Italian Innovation Day 2018
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The third edition of the Italian Innovation Day had almost 200 attendees, about 15% up from last year, of which around 15% were investors and financial institutions, while around 70% were big corporations and SMEs interested in international partnerships and investments.
Main fields were Artificial Intelligence and IoT applied to a great variety of verticals, from the medical and healthcare sector to agritech, food delivery, security and drones. Other fields were AR/VR applied to design and security and entertainment (movie platform and interactive manga). Ten Italian startups, or better to say "scaleups", on the market and ready for international expansion, pitched in front of a diverse and qualified audience. In particular, the event attracted: public institutions (Business Development Center Tokyo, Fukuoka City, etc.), big corporations (Dai Nippon Printing, DENSO CORPORATION, Fujifilm, Hitachi |
Systems, Itochu Corporation, JSR Corporation, Marubeni, SoftBank, Syngenta, Tokyo Gas, Yamaha, etc.), local SMEs, distributors, consultants and marketing agencies, investors and financial institutions (Seven Bank, Falcon Capital, etc.), media (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, Italian economics and finance newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, etc.) and local universities (Keio University, Osaka Prefecture University, Waseda University, etc.).
Among local distributors, we would like to mention TREX and Matteo Belfiore Architecture, which have established a partnership with ENERBRAIN, one of the startups pitching at the second edition of the Italian Innovation Day. Special thanks to our partners that have helped organize this event and select some of the best Italian startups in the international scene: Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), NTT Data Open Innovation Forum, Masaru Ikeda (The Bridge), Emil Abirascid (Startup Business), and the FDI Helpdesk of the Trade Promotion Section of the Embassy of Italy. |
Guest Speakers
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Keynote speakers Emil Abirascid and Masaru Ikeda introduced the Italian VC industry and its growing european perspective.
Three were the special guest speakers of this edition. Yoshiaki Ishii from the Ministry of Economics, Commerce and Industry (METI) introduced the new goverment policies fostering Japanese startup ecosystem and the opportunities available for foreign companies under the new regulation. Katsuyoshi Nakajima from Massive R&D talked about the partnership with the italian startup DIS, participant to the first edition of the Italian Innovation Day. Finally, Shinichiro Isago from LINE Corporation presented LINE platform as an innovative instrument for foreign companies to enter the Japanese B2B2C and B2C markets. Speeches can be dowloaded from the links below. |
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| Shinichiro Isago (LINE) |
Pitching StartupsA description of the startups in Japanese is available at this link. Investors and corporations interested in follow-ups on one or more startups can either contact them directly or send their inquiries to the FDI Helpdesk of the Trade Promotion Section, Embassy of Italy in Japan ([email protected]). For further information about the FDI Helpdesk, please find a presentation at this link.
Pitch decks can be downloaded from the links below.
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Networking and Meetings
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More than 60 one-on-one meetings were organized during the event and in the following days, as corporations and VCs found startups' innovative ideas worth being considered for potential business partnerships and investments.
Some of the startups have already set up follow-up meetings with companies met at the Italian Innovation Day. Let's cross fingers! During the networking session, startup booths and demonstrations were provided to give event attendees a deeper understanding of the technologies, services and products offered by Italian startups. A media corner was also available for journalists to interview startups, guest speakers and event attendees. |
Hope to see you again next year!
Press
Organizers & Partners
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Supporters
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