Secure, a Tokyo-listed company that sells surveillance cameras and AI security systems, said its board decided on 20 February 2026 to acquire shares in TOUCH TO GO, a Tokyo startup that builds unmanned payment stores and self-checkout systems. The purchase gives Secure 56.2% of the voting rights and makes TOUCH TO GO a subsidiary, with Secure becoming its largest shareholder.
Unlike many deals of this size, the price was disclosed. In a filing with the Kanto Local Finance Bureau, Secure put the share purchase price at ¥842 million (about $5.5 million), plus around ¥8 million in advisory and other fees, for an estimated total of ¥850 million. The change of ownership was scheduled to take effect on 1 April 2026.
TOUCH TO GO will keep operating under its chief executive, Tomoki Akutsu. Secure said existing shareholders, including JR East Startup and FamilyMart, would remain shareholders and continue their business ties with the company, and that JR East Startup would stay involved in its management.
What TOUCH TO GO built
TOUCH TO GO was founded on 1 July 2019 as a venture of the JR East Group and is based in the TokyoYard Building in Takanawa, Minato ward. Its best-known site is the unmanned store at Takanawa Gateway Station.
Its products include the SENSE series of unmanned payment stores, which use AI cameras and weight sensors to work out what shoppers pick up, and MONSTAR, an unattended ordering and self-checkout terminal. According to Secure's filing, the systems are installed at facilities run by the JR East Group and at FamilyMart stores, among others. Secure described it as having one of the leading shares of early installations of unmanned payment in Japan.
In its announcement, TOUCH TO GO said its startup phase had been about creating new ways to shop, and that with Japan's labour force shrinking its task was now to make the technology part of everyday infrastructure.
The numbers behind the deal
Secure's filing gave three years of TOUCH TO GO's results. Revenue rose from ¥215 million in the year to March 2023 to ¥502 million a year later and ¥968 million (about $6.3 million) in the year to March 2025. The operating loss narrowed over the same period, from ¥275 million to ¥175 million and then ¥63 million. Net assets stood at ¥1.13 billion at the end of March 2025.
Before the deal, the largest shareholders were JR East Startup and Signpost, with 37.4% each, according to the filing. A KDDI new-business investment fund held 1.4% and other holders the remaining 23.8%. Secure did not say which shareholders sold shares to it.
Secure said TOUCH TO GO had been in an investment phase focused on research and early installations, and judged that it had moved from building its technology to rolling it out widely.
Why Secure is buying
Secure already runs its own AI checkout-free store project, SECURE AI STORE LAB 2.0, and treats store technology as one of its main businesses alongside surveillance cameras. It said it would use its nationwide installation and maintenance network to service TOUCH TO GO's products, cutting the field-support costs the startup had carried alone.
The companies also plan to sell into each other's customer bases, with Secure pushing TOUCH TO GO's systems into offices, factories and hospitals, where it has relationships. Secure wants to combine its AI crime-prevention and face-recognition technology with TOUCH TO GO's payments, for example letting staff pay with an employee ID card or their face. Secure said it aims to bring TOUCH TO GO to profitability quickly.
Secure did not say whether TOUCH TO GO's management or product line-up would change. The startup's website continued to announce new installations under its own name after the deal, including an Aeon Town shopping centre, Keikyu Group's first unmanned store and an unmanned convenience store at a Daiwa Roynet hotel.
