Sakana AI is preparing an IPO for as early as autumn 2027

Felix Laurent 10 Nov 2026 4 min read

Funding

Sakana AI has started preparing for an initial public offering, Nikkei reported on November 9, 2026. The Tokyo AI startup could list as early as autumn 2027, in Japan or the United States. Its market value on the first trading day could top Mercari's, which would make it one of Japan's largest startup IPOs.

Sakana AI has not confirmed the plan. Its press team said no formal decision has been made on an IPO. If the listing goes ahead, Sakana would become Japan's first listed company focused on generative AI.

What Nikkei reported about the Sakana AI IPO

According to Nikkei, Sakana AI recently hired Goldman Sachs as an adviser for the offering. Nikkei also names Daiwa Securities Group in Japan, though the readable part of the article does not say what role Daiwa will play. The company is weighing Japanese and US markets.

Later reports relaying Nikkei name the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Nasdaq as options. BigGo Finance, citing people familiar with the matter, wrote that a simultaneous listing in both countries is not ruled out.

The benchmark Nikkei uses is Mercari. The marketplace app listed in Tokyo in June 2018 and ended its first day worth about ¥680 billion, or roughly $4.3 billion. That remains one of the biggest debuts for a Japanese startup. Nikkei says Sakana's first-day value could exceed it.

Nikkei did not give a target valuation or say how much money Sakana wants to raise. The company's private valuation is the closest guide.

How much Sakana AI is worth today

Sakana AI was founded in Tokyo in 2023 by David Ha, Llion Jones and Ren Ito. Ha previously led research at Google Brain in Tokyo and at Stability AI. Jones is one of the eight authors of "Attention Is All You Need," the 2017 paper behind the transformer. Ito is a former Japanese diplomat and Mercari executive.

The company grew fast on private money:

in 2024, a Series A of about ¥30 billion ($214 million) valued it at about $1.5 billion;
in November 2025, a ¥20 billion ($135 million) Series B raised that to $2.65 billion post-money, according to TechCrunch;
in January 2026, Sakana signed a strategic partnership with Google, which also invested on undisclosed terms.

Series B investors included Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Khosla Ventures, Macquarie Capital, NEA, Lux Capital and In-Q-Tel. No priced round has been reported since. Beating Mercari's debut would mean a public market value well above the last private mark.

Sakana AI valuation: $1.5 billion after the Series A, $2.65 billion after the Series B, vs Mercari's $4.3 billion IPO debut — Private valuations from funding reports; Mercari's first-day value as cited by Nikkei

To justify a higher price, Sakana will need to show revenue from its products and contracts.

What Sakana AI sells

Sakana started as a research lab known for nature-inspired methods. Its first work merged existing open models into new ones instead of training huge models from scratch. Its AI Scientist project, which automates parts of machine learning research, was published in Nature in March 2026.

Most of its revenue comes from large Japanese organizations. Banks are its core clients, through partnerships with MUFG and Daiwa. In 2026, Sakana released the Fugu family, which routes each request to one or more AI agents depending on how hard it is. TechCrunch reported in 2025 that the company planned to expand into manufacturing and government.

Defense is a growing line. Sakana has an agreement with Japan's Ministry of Defense to bring its AI tools into defense and intelligence work, according to TT News Agency. In October, Nikkei reported Sakana's plans for domestic AI built for defense and cybersecurity. The goal is to reduce Japan's dependence on US and Chinese models.

The research side also keeps expanding. In September 2026, Jürgen Schmidhuber, a pioneer of neural network research, joined as chief scientific adviser. He leads a lab for recursive self-improvement, AI that improves its own methods.

Why an AI IPO from Japan matters now

Investors are about to price several AI companies at once. Anthropic has filed for a US listing, and investors are already questioning its $1.5 trillion valuation. Bloomberg reported that Anthropic plans to sell part of the offering to investors in Japan.

Sakana would test a different idea: a smaller national AI company whose main assets are research talent, local customers and government trust. Japan has backed domestic AI as a matter of economic security. A successful listing would give other Japanese AI startups a path to public money.

There are reasons for caution. The report comes from Nikkei, not from Sakana, and the timeline is almost a year away. Sakana has not published revenue or profit figures. A listing of this size would face hard questions about growth after the debut.

Will Sakana AI's IPO happen in 2027

It looks likely, but not certain. Hiring Goldman Sachs and naming a target window suggest serious preparation. Sakana's denial of a formal decision is standard before an IPO. The value of AI shares in 2027 will matter as much as Sakana's own numbers.

If it lists above Mercari's ¥680 billion, Sakana will be worth at least 60% more than at its last private round. That would show that a lab built on efficient models and Japanese customers can win over public investors. A weak AI market could still push the date back.