2025 it was valued at approximately 400 billion yen in a funding round involving Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and other investors. Nvidia and Google have also invested in the company.

Products and strategy

The company's strategy centers on keeping control of its technology and operations within Japan. Unlike U.S. technology giants that invest heavily in large-scale model development, Sakana combines existing open-source models and applies its evolutionary techniques to reach high performance with fewer computing resources. businesskorea.co.krbusinesskorea.co.krbusinesskorea.co.krOpen source ↗ It targets business customers, including financial institutions, corporations and government agencies. Its clients include MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Sumitomo Corp.

In June 2026 Sakana began offering the public its product Sakana Fugu, which combines existing models. Because it relies on foundation models developed overseas, its capabilities depend on their performance and limitations. To address this, the company is developing its own model, tentatively named Sakana Sawara, with pre-training on large-scale datasets. A smaller version is planned for spring 2027, followed by a larger one.

Sakana aims to raise annualized revenue in 2027 to more than 30 billion yen, roughly 10 times its projected figure for 2026. Annualized revenue is a run rate extrapolated from a given period, not revenue actually earned over the year. Among the risks to the IPO, the report names investor sentiment in the sector and the company's ability to show the performance and commercial viability of its own model.