TOKYO—As the world’s two biggest economies, the U.S. and China send scores of startups to the public markets—some at jaw-dropping valuations—yet Japan, at No. 3, has been lagging far behind.
The Japanese government wants to kick its startup scene into higher gear, but it won’t be easy.
The country’s star initial public offering in technology this year, and one of the biggest in recent years, is online marketing-tool developer Plaid Co., whose opening trade on Dec. 18 gave it a valuation of around $1.1 billion. Meanwhile, Airbnb Inc. opened this month at a valuation of $102 billion, the largest in a series of blockbuster U.S. listings, while China’s JD Health International Inc. made its debut in Hong Kong at a market capitalization of roughly $38 billion, capping a bumper year for IPOs there.
