Innovation Inc. backs Shikomel via new CVC fund IVC

What's the deal? Innovation Inc., listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Standard Market, has invested in Shikomel FoodTech through its new corporate venture capital fund, INNOVATION V Capital (IVC). Shikomel runs an app-based platform that lets restaurants and food-service operators outsource food preparation work — from ordering to delivery — without needing their own central kitchen.

IVC was formed in May 2025 as a joint effort between Innovation Inc. and Innovation EngineDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The fund has ¥1B (roughly $7M) in committed capital, a 10-year horizon, and targets early-to-mid-stage startups in B2B digital solutions, AI, SaaS, and workforce productivity. The exact size of the Shikomel investment was not disclosed.

Why now? Japan's restaurant industry faces a severe and worsening labour shortage. The country's shrinking workforce makes it increasingly difficult for small operators to handle labour-intensive prep work in-house. Shikomel, founded in 2019, addresses this by turning food preparation into an outsourced, digitally managed service — a proposition that becomes more compelling as staffing gaps widen.

For Innovation Inc., the timing aligns with the May 2025 launch of IVC. Shikomel appears to be one of the fund's first portfolio companies, signalling the CVC's focus on startups that tackle structural workforce challenges with digital tools.

What could go wrong? Outsourcing food prep raises quality-control risks. Restaurants stake their reputation on consistency and taste, and handing that process to a third party requires deep trust. Scaling the supply side — finding and managing external kitchens — adds operational complexity.

The CVC fund itself is modest at ¥1B, which limits the number and size of follow-on investments it can make. If Shikomel needs significant capital to scale, IVC may not be able to lead later rounds alone.

The signal: IVC's mandate — spanning workforce productivity, DX, and SaaS — reflects a growing pattern among Japanese corporate venture funds that treat the country's labour crisis as an investment thesis in its own right. Shikomel, founded in 2019, sits at a largely undigitised layer of foodservice operations, and its selection as one of IVC's earliest bets suggests the fund sees outsourced food preparation as a scalable, platform-shaped answer to structural staffing shortfalls rather than a niche service play.

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