🍣SusHi vs.🍜RAMEN?! — Back from Tokyo
Published:
Fukuoka's Appeal: Making an Impact in Asia's Largest Startup Ecosystem
（Photo: Fukuoka city）
Hi, I'm Sono — Marketing Director of Colive Fukuoka 2026.
I just got back from one of Asia's biggest startup events, SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026, and I have something worth sharing.
The buzz around Japan's startup scene right now is real.
SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 drew 57,000 visitors from 100 countries over three days — up 144% from last year — with 600+ startups exhibiting. In just four years since its post-COVID relaunch in 2023, it has grown into one of Asia's largest startup events.
I was there handing out 400+ flyers and stickers, running booth activations, side events, and endless networking sessions. What stayed with me wasn't just the new connections — it was the reunions. People who had met at previous editions are now crossing paths again, picking up where they left off. A community-driven ecosystem is quietly taking root at SusHi Tech Tokyo, and you can feel it expanding every year.
French Tech, Taiwan's startup ecosystem, and the world — all calling out to Fukuoka.
Tokyo is unquestionably Asia's top startup hub, and the scale of it is overwhelming. But what I found just as striking was how many international players were gravitating toward Fukuoka.
The "Meet Startups" team from Taiwan — organizers I'd connected with at events in Taiwan last year — hosted a "Startup Happy Hour | Taiwan × Japan." The contact had changed since last year, but they remembered me, and told me: "We're coming to Fukuoka again this year."
Alice, a Colive Fukuoka community member, organized a French Tech event connecting the French and Fukuoka startup ecosystems. She proudly told French entrepreneurs about Fukuoka's food and quality of life — and they left saying they wanted to move there. Pablo, who relocated to Fukuoka to found the tech community Manabu Hubs, became an official SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 Ambassador, passionately driving the growth of Fukuoka's global ecosystem from within the event.
What I told people at the Fukuoka booth.
Fukuoka's ecosystem is deeply community-driven.
Fukuoka Growth Next (FGN), the startup hub in the heart of the city, has produced 1,400+ startups since its founding in 2014, and runs Awabar — a standing bar where entrepreneurs and investors gather every single day. Within walking distance sits CIC Fukuoka, home to around 140 startups, corporates, investors, media, and universities. Multiple free coworking spaces are clustered nearby too.
I moved to Fukuoka four years ago knowing no one. Within days, every venue I wandered into had a friend waiting — and through that friend, another connection, and another. That's just how this city works.
（Photo:Fukuoka city）
Fukuoka Airport is just 10 minutes from the city center by subway, with direct flights to Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and other major East Asian cities. Japan's first startup visa for foreign entrepreneurs was launched here in 2015. It's this kind of openness and momentum that caught the attention of CDIB — Taiwan's oldest VC fund, founded in 1959 — which opened a Fukuoka office in 2025. The city is smaller than Tokyo, but that's exactly the point: new ideas move fast here, and global players are choosing Fukuoka precisely because of that.
In the age of AI, what only humans can do.
AI can give you the logical answer. What it can't give you is the warmth of a chance encounter — the kind that turns into a partnership, a collaboration, a friendship.
But even showing up in person isn't enough if you walk into a room where you know no one. That's why Colive Fukuoka 2026 is built differently. It's organized and run by local Fukuoka members alongside a global community of 1,300+ people from 60 countries. You don't arrive as a stranger. You arrive already connected.
If you join Colive Fukuoka 2026, you'll also be able to attend RAMEN TECH 2026 — one of western Japan's largest festivals celebrating startups, solo-entrepreneurship, social business, nature, art, music and authentic Japanese culture — together, as a community.
Join us from the Opening Party on September 30th — and step into October already plugged into the local ecosystem, ready to seize what comes next.
For those who want the full experience — exclusive dinners, Lounge access, and coworking — the Premium Pass is the one to get. Early Bird pricing is live now: €629.30 (30% off the regular €899). This won't be around long.
▶︎ Grab your Premium Pass here
See you in Fukuoka,
Sono / Colive Fukuoka