Deep Tech Forum North America 2024" will be held in three U.S. cities in January next year!

The main theme for 2024 is "RAAI (Robotics, Automation, AI) for Manufacturing".

As a first step, in mid-January 2024, the Deep Tech Forum North America 2024" will be held in three cities promoting deep tech.

The deep tech sector is an area with a high affinity for "open innovation," in which companies collaborate with large companies and others. Unlike software and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) startups, which are the mainstream of today's startups, the startup ecosystem is more willing to collaborate with the open innovation departments of large companies because it is necessary to operate a company as if it were a supply chain or value chain from the early seed stage of the startup. The startup ecosystem is more willing to collaborate with the open innovation departments of large companies.

Dave Mawhinney, serial entrepreneur and director of the Swartz Entrepreneurship Center at Carnegie Mellon University, explained the significance of the Deep Tech Forum: "Accelerators and VC support alone are not enough for university-based deep tech startups. Active collaboration with the open innovation departments of large corporations is the key to success."

For 2024, the inaugural year of the Deep Tech Forum, the main theme is "RAAI (Robotics, Automation, and AI) for Manufacturing" and we will be in Toronto, Pittsburgh, and New York (including Boston and Philadelphia), cities with strong ecosystems for these technologies, to provide start-ups and The opportunity to work with startups and startup ecosystems will be condensed into one week, January 15-19, 2024.

Deep Tech Forum North America 2024 Overview

(*) Events for tour participants. (Destinations and other details are subject to change without notice.)

Monozukuri Ventures' venture investments in North America

Monozukuri Ventures is a startup support company that provides seed investment and open innovation support in the deep tech sector, formed through the 2020 business merger of Darma Tech Labs (headquartered in Kyoto, Japan) and FabFoundry (headquartered in New York).

Leveraging its predecessor FabFoundry's close relationship with the startup ecosystem in the deep tech sector, particularly on the East Coast of North America and in the Great Lakes region, the company began investing in ventures in the US in 2017 and has invested in over 30 companies in the past 7 years, primarily in startups in the manufacturing sector The company has invested in more than 30 startups over the past seven years, mainly in the manufacturing sector.

Nobuhiro Seki, Chief Investment Officer at the New York headquarters, is an entrepreneur with experience managing startups in Japan and the United States. He moved to New York City in 2014 after working as an executive at a social media startup in Silicon Valley, where he experienced fundraising and divestiture (M&A), followed by angel investment experience. He founded FabFoundry, a support startup for hardware startups in New York, leveraging his experience working with a major Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer. He then started investing in venture capital in 2017.

To develop a close relationship with the startup ecosystem, which is essential for seed investments to be realized, he has served as an advisor to NYDesigns, a hardware incubator in New York City, a mentor at the Swartz Entrepreneurship Center at Carnegie Mellon University, and a judge for the Hardware Cup pitch competition. He has also served as a judge for the Hardware Cup competition.

In addition, in order to realize collaboration in the startup ecosystem between Japan and the U.S., the Monozukuri Hardware Cup, a Japanese version of the Hardware Cup, is operated by the Monozukuri Hardware Entrepreneurship Promotion Council, a consortium that launched the Monozukuri Hardware Cup in 2017. The Monozukuri Hardware Cup was launched in 2017. The Monozukuri Hardware Cup will be held in Japan, but all pitches and Q&A sessions will be conducted in English, making it a gateway for Japanese startups to succeed in the U.S. (The Monozukuri Hardware Cup will be held for the 8th time in March 2024).

Paid programs available to implement open innovation

In order to support more practical open innovation, Deep Tech Forum offers a "reverse pitch" to introduce your company and your areas of interest, as well as a separate program to sit in on meetings with startups and support their subsequent interactions with you. We support open innovation of Japanese companies.

Participation in the program facilitates the development of ongoing relationships with local universities, accelerators, investors and startups.

In conjunction with participation in events in three North American cities starting January 15, we will also begin accepting applications for the Deep Tech Tour 2024, which will offer events in each city to interact with universities, accelerators, local investors, and others.

For more information about the paid program and tours, an online information session will be held on November 28, 2023 via Zoom. If you would like to attend, please register on the event page below.
https://intro-deep-tech-forum-2024.peatix.com/

If you are unable to attend the online information session, please contact us individually using the contact form below.
https://forms.clickup.com/25504961/f/rab61-10343/GG2PPJPULF8WHF1TAU

About Monozukuri Ventures

Monozukuri Ventures, Inc. is a Kyoto and New York-based company that manages VC funds for hardware startups and provides technical consulting for hardware prototyping and manufacturing.

(Kyoto, Japan), which operates the Makers Boot Camp, and FabFoundry, Inc. (New York City), which operates the Makers Boot Camp, launched in January 2020, combining the management resources of the two companies' hardware startup support. To date, the firm has invested in 55 hardware startups in Japan and the U.S. (24 in Japan and 31 in the U.S.). The company has also supported more than 190 prototyping and mass production projects, mainly for startups. (All figures are as of the beginning of December 2022)

For the most recent media coverage, please click here.
https://monozukuri.vc/ja/news/?group0=gr1_media