The Japanese recruiter will seek to invest in early-stage overseas companies, and has already funded holiday home search engine Tripping.

Human resources firm Recruit Holdings has announced the establishment of a ¥4.5bn ($44m) unit to be called RGIP, which will make venture capital investments outside of its parent company’s home country of Japan.

Reports of the fund initially emerged last month, stating that Recruit would invest in up to 30 companies in 2014, and would fund both domestic and overseas businesses, but Recruit’s official announcement indicates its mandate will be more specific.

RGIP will focus solely on early stage businesses…