Of the Japanese companies this database tracks as Listed on Nasdaq with a live price, seventeen have a return we can compute against their IPO price. One of them — PCLA (PicoCELA) — trades above where it priced, at +18.3%. The other sixteen are underwater. The equal-weighted average is −60.7%; the median is −70.3%.
That is not a soft landing. It is the central fact of the Japan-to-Nasdaq micro-cap trade, and it is worth looking at without euphemism.
The bottom of the table
The steepest declines are near-total. LGCB (Linkage Global) is −99.3%, XHLD (TEN Holdings) −97.8%, MRM (Medirom) −91.9%, WRNT (Warrantee) −88.8%. These are not a handful of unlucky names dragging an otherwise healthy cohort down — they sit alongside a long middle of −50% to −80% results.
Being able to list and being able to hold a price are two different problems. Most of these issuers solved the first and lost the second.
Why the drop is structural, not idiosyncratic
The deals share a shape. They price small — most raised roughly $4M to $10M — on a thin public float and a handful of retail-facing bookrunners. A small float means low liquidity; low liquidity means a few sellers move the price a long way. The listing clears the SEC and the exchange, then meets a market with almost no natural demand for the shares.
The reverse-split record makes the mechanism visible. LGCB executed a 1-for-10, XHLD a 1-for-15, and PDC (Perpetuals.com, formerly Earlyworks) a 1-for-5 — the classic response to Nasdaq's $1 minimum-bid-price rule. A company only reverse-splits when its shares have fallen far enough that delisting is on the table. Three names in this small cohort have already been there.
What the survivor has in common with no one
PCLA is the exception, and its profile is instructive precisely because it is not replicable on demand: a specific technology (wireless mesh backhaul), a real operating business, and a raise sized to the company rather than to the fee. TOYO (−34.7%) and RYOJ (−26.2%) are the next-best, and both are down. The lesson the data teaches is not 'pick better' — it is that the base rate for this trade is a large loss, and any issuer or investor entering it should price that base rate in from the start.
This is the cohort, stated plainly. We publish it because a data site earns trust by showing the number even when the number is unflattering — and because the −70% median is, in itself, the most useful thing a prospective Japanese issuer can know before choosing this route.