This study investigates how small corporations in rural areas arranged funds and reassesses the role of market-based financing for Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises from the 1880s through the 1910s. Whereas previous studies have focused on the financing of large corporations in urban areas, this paper argues that corporations of various sizes, including small ones in rural areas, arranged their funds from the stock market during Japan’s industrialisation. By applying this style of financial arrangement, these corporations expanded their production scales, accelerating the local formation of specialised producing regions and boosting the regional economy.