See the original story in Japanese. Kyoto-based Darma Tech Labs (DTL), known for organizing a hardware-focused startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp (MBC), announced earlier this month that it opened an international makerspace named Kyoto Makers Garage (KMG) jointly with Advanced Science, Technology & Management Research Institute of Kyoto (ASTEM) and Kyoto Research Park (KRP). In commemoration of the establishment, they held an opening party inviting Mayor of Kyoto City Daisaku Kadokawa at KMG the same day. KMG was built reforming the garage next to the Kyoto Central Wholesale Market and consists of four elements: “co-working space” usable as share office, “maker space” for manufacturing, “event space” and “gallery space”; in partnership with accelerators focusing on hardware startup outside Japan (such as Usine IO of Paris and Fab Foundry of New York), KMG plans to actively hold hackathon or meet-up events as a hub for entrepreneurs or creators from all over the world. The maker space of KMG is equipped with fused deposition modeling-type 3D printer (additive manufacturing equipment), laser cutter and desktop CNC milling device. Users have to attend charged lecture in advance when using the equipment. KMG also provides service in English to support hardware startups and entrepreneurs from…
Inside the venue Image credit: Kyoto Makers Garage
KMG was built reforming the garage next to the Kyoto Central Wholesale Market and consists of four elements: “co-working space” usable as share office, “maker space” for manufacturing, “event space” and “gallery space”; in partnership with accelerators focusing on hardware startup outside Japan (such as Usine IO of Paris and Fab Foundry of New York), KMG plans to actively hold hackathon or meet-up events as a hub for entrepreneurs or creators from all over the world.
Daisaku Kadokawa, Mayor of Kyoto City, makes a speech at the opening party. Image credit: Makers Boot Camp
The maker space of KMG is equipped with fused deposition modeling-type 3D printer (additive manufacturing equipment), laser cutter and desktop CNC milling device. Users have to attend charged lecture in advance when using the equipment. KMG also provides service in English to support hardware startups and entrepreneurs from abroad.
The establishment of KMG was realized through the acceptance of DTL’s proposal by the municipal participation program for citizens, Machizukuri Otakara Bank, managed by Kyoto City. Access to KMG is 10 minutes on foot from Tanbaguchi Station of JR West San-in Main Line, or 5 minutes from Sichijo-senbon Bus Stop of Kyoto City Bus. It is open from 11 am to 6 pm on weekdays.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Kyoto-based Darma Tech Labs, which runs the Makers Boot Camp (MBC) hardware startup-focused accelerator, announced in Kyoto on Tuesday that it is forming an investment fund worth 2 billion yen (nearly $18 million US) with having Kyoto Bank (TSE: 8369) as an anchor limited partner. In addition to Narimasa Makino, CEO of Darma Tech Labs, Shingo Nadaka the Deputy Director of local manufacturing organization Kyoto Shisaku Net, and Director Masatoshi Takeda (also Director of Darma Tech Labs), and Masahiko Naka, the Executive Director of Kyoto Bank also attended the press briefing held on that day. The fund is called MBC Shisaku No. 1 Investment LP and its redemption period is 10 years. They will intensively invest in early stage hardware startups in Japan, North America, and Europe. Priority investment areas include IoT, robotics, sensing, networking, big data analysis, medical devices, nursing care, lifestyle, environment and energy. Along with forming this fund, Mikuni Kimura, the former chief investment officer for Future Venture Capital, along with certified public accountant Manabu Kuwahara will participate as managing directors at Darma Tech Labs, and expanding their field of partners by joining with New York City-based FabFoundry, the CEO Nobuhiro…
From left: Shingo Nadaka (Deputy Director of Kyoto Shisaku Net), Masatoshi Takeda (Director of Darma Tech Labs/ Director of Kyoto Shisaku Net), Narimasa Makino (CEO of Darma Tech Labs), Masahiko Naka (Executive Director of Kyoto Bank) Image credit: Darma Tech Labs
Kyoto-based Darma Tech Labs, which runs the Makers Boot Camp (MBC) hardware startup-focused accelerator, announced in Kyoto on Tuesday that it is forming an investment fund worth 2 billion yen (nearly $18 million US) with having Kyoto Bank (TSE: 8369) as an anchor limited partner.
In addition to Narimasa Makino, CEO of Darma Tech Labs, Shingo Nadaka the Deputy Director of local manufacturing organization Kyoto Shisaku Net, and Director Masatoshi Takeda (also Director of Darma Tech Labs), and Masahiko Naka, the Executive Director of Kyoto Bank also attended the press briefing held on that day.
The fund is called MBC Shisaku No. 1 Investment LP and its redemption period is 10 years. They will intensively invest in early stage hardware startups in Japan, North America, and Europe. Priority investment areas include IoT, robotics, sensing, networking, big data analysis, medical devices, nursing care, lifestyle, environment and energy.
Along with forming this fund, Mikuni Kimura, the former chief investment officer for Future Venture Capital, along with certified public accountant Manabu Kuwahara will participate as managing directors at Darma Tech Labs, and expanding their field of partners by joining with New York City-based FabFoundry, the CEO Nobuhiro Seki will be appointed as a director of Darma Tech Labs.
Darma Tech Labs, the facilitators of MBC, also regularly holds Monozukuri Hub Meetup at the co-working space MTRL Kyoto (Material Kyoto) to focus on creating a community of hardware startups. At the Monozukuri Hardware Cup, held for the first time in Osaka in February, eight hardware startup teams from Japan came, with the three teams of QD Laser, PLENGoer, and VAQSO, being invited to the Hardware Startup Pitch Competition put on by the Pittsburgh-based hardware startup AlphaLab Gear.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
This is a guest post by Mari Futagami, Community Manager of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were provided by professional photographer Miki Matsuura of Tumiki Photo. See the original story in Japanese. Monozukuri Hardware Cup 2017 was held for the first time in conjunction with Hack Osaka 2017 on 9th February. It is a pitch event hosted by Monozukuri Hardware Startup Consortium aiming to be a stepping stone for the Japanese “monozukuri” (referring to manufacturing in Japanese) startups which can potentially be successful around the world. Monozukuri Hardware Startup Consortium is organized by Darma Tech Labs (Kyoto), FabFoundry (New York City), and TechShop Japan (Minato-ku, Tokyo), and this pitch event is treated as the Japanese regional preliminary of National Hardware Cup which has been held in the US since 2015. Although typical national events in Japan are often held in Tokyo, Monozukuri Hardware Cup will be held in Kansai area for the next three years including this time. Hardware Cup Final has been held in Pittsburgh since 2015, and there is a reason why the regional city was…
This is a guest post by Mari Futagami, Community Manager of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.
Additionally, all photos in this article were provided by professional photographer Miki Matsuura of Tumiki Photo.
Monozukuri Hardware Cup 2017 was held for the first time in conjunction with Hack Osaka 2017 on 9th February. It is a pitch event hosted by Monozukuri Hardware Startup Consortium aiming to be a stepping stone for the Japanese “monozukuri” (referring to manufacturing in Japanese) startups which can potentially be successful around the world.
Monozukuri Hardware Startup Consortium is organized by Darma Tech Labs (Kyoto), FabFoundry (New York City), and TechShop Japan (Minato-ku, Tokyo), and this pitch event is treated as the Japanese regional preliminary of National Hardware Cup which has been held in the US since 2015. Although typical national events in Japan are often held in Tokyo, Monozukuri Hardware Cup will be held in Kansai area for the next three years including this time.
Hardware Cup Final has been held in Pittsburgh since 2015, and there is a reason why the regional city was chosen to be the host for the final of the event. Pittsburgh had once flourished as a town of steel industry, but its regional economy was seriously damaged by imported cheap steel in the 1970s. However, Pittsburgh, the city also known as an academic city having good universities such as Carnegie Mellon University, shifted its industrial base into high technology, as well as health, education or finance, and had gradually transformed into a new city since the 1980s.
Attracting innovative sections of top IT players including Google, Apple and Facebook, Pittsburgh has been developing into a more creative environment. Based in such a place, the hardware-focused accelerator AlphaLab Gear, chosen as one of the top 20 programs by Seed Accelerator Rankings Project, hosted Hardware Cup Final. AlphaLab Gear team has been creating an organic ecosystem in Pittsburgh as a key player, tying up with the academic / industrial world in addition to VCs.
Ilana Diamond, Chief of AlphaLab Gear, explained the reason for holding Hardware Cup:
In the US, hardware startups have more difficulties in fundraising rather than web or app startups. I think that is because they could not gain enough understanding of investors or media.
Pitches and exhibition booths
Exhibition booths were set for eight participant startups where visitors can try their products. By allowing them to actually touch and experience the products, their understanding of the hardware development seemed to deepen, and also active communication among startups came to be seen.
In the pitch competition, each team gave a pitch within four minutes and dealt with questions from the judges all in English in five minutes. Under the same regulation with the final, the eight teams competed for a ticket for the final in Pittsburgh.
Atmoph
Gyeong-il Kan, Co-founder / CEO of Atmoph
The first presenter was Kyoto-based Atmoph which developed the world’s first digital smart window under the same name and aims to spread a new travel experience to homes. Co-Founder / CEO of Atomoph Kan’s experience of window-less environment in the US triggered him to start development of the smart window.
With beautiful moving scenery images displayed on the liquid crystal screen and sounds all over the world such as Hawaii, New Zealand, Switzerland or Patagonia, Atmoph provides users to get a feel for actually being there. All images were originally photographed in 4K resolution by partnered cameramen. Currently, more than 500 images of 30 countries have been uploaded and one can purchase them via the app. The window is also able to display daily life information such as weather forecasts or time.
The team is eyeing possibilities for application to health-care or home hub uses.
Dendama
Yoshihiro Otani, CEO of Dendama (right)
Dendama offers an IoT (Internet of Things) kendama (Japanese cup-and-ball toy) under the same name capable of online match games. The player population of kendama is said to be 3 million in Japan and the kendama boom is gradually spreading globally. Dendama is equipped with a sensor capable of discriminating complicated kendama skills by linking with the app and enables online match games with players all over the world.
The team plans exhibition at Kickstarter and SXSW, and continues business activities with a view to linking with AR (augmented reality) technologies.
Lightflyer
Kaoru Kakinuma, CEO of Lightflyer
Lightflyer was spun out from The University of Tokyo and is going to offer the launching service of ultra-small satellites leveraging its know-how of “the microwave rocket” accumulated for 13 years. The launching apparatus costs only tens of thousands of dollars for each ultra-small satellite and that is one-hundredth of conventional ones.
The Lightflyer team has established a research and development in cooperation with the University of Tokyo or Carnegie Mellon University, making efforts to complete the unit to put satellites into low orbit.
Mille-Feuille
Yoshinari Kou, Mille-Feuille
The automated electronic schematic creation tool Mille-Feuille supports programmers or artists without specialized knowledge to freely design their own custom electronic circuits. Mille-Feuille is composed of base board, module board, and device board. Users can participate in designing of the device boards as open hardware and can even sell them.
While sales of device boards will become the first profit for the firm, it also plans to customize and sell the license of the electronic schematic creation tool and its firmware (they are Web tools) to user companies. Moreover, the team has a concept of preparing a marketplace focusing on device boards and offers services like Google Play.
PLENGoer Robotics
Atsuhiko Tomita, COO of PLENGoer Robotics
PLENGoer Robotics develops the original personal assistant robot. The team introduced this time a personal assistant robot capable of changing a general home into a smart home by controlling camera functions or household appliances, which was exhibited at CES too.
Unlike conventional cameras requiring pushing a shatter button, PLENGoer Robotics’ camera recognizes ideal photo opportunities and provides natural photos automatically.
Hironori Miyauchi, Business Development Manager, Visual Information Device Business Division, QD Laser
QD Laser develops the retina scanning type laser eyewear which projects images directly to wearer’s retina from the built-in laser projector on the eyewear frame. The number of visually handicapped people with impaired vision, who are not completely blind but have cloudy eyesight, totals at about 1.5 million in Japan and 250 million in the world including developing countries so this technology has a possibility of contributing to improvement of their quality of life.
With the specially designed optical system, QD Laser is able to project clear images regardless of the accommodation of eyes including eyesight or in-focus position. The team has been developing the glasses as medical instrument or welfare equipment in order to recover visual senses of visually handicapped people mainly caused by dysfunctions of anterior ocular segments such as corneas and lens. The team also implied the application possibilities in other fields such as AR or smart glasses where significant expansion is expected in the future.
Secual
Naoki Nishida, COO of Secual
Secual was founded in June of 2015, aiming to realize a new style of home security utilizing IoT. When the built-in sensor of the device installed on a window or a door detects unusual vibration, it transmits information to the firm’s center system via the gateway and notifies user’s smartphone of the analyzed information.
The device costs about $90 at least. Since it can be easily installed without requiring wiring works, the team approaches possible users who had gave up introducing home security due to high costs or installation limitations in rental houses, and aims to secure profit by setting $8.7 as the monthly charge.
The team is also developing new devices that work with Secual and is looking to various kinds of business development such as utilization in welfare facilities through strengthening cooperation with external organizations.
Vaqso develops the scent generation device attachable to HMD (head-mount display). Linking with VR contents, it is able to shoot out various realistic smells and provides VR experience with higher reality. The device can be installed to all HMD on the market.
After the pitch competition held at the communication area with a casual atmosphere, the awards ceremony was held at the main arena.
The scent device for VR Vaqso team took 3rd place and the personal assistant robot PLENGoer Robotics team took 2nd place. The top prize went to the retina scanning type laser eye-ware QD Laser team.
(From left) Jeffrey McDaniel, Hikari Takahashi, and Shuji Fujita as judges for the pitch competition
The chief judge of the pitch competition Jeffrey McDaniel, Executive-in-Residence of Innovation Works hosting the accelerator AlphaLab Gear, commented on Japanese hardware startups:
Presentation in English must be the great first step to make appeal to overseas investors. I hope you all grow up utilizing Japanese manufacturing background.
After the competition, judge Shuji Fujita (President of EO Osaka) and judge Hikari Takahashi (Co-founder of Brain Portal) gave advices to eight participant teams about the key to success in business development. Fujita and Takahashi made great efforts to support the Japanese startup culture.
Supplemental Prizes
Yoshiaki Tsuda, Chief Director, Digital Design Lab of All Nippon Airways which acts as the travel sponsor of this event
The qualifier QD Laser team was given a ticket to the pitch competition in Hardware Cup Final (19th to 20th April, Pittsburgh), as well as round-trip tickets from Japan to New York and travel expense support of $2,600 by the travel sponsor All Nippon Airways.
PLENGoer Robotics in 2nd place and Vaqso in 3rd place were given exhibition rights at demonstration area in Hardware Cup Final and travel expense supports ($1,800 for 2nd place and $880 for 3rd place) as well. Moreover, participation rights to Hardware Cup Demo Day which will be held either in New York or Pittsburgh will be awarded to all higher-ranking winners.
While it was the first Monozukuri Hardware Cup held this time, eight teams were chosen as finalists from 24 applicants through documentary elimination and competed fiercely to qualify for Hardware Cup Final by presenting their own products and business plan.
I hope that holding Monozukuri Hardware Cup continuously in the Kansai area will contribute to further growth of the Japanese hardware startups and become a foothold for creating the ecosystem of manufacturing.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
This is a guest post by Joey Ho Nihei, a volunteer supporter for Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp as well as a student from National University of Singapore (Department of Global Studies). The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka. Makers Bootcamp is Japan’s leading hardware accelerator and the organizer of the wildly successful Monozukuri Hub meetups. These meetups aim to build, support and inspire a community of makers by acting as a platform for international collaboration and knowledge exchange. In the latest edition of 2016 Monozukuri Hub meetup titled “The Power of Storytelling”, Makers Bootcamp has brought together some of the tech industry’s most seasoned storytellers, investors and start-up founders for an evening packed with insights on how to build and leverage on compelling stories for startups. This meetup largely revolved around the theme of how powerful and effective storytelling is quintessential to startups in every single way — from picking investor’s initial interest to effectively projecting a startup’s value to consumers. Simply put, storytelling is a powerful tool that must be harnessed by startups in order to secure not only investments…
Joey Ho Nihei
This is a guest post by Joey Ho Nihei, a volunteer supporter for Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp as well as a student from National University of Singapore (Department of Global Studies). The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.
Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka.
Makers Bootcamp is Japan’s leading hardware accelerator and the organizer of the wildly successful Monozukuri Hub meetups. These meetups aim to build, support and inspire a community of makers by acting as a platform for international collaboration and knowledge exchange.
In the latest edition of 2016 Monozukuri Hub meetup titled “The Power of Storytelling”, Makers Bootcamp has brought together some of the tech industry’s most seasoned storytellers, investors and start-up founders for an evening packed with insights on how to build and leverage on compelling stories for startups.
This meetup largely revolved around the theme of how powerful and effective storytelling is quintessential to startups in every single way — from picking investor’s initial interest to effectively projecting a startup’s value to consumers. Simply put, storytelling is a powerful tool that must be harnessed by startups in order to secure not only investments but also its survival.
Three main perspectives dominated the evening’s presentations: the perspectives of the story consultant, the investor and the startups. The beauty of this meetup was in seeing the storytelling process from these closely related yet distinct perspectives.
The evening was kicked-off by Sabrina Sasaki from Makers Bootcamp who succinctly introduced the art of storytelling and its significance to a startup’s growth to get everyone warmed up for the magic that was about to happen in the following presentations. Her presentation served as an easily digestible introduction to those unacquainted to the art of storytelling (myself included). One key message that she conveyed in her presentation was how stories play a crucial role in a startup’s marketing and how it is no less important than building a revolutionary product.
Björn Eichstädt, Managing Partner, Storymaker
The first speaker for the evening, Storymaker‘s Björn Eichstädt, offered the perspective of the consultant, sharing snippets from his vast experiences managing a story-oriented communications consulting, PR and digital communications firm. He spoke about how having a powerful story to communicate a company’s identity and value is increasingly important in a world constantly bombarded with a multitude of information, and how originality (instead of jumping onto trends) is the only real way ahead. One of his sharings that left a particular impression on his audience was when he drew parallels between a story and dashi (Japanese soup stock), saying “a story is just like dashi – it can only be made with the right ingredients, and this dashi can be expressed in so many different ways. If customers and the media like it, they will retell it”.
James Riney, Head of 500 Startups Japan, followed Björn’s sharing by presenting the investor’s perspective to story-telling: What are investors really looking out for when they listen to pitches? One theme that he constantly emphasised on was the need for simplicity when presenting their idea and value and the need to earn trust and confidence quickly in the little bit of time they have to present to investors. The best way to do this, he advices, is to highlight the key strengths of the startup either in terms of traction, team, target market, media coverage or fundings from highly sought-after investors and funds. Simply put, all you need to do is to convey “why this? why now? And why you?” and just KISS (Keep-it-simple-stupid). He also highlighted the importance of keeping things simple when startups ask for funding — just share with investors how much you need, what you will use it for, and how long this is going to last you.
The second half of the presentations saw Atsushi Nakanishi (AT) and Shota Takase sharing the stories of Dfree and Blincam respectively. Their stories were living proof of how startups can effectively leverage on powerful stories in order to propel their startups forward.
Atsushi Nakanishi, CEO of Dfree
Dfree CEO Atsushi Nakanishi has pooped his pants before — and he’s not ashamed to share it with the world because that was exactly what inspired the world’s first wearable device that aims to maintain every human’s dignity by using ultrasound to monitor changes in the body to predict toilet timings. His product’s vision to create “a world where nobody has to soil their pants” was as revolutionary as the way he presented his story — he began by asking the audience if “anyone pooped their pants before?” ensuing in a roar of laughter. Such personal, relatable anecdotes peppered with embarrassing examples have proven to be a key element in storytelling which values originality and surprise elements. To close his presentation, he shared Dfree’s future trajectories — a trajectory that would vastly change the way everyone lives in the future by “predicting everything” from toilet timings, appetites, menstrual cycles, aging and even one’s lifespan.
The last presentation for the evening was by Shota Takase, CEO & Founder of Blincam. Blincam’s story started by coincidence at a Startup Weekend session and has since been fueled by Shota’s strong desire capture natural and beautiful photographs of his family. The key inspiration behind Blincam was how Shota could never take candid photographs of his daughter because she would always make funny faces at the camera when she knew her photo was being taken. This desire to capture candid, beautiful pictures of our own children resonated with many people and this vision-turned-startup was what Blincam was all about: A wearable, hands-free camera that captures candid pictures with a blink of an eye. Shota then carried on to share every step of his journey from starting up in a garage all the way to securing a whopping 2640% of funding in Makuake and another 150% in Indiegogo just recently.
This event saw some of the most insightful stories and had some of the industry’s most seasoned storytellers and listeners (investors). Makers Bootcamp would once again like to extend our warmest regards to every single person who participated and we hope this meetup enriched you as much as it did for us! We hope to see everyone again soon!
Click here if you would like to check the presentation deck from all speakers, with detailed information about each one.
This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by Kyoto-based systems biologist Tugi Guenes. Last week we took part of the closing event of France Japan Innovation year: a special forum when an official mission from France visited Japan to validate bilateral business opportunities. The event happened on December 6th and 7th at Knowledge Capital – Grand Front Osaka (Umeda) , as the outcome of two years of collaboration, when the parts involved had the chance to showcase, all in the same space, their next steps and also new opportunities in innovation between both countries. Makers Boot Camp had a booth area together with KSN (Kyoto Shisaku Net), our prototype experts, a network of SMEs who support small lot production for startups creating a new product. KSN has already clients from France, and they also count on some French team members to support French startups. We shared our area side by side with Kyoto VR, a brand new startup working on combining both arts and technology for…
This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.
Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by Kyoto-based systems biologist Tugi Guenes.
L to R: Olivier Ginepro, Economic Counselor for the French Embassy of Japan, Narimasa Makino, Makers Boot Camp CEO
Last week we took part of the closing event of France Japan Innovation year: a special forum when an official mission from France visited Japan to validate bilateral business opportunities. The event happened on December 6th and 7th at Knowledge Capital – Grand Front Osaka (Umeda) , as the outcome of two years of collaboration, when the parts involved had the chance to showcase, all in the same space, their next steps and also new opportunities in innovation between both countries.
Our team had a prototype expert support from Emery Delmotte, French team member of KSN, part of Saijo Inx Sales Team.Thierry Dana, French Ambassador to Japan, visited our booth, when Emery highlighted all the close ties between France and KSN.
Makers Boot Camp had a booth area together with KSN (Kyoto Shisaku Net), our prototype experts, a network of SMEs who support small lot production for startups creating a new product. KSN has already clients from France, and they also count on some French team members to support French startups.
We shared our area side by side with Kyoto VR, a brand new startup working on combining both arts and technology for a unique virtual reality experience. Recently, they exhibited a demo session at Nuit Blanche, a French event in Kyoto, with a special project involving IoT for cultural initiatives. Paris and Kyoto are already sister-cities in the fields of Fine Arts and Architecture and IoT should also be considered for the next projects.
Makers Boot Camp team with all the invited startups for the pitch session: Atmoph, PLENGoer and Kyoto VR.Atmoph team members Chikaku Kato, Customer Relations, and Kyohi Kang, CEO and Co-Founder, introduced their smart window already available for sale in Paris and other overseas markets.PLENGoer team with their open-source robots that will be in a tour to US for CES 2017. For Japanese makers like them, France is also a key market they plan to expand to.
During the two days of the event, there were sessions with key industry players from both countries, as Valeo, Michelin, Orange and Dassault Systems, Toyo Aluminium, SynphaTech Japon, and also a special session day focused on IoT startups. The purpose of the event was to bring stakeholders involved on the current discussions between France and Japan in order to achieve a plan for concrete actions in the next years.
With this spirit, Makers Boot Camp signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with La French Tech, represented by The French Embassy of Japan.
In May 2016, on behalf of Makers Boot Camp, I was invited to attend two outstanding hardware events in France: Connected Conference and Innorobo. It is clear the potential of disruptive projects in robotics and healthcare being created in France, so we’d like to partner with local players interested to reach a global market with high quality. Currently, there are players from both Japan and France willing to promote an exchange of technologies and resources.
From the French local governments, Aix-Marseille Provence and Occitanie sent their representatives from both private and public sectors.
From Toulouse city, Julien Toulouse paid us a visit to our ecosystem in Kyoto, including our KSN factories with French team members involved. The tour was a way to illustrate Japanese small lot capabilities for French startups.
On Japanese side, Kansai representatives from local government and companies were also supporting the event. We hope the players involved can commit to a more active role in both countries, fomenting IoT industry all over the world.
This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp, together with volunteer Takako Teruyama. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka. Makers Boot Camp’s monthly event, “Monozukuri Hub Meet up” had its 7th edition on Wednesday, 16 October at MTRL Kyoto, entitled as “Design For Manufacturing for Startups”. Sabrina Sasaki, Marketing at Makers Boot Camp, got events rolling with a brief introduction on Design For Manufacturing (DFM). She broke down each stage of Manufacturing starting from concept to retail, the final stage startups want to reach, and also mentioned about how conventional ways of manufacturing, a.k.a “Over Wall Manufacturing”, where each expert at different stages are separated, are inefficient and time consuming because one needs to find the right person to move up to every stage, even if coming up with superb ideas for products. Literally there is a wall existing between each stage because there is no direct relationships among the experts. When it comes to startups, obviously they have limited financial and human resources so that these walls…
Sabrina Sasaki
This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp, together with volunteer Takako Teruyama. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.
Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka.
Makers Boot Camp’s monthly event, “Monozukuri Hub Meet up” had its 7th edition on Wednesday, 16 October at MTRL Kyoto, entitled as “Design For Manufacturing for Startups”.
Sabrina Sasaki, Marketing at Makers Boot Camp, got events rolling with a brief introduction on Design For Manufacturing (DFM). She broke down each stage of Manufacturing starting from concept to retail, the final stage startups want to reach, and also mentioned about how conventional ways of manufacturing, a.k.a “Over Wall Manufacturing”, where each expert at different stages are separated, are inefficient and time consuming because one needs to find the right person to move up to every stage, even if coming up with superb ideas for products.
Literally there is a wall existing between each stage because there is no direct relationships among the experts. When it comes to startups, obviously they have limited financial and human resources so that these walls stonewall their way. As startups always have to start from scratch, how are they going to jump over these walls, when they can keep only limited things in handy? Also, how to keep prototyping until getting some results, when they can not afford to? Well, in the bridge Paris-Kyoto, the French team of prototype experts, guest-speakers, can provide some insights for makers.
Natsuo Akazawa, PLEN projects
First speaker was Natsuo Akazawa, CEO at PLEN projects, where he has developed biped robot “PLEN”. “PLEN2” robot was crowdfunded through Kickstarter as a printable open source, meaning that anyone can build up robots on its own, anywhere in the world, as long as referring to their 3D open source data. In terms of their business model, the company can’t make money out of it because it’s an open source, however, people who used their data and assembled robots share their own robots through SNS, which spreads widely and effectively compared to advertisements.
It does not pay money back but the company lasts as a collaborative platform for humanoids. In the end, Akazawa also introduced their new joint venture “PLENGoer Robotics”, which was first offered by Chinese EMS company, Goertek and launched this year. They are now teamed up and working together to develop new robots that will be first shown next January. Born in a small town factory, now he is involved in this huge international project where the size of manufacturing is bigger than he has ever experienced before.
Second Speaker, Jean-Dominique Francois from La French Tech Tokyo, explained about the special agency launched by the French government. He works to bridge startups between France and Japan. Well, we all love France for its food, wine, fromage and arts but also as a source of very good IoT startups, like the case of the software ones giving Pepper a Latin movement.
With 20 years of International Business Development Experience in Europe and Asia (mostly Japan), Jean-Dominique acquired a comprehensive understanding of start-ups and their ecosystem. For the last years, as member of the French Economic Diplomacy, he is also helping French high-tech start-ups and SMBs to develop in the Japanese market.
Akihiko Tanaka, Director of the Academic Program at Dassault Systemes, spoke about their 3D Experience Lab Incubation startup related to CAD systems and System Management tools required for better Project Management, all in the cloud. Toyota, Honda and many others already use this platform that is also available for startups. Imagine the future using the virtual world, with amazing stories from clients.
Startups incubation project – gathering together startups from all over the world. There are 6 categories that startups can apply to join their City, Life, Lifestyle, IoT, Ideation and FabLabs. The criteria for being selected are being collaborative, disruptive innovation in products and services, and also make a positive impact on the society.
Benjamin Davoult, crossEffect
After a break, the Design for Manufacturing experts had the chance to introduce their company and their work, before joining the panel discussion.
The first one panelist was from crossEffect, Benjamin Davoult (Product Designer), who introduced himself as a French nerd. He came to Japan after finishing his Master Degree in Industrial Design, when he was hired by crossEffect. His work as a Product Designer also consists as a Silicone Mold Designer for Vacuum Casting and Prototypes/trial models creator.
He explained the process for rapid prototyping: receiving a 3D data from a client, upon a new project request, so they can check the design details and make sure it’s ready to build the physical part- that’s when they use a 3D printer, a huge laser machine called stereolithograph, where a laser soft with metal plates sink inside the liquid resin, and then the laser fits again and become a new layer of the part. This process is done during the night (it takes around 8-10h), so the team can start building the model on the next day. Sometimes the physical model is provided by the client, but either way, they still have to finish the master model. The next part is to frame, with the silicone inside, and then, after one day, the master model is ready for vacuum casting machine, where they fill in the model with resin. Then they open the machine to finalise the details, in the painting room, so the prototype will look very similar to the industrial mass-manufactured product: if you have both side by side, you can’t say which one is the prototype.
The company where he works also started a new branch focused on Industrial Design, so the main idea is to start from concept to 3D modelling, 3D printing and vacuum casting.
They can start any project just by concept (an idea), from hand drawing, from hardware with a PCB (a circuit board). Within one week, his team is able to come with many proposals, as speed is their main focus. They can also offer multiple services like, but of course the price can vary a lot, depending on the specialty.
He showed some recent IoT products by crossEffect for brands like Panasonic, Rohm, Sanyo and Omron.
Ben likes to make things, especially useful new inventions, spending most of his spare time creating devices and machines of all kinds, with his own 3D printer at home.
Emery Delmotte, Saijo Inx
Emery Delmotte, Sales Specialist at Saijo Inx, a Japanese company founded in 1950, was also born in France. He is now in charge of International sales at Saijo Inx, where he’s been supporting the company to expand its business overseas. Currently, their main customers are Japanese large corporations, as Kyocera, Omron, Murata, Fujitsu, Denso and NIDEC. Saijo Inx main business is to make prototypes from thin sheet metal working and plastic resins, press stamps, folding and cutting and die-sets making.
Their production speed is focused on small pieces for high precision 0.03mm margins, for prototypes with less than 2mm² and sheet metal thickness until 0.05 mm. The lead time is about 7 days: prototype corresponds to 46% of Sales, while Mass production is around 45% – the other small fractions are molding and thins. Over 400 projects are handled a month from medical products, motors, in-vehicle relays and connectors, industrial equipment, communication modules, electronic components, switches, batteries & fuel cells to heat fins.
Together with Kyoto Shisaku Net, Saijo Inx provides a complete support: from development, prototyping, mass production, fast realisation, smooth transition to mass production, early market introduction, implement incrementations.
The French Engineer introduced his company, showing a photo with not many workers in the factory ground, and they’re starting an automatization process to control machines with new customized software – Antoine is the Project Leader of the Smart Factory Project, in charge of the factory’s automation, using IoT and Industry 4.0 concepts and technology to bring the company to the new era of fast prototyping.
His team work is focused on automation and right now there is a new trend in the company with IoT devices and consumer products. He showed some cases of B2B solutions created internally by his development team, from idea to the next steps of development for customers, such as testing devices, bicycle safety lights, aroma diffusers, transporting robots, etc.
Hilltop can provide Prototype, Mechanical Design, Assembly and even mass production support for IoT.
The panel discussion spoke about maker’s issues and how Kyoto Shisaku members can support hardware startups as a group, part of Makers Boot Camp main activities.
Click here if you would like to check the presentation deck from all speakers, with detailed information about each one.
This is a guest post by Chi Chia Huang, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka. With the good weather and a couple of nice beers in MTRL Kyoto on September 12th, we kicked off the meetup with a presentation from Naonobu Yamamoto, who is the CEO of Kpnetworks. Following the second presentation by Daigo Sakaida, an open innovation initiative senior principal at Accenture, anchoring the meetup, John Kat, a technology specialist from the British government in the Department of International Trade, shared his insights about what a government can do to support startups and the ecosystem. We were also glad to have our last speaker Keiji Tokuda, the founder and CEO of Keigan, with Keigan’s establish day on this day. Yamamoto presented on the business model of Kpnetworks, and talked about the importance of accelerator program in the startup ecosystem. He also shared his experience with several accelerators. Sakaida discussed the difference between accelerators and incubators. With his clear explanation, we could understand the concept of these two different…
This is a guest post by Chi Chia Huang, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.
Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka.
With the good weather and a couple of nice beers in MTRL Kyoto on September 12th, we kicked off the meetup with a presentation from Naonobu Yamamoto, who is the CEO of Kpnetworks. Following the second presentation by Daigo Sakaida, an open innovation initiative senior principal at Accenture, anchoring the meetup, John Kat, a technology specialist from the British government in the Department of International Trade, shared his insights about what a government can do to support startups and the ecosystem. We were also glad to have our last speaker Keiji Tokuda, the founder and CEO of Keigan, with Keigan’s establish day on this day.
Naonobu Yamamoto, CEO of Kpnetworks
Yamamoto presented on the business model of Kpnetworks, and talked about the importance of accelerator program in the startup ecosystem. He also shared his experience with several accelerators.
Daigo Sakaida, open innovation initiative senior principal at Accenture
Sakaida discussed the difference between accelerators and incubators. With his clear explanation, we could understand the concept of these two different programs. Accelerators are usually a short term program for several months; in contrast, Incubators are mostly long term programs from one to three years. He suggested startups still in seed stage to join incubator programs, and startups in early stage to consider joining accelerator programs. Also he brought up to date numbers showing the startup ecosystem in Japan, pointing out there is still an opportunity for growth.
John Kat, technology specialist from the British government in the Department of International Trade
Kat shared his tips and tricks to overcome the common challenges of startups including networking, funding, management, and marketing. He also emphasized that British government has developed great program to connect researchers from academic world with industrial experts to assist startups and innovation.
Keiji Tokuda, founder and CEO of Keigan
Tokuda gave several advice to startups from his business experience and suggested to seek opportunity of collaboration with government.
During the panel discussion, presenters had different insights about how to manage the fund they raised and about how to convince investors to invest them.
Kat gave an interesting comment:
After meeting several venture capitalists, talking with potential investors but you got turned down by all of them…instead of keep trying more to convince the sharks, you should find out the reasons why you got rejected. That is to say, your business model is not completed yet. Try to figure out the bugs and revise them, then seek for the investors again.
Special thanks to Makers Boot Camp and Kyoto city government for holding the amazing meetup. I can’t wait for the next Monozukuri meetup on 12th October, to discuss the major failure for hardware startups: “Design for Manufacture.”
Makers Boot Camp 
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
This is a guest post by Mari Futagami, Community Manager of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator 
This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator 
This is a guest post by Chi Chia Huang, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator 
