##listed startups, the amount of funds raised since their establishment to the time of the survey, in terms of equity or other financial instruments that may be converted into equity ; for startups that launched initial public offerings ( ipos ), the amount of funds raised immediately before the ipo. 2. in the right panel, the number of unicorns is calculated based on cb insights, " global unicorn club : private companies valued at $ 1b + ( as of march 20th, 2024 ), " https : / / www. cbinsights. com / research - unicorn - companies. sources : cb insights ; imf ; initial, japan startup ecosystem report 2023. chart 20 dynamism of firms and employment further growth growth aspiring for growth growth spiral small firms startups growth [UNK] organic growth [UNK] investment in equipment, human capital, r & d, marketing, etc. [UNK] inorganic growth [UNK] m & a, third - party business succession large firms rise in wage levels growth growth financial capital investment funds, financial institutions, firms, r & d institutions mediumsized firms human capital large firms growth unicorns growth chart 21 progress in structural reforms by small and medium - sized firms growth above the industry average after business successions number of business successions thous. consultees thous. cases 2. 5 % number of consultees ( left scale ) number of contracts ( right scale ) 2. 0 1. 5 1. 0 0. 5 0. 0 fy 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 1 year later 2 years later 3 years later 4 years later 5 years later notes : 1. the left panel shows the number of consultees and the number of contracts concluded at the business successions support center. 2. the right panel shows the difference of the net income growth rate between the industry average and the average of firms that underwent a change in management between 2010 and 2015, in the first five years after the business succession. sources : organization for small & medium enterprises and regional innovation, japan ; small and medium enterprise agency, 2021 white paper on small and medium enterprises in japan. chart 22 dynamism of households growth of the firms where people work improving skills through reskilling, etc. changing jobs to growing firms higher wages household expenditure labor income expansion in sources of income pensions, etc. social burden increase in dividends financial income dividends savings ; hoarding of cash and deposits partial shift investments listed firms investing through the new nisa sustainable

bank has worked to improve the functionality of boj - net. one example of recent enhancements is the next - generation rtgs ( rtgs - xg ) project for the boj - net funds transfer system. in 2001, the system was converted from a dns system to a pure rtgs system, which settles transactions one - by - one on a real - time basis. an rtgs system, by its design, is effective in eliminating settlement risks associated with dns, but at the same time requires relatively larger amounts of liquidity. the rtgs - xg project aims to reduce the amount of liquidity needed under rtgs while also expanding the benefits of rtgs to largevalue payments that are currently settled in private - sector dns systems, namely the foreign exchange yen clearing system ( fxycs ) and the zengin system ( clearing system for domestic funds transfers ). the project is being implemented in two phases. phase 1 is the introduction of liquiditysaving features into the boj - net funds transfer system and the settlement of payments in the fxycs through rtgs. this was successfully implemented in october 2008. 8 the liquidity - saving features consist of centralized queuing and offsetting mechanisms ( chart 7 ). " queuing " allows payment instructions to be held pending within the system. the " offsetting " mechanism searches among the newly entered and queued payment instructions for a set of instructions that can be settled simultaneously. our estimate based on actual transaction data shows that the liquidity - saving features enable payments to be settled much earlier in the day using a lower amount of liquidity 9 ( chart 8 ). for the details of payment activity after phase 1 and a description of liquidity - saving features, see bank of japan ( 2009a ) and bank of japan, payment and settlement systems department ( 2009b ). the change in average settlement time is largely due to the shift of the fxycs from dns to rtgs. the bank is currently working in cooperation with the zengin system to implement phase 2 of the project, which aims to settle large - value payments in the zengin system – defined as payments above 100 million yen – through rtgs ( chart 9 ). implementation of phase 2 is scheduled for november 2011 in coordination with the next upgrade of the zengin system. with such implementation, virtually all large - value interbank payments in japan will be processed on an rtgs basis. another example of enhancements to bo