On October 17th 2019, four Swiss start-ups and a research organization participated in a pitching session at Venture Café Tokyo in order to capture the attention of potential Japanese partners. The start-ups were exhibiting at the SwissTech Pavilion at CEATEC, one of Asia’s largest technology fairs in the CPS/IoT area taking place on October 15 until 18. Asyril, CREAL3D, Mandat International, Nomoko and Somniacs also showcased their products at the event.
The pitching event, which has been initiated by the Science & Technology Office Tokyo of the Swiss Embassy, was attended by the Ambassador of Switzerland to Japan, Mr. Jean-François Paroz, as well as Mr. Alexandre Edelmann from Presence Switzerland, which is responsible for SwissTech Pavilions around the world. Translation and moderation of the event was done by Ms. Kyoko Suzuki, head of the Science & Technology Office Tokyo. Exciting the audience, the start-ups attracted a crowd of around 80 people.
The first start-up to present was CREAL3D, showing their mixed and virtual reality technology, which allows for a natural shift of focus for the eyes. The pitch by CEO and co-founder Dr. Tomas Sluka was met with amazement by the audience as CREAL3D’s light-field technology does not rely on eye tracking.
Following was the pitch by Mr. Jonathan Cobas, regional sales manager from the company Asyril, who presented their flexible feeding system for miniature parts developed for smart factories. By combining vibration technology, industrial vision and precision robotics, their system offers optimized speed, accuracy and flexibility.
Integrating virtual reality and robotics, the bird flight simulator Birdly by Somniacs cannot merely be used for entertainment. The presenter Mr. Lazar Tosic, head of sales and marketing at Somniacs, stressed its benefits for a multitude of areas, exemplified by its current employment for educational purposes. The virtual city map Birdly uses is one of the various applications of Nomoko, the following start-up presented by its fundraising manager Mr. Loic Nouar. Nomoko specializes in very precise 3D maps that can be overlaid with IoT data for instance and thus enable simulations.
The pitching session was concluded with a presentation by Dr. Sébastien Ziegler, director of Mandat International and its IoT Lab. The IoT Lab offers certification schemes that help partner companies and legal advisers to align their own or their clients’ data services with GDPR licencing.
Following the pitching session, the start-ups invited the audience to the booth space, where visitors could ask the Swiss representatives questions face-to-face. The lively and casual atmosphere allowed the guests to immerse themselves in deep discussions about the technical aspects of the products or in entrepreneurial deliberations about business strategies. The high interest the exhibitors received during the event concluded the evening on a very positive note.
Venture Café Tokyo is a non-profit organization that hosts community events on a weekly basis to support early-stage entrepreneurs.