Ten Japanese Startups participate at Hiyaku Next Enterprise program in Bangalore
Ten Japanese Startups are participating in the ‘Hiyaku Next Enterprise’ program being held in Bangalore. The startups were selected in November 2018 and are participating in the program from 4th to 7th February 2019. This program targets SMEs from all over Japan and provides them with necessary human networks and knowledge required for global expansion.
As a joint initiative of Japanese and Indian Government, Japan-India Start up Hub was established at Bangalore in May 2018 to serve as a platform for promoting information exchange, business collaboration and investments between the start-up ecosystems of the two nations. JETRO is facilitating the interaction of these startups with investors and the startup ecosystem in Bangalore.
Hiyaku Next Enterprise is run by Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and Deloitte Tohmatsu Venture Support Co., Ltd., for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Through this program, the participants will learn the systems of venture companies and how to apply those to their ecosystems.
JETRO facilitated interactions between the ten startups and investors like Dream Incubator, 3one4 Capital, Axilor and Keiretsu Forum. The program in Bangalore is managed by the local JETRO office led by Takashi Suzuki, Director General, JETRO, Bangalore.
This marks an expansion of the Silicon Valley-Japan Bridge Project to Bangalore. Hiyaku Next Enterprise program is a part of ‘Silicon Valley-Japan Bridge Project’. It was announced by Prime minister Abe on April 30, 2015 during his visit to Silicon Valley. This project was intended to bridge Japanese start-up ecosystem, start-ups and entrepreneurs to those in Silicon Valley. So far the program has taken participants to Silicon Valley, New York, Austin, Singapore, Helsinki, Berlin and Israel in the previous editions. This is the first time Hiyaku Next is coming to India.
Four among the selected ten startups are part of the J-startup program : Caulis Inc., Quantum Biosystems Inc., Finc Technologies Inc. and Lequio Power Technology Corp. J-Startup is an initiative created by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in 2018 which cultivates the brightest of Japan’s startups to succeed in the world market. Recommenders from leading business communities determine and select 92 innovative Japanese startups from over 10,000 Japanese startups to join this proram.
Participating Startups
1. Caulis Inc is a cybersecurity startup providing cloud-based fraud detection for enterprise companies. Its product, FraudAlert analyzes all the accesses coming to clients’ web services. Whenever it finds any unusual and malicious login activities from the end user, FraudAlert notifies in real time through API. Other than ID and password, FraudAlert checks over 200 parameters to identify if each login is coming from the right person or wrong one.
2. FiNC Technologies Inc is a healthtech venture that creates personalized health & wellness solutions, to help users form, maintain and enjoy healthy lifestyle habits. A personal AI trainer within the FiNC app provides recommendations, after analyzing each user’s lifestyle factors, including diet, exercise, sleep and stress. This empowers users to understand and change how daily habits affect their health.
3. Geniee, Inc. is a marketing technology company, with its mission “ Use technology to create new value and work together with clients to build success,” that develops and provides solutions for clients to improve productivity and profitability.
4. Grooves Inc adapts changing business strategies to create platforms that will add value to how users work. One of its representative services is Forkwell, an online engineering skill database, with approximately 20,000 engineers on the site. The platform uses artificial intelligence to rate the skill level of each engineer’s work based on their portfolio, like Ruby, JS and Python.
5. Lequio Power Technology Corp has made a Generic Portable Ultrasound ＆ Free Cloud Platform. It is used for Ultrasound diagnosis and Medical Education/Learning.
6. Quantum Biosystems is developing a novel, single molecule sequencing technology that will significantly reduce the cost of sequencing, while improving its accuracy. The company was founded in January 2013 as a spinout of Osaka University research that for the first time demonstrated the single molecule direct electrical sequencing of DNA/RNA with one base pair resolution. Quantum Biosystems’ ongoing research and development is applying this academic research by allowing massively-parallel nano-electrodes to detect current facilitated by electron tunneling and hopping. This sequencing will take place on a silicon device which will contain millions of electrodes and which will be manufactured using industrial semiconductor fabrication techniques.
7. Stroly is an open map platform. It is a location service that shows GPS positioning on any kind of map in any form.
Stroly launched beta service in October 2017. Anyone can post a map freely and publish it in conjunction with GPS.
8. Susmed, Inc has developed a mobile application which enables cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia. In order to lower the cost of the clinical development, the company developed a clinical development system using blockchain technology.
9. Techno-Labo Co., Ltd. is making a platform of low volume manufacturing for industrial designers. The company uses substitute molds, sharing injection molding machines, and original quality control standards, to make a production eco-system for low volume production (100 to 2,000). It has created more than 100 products in Japan.
10. Ubie is AI Health Tech startup which is based on disease prediction technology. Ubie is developing the AI chat-bot disease prediction service Dr.Ubie for individual users. They can get to know the predicted disease by answering the Dr.Ubie’s questions when a symptom occurs. Dr.Ubie also suggests which they should go to the hospital or not, which OTC-drugs to buy, and treatments. The company is now expanding its business into India.
