The Kansai Startup Academia Coalition (KSAC) brings together participants from academia, industry and government to support university-based startups in Japan’s dynamic Kansai region. Program Director Koji Murota shares KSAC’s message of co-creation with the world.
The Kansai region in western Japan is home to a diverse group of prefectures, each with its own unique appeal. From Nara, home of Japan’s earliest imperial capital and first real city, to Kyoto, the seat of imperial rule for over a thousand years from 794 to 1869, to Osaka, where the castle and surrounding town built in 1583 by samurai warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi rapidly grew into a flourishing hub for commerce, communication and information, Kansai is a melting pot for Japanese history, tradition, culture and industry on a grand scale.
Reaching Out To Up-and-Coming Unicorns At Kansai’s Universities
“Today, Kansai hosts a startup ecosystem with a global perspective. Over 80 organizations in Kansai, spanning academia, industry, finance and local government, have formed an alliance that transcends organizational and regional boundaries. This alliance aims to foster a virtuous cycle of cultivating human capital, advancing research, and offering commercialization or funding support for promising discoveries. The outcome is a platform dedicated to leveraging these organic connections to expand the horizons of local entrepreneurs and create a continuous stream of university-based startups,” says Koji Murota, Program Director for Kansai Startup Academia Coalition (KSAC).
As of December 2024, KSAC has 27 participating universities, and Murota is deputy executive director at Kyoto University, the core institution of KSAC as a whole. Before accepting his current position, he was president of Kyoto University Innovation Capital, a wholly owned subsidiary venture capital of Kyoto University. How does a program become a nexus for concrete action to bring university research results and cutting-edge technology to the world and use it to address social issues? How can relationships outside academia be deepened to support these goals? Engaging with these issues is Murota’s role as a professional.
“A university-based startup ecosystem like KSAC, which organically connects more than 80 participants across the worlds of industry, government and academia, is a rare thing not only in Japan but around the world,” says Murota. “Right now, KSAC is promoting a variety of collaborative efforts between participants, from joint development of entrepreneurship education programs to bringing local government and industry into the process of assessing research programs for commercial potential and allotting gap funding accordingly. Surveying the 27 Kansai universities among KSAC’s membership, three research domains stand out for their potential for commercialization and societal adoption. The first is life sciences, including cell and gene therapy; the second is clean energy, such as hydrogen, nuclear fusion and next-generation photovoltaic element; and the third is new materials based on chemistry. There are numerous promising research fields among universities within KSAC, in terms of commercialization and societal implementation. Among these, we are especially focusing on life sciences, including cell therapy and gene therapy; clean energy, such as next-generation solar power, hydrogen and nuclear fusion, and new materials created based on chemistry. KSAC’s participants are home to multiple research programs in these domains with the potential to spread their wings as unicorn startups, but one challenge we have faced since our founding in 2021 is capacity for global development. It’s fair to say that we’re currently at the stage of sharing among our membership the lessons that participating universities have learned individually by applying a trial-and-error approach to various challenges, even if on a smaller scale. We’re beginning to find the overseas partners and networks we really need to connect with, and getting a feel for the global space.”
KSAC is making great strides in its work to secure contacts outside the domain of academia overseas. In October 2024, KSAC made its debut at TechInnovation in Singapore, where five teams from KSAC member universities showcased their projects at the exhibition, and KSAC hosted a local networking event. This initiative allowed KSAC to strengthen its network with overseas companies, venture capital firms and support organizations essential for the global commercialization of promising research programs.
“In February 2025, we’ll be holding networking events in Boston and New York,” says Murota. “We call it the KSAC Boston/NY Program, and it’s aimed at researchers and team members exploring commercial possibilities in bio and life sciences with a view to overseas expansion. It’s designed to help them build a network of contacts with business and venture capital overseas and acquire the knowledge and skills they need for commercialization. Like Japan as a whole, Kansai is home to many talented researchers with high ambitions. Going forward, KSAC will focus ever more strongly on raising its profile overseas, and we hope that those researchers will stay in close communication with us.”
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