Deeptech Frontier Challenge 2026
Technologies That Change the World. Entrepreneurs Shaping the Future.
Bringing to life technologies the world has never seen before.
Taking on challenges once thought impossible through science and innovation.
Creating the industries of tomorrow with their own hands.
At Deeptech Frontier Challenge 2026, deeptech startups from Japan and around the world come together to share their technologies and visions with a global audience.
Awaiting the winner is the Grand Prize of JPY 10 million.
Which startup will open the door to the next generation of industry?
Join us to witness the groundbreaking technologies and passionate entrepreneurs who may shape the future.
Event Overview
Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2026
Venue: Knowledge Theater, 4F, North Building, Grand Front Osaka
(3-1 Ofukacho, Kita-ku, Osaka, Grand Front Osaka North Building 4F)
For venue access details, please click here.
Opening Remarks
Researcher Pitch Session — 9 Presenters
Break
DeepTech Frontier Challenge For Startups
Opening Remarks
Pitch Session 1 – 5 Startups
Pitch Session 2 – 5 Startups
Pitch Session 3 – 5 Startups
Awards Ceremony
Networking
Pitching Startups
-Deeptech Frontier Challenge For Startups-
“Deeptech Frontier Challenge for Startups” is a pitch competition featuring 15 deeptech startups selected from Japan and around the world, representing a wide range of fields including AI, advanced robotics, biotech and healthcare, semiconductors and communications, and fusion energy.
Through a seven-minute pitch, each startup will showcase its innovative technology, its potential impact on society and industry, and its business growth potential. The Grand Prize will be determined based on the judges’ evaluations.
Pitch Session 1
Pitch Session 2
Pitch Session 3
Judges

Adit Swarup
Partner, General Catalyst

Darsh Singh Mann
Head of Business Development & Partnerships, StartX

Laurent Rains
Managing Director, Alchemist Accelerator

Leen Bnyat
Senior Vice President – Business Development, gener8tor

Shigeo Kagami
President, Kaishi Professional University

Steven Vanada
Managing Partner, Kinesys Group / Advisor, Vertex Ventures SEA & India
Adit Swarup
Partner, General Catalyst

- Biography
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Adit Swarup is a Partner at General Catalyst, a global investment and transformation company with $43B in assets under management. Adit works on GC’s Customer Value Fund, which provides capital at the largest scale to companies seeking new customer growth.
Darsh Singh Mann
Head of Business Development & Partnerships, StartX

- Biography
-
Darsh leads revenue at StartX, driving strategic partnerships across technology, banking, and legal services that equip startups with the critical tools to scale rapidly. He plays a key role in extending StartX’s global reach by connecting founders with international ecosystems, corporates, and investors. With a strong track record of strengthening startup ecosystems worldwide, he has enabled numerous founders to launch and grow in the U.S. while leveraging the powerful StartX–Stanford network of investors, customers, and mentors.
Laurent Rains
Managing Director, Alchemist Accelerator

- Biography
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Laurent is the Managing Director at Alchemist Accelerator, leading strategy and execution for its Silicon Valley-based global program while guiding early-stage B2B startups on U.S. customer validation, enterprise sales, and fundraising. He previously established Alchemist’s U.S. market entry programs for Asia-Pacific partners, creating structured pathways for international founders.
A former founder and startup executive, Laurent blends practical entrepreneurial experience with senior leadership roles at major tech firms. At Google, he led UX program management for Google Maps to support product commercialization. At Autodesk, he directed the global integration of over 20 acquired products into a unified subscription platform, managing 1,500+ engineers to drive significant revenue growth.
Laurent specializes in operational rigor, cross-cultural fluency, and translating technical innovation into disciplined, market-ready growth strategies.
Leen Bnyat
Senior Vice President – Business Development, gener8tor

- Biography
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Leen Bnyat is the Senior Vice President of Business Development at gener8tor and leads international partnerships for accelerator and VC services. Prior to re-joining the gener8tor team she was the Senior Development Officer at P33, a Chicago-based nonprofit dedicated to transforming Chicago into a top-tier tech hub driving inclusive economic growth. Leen also served as the Chief of Staff for Business Development at gener8tor where she helped secure public and private capital to fund programs that supported entrepreneurs, creatives and jobseekers. Previously, Leen spent the majority of her career in the nonprofit sector with community-based organizations focused on women and adolescent health. Leen is passionate about leveraging venture capital as an economic development tool to support overlooked and underserved innovators across the globe. Leen graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison with a B.S. in Gender & Women Studies, African Studies and Global Health. Leen was awarded the 2020 YNPN Greater Milwaukee Chapter Emerging Leader Award and is fluent in Arabic and proficient in French.
Shigeo Kagami
President, Kaishi Professional University

- Biography
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Shigeo Kagami graduated from the Faculty of Commerce at Hitotsubashi University, earned an MBA from IMEDE (now IMD) in Switzerland, and completed his doctoral work (EDM) at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio of the United States.
He began his professional career at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), later became a founding partner of Corporate Directions, Inc. (CDI), and subsequently served as a partner at the Tokyo office of Heidrick & Struggles. He later joined The University of Tokyo, where he served as Professor in the Graduate School of Engineering and Deputy Director of the Division of University Corporate Relations.
For more than twenty years following the incorporation of Japan’s national universities in 2004, Professor Kagami has been deeply involved in building startup ecosystems originating from universities, promoting entrepreneurship education, and supporting the commercialization of academic research. His efforts have contributed significantly to fostering innovation and startup creation throughout Japan.
He has also served as Chair of the Judging Committee for the Japan Startup Awards and as Chief Examiner for the Prime Minister’s Award Selection Committee of the Japan Open Innovation Prize. He is a former President of the Japan Academic Society for Ventures and Entrepreneurs (JASVE). He received the inaugural Matsuda Shuichi Award from the Society in recognition of his outstanding contributions to venture research and entrepreneurship.
In April 2025, Professor Kagami assumed the presidency of Kaishi Professional University while continuing to serve as Senior Professor at The University of Tokyo.
Steven Vanada
Managing Partner, Kinesys Group / Advisor, Vertex Ventures SEA & India

- Biography
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Steven Vanada is an investor with over 15 years of experience in venture capital and technology investing across Japan and Southeast Asia.
He currently serves as an Advisor on Japan Investments for Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, supporting the firm’s investment activities and engagement with the Japanese startup ecosystem. Alongside this role, he is also a Managing Partner at Kinesys Group.
Steven has experience investing in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, including as an early investor in Coda Payments and as a former Board Director of Tokopedia. His experience spans early-stage to growth-stage investments, with a particular focus on technology, scalable business models, and cross-border opportunities connecting Japan with Southeast Asia.
Farmio

- Business Overview
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Farmio is a Singapore-based AI-native food supply chain platform serving businesses across Asia. We help food businesses streamline sourcing, procurement, inventory, logistics, finance, and cross-border trade through AI-powered automation.
Farmio currently serves more than 3,000 F&B and food-related businesses across Singapore and Hong Kong, including restaurants, hotels, bakeries, retailers, and food manufacturers. We facilitate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual food trade across products including eggs, rice, oil, and fresh produce.
Our AI-native operating system integrates proprietary AI agents into existing workflows and communication channels such as WhatsApp. Over 70 operational workflows can be automated, including order processing, demand forecasting, inventory management, supplier coordination, invoicing, payment tracking, logistics planning, and customer support. This helps businesses reduce manual work, improve procurement efficiency, and gain greater supply chain visibility without the complexity of traditional ERP systems.
Farmio also connects buyers, suppliers, logistics providers, financial institutions, and other supply chain partners, enabling more efficient and transparent food trade across the region.
Please contact us if there any questions or clarifications needed. We are very excited for the opportunity to participate in this event.
- Official Website
- https://farmio.io/
AironWorks Co., Ltd.

- Business Overview
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AironWorks brings together world-class AI researchers and ethical hackers to provide organizations with a “cyber vaccine.”
With most phishing attacks now generated by AI, attack techniques are evolving every day like new viral variants. Annual security training alone is no longer enough to build lasting immunity.
Our team of frontline ethical hackers, who understand attacks from the attacker’s perspective, works alongside our AI research team to recreate real-world attacks in a safe, harmless environment—delivering “real attacks” tailored to each individual employee.
By analyzing how employees respond, we build their antibodies: lasting behavioral change that strengthens their ability to recognize and resist attacks.
Our AI agents also continuously monitor incoming emails, helping organizations respond to threats as they emerge and maintain business continuity (BCP) when incidents occur.
To date, we have provided our services to 1,400 organizations and 700,000 users across more than 20 countries.
- Official Website
- https://en.aironworks.com/
TopoLogic Inc.

- Business Overview
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TopoLogic is developing a memory technology to solve the biggest “Memory Wall” in AI computing, cach e memory. With 4x capacity increase over existing cache memory technologies, TopoLogic’s TL-RAM helps deliver unprecedented AI processor performance by enabling processors that process more parameters, and more parallel computing nodes, which is critical for today’s AI chip performance. By utilizing topological antiferromagnets, a novel material technology researched by the University of Tokyo, To poLogic is developing memory cells that are based on magnetic memory but operate at cache memory spe
eds, meaning substantially smaller cell size. This allows chip designers to place several hundreds of MBs~GB range cache memory directly on-chip. This technology aims to fundamentally increase the program size and parameter size of AIs by a substantial margin.
- Official Website
- https://www.topologic.jp/en
Aeterlink Corp.

- Business Overview
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A deep-tech startup originating from Stanford University, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Founded to commercialize wireless power transfer technology born from research on miniaturizing cardiac pacemakers, to treat diseases medicine alone cannot cure. Funding to date: approx. USD 45M.
Every technological revolution, from printing to steam to the internet, did one thing: structurally reset the cost of something the world already did. Wiring and batteries are what make sensing the physical world expensive. Removing them collapses the cost of capturing physical data and redefines how far Physical AI can scale.
Aeterlink pioneered the world’s first practical spatial wireless power transfer solution, AirPlug™, now deployed in Factory Automation (FA), Building Management (BM), and medical implants. In FA, lines run on countless cabled sensors, and one disconnection halts the line; fully wireless sensors, already in mass production, remove that failure mode. In BM, mass-produced temperature and humidity sensors enable automatic HVAC control that cuts electricity costs and improves comfort.
With the vision of a wiring-free digital world, Aeterlink continues to expand globally.
- Official Website
- https://aeterlink.com/en/
Nicslab Ops, Inc.

- Business Overview
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Nicslab is a deep-tech company developing advanced electronic and photonic integrated solutions for next-generation data centers, AI, and quantum computing. We address a critical bottleneck in scaling complex optical systems: precise, high-density, and cost-efficient control of increasingly complex photonic devices.
Our patented high-density multichannel technology delivers up to 20× more compact and 3× lower-cost solutions than conventional approaches, enabling customers to control more channels while reducing system size, complexity, and infrastructure cost.
Nicslab has shipped products to more than 100 customers across 24 countries, including NVIDIA, Fujitsu, NASA, leading universities, and global research laboratories. With proprietary chip-scale technologies and a growing international footprint, Nicslab is building the enabling infrastructure to scale integrated photonics from R&D into high-volume commercial applications.
- Official Website
- https://www.nicslab.com
Kyoto Fusioneering Ltd.

- Business Overview
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Kyoto Fusioneering is the world’s premier fusion technology and integrated systems developer. It delivers plasma heating, tritium fuel cycle, and tritium breeding blanket and thermal cycle systems that advanced fusion programs worldwide depend on, regardless of confinement approach. KF operates globally across Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada. Visit us at kyotofusioneering.com.
- Official Website
- https://kyotofusioneering.com/en/
LINEA Innovations, Inc.

- Business Overview
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LINEA Innovations is a Tokyo-based fusion energy company founded in 2023, developing a commercial reactor fueled by hydrogen and boron-11 (p-11B). Unlike mainstream deuterium-tritium fusion, p-11B needs no radioactive tritium fuel cycle and produces very few neutrons, reducing material activation and enabling a simpler, compact plant that can be sited close to demand.
Our approach combines an FRC-Mirror hybrid configuration with beam-driven, non-thermal fusion reactions. It builds on the research assets and expertise of Nihon University and the University of Tsukuba, where our co-founding CSO and CTO lead research on FRC and mirror fusion. Our core business is the manufacture, sale and maintenance of commercial fusion reactors for power utilities, hyperscale data centers and industrial sites. In parallel, we are pursuing near-term revenue by commercializing our plasma, beam and high-energy technologies in adjacent fields such as industrial plasma ion sources.
In August 2026, our project was conditionally selected for Japan’s METI fusion power generation demonstration subsidy. We are advancing toward power generation demonstration in the 2030s.
- Official Website
- https://linea-innovations.com/en/
Liquium

- Business Overview
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Liquium’s ammonia catalysts mark a new frontier in ammonia production, promoting a pathway to increase productivity and energy efficiency in how we make ammonia today and in the future. Specifically, Liquium is optimising the Haber-Bosch process. This will increase the output and efficiency of existing global ammonia facilities and, in turn, unlock greater-scale production in new low-carbon ammonia plants, enabling ammonia to become the dominant zero-carbon fuel for the maritime and power generation sectors. Liquium is actively working with global leaders across our value chain, from raw material suppliers to specialist global engineering companies and end users. This means Liquium is scaling up what we do: catalyst development and fabrication, and ammonia production pilot trials. We are proving the technology with partners so we can bring a certifiable, warrantable new catalyst product to the world’s largest synthetic chemical. This innovation is needed to resolve an impending ammonia shortfall and unlock a clean fuel to decarbonise a fossil-fuel world.
- Official Website
- https://www.liquium.nz
Periotherapia Co., Ltd

- Business Overview
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Periotherapia is a clinical-stage biotech company spin out of The University of Osaka, developing a new approach to one of the biggest unsolved challenges in cancer treatment: drug resistance. Based on long-term research by our founder, Professor Yoshiaki Taniyama, we identified pathological periost in as an important driver of the protective tumor microenvironment (TME). Our lead antibody, PT0101, is a first-in-class therapy designed to selectively target this pathological form of periostin. By weakening the protective stromal barrier around tumors, PT0101 aims to overcome treatment resistance and restore sensitivity to existing anticancer therapies. A Phase 1/2a study is ongoing in Japan. We aim to establish clinical proof of concept first in breast cancer, then expand PT0101 to other sol id tumors and combinations with a broad range of anticancer therapies. Our business model is to build a strong clinical and biomarker data package, then pursue licensing or co-development with global pharmaceutical companies for late-stage development and commercialization.
- Official Website
- https://periotherapia.co.jp/en/
AiRato, Inc.

- Business Overview
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AiRato Inc. is a deep-tech SaMD startup driven by a singular mission: to save every cancer patient through advanced radiotherapy. Currently, global shortages of specialized oncologists mean that optimal care is not reaching patients whose lives could otherwise be saved.
In advanced treatments like IMRT, precise planning is a massive bottleneck, requiring up to 6 hours of skilled manual labor. Our Class III approved platform, “RatoEra,” automates this workflow down to 20 minutes through two core advantages: (1) world-class AI technology and R&D engine, backed by our founder who leads Japan’s largest radiotherapy research lab, and (2) world-leading “Made in Japan” treatment planning data with millimeter-level precision.
Starting with our approved 1st-generation product, we will expand our platform every two years with features that directly enhance therapeutic efficacy, driving continuous upselling.
Already testing with 25 leading facilities across Japan and Southeast Asia, AiRato is expanding into the US market to build the global digital infrastructure for modern radiotherapy
- Official Website
- https://airato.jp/en/
reThink64

- Business Overview
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Pushing the boundaries of medicine and wellness, developers have begun to explore more potent and precise active molecules like peptides, proteins and RNAs. The biggest challenge for these molecules is not in What to Use but rather How to Use them? How to keep them stable, How to administer enough dose, How to concentrate efficacy and avoid off-targets? Jay Sarkar (Stanford PhD) and Akira Yamamoto (SRI veteran) overcame these obstacles for specific use cases in the prior startups they founded and exited. They now lead the Silicon Valley startup reThink64 around a broader solution. Their novel “NanoEmitters” stably store a multitude of actives on the shelf. Then once applied in/on the body, they package and emit the active in a stream of daughter nanoparticles, for penetrating and concentrated delivery. In just 4 years, reThink64 has achieved live animal and human validation, and its initial revenue through sponsored co-development and out-licensing with commercial clients (including a large strategic in Japan). They are rapidly growing with partners in the US, Europe and Asia, to position themselves as the key enabling technology for the next generation of drugs and cosmetics.
- Official Website
- https://capsyne.com/rethink64/
bitBiome, Inc.

- Business Overview
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bitBiome is a pioneering biotechnology start-up poised to revolutionize the global bio-manufacturing industry through the strategic convergence of proprietary microbial genomics, high-throughput biology, and advanced artificial intelligence. With an overarching mission to “unlock the full potential of microbes,” bitBiome is fundamentally shifting the field of synthetic biology from an era of empirical, trial-and-error experimentation into a highly predictive, data-driven engineering discipline. Having established a diverse, internationally experienced commercial team across Tokyo, the United States, and the United Kingdom, bitBiome is uniquely positioned to deliver “Generative AI” moments in biology and collaborate with companies from food, flavor and fragrance, chemical, pharma and animal health. bitBiome is the only Japanese biotechnology company whom I-Q-T, a renowned US strategic investor, invested in.
- Official Website
- https://bitbiome.bio/
BioBytes Inc.

- Business Overview
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BioBytes Inc. is a physician-founded digital health and biotechnology company specializing in sarcopenia, a major cause of falls, disability, and loss of independence in aging populations. Our flagship platform, MyoTest, combines AI-based video analysis of gait, balance, and chair-stand performance with clinical data and biomarkers to enable objective, scalable screening and personalized monitoring without specialized motion-analysis equipment. Our core competitive advantage is M-Bank, a 15-year prospective sarcopenia cohort and biobank integrating longitudinal clinical assessments, physical-function data, blood and muscle tissue samples, and multi-omics data. This proprietary infrastructure enables BioBytes to connect real-world patient assessment with biomarker validation and therapeutic-target discovery. Founded by an orthopedic surgeon and developed with clinical and biotechnology experts, BioBytes provides an integrated platform spanning early detection, precision intervention, and drug discovery. MyoTest is already being used in more than 30 clinics, with hospital validation and medical-device regulatory development underway.
- Official Website
- https://www.biobytes.ai/en
EF Polymer K.K.

- Business Overview
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EF Polymer is a Japan-based startup developing and manufacturing natural, biodegradable superabsorbent polymers from upcycled fruit peels, such as oranges and bananas.
Through our proprietary technology, we upcycle fruit-derived materials into agricultural inputs that retain and gradually release water in soil. This improves water-use efficiency for crops while helping reduce irrigation requirements, as well as the costs and labor associated with farming.
We have sold approximately 1,000 tons across more than 10 countries, primarily in Japan, India, the US, and Europe.
Beyond agriculture, we are expanding our business into cosmetics, daily-use consumer products, and other fields where alternatives to petroleum-derived polymers are increasingly needed.
Born in India and Okinawa, Japan, EF Polymer is bringing its circular material technology to global markets.
- Official Website
- https://www.efpolymer.com/en-us
A-SEEDS Co., Ltd.

- Business Overview
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A-SEEDS Co., Ltd. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation, non-viral CAR-T cell therapies for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and solid tumors, where no CAR-T therapies are currently approved. Our proprietary platform is powered by the piggyBac transposon and combines three key design advantages: memory-rich CAR-T cells designed for durable antitumor activity, tumor-selective targeting for AML, and dual-antigen targeting for solid tumors to reduce antigen escape. A-SEEDS is advancing two clinical-stage programs: GMR CAR-T for AML and EPHB4 CAR-T for solid tumors, with Phase 1 studies underway in Japan and Australia and future global Phase 2 development planned. Our business model creates value through both proprietary pipeline licensing and CAR-T platform licensing to global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
- Official Website
- https://www.a-seeds.co.jp/eng/