Sakana AI gears up for one of Japan's biggest startup IPOs

IPO Sakana AI gears up for one of Japan's biggest startup IPOs Generative AI developer's listing could top Mercari's valuation Sakana AI is gearing up for an initial public offering as soon as next autumn in what would be the first by a Japanese AI developer. (Photo by Shintaro Ino) REI NAKAFUJI and AKIRA YAMASHITA November 9, 2026 17:00 JST TOKYO/LONDON -- Japanese artificial intelligence developer Sakana AI is preparing for an initial public offering either in Japan or in the U.S. as early as autumn 2027, Nikkei has learned, with a market valuation possibly exceeding Mercari's 680 billion yen ($4.3 billion) to become one of the largest listings for a Japanese startup. Read Next Artificial intelligence Japan's Sakana AI to build homegrown model to cut US, China reliance Artificial intelligence AI pioneer Schmidhuber to join Japan's Sakana AI as science adviser Startups Sakana AI, Turing among Japan startup winners as investors turn choosy Artificial intelligence Sumitomo partners with Sakana AI to push Japan-built AI model Artificial intelligence Japan's 'Sakana Fugu' multiagent AI scores well against Fable 5, GPT 5.5 Artificial intelligence Japan seeks AI alliances with France, India to curb US-China dominance Latest on IPO IPO Anthropic seeks to raise up to $3.5bn from Japanese investors in IPO IPO Malaysian pharmacy Big Caring launches IPO valuing company at $2bn IPO Reliance's Jio becomes No. 2 public firm after 27% rise on debut Sponsored Content About Sponsored Content This content was commissioned by Nikkei's Global Business Bureau.