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Investing in Sumii Inc., the Developer of Fully-Serviced Apartments Targeting Foreign Residents

  • IR
  • Press Release
2026.03.10

The corporate mission of D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. (Shibuya, Tokyo; CEO: Kazuhiko Goto; referred to as “our group” from here on), is to multiply the number of growth companies (so-called “unicorn companies”) that will revolutionize society. In accordance with this, our group has concluded a capital and business alliance with Sumii Inc. (Chuo, Tokyo; CEO: Daniel Lim; https://www.livesumii.com/), the developer of fully-serviced apartments targeting foreign residents.

Background of the Strategic Capital and Business Alliance

Since 2017, our group has actively promoted the business strategies of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate venture capital (CVC) with the intention of realizing a Venture Ecosystem. We have now grown into a conglomerate with 25 group companies and 35 investment companies (at the time of publishing), resulting in an expansion of our ability to support venture companies (i.e., startup companies).

The recipient of our latest investment, Sumii Inc., is a startup providing fully-furnished apartments primarily in Tokyo. The company was conceived by co-founders Daniel Lim and Jing Xiang Lim, originally from Singapore, based on their own firsthand challenges with complicated paperwork and language barriers when searching for properties in Japan.

Currently, Japan is seeing a rapid surge in international visitors, alongside a growing demographic of long-term residents, digital nomads etc. Sumii operates properties in prime Tokyo locations, including Roppongi, Omotesando, Yoyogi, and Ebisu. Their units are provisioned with everything from high-class furniture and appliances to kitchenware, bedding, and high-speed Wi-Fi, so the only thing the customers need to begin their new lives in Japan is to just bring their suitcases.

Furthermore, by offering a simple pricing structure inclusive of utilities and an entirely online move-in process, Sumii significantly reduces the administrative burden associated with traditional real estate contracts. They are building a next-generation residential infrastructure that meets the needs of international residents seeking a one-stop solution for living in Japan.

In our group’s CVC activities, previous examples of support for real estate utilization and development include The Salons Japan Inc., with whom we also formed a strategic capital and business alliance in 2024. We are strengthening our investments in areas where we can leverage the real estate development expertise, networks, and urban insights cultivated through President Goto’s initially-founded company, D-POPS Corp.

In conjunction with this alliance, Genta Sugihara, one of our group’s advisors, will be appointed as a member of Sumii’s Board of Directors. Through this investment, we will back Sumii’s further growth not only by providing a foundation for supporting real estate development but also by sharing the operational know-how we have accumulated through our storefront-based businesses.

Comment from Daniel Lim, President and CEO of Sumii Inc.

We are excited and honoured to receive the support of D-POPS GROUP. I believe that with the help of D-POPS GROUP’s network and expertise, we will be able to take Sumii to greater heights! Personally, I am very impressed by the vision of D-POPS GROUP’s Venture Ecosystem. I am glad to be part of it and am looking forward to learning from Goto-san and Gen-san.

Comment from Jing Xiang Lim, Director and Co-founder of Sumii Inc.

Through meeting people from around the world who have come to experience Tokyo’s dynamic neighborhoods and rich culture, I often hear the same frustration - how unnecessarily difficult it can be to find a place to live. We’re building living spaces that remove that friction. More importantly, we hope to bring together a community where globally minded residents feel at home and connected from the moment they arrive.

Comment from Kazuhiro Goto, President and CEO of D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd.

I am delighted to invest in Sumii Inc. and to welcome such brilliant, high-potential entrepreneurs into the Venture Ecosystem we are promoting.

While we are currently striving to realize a Venture Ecosystem that serves as a growth platform for startup founders, I believe that meeting entrepreneurs whom I want to support from the bottom of my heart is a truly unique and precious occasion. While we naturally place importance on competitive business models and market growth potential, I believe an entrepreneur’s personal potential is the most vital factor. Upon meeting these founders, Daniel and Jing Xiang, and hearing their story, my impression can be summed up in one phrase: “These are real entrepreneurs with truly promising futures.” The inspiration I felt when I sensed their entrepreneurial ability is still burning inside of me.

In this case, we are supporting the future growth of these two founders and Sumii Inc. through a strategic capital and business alliance—a much deeper level than a standard CVC investment. I am excited to see them create a business that will have a significant impact on the world in the near future.

Moving forward, we will continue to refine the platform and environment that serves as fertile ground for the growth of entrepreneurs and startups. Our goal remains to contribute to society by producing numerous unicorn companies for the sake of the future. We look forward to growing alongside Sumii and striving to enhance the corporate value of both our companies.

Comment from Genta Sugihara, Advisor to D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd.

On a personal note, having worked for global companies for many years, I know that the Tokyo branch has always been a popular place for job relocation among international employees. Meanwhile, an increasing number of Japanese startups—including those in our portfolio—are building multinational teams directed towards global expansion from day one. I also hear of social media influencers who spend several months in Japan just for the cherry blossoms in the spring or the beautiful foliage in the fall.

Sumii Inc. provides a service that allows international residents arriving for such purposes to immediately establish a home base with nothing but their personal belongings. As they expand their SUMII apartments, I believe it would be wonderful if it leads to the sharing of worldviews and positive interaction between Japanese people and high-level global talent, resulting in sharing the charms of Japanese cities and culture with the world.

I first met Daniel, a serial entrepreneur and one of the founders, five years ago, and ever since then, I have been drawn to his bright personality and entrepreneurial sense. I am very pleased to be able to work together on this new business he has started with his longtime friend, Jing Xiang.


Company Name: Sumii Inc.
Company President and CEO: Daniel Lim
Address: #1019 City Tower Ginza Higashi, 2-11-1 Minato, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Established: August 2024
Website: https://www.livesumii.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livesumii/

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Investing in SpeakBUDDY Ltd., the Developer and Operator of “AI SpeakBuddy”
The corporate mission of D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. (Shibuya, Tokyo; CEO: Kazuhiko Goto; referred to as “our group” from here on), is to multiply the number of growth companies (so-called “unicorn companies”) that will revolutionize society. In accordance with this, our group has made an investment in SpeakBUDDY Ltd. (Chuo, Tokyo; CEO: Takeshi Tateishi; https://www.speakbuddy.com/en), the developer and operator of the AI-driven English conversation tool “AI SpeakBuddy”. Background Since 2017, our group has actively promoted the business strategies of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate venture capital (CVC) with the intention of realizing a Venture Ecosystem. We have now grown into a conglomerate with 25 group companies and 35 investment companies (at the time of publishing), resulting in an expansion of our ability to support venture companies (i.e., startup companies). The corporate mission of SpeakBUDDY Ltd. is to “Open a world of opportunities by achieving true language acquisition”. Accordingly, they develop and operate the online language learning and coaching services “AI SpeakBuddy” and “CoachBuddy”. By combining Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory with the latest technological advances in generative AI, “AI SpeakBuddy” offers an unprecedented, groundbreaking learning experience. The app has surpassed 5 million cumulative downloads and is (at the time of publication) ranked number 1 in the education category on the Japanese App Store. Our group prioritizes investment activities that value the intersection of “Real Business × Technology × Group Synergy” and, most foundationally, “ × People”. We deeply resonate with SpeakBUDDY’s business of increasing educational opportunities through technology and believe it will generate significant synergies within our Venture Ecosystem. Furthermore, we wish to support President Tateishi—who possesses extensive international experience and a passion for English education in Japan—as well as his team of diverse and talented individuals from around the world. Comment from Takeshi Tateishi, President and CEO of SpeakBUDDY Ltd. I am deeply honored and encouraged to receive this investment from everyone at D-POPS GROUP. I have always believed that our investors should be individuals I truly respect from the heart, but after having the pleasure of conversing multiple times with President Goto and Advisor Sugihara, I definitely hoped they would become our shareholders. President Goto has experience studying in the UK, and Advisor Sugihara has long been active in foreign-affiliated companies like Google. Their deep understanding and empathy for our mission of increasing the potential of individuals through language acquisition have become a great source of encouragement. I am also strongly drawn to D-POPS GROUP’s exceptional sense of branding, represented by their unicorn symbolism and office design. This has further solidified our firm resolve to seriously aim for becoming a 100-billion-yen company. As a business owner, I have much to learn from President Goto’s thoughts and perspectives. Through the chance we have obtained by receiving this investment, I am committed to accelerating our business to meet everyone’s high expectations. Comment from Kazuhiro Goto, President and CEO of D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. We are delighted to invest in SpeakBuddy Ltd. and welcome another promising partner into the Venture Ecosystem we are promoting. While our group operates various businesses in the ICT industry, my long-standing involvement in our founding businesses in shops and human resources has taught me the vital importance of personnel education and training. For that reason, our investment policy of “Real Business × Technology × Group Synergy” has come to include the concept that “ × People” is at the foundation of where those other three intersect. When I first met President Tateishi and heard his vision of using technology to create learning opportunities, I was deeply impressed and felt an empathetic connection at the same instant. While online English conversation has spread rapidly since the pandemic, it is still evolving. Having studied abroad myself, I know how difficult it is to master English, and also understand that no matter what English level someone reaches, without opportunities to use it in one’s daily life, it will be forgotten after a few years. Therefore, an AI-driven English conversation app that allows someone to practice speaking anytime, even if one is unable to meet with a native-level English speaker on a daily basis, can certainly be considered a revolutionary learning method and business model. Meeting President Tateishi and hearing how he mastered professional-level English through his own effort without living abroad was astonishing, but at the same time, I could easily picture him utilizing that experience to guide SpeakBUDDY into growing in leaps and bounds, which is why I decided to cheer on his company with our investment. The vision our company is promoting, of “realizing a Venture Ecosystem”, is to support the growth of startups by providing the stage and environment that serves as the fertile soil where startups can thrive and flourish, and in so doing, to make a lasting contribution to society. Moving forward, we will grow together with SpeakBUDDY and work to enhance the value of both our companies. Comment from Genta Sugihara, Advisor to D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. I personally feel that my global career was made possible because I was able to become somewhat capable of using English. As a result, I am very glad to invest in SpeakBUDDY Ltd. With increasing globalization and inbound tourism, we have entered an era where the need for English skills is rising—not only for business professionals, but for ordinary people working in sight-seeing areas and business districts. In particular, rather than reading and writing, speaking and listening (i.e., conversational skills) are going to become more and more crucial. While translation devices are certainly popular, no form of communication is better than a conversation by means of a living human’s voice. Since SpeakBUDDY’s app is utilizing technology for the purpose of enhancing human capability, I was definitely pleased for them to become a member of our Venture Ecosystem. There are several similar growing companies that originated in the US. However, SpeakBUDDY stands out from the competition with its systematic curriculum optimized for Japanese learners and its meticulous AI feedback on pronunciation that feels very typical of Japan. 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  • IR
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Investing in Payke, Inc., the Company Operating a Shopping Support App for Foreign Visitors to Japan
The corporate mission of D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. (Shibuya, Tokyo; CEO: Kazuhiko Goto; referred to as “our group” from here on; URL: https://d-pops-group.co.jp/en), is to multiply the number of growth companies (so-called “unicorn companies”) that will revolutionize society. In accordance with this, our group has made an investment in Payke, Inc. (Headquarters: Naha, Okinawa; CEO: Keisuke Furuta; referred to as “Payke” from here on; URL: https://payke.co.jp/), the company responsible for operating a shopping support app for foreign visitors to Japan. Background Since 2017, our group has actively promoted the business strategies of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate venture capital (CVC), with the goal of “realizing a Venture Ecosystem”. Our group has now grown into a large-scale organization with 23 group companies and 28 investment companies (at the time of publishing), expanding its support for startup companies and businesses. Payke develops and operates a shopping support app by the same name for foreign visitors to Japan. The Payke app allows users to scan existing product barcodes with smartphones or tablets to translate information into the user’s language and provide product details that cannot fit on the packaging. Additionally, they offer inbound tourism-focused advertising and data analysis services. Our group has focused on real-world businesses, including our founding company D-POPS Corp., which operates approximately 50 mobile phone shops mainly in the Kanto area of Japan, and DIVE Inc., one of our group’s investment companies, which runs resort job placement services. Through this investment, we aim to develop stronger business collaborations and support the further growth of Payke, Inc.   This graphic shows that Payke has the highest ranking in the app store in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau for inbound shopping guide apps, with over 5 million total users and over 650,000 supported products as of 2024. Comment from Keisuke Furuta, President and CEO of Payke, Inc. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to D-POPS GROUP for recognizing Payke’s business vision and potential, and for supporting us through financial investment. At Payke, we have continued to develop features that allow people around the world to enjoy cross-border shopping beyond language barriers. Through receiving this investment, we will learn together and achieve further service enhancement and technological innovation to deliver the Payke platform to more people. Particularly in the rapidly growing inbound tourism market, we are fully committed to evolving our product to provide foreign visitors with more convenient and enjoyable shopping experiences. Additionally, through our advertising and data services, we aim to support the success of many companies and serve as a bridge for stimulating inbound consumption and foreign currency acquisition. Our team is united in continuing our challenge to meet the expectations of D-POPS GROUP, which believes in Payke’s potential and supports us. We will strive for further growth and value creation to become an indispensable presence for our users and partner companies. We eagerly look forward to your continued support. Comment from Kazuhiro Goto, President and CEO of D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. I am very pleased that our investment in Payke means another wonderful partner has joined our Venture Ecosystem that we are promoting. Japan is expected to see an increasing number of foreign visitors in the future. Payke’s shopping support app for foreign visitors is an excellent service that removes language barriers for tourists visiting Japan, allowing them to travel more comfortably. I greatly anticipate that the spread of such services will help to expand Japan’s cherished tradition of ‘omotenashi’ (hospitality). Our company’s business stretches broadly across the areas of telecommunications, IT, and human resources, but we have always focused on what services we can provide to make our customers and clients more comfortable and satisfied. I believe that an app like Payke’s, which eliminates shopping barriers for foreign visitors, is essential for energizing inbound tourism throughout Japan. Above all, the CEO and founder of Payke, President Furuta, is a true entrepreneur who, despite being severely impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic, made a remarkable comeback and has powerfully moved his business forward. I decided to invest because I want to support CEOs such as President Furuta. 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The corporate mission of D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. (Shibuya, Tokyo; CEO: Kazuhiko Goto; referred to as “our group” from here on), is to multiply the number of growth companies (so-called “unicorn companies”) that will revolutionize society. In accordance with this, our group has made an investment in BLUEISH Inc. (Minato, Tokyo; CEO: Akira Tameto), which operates the industry-specific AI workflow “Omni Workspace”.   ☆Interview with Akira Tameto, CEO and founder of BLUEISH Inc., the company that’s breaking conventional wisdom with AI to create the future standard for business processes: https://d-pops-group.co.jp/en/column/blueish-interview/ Background Since 2017, our group has actively promoted the business strategies of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate venture capital (CVC) with the intention of realizing a Venture Ecosystem. 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This approach is intended to create a unique, yet irreplaceable AI platform that goes beyond mere operational efficiency improvements to contribute to strengthening corporate competitiveness and creating new value. Our group is actively investing in the AI field to realize a Venture Ecosystem with a diverse variety of industries. Based on this investment, we will proceed with stronger business collaboration to support BLUEISH’s further growth. This diagram illustrates how BLUEISH’s “Omni Workspace” platform transforms the traditional AI development process. It shows the conventional four-step AI development workflow (Planning → Proof of Concept → Development → Operations), and demonstrates how Omni Workspace accelerates and improves each step through semi-automation, speed enhancement, optimization, and streamlining. Comment from Akira Tameto, President and CEO of BLUEISH Inc. Thank you very much for your investment in BLUEISH. By receiving this investment, we intend to further accelerate our AI technology development and service expansion, dramatically speeding up the DX promotion of complex business processes that companies face. Additionally, through collaboration with D-POPS GROUP, we hope to create new synergies and work to deliver a future where more and more companies and people can “share the wealth”. For future pitch events and other important occasions, I’m going to wear the unicorn T-shirt that I received from D-POPS GROUP and do my best to represent our Ecosystem! Comment from Kazuhiro Goto, President and CEO of D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. We are delighted to have invested in BLUEISH Inc., and to have another wonderful partner join the Venture Ecosystem we are promoting. We believe that BLUEISH’s BPaaS (Business Process as a Service) business utilizing AI will become increasingly necessary and widespread in society. We are very excited about the prospect of AI utilization spreading even further throughout Japan by embodying AI transformation and achieving complete automation of business processes through “Omni Workspace”. Encountering BLUEISH, a company with such high technical capabilities, felt like a very important opportunity for realizing our Venture Ecosystem. We decided to invest because we wanted to support President Tameto, who is not only an excellent engineer but also has high communication skills and possesses lofty aspirations and a grand vision. Our group’s vision of “realizing a Venture Ecosystem” aims to contribute to society by supporting the development of startup and venture companies through creating the stage, environment, and platform that will serve as the fertile ground on which those startups can flourish. Moving forward, we will grow together with BLUEISH Inc. under President Tameto’s leadership, and work to enhance BLUEISH’s corporate value. Comment from Genta Sugihara, Advisor to D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. Generative AI-related startups are emerging daily and evolving at such a breakneck pace (in effect, creating a “red ocean”) that coming in later can also be advantageous. In times like these, assessing and predicting growth areas and models thus becomes quite tricky. When I met President Tameto of BLUEISH Inc., I was impressed by his inquisitive spirit, his manner of explaining things clearly and sincerely, and his thorough, customer-oriented attitude plainly shown through every word. Moreover, he has a unique background as both a top-level CTO and the highest-ranked Japanese player of a strategy game. Our most agreed-upon opinion was that generative AI is not an optimization tool created to make people obsolete, but rather a tool to empower people—a tool that allows human users to focus on the kind of work that only humans can do. Our group believes that BLUEISH, led by someone like him, has the potential to become an AI-related company that serves society, so we requested to be allowed to invest in them. At D-POPS GROUP, we aim to realize a Venture Ecosystem where group synergies naturally emerge through investment activities themed around the intersection of “Real Business × People × Technology”. Together with BLUEISH, which has newly joined our Ecosystem, we want to work toward spreading AI transformation that empowers people.     Company Name: BLUEISH Inc. Company President and CEO: Akira Tameto Address: 5F VORT Motoazabu, 3-1-35 Motoazabu, Minato, Tokyo Established: February 9, 2018 Company Website: https://www.blueish.co.jp/   Our company is a corporate group that operates under the mission of “producing numerous growth ventures (unicorn companies) that bring transformation to society”, developing businesses at the intersection of “Real × Technology × Group Synergy”. We are working to create an unprecedented growth platform for startups that can provide one-stop solutions not only to companies within our group, but also to companies outside the group. Company Name: D-POPS GROUP Co., Ltd. Company President and CEO: Kazuhiro Goto Address: 32F Shibuya Hikarie Bldg., 2-21-1 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Incorporated: October 1, 2015 (Established: February 4, 1998) Company Website: https://d-pops-group.co.jp/en/
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  • Press Release
2025.01.09
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