Money moved both ways: BlackRock’s first Japanese cheque, an eBike crossing to the US + the founder of Leverage Mentoring
Issue 07 – Week ending 26 July 2026 – For founders building beyond their own borders.
We’re back with issue 07 and our weekly update packed with startup goodness including …
We feature the founder of Leverage Mentoring – Christine Kulatunga.
The bootstrapping story of GreenPal
Lots of raising activity in Japan included – ASUENE Inc., 株式会社T2, RevComm Inc. SAZO, Inc. and mooooore …
In Australia – we had one raise from Lug+Carrie
Then across the globe we saw capital secure by Humanoid, Augustus, Ropedia and Plazza.
Our joke of the week – as bad as they come … How do you get a small fortune? – answer inside 😅
The usual global headlines, thought of the week, events incoming and more.
Check it out below
Ecosystem profile – Christine Kulatunga
Christine Kulatunga, founder of Leverage Mentoring. First three questions below; her full profile lives on the GDZ site.
Give us your 15 second intro and what you’re working on.
I’m Christine. I’ve spent more than twenty years in customer and people experience, and I’ve just launched Leverage Mentoring. It’s a platform designed for small and mid-sized businesses to help them develop and support their people by connecting them with mentors and providing the structure that makes it effective and long lasting.
In early validation research 94% rated as highly valuable and one person said mentoring ‘changed the direction of my life’. Overall, mentees reported that a huge lift in confidence as the key outcome, and also good progress towards their next career milestones.
Are you avoiding AI, somewhat into AI, or all in on AI?
I’m all in and dappling in Claude Fable to help polish the platform, currently setting up Cowork and next up on my agenda is setting up OpenClaw and Hermes (working together). I built the entire Leverage Mentoring platform with AI tools while working full time, payments and all, with no coding background.
However! I’m a firm believer in writing all socials posts myself (or at least heavily edited) because I truly can’t stand the ‘AI Slop Central’ that LinkedIn has become. Authenticity and the human voice really standout now and I always comment on those posts and appreciate the effort. It builds a lot of trust when the human voice and the imperfection shines through. On the flip side, I have lost trust in so many brands and thought leaders when their content is heavily AI generated.
What’s the hardest part for startups that want to go beyond their own borders?
In most cases it’s important to ensure the business has traction and is viable and has good business practices embedded in the structure before taking on the challenges of expansion into a new market and country.
The foundations should be strong and ample runway and cashflow would give the business the best chance of success – along with loads of research and support from advisors, experts or mentors who have a proven track record of the same move.
I could imagine that whilst the technology can be built from day ‘zero’ to be scalable and globally compliant, the trap in ging beyond borders could be assuming that the product would get the same traction in a very different market.
There are so many considerations such as culture, competition, market conditions, laws and government policy, language and societal trends etc. Having a strong knowledge of the market won’t necessarily enable a smooth transition, even if there’s someone on the ground. Leaning on experts who have experience in starting and growing a certain type of business (eg Saas, physical product) in that economic environment is critical.
For Leverage – The platform runs on Stripe’s global payment rails, timezone-aware scheduling, cloud infrastructure. Nothing structural stops a booking from Tokyo or Toronto tomorrow. So my plan is: built global from day zero, GTM locally first. Prove it in Australia, iterate and strengthen, then using established channels, move into similar markets first eg NZ, UK, Canada, Singapore before attempting further.
Read Christine’s full profile – AI, where to find her, what surprises people, how she can help, what she needs, and why she built Leverage Mentoring: read the full story on globaldayzero.com →
🌱 Bootstrapping spotlight
GreenPal (Nashville, USA): the “Uber for lawn care” has bootstrapped to US$30M+ in annual revenue, growing around 50% year on year, with its three cofounders still owning 100% of the business.
They were turned down by VCs and angels more than 40 times, started on an $85K line of credit they cleared in year two, and never took a cent of outside equity. Traction: US$30M+ a year, fully founder-owned, no external equity raised. (Starter Story) ↗
👀 Lookout for
Founder: May Ku , founder of Reev, bringing dating with a twist to the masses in Sydney. Worth watching as she scales a consumer social product in one of the hardest categories to crack.
🇯🇵 Japan raises
ASUENE Inc. (Tokyo): ¥13.5B / A$121M / US$83M (Series D) Carbon-accounting AI platform, from GHG measurement through to carbon-credit sourcing, used by 22,000+ companies; led by Decarbonization Partners, the BlackRock and Temasek joint venture, in its first-ever investment into a Japanese startup. (BRIDGE) ↗
株式会社T2 (Tokyo): ¥5.0B / A$45M / US$31M (Series B first close) Autonomous driving truck company targeting Level 4 highway freight; cumulative funding now past ¥16.5B. (BRIDGE) ↗
RevComm Inc. (Tokyo): ¥3.35B / A$30M / US$21M (Series B first close) Voice-analysis AI “MiiTel” that records, transcribes and scores sales calls; led by SMBC Edge. (BRIDGE) ↗
SAZO, Inc. (Nagoya): ¥3.21B / A$29M / US$20M (Series A) AI cross-border e-commerce that pays, ships and clears customs on any overseas product in one click; 75%+ of sales now come from outside Japan. (PR Times) ↗
Also raised in-window: GTN (Global Trust Networks Co.,Ltd.), the platform helping foreign residents settle in Japan, closed around ¥3.0B (A$27M / US$18M) first close (BRIDGE) ↗; industrial 3D-data platform bestat closed a ¥310M Series A (BRIDGE) ↗; and welfare-cashless startup KAERU took an undisclosed round from Akita Bank’s Akigin NEXT Fund (BRIDGE) ↗.
Takeaway: Capital crossed the border in both directions this week. SAZO ships carts out of Japan and GTN helps migrants move in, while Asuene pulled BlackRock’s first-ever cheque into a Japanese startup.
🇦🇺 Australia raises
Lug+Carrie (Melbourne): A$18M / US$12M / ¥2.0B (asset-backed debt facility) Subscription eBike company using non-dilutive debt to scale one fleet across Australia and the US west coast, where it trades as Wombi; backed by Catalytic Impact Capital. (Startup Daily) ↗
Lug+Carrie was the only in-window ANZ round reported this week.
Takeaway: One deal, but a telling one. Lug+Carrie chose debt over dilution to put the same product on two continents, funding the expansion without giving away the company.
🌏 Around the world
Humanoid (London, UK): US$152M / A$220M / ¥24.7B (Series A) Industrial humanoid-robot maker becomes Europe’s newest unicorn at a €1.1B valuation; led by Prime Movers Lab with Bosch and Schaeffler. (EU-Startups) ↗
Augustus (New York, USA): US$180M / A$261M / ¥29.2B (Series B) A “global dollar bank” giving fintechs and banks across Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa direct access to USD rails; led by Tiger Global at a US$1B valuation. (FinTech Global) ↗
Ropedia (Singapore): US$22M / A$32M / ¥3.6B (pre-Series A) Data infrastructure for physical AI, capturing real human-motion data to train robots; scaling across Southeast Asia and North America. (DealStreetAsia) ↗
Plazza (Bengaluru, India): US$15M / A$22M / ¥2.4B (Series A) Tech-led pharmacy and rapid medicine delivery, with GMV up nearly 27x in ten months; co-led by Accel, Elevation and Nexus. (Entrackr) ↗
Takeaway: London robots, a Singapore data layer, an Indian pharmacy and a New York bank for emerging markets. Four countries, one instinct: build for more than your own from the start.
😂 Joke of the week
How do you get a small fortune?
You start with a big fortune and invest in startups.
🌐 Global headlines
Japan placed a national bet on Noetra, a government-backed company building a foundational AI model for robots, securing more than ¥380B (US$2.3B) in first-year funding from 44 firms including SoftBank, Honda and Sony, and ordering 27,500 Nvidia Rubin chips. (Asia Times) ↗
Microsoft and Mistral expanded a multibillion-dollar partnership to scale European AI infrastructure on Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs, pitched as a sovereign-cloud alternative for regulated industries. (The Stack) ↗
China’s CXMT priced Asia’s biggest IPO of the year, raising roughly US$8.6B on Shanghai’s STAR Market and drawing 200x-plus oversubscription ahead of its 27 July listing. (Eastern Herald) ↗
Tesla extended its driverless robotaxi service to Tampa and Orlando, its first Florida cities beyond Miami, as the Austin fleet stayed small. (Electrek) ↗
The frontier-model race sped up again as Google shipped Gemini 3.6 Flash and OpenAI began rolling out its GPT-5.6 family (Luna, Terra, Sol). (Crypto Briefing) ↗
Thought of the week
If you’re an early-stage founder – do one thing this week: find someone new to talk to about your startup. Even better if they’re in your ICP.
Programs open for application
Japan Webinar Series – EOIs open for Session 01. Six sessions on the part of Japan entry most content skips: building a tech product Japanese users actually want and trust. Session 01 starts with why your product won’t work in Japan yet, and what to fix before you spend a yen. Live and recorded.
Upcoming sessions & events
Build My Deck. Live. – Wed 5 August (rescheduled from 22 July), 7pm JST / 8pm AEST. Two founders, no deck, 90 minutes: both pitch decks built live using AI tools and the IC communication framework, with Thom Peace, Matt Ainsworth and Ryan Ahamer.
Free, online, seats limited. Register on Luma ↗
Christine’s line sums up the week: built global from day zero, go to market locally first. Nearly every deal above is someone acting on exactly that.
In the comments: who is the one person you’ll reach out to about your startup this week?
Know a founder building past their own borders? Forward this to them.
That’s it from us this week. We’re really looking to boost the impact and info we add in each issue, so if you have any feedback, want to be featured, or know a way we can become even greater, I’d love to hear from you.
Plus, as always, reach out if I can be of help in any way.
Thanks, Matt ☕️