Disrupting Japan

The future of Japanese industry depends on startups.

At some point in the early 2000s the seemingly unstoppable engine of Japanese corporate innovation mysteriously began to spin down.

Product quality was still high, of course, but corporate R&D seemed increasingly unable to launch anything truly innovative.

Today we sit down with Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures, who explains how Japanese enterprise is increasingly looking to startups to fill that gap. And it's working. We talk about what makes for successful enterprise-startup collaboration, how startup innovations are being adopted within enterprises, and exactly who CVC units really need to answer to.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.


Show Notes


How the parent's history and DNA effects CVC
TDK Venture's  four-year innovation horizon
A strategy for finding and investing in innovative startups
How to convince an enterprise to start a CVC unit
The false dichotomy between financial and strategic concerns
How CVCs can reliably drive innovation back to their parent
Exploration vs exploitation CVC strategies
The importance of (and difficulty in) investor transparency and accountability
Tracking TDK Ventures' anti-portfolio
What will drive Japanese innovation over the next decade
Why the parent is not the CVC unit's customer


Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know about  TDK Ventures

TDK Ventures intro deck
TDK United Reports
TDK Ventures Deep Explorations


Nicolas' Podcast: Corporate Venturing Insider [youtube.com]
Nicolas' SubStack: From Frontier to Iconic [nicolassauvage.substack.com]
Articles Nicolas & I discussed

How VCs Can Create a Winning Investment Thesis [hbr.org]
The Cold Email VCs Want [medium.com]
Entrepreneurs Deserve a Better No [medium.com]
Our Customer Is The Entrepreneur [usv.com]
AM Batteries–ATL collaboration announcement [businesswire.com]


Further Reading on building and running a CVC

What Successful Corporate Venture Capital Funds Do Differently [hbr.org]
The Opinionated CVC: A perspective on strategy, process and people
Open-Source TDK Mothership Startup Engagements Tracker
Open-source TDK Ventures Investment Scorecard
What You Need to Unlearn to Succeed in Venture Capital 
Why VCs Should Use Net Promoter Scores with Founders [hbr.org]
Is Corporate Venture Capital Right for Your Startup? [hbr.org]
Starting a Corporate VC: An Olympic Approach [medium.com]
Corporate Venturing: The Infinite Relay Race [medium.com]





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Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.
Venture capital is an industry that is defined by trends. Not only the technology trends that dominate the headlines, but by quieter, equally powerful trends that are going on behind the scenes.
Over the last decade, Japanese enterprises have become increasingly active startup investors. They do this by making LP investments in other VC funds, having business units make startup investments directly. And increasingly, by setting up corporate venture capital teams to focus full-time on startup investing and collaboration.
Results so far have been, shall we say, mixed.
While a handful of Japanese CVCs have delivered tremendous strategic and financial value to their parent companies, others have spent a lot of money with very little to show for it.
Well, today we're going to sit down and talk with someone who is doing things right, Nicolas Sauvage, the president of TDK Ventures. I helped set up both TEPCO and JERA's CVC units, and I've always been impressed with the way TDK Ventures runs things, so it's great to have Nicolas on the show.
We dive into what corporate sponsors should actually expect from their CVC units, how TDK selects startups and makes investment decisions, and some of the most important reasons to be optimistic about the future of corporate venture capital in Japan.
But you know, Nicolas tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, we're sitting here with Nicolas Sauvage, the president of TDK Ventures. So, thanks for sitting down with me.
Nicolas: No, it's great to be with you, Tim.
Tim: To get started, TDK makes all kinds of things, but I think most consumers still associate them with magnetic tape. So, before we get into TDK Ventures, what is TDK? What do you guys do?
Nicolas: Well, let's start with the history of TDK, maybe, because that, I think, is part of the charm, as you say. So, it started in 1935, 91 years ago, as a venture company. And it was a spin-off of a university. Saito-san, the founder, had failed 98 startups before. It was his attempt number 99.
Tim: TDK started as a university startup spin-out.
Nicolas: In a way, it leveraged on licensed technology coming from a university. It was around ferrite materials, which at the time was a frontier material. They started plowing and commercializing these ferrite materials for different use cases. And it was a B2B business. Then, like you mentioned, the music tapes that everyone remembers and the logo in New York on the square, that was the B2C, which is very different from B2B. Think about how many companies have gone from B2B to B2C. Now, think about large companies, more than 100,000 people, global presence, that have gone from a B2B to a B2C back to a B2B.
Tim: It's a small group.
Nicolas: Very small group. I mean, I can think of Nokia and Siemens and Alcatel, but you don't have so many. Now, to your question, I think today we are a tech firm developing amazing companies partnering with our customers in energy space. So, think about batteries and power supplies, but also passive components, which are in everything, in every device you have in your pockets or in your home, and sensors and actuators. And so the big push we are doing today is clearly in AI and physical AI. And this is quite exciting for all of us because when you're a corporate VC, for a mothership like TDK that plays in so many places, it allows us a wide spectrum of places where we can explore and invest in.
Tim: That is a great place to be. But in a sense, that breadth for any VC is both a blessing and a curse. There's something to be said for focus. There's something to be said to having a wide field to play in. So ,TDK Ventures, what is your focus? How broad is your thesis?
Nicolas: I think we are actually blessed in that our investment scope is extremely well documented every year, which I don't think is true for most corporate VC, where the investment scope can be blurry or uncertain.
Tim: How do you decide that? Is that the investment team deciding the scope? Is it a negotiation with the parent?
Nicolas: No, it's even better than that. Our investment scope is TDK's long-term strategy, which is documented so well in our TDK United Integrated Report. So, these annual reports you have every year, where TDK talks about, of course, the present, what it has achieved, but also what it plans to do. And that TDK long-term vision and strategy becomes our investment scope. Now, within that investment scope, my team can decide what it is that they want to explore next. And typically, it has to answer a question from their passion. They have to be interested in the space, but also they have to answer a question of why now? Why does it become relevant now? And when you think about a VC, the why now is typically four years before it's obvious. You don't want to invest six years before it's obvious, and then you end up with nothing because no one would fund it for so long. But you don't want to be two years before it's obvious or worse, when it's already obvious at which point it's priced in and you're not bringing this very important insight back to your mothership. So, think about it this way. We have the investment scope very clearly defined from our annual reports, but then we have the ability to choose within that deep exploration in space that we are passionate about, we want to learn more, and we think could lead to something very important to drive the next TDK.
Tim: You can see that really being kind of the best of both worlds, where you do have the kind of hard limits that are imposed by the parent, but there's also enough space for the individual partners and principals to bring in their own passion and pursue their own interests within that.
Nicolas: We were talking about the advantages and the disadvantages. I think there are way more advantages, which is we end up investing in so many exciting technologies with amazing entrepreneurs who are dreaming and building the future. But there is a disadvantage, which is that when you have such a wide spectrum of topics, you need a bigger team. No small team can handle so many topics. And so you end up with a corporate VC that end up bigger than most corporate VCs. But when you have a mothership that actually is interested in all these topics, and when I say the mothership, it's more than 80 TDK teams we are serving. And so we have to be able to talk to all of them. You can't do that with a team of four or five people, which is typical for a corporate VC.
Tim: Right, right. And in that point, you just absolutely have to focus. You've got a small team. You mentioned your target is four years away from the technology becoming obvious. So, what does that mean in practice? Is it seed, series A? What stage are you looking to invest in?
Nicolas: So, the majority of our investments, and we've made 55 investments and about to close three more, so we'll get to 58. Hopefully by the time you publish this interview, then maybe the best way to explain it is through examples. When we invested in Groq, the inference chipset company, it was quite obvious to us that the market for inference was going to be so much

Sometimes it seems like Japan just can't figure out medtech startups.

In theory, Japan should be one of the most active startup markets for medical technology. In practice, however, there are relatively few success cases.

Today we are going to meet one of those success cases and talk with Sho Okiyama, MD and founder of Aillis, who has developed a minimally invasive flu and covid test that is already in widespread use in Japan. Hopefully, no one will ever need to stick another swab up your nose.

We also talk about Sho's time as a rural doctor, what's straining Japan's healthcare system, and how to fix it before it breaks.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.


Show Notes


Why influenza diagnosis has been so resistant to AI
You’ll never get another swab stuck up your nose
What practicing as a rural doctor taught Sho about Japan's healthcare system
Some Japanese still turn to Shamanism for medical advice
Starting an AI startup without a technical founder
Building a medical training dataset from scratch
The challenge Anthropic and OpenAI face in medical tech
Aillis's plans for global expansion
Why there are so few medtech startup in Japan and how to fix that
How to drive meaningful change in Japanese society


Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know about Aillis

Learn more about Evidence Finder


Connect with Sho on LinkedIn
Friend him on Facebook
Follow him on Twitter @ShoOkiyama
Watch Sho's TEDx talk on AI development in modern medicine



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Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.
Japan has a real problem with life science startups.
I mean, there's no shortage of brilliant ideas and patents. There's no shortage of support programs and investors looking to invest in Japanese medtech and biotech startups.
Everyone in Japan wants this to happen. Everyone knows this is about to happen. And yet, everyone is also a bit frustrated at just how slow this is happening.
But of course, it is happening.
So, today we sit down with Sho Okiyama, medical doctor and founder of Aillis, who has developed an AI-powered throat camera that can actually diagnose both influenza and COVID. It's the first device of its kind ever approved as a diagnostic medical device, and it is already in widespread use in clinics and hospitals in every prefecture in Japan. It's really an amazing success story that is just getting started.
Sho and I talk about what it really takes to bring a new medical device to market in Japan, what it's like to be the only doctor on a string of remote Japanese islands, and how we're going to get more Japanese doctors to start startups.
But you know, Sho tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, we're sitting here with Sho Okiyama, the founder and CEO of Aillis, who is using AI to make medical diagnosis faster and more accurate. So, thanks for sitting down with me.
Sho: Thank you for having me, Tim.
Tim: I'm really looking forward to this, because I think there's so much innovation going on in biotech and medicine in Japan right now, and what you guys are doing is really interesting. So, you've got two products, and I'd like to kind of cover them briefly. First, you have the Nodoka diagnostic camera.
Sho: We produce Nodoka, which is a medical device. This is a pharyngoscope. In other words, it's a throat camera. So, whenever you go to the doctor, the doctor would take a look at your throat, right? You know, find out whether it's reddish, swelling, or something like that. But all those inspections were based on knowledge inside the doctor's brain. So, what we developed was the database of the pharyngeal photo.
Tim: So, when a doctor is looking at someone's throat, they're looking for all kinds of different things. But Nodoka, as I understand it, is looking for two very specific things, right? It's able to diagnose influenza and recently COVID as well, right?
Sho: Yes. We used to diagnose influenza and COVID using PCR or similar methods.
Tim: How accurate is it compared to the PCR test? Because I would be very, very happy if I never have to get another swab up my nose for testing these things.
Sho: Yeah. Nodoka has gone through a clinical trial and has proven that it has approximately equivalent accuracy compared to the antigen testing.
Tim: That's fantastic. And it's in widespread use already, right?
Sho: Yes. It has been introduced to more than 2,000 hospitals or clinics in Japan.
Tim: And is the driving factor just patient comfort? Nobody likes getting the swab up the nose? Or is it more accurate? Is it faster?
Sho: Yeah, it's faster. And of course, it's less invasive, right? And what's more, Nodoka only has indications for two different diseases as of now, but it has the potential to have more indications, like cancers such as tongue cancer or pharyngeal cancer. And we also wrote a paper that the AI is able to detect signs of diabetes only through the image of the pharynx.
Tim: Really? Okay, I want to get back to Nodoka because it's super interesting. But before we do, I want to talk just really briefly, introduce your other product, which is Evidence Finder.
Sho: So, this is an LLM-based tool we developed for doctors. There are tons of medical information coming out. There are hundreds and thousands of papers published every day. So, doctors need to keep up, right? But it's a huge burden for doctors. So, what Evidence Finder does, it's a chat-based tool, such as, ChatGPT or Gemini, but it cites scientific papers. We use multiple techniques to prevent hallucination, which is very, very important in the field of medicine. And it also gives the doctors concrete evidence why the AI had said what he has said.
Tim: So, is this more of a research tool, or is it something that could potentially be a diagnostic tool?
Sho: It could be used in both ways. If the doctor were to use it in clinical settings, it needs to be approved as a medical device, which also could be the case for us developing the medical device version of Evidence Finder in the future.
Tim: Well, I understand that getting certified as a medical device is very much on your roadmap at the moment, right?
Sho: Yes.
Tim: Okay, I really want to dig into that. But before we do, I want to back up a little bit and talk about you.
Sho: Thank you.
Tim: So, you graduated from University of Tokyo Med School in 2010. And after graduation, you ended up practicing in some very rural areas of Japan, right?
Sho: Yes.
Tim: I mean, University of Tokyo Medical School is the most prestigious medical school in Japan. Graduates go into top-tier internships and hospitals all over Japan. Why did you decide to go to Okinawa and these rural areas and work as a rural country doctor?
Sho: Yeah, I started my residency in Red Cross Hospital in Shibuya. This is a huge hospital. It has like 20 doctors on duty at midnight. And you can perform MRIs, CAT scans 24/7. But the hospital was too developed for myself. And if I were to work there for 10 years, I would end up as a doctor who is only able to work a developed hospital like the Red Cross Hospital in Shibuya. So, I found in myself that I needed to go to rural areas or small clinics to develop my physical examination skills, as well as not ending up as a niche specialist. I wanted to be a generalist.
Tim: That makes a lot of sense. So, I mean, I could see that on one hand, going into prestigious hospitals, it's a very smooth escalator. On the other hand, it sounds kind of like the medical equivalent of being a sour man.
Sho: Oh, yeah, you could say it in that way.
Tim: I mean, things are decided for you. You sort of get pushed into doing one specific track or rotated through. So, how long were you in Shibuya before you made that call?
Sho: I was in Shibuya for three years. And then I went to Ishigaki and Hatsuka Islands for one year. And Hatsuka has only 500 inhabitants on the island. And there is, of course, I'm the only doctor on the island. So, you have to be on call for 24/7. If there are emergency patients, I had to call the helicopter and ride the helicopter with the patient to the main island.
Tim: Right, right. Because I imagine you're responsible for a number of the surrounding islands.
Sho: Yes, yes, we are.
Tim: The lack of rural doctors in Japan, it's a real problem now. Do you see technology as being able to kind of address this? For example, the Ministry of Health and Welfare is pushing hard on things like telemedicine and technology sandboxes to allow new technology to be experimented with. Do you think technology is the solution or is it more getting human doctors interested in going?
Sho: It's both technology problem and the doctors themselves. But it's less difficult to solve this problem in a technological matter because human beings or doctors don't switch their ways of thinking instantly. But technology, it's changing every day, every week.
Tim: Yeah, that's true. You'll certainly make faster progress on the technology front than on the human front.
Sho: Yeah, but the decision I made to go to the island, this was 2012 or so, 15 years ago. So, there was less technology, there was no telemedicine at all. So, I had to go there, I went there, and noticed that there's a huge gap between the medicine practice in Tokyo and on the island. But I was taught in the university that Japan is the top one country which has the least discrepancy between the medical level within the nation.
Tim: Really? I believe that, I could see that. That's something to be proud of.
Sho: But the reality was that there still is a huge gap. So, after going to the island, I want to lessen this discrepancy. And medicine is not for the rich people. It's for the humanity itself.
...

This summer has sent both temperatures and electricity prices soaring.

One Japanese startup, however, has found a way to use industrial cold storage to reduce our energy bills.

Today we sit down with Takehito Nishiyama, the CEO Greenphard Energy, and we talk about what it takes for startups to meaningfully compete in Japan's energy markets, how hardware startups can avoid the scalability trap, and how to sell to large Japanese industrials.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.


Show Notes


Why making money from demand response is hard
How industrial cooling costs can be reduced by 40%
How to start a startup from within another startup
Developing a GTM to target Japanese industrial companies
A unique electricity arbitrage opportunity
How hardware startups can escape the scalability trap
How to onboard Japanese industrial clients
The future of Japanese energy startups
Is the Japanese education system really that conservative?


Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know about Greenphard Energy
Connect with Takehito on LinkedIn



Leave a comment



Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.
Good lord, it is hot outside!
Of course, maybe you see things differently. I have no idea where you are or even when you are listening to this episode of Disrupting Japan, but here in Tokyo in August of 2026, it is hot.
Well, today we're going to sit down with Takehito Nishiyama, founder of Greenphard Energy, a startup that's working to help keep us cool. Well, not so much keep us cool, but keep our food cool. You see, Greenphard works with refrigerated warehouses to significantly cut their electricity costs and to help them actually earn money from their electricity use.
Now, in this episode, we talk about demand response, or DR. Now, we don't define it during the interview, but the idea is pretty simple. When electricity demand gets so high that it threatens to destabilize the grid, power companies will pay heavy electricity users to cut back for a while. And strategic use of demand response is a big part of Greenphard's offering.
Takehito and I talk about how startups can escape the scalability trap that plagues so many industrial startups, how to start a startup from within another startup, and just why innovation is so slow to come to the energy sector in Japan.
But you know, Takehito tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, we're sitting down with Takehito Nishiyama of Greenphard Energy, who's helping reduce customers' electricity bills and balance grid demand. So, thanks for sitting down with us.
Takehito: Thank you.
Tim: In the intro, I gave a really brief description of what you guys do, but I'm sure you can explain it much better than I can.
Takehito: Greenphard provides electricity solutions for mainly a refrigerator or air conditioner user. And also we provide our product for electricity producer side as well. We are IoT and physical AI provider and we are electricity trader as well. We are in a unique position.
Tim: So, if I understand it, you're working to, on one side, increase the efficiency of HVAC, of cooling and refrigeration, and on the demand side, take advantage of demand response programs that are being offered by Japan's energy company.
Takehito: Yeah, right. We control HVAC system, refrigerate and freeze very deeply. And we have two main value. First one is saving electricity consumption. And our second one is creating new electricity resource from electricity consumption side.
Tim: Well, I mean, it's a really good topic right now, because it is suddenly very hot in Tokyo.
Takehito: Yeah, right. Today's temperature is crazy level.
Tim: Yeah, it's just like rainy season ended and it's been 35 degrees for the last week. Yeah, right.
Takehito: And also today, summer area reached 40 degrees.
Tim: Oh my God, in Japan, that is crazy. It's not supposed to be that hot here. So, let's break that down. How do you create a new electricity resource from consumption?
Takehito: We can control the HVAC system very deeply and we use a timing approach. So, for example, the large-scale refrigerator will do overcooling before the demand response timing. So, during electricity type timing, we can reduce the electricity consumption of large-scale refrigerator. So, we can create a new demand response resource.
Tim: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. That seems like a very clear and intuitive way to save electricity. So, for commercial or industrial cooling, how much flexibility do they have to kind of overcool? I would imagine like some of those temperature bands must be pretty, pretty tight.
Takehito: It depends on the size of the facility. For example, in large-scale cold storage case, temperature range is larger than all in our air conditioner facility. So, we can use this wide range temperature.
Tim: So, how much demand response is there in Japan? I mean, four or five years ago, there was a lot of talk about how demand response was going to be an important part of managing the grid. Is that the case?
Takehito: Demand response needs is increasing year by year, but demand response resource provider is still small. Actually, just trading demand response is very easy. Most simple ways change a client-side operation, or for example, stop their factory operation. It's very simple. But our operation is very different from that. In our solution, client-side doesn't need to change their business operation.
Tim: But from the grid side, how often are demand response signals being sent?
Takehito: Currently, once or twice a year. But there's a potential to change in near future because current global warming effect is really big.
Tim: So, only a couple of times a year is when you get to take advantage of demand response directly?
Takehito: But demand response needs is increasing year by year. So, current demand response resource price is highest price than before.
Tim: So, tell me about your customers. Who's using the Greenphard system?
Takehito: Our main client is food factory and warehouse owners. And also, air conditioner control case, a lot of kind of client is there. Almost all building and office has the air conditioner. So almost all type of facility is our target.
Tim: Yeah. I mean, that makes sense that the cold storage chain, the food warehouses, it makes sense that they would be your initial targets because they are such heavy users of refrigeration and electricity. So, you mentioned like the two parts of your business model. So, one is the demand response. But if that signal only happens a couple of times a year, most of the savings must come from the operational parts.
Takehito: Actually, FTC saving impact is not small. For industrial users, we can reduce around 40% in maximum case.
Tim: I mean, that's quite significant. What are you doing to reduce those costs? Because I would imagine that most of these systems, they're designed to use as little electricity as possible. So, what are you optimizing? What are you improving to reduce the electricity costs by so much?
Takehito: We use a lot of kind of technology. So, AI and compressor frequency control technology. We control refrigerator as soft as possible. It's like a soft control of car acceleration. So, usual refrigerator control the temperature in some temperature range. So, we use this allowance range. So, usual control case, when temperature reached upper side border, power on and reduce temperature very high speed. But in our case, when reached upper side range, we control the down speed more softly.
Tim: So, whereas by default, most of the equipment is designed to maintain a very specific temperature, you're working with the customer to figure out what range it can fluctuate in and then minimizing the effort it takes to stay in that range.
Takehito: Yeah, right. We control the refrigerator temperature fluctuation more softly. And one more way, the more data driven way, if we plot this temperature fluctuation in a heat map, it's very different with the season. For example, the factory makes same product all years. But after monitoring and analyze the temperature data, temperature heat map is a bit different with the season. So, we optimize this temperature distribution.
Tim: Okay, that makes sense. I want to dive deeper into the technology and the business model in just a second. But before that, I want to talk a bit about you.
Takehito: Oh, thank you.
Tim: So, you've got a background both in energy and startups.
So you were originally with Mitsubishi Power and you left to join Synspective, which is a big Japanese startup. And then you left Synspective to start Greenphard. So, what made you decide to leave Synspective and start your own company?
Takehito: Oh, actually, before I joined Synspective, I already started my own business. So, I shared my thought to Synspective side. So, Synspective is very open mind, so they accept.
Tim: So when you left Mitsubishi, you actually left to start your own startup. Then why join Synspective?
Takehito: Because I really interested in the space industry as well. When that time my own business is not so large scale, so I can do some business as well.
Tim: Wow. And the team at Synspective was fine with this? There was no problem?
Takehito: Yeah, they accepted my work style.
Tim: Wow. And so how long were you sort of working at Synspective and building Greenphart?
Takehito: Around 2.5 years.
Tim: Alright. And what was the trigger to finally say, okay, now we're making a clean break?
Takehito: My own business growing year by year. So, I needed to focus on my business. So, I decided to leave Synspective.
Tim: And you're still in very friendly terms with the team back at Synspective?
Takehito: Yeah, of course.
Tim: Oh,...

Slithering robots sounds vaguely horrifying, but it turns out they're incredibly useful.

Soft-robots lack the charisma of their more acrobatically-inclined rigid counterparts, but some startups are betting on the unique role they have to play.

Today we sit down with Toru Ichihashi, the CEO Solaris, and we talk about what it takes to turn a university research project into a viable startup, what happens when Japanese VCs decide it's time for a startup to change CEOs, and the most likely path for soft robots to slither onto the world stage.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.


Show Notes


The creeping problem with pipes
How to stuff a robot into an industrial pipe
What's driving the early adopters of soft robotics
Turning a university spin-out into a business-focused startup
When do Japanese VCs decide its time to change CEOs
The importance of both funding and marketing partnerships in Japan
Can partnerships help Japanese startups go global?
Why we don't see more soft-robotics in the real world
Why Japanese investors focus more on risk than opportunity


Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know about Solaris
Watch videos of the Soha soft robot crawling through all kinds of things.
Connect with Toru on LinkedIn



Leave a comment



Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.
We've been talking a lot about robotics on Disrupting Japan recently, and frankly, that's because there's been a lot going on in robotics in Japan recently.
Today, we're going to be focusing on soft robotics. And by soft robotics, I don't mean that they're cute and fuzzy, but that they are non-rigid. Soft robots are robots that can bend and curve and even slither.
So today, we sit down with Toru Ichihashi, CEO of Solaris, the makers of the soft robot Soha, which crawls through industrial pipes to inspect and to clean them. It's a natural, real-world use case for soft robots. But of course, things are not quite so simple. Even in Japan, bringing a robot to market is a lot more challenging than you might think.
Now, during the podcast, both Toru and I make truly heroic efforts to try to describe how this robot actually moves and manages to crawl through these small pipes, but you really have to see it to understand. There's a link to the videos up on the site of Soha crawling through transparent pipes, so check those out.
Toru and I talk about the real challenges of establishing a new market in Japan, why sales partnerships are much more important in Japan than they are elsewhere, and what happens when startups investors decide that it's time for a new CEO. But you know, Toru tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, we're sitting here with Toru Ichihashi, the CEO of Solaris, who's making the Soha robot, a small-diameter pipe inspection and cleaning robot. And thanks for sitting down with me. I really appreciate it.
Toru: Yeah, I'm the same here, so I really appreciate this opportunity.
Tim: Yeah, in your brand new office too.
Toru: Yeah, yeah, just a week.
Tim: So, tell me a bit about Soha. What is it exactly?
Toru: Okay, so do you have a camera or not?
Tim: No, yeah, so for our listeners, it is sitting right in front of us, but this is an audio podcast, so you'll have to explain.
Toru: I see. Our target is narrow pipe. Especially diameter is 150 millimeters or less. Just think about social infrastructures. So, many narrow pipes everywhere.
Tim: So, is it mostly like water pipes or pipes carrying like chemicals and exhausts in factories? Just all kinds of things.
Toru: Yeah, all kinds of. So, we could say this is a kind of veins for social infrastructures. However, these narrow pipes are very small. That is why humans cannot access. Conventional robots also cannot access. So, let's take an example of a factory. When they need to inspect or clean, they stop manufacturing equipment and they...
Tim: They like disassemble everything.
Toru: Yeah, disassemble pipes. Then by brush, they clean manually.
Tim: Okay, so they take it apart and clean section by section.
Toru: Yeah, exactly.
Tim: And so what does Soha do?
Toru: Our robot is -- ket me show you how to move.
Tim: Well, it's coming into the same problem of being an audio podcast.
Toru: Ah, yeah, that's not good.
Tim: But no, no, I get it. I mean, you mentioned before that it was inspired by the way an earthworm moves. So, kind of like sticking out its head and pulling up its tail and sticking out its head and pulling back its tail again, right?
Toru: Yeah. So, to move into narrow pipe, conventional robots cannot move. For example, caterpillar, such kind of robot cannot move. People think, okay, that's mimic snake or inchworm.
Tim: Because it can't bend in the pipe, right? It can't move up and down.
Toru: Yeah, you're right.So, Snake move by winding, so narrow pipe, snake cannot move. Only earthworm can move into narrow pipe because earthworm moves, expand and moving this way.
Tim: Pushing, like head pushing forward, pulls up behind, push the head, pull behind.
Toru: So, our robot is mimic earthworm movement.
Tim: In practice, like how do you get it into the pipe? Can it go in through like an open valve or something, or do they still have to disassemble?
Toru: That's a very good question. Such kind of easy operation is very important. So, we have station for the robot to start up. Then this station can be connected with customer's pipe.
Tim: Okay. For example, you take off a section of the pipe and the robot can crawl in.
Toru: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tim: Okay. So you don't have to disassemble the entire thing?
Toru: No. In case of factory pipes, some cases at the end, open area is there, and also some connection is there between pipe and pipe. So, just disassemble connection only, then connect our starting stations, then our robot can move into the customer's pipe.
Tim: That's cool. And how far can it go?
Toru: Currently, 20 meters. So in case of factories, 20 meters is enough.
Tim: Yeah, I can see that. It's actually quite far. I mean, there'll be some kind of break every 20 meters. And since it's an earthworm, it can even climb straight up and straight down as well, right?
Toru: Yeah, yeah. Vertical climbing, no problem. And also these kinds of complicated curves, also we have no problem to move.
Tim: Right. So, it can move through very sharp turns and straight up, straight down.
Toru: Yeah, exactly.
Tim: Well, what I think is also really astounding about this is that it's pneumatic. It's all powered by air.
Toru: Exactly. No electric, only air.
Tim: I mean, I can definitely see the advantage in that it would let you go into explosive environments. Was that the main reason for going with air or there are other engineering concerns?
Toru: Our main purpose is how to mimic earthworm movement. Air is perfect. Let me explain how it works. So, this is artificial muscle.
Tim: So, each segment of this earthworm has a kind of an air bladder, an air segment to it.
Toru: Yeah. Then let me -- so, this artificial muscle...
Tim: We're going to have to turn this off because you won't be able to hear me out there.
Toru: So, you can see once air is inflated, this artificial muscle expands this way only. And this way contracts.
Tim: Okay. So, each segment would balloon out. And I guess when it's ballooning out, it's kind of gripping the side of the pipe. Okay. And then pulling everything up behind it. So, it's not an autonomous robot. It's controlled by the person...
Toru: Controller. Yeah. This is very simple. Move forward, stop, move back.  So this robot, inspection and cleaning, we can do simultaneously.
Tim: So, tell me about your customers. Who's mainly using this robot?
Toru: Our current main target is semiconductor factory. Because semiconductor factories manufacturing process by narrow pipes, such kind of dust, they push it out.
Tim: Okay. So, just the extreme demands of semiconductor manufacturing means the pipes have to be very clean.
Toru: Yeah, yeah. Once this pipe is sealed with dust, manufacturing line is stopped. So, this is a very critical maintenance process.
Tim: I can imagine. But it would seem like these kind of pipe inspections are needed, I mean, across all kinds of manufacturing.
Toru: Yeah, of course.
Tim: Do you have customers in more traditional manufacturing as well?
Toru: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Why I said semiconductor is the first target is because once manufacturing equipment is stopped, opportunity loss is huge. Currently, they are doing manually. They need to stop manufacturing equipment for a day or two days. But by using our robot, just one hour or two hours stop is enough.
Tim: Okay. So, their cost saving is not so much the cost of the cleaning itself, but of the opportunity costs and shut down the line. But again, I imagine that's true in a lot of industries.
Toru: Yeah, you are right. So, also chemical industries, car manufacturers, all kinds of factories, they have same kind of issues. So, currently our deals, which we are working with, 70 or 80% are semiconductor manufacturers. The rest is chemical factory or car industries. As you said, other industries also cleaning pipes is very important for them.
Tim: Okay, but perhaps just not quite as urgent. So, they'll take a little longer.
Toru: Yeah, that is why I believe we need to make a business model by semiconductor manufacturers. Then we expand our business.
Tim: That makes sense. I want to get back to the business model in a minute. But before that, I want to talk a bit about you. So, you've actually been in robotics for quite some time now. You were at Melton and ZMP.
Toru: So, my background is I spent about 30 years at Toshiba. And the first decade, I was software engineer....

Japan was once the the undisputed global leader in robotics, but that's simply not true today.

In fact, with China and America dominating the spotlight, many question whether Japan is even still in the game.

Well, last month I had the chance to find out what the world really thinks. At the inaugural Tokyo Humanoids Summit, I interviewed seven global leaders in robotics, and I asked each of them where exactly Japan stands and what Japan has to offer the rest of the world.

I'm compiled all their answers so you can hear the full range of what people are saying about robotics in Japan.

There are some great conversations, and I think you'll enjoy them.


Show Directory and Links


Junghee Ryu,  Founder and CEO of RLWRLD

LinkedIn
Company Site


Leopold Beer, VP Sensing Division of Renesas Electronics

LinkedIn
Company Site


Mehrdad Farimani, Founder and CTO of MERPHI

LinkedIn
Company Site


James Wells, CEO of Sanctuary AI

LinkedIn
Company Site


Rikiya Yamamoto, CEO of Yamariki Edge

LinkedIn
Company Site


Hagen Wegner, Director at FEV Consulting

LinkedIn
Company Site


Terence Bennett, Executive Director of Bay Area Robotics Association

LinkedIn
Company Site









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Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.
Last month, at the Tokyo Humanoid Summit, I had a chance to interview seven of the leading innovators in the field of humanoid robotics from around the world.
Now, I'll be sharing the full interviews on Disrupting Japan's social channels, and I encourage you to check them out. There are some really interesting discussions there. Of course, with industry leaders flying into Tokyo from around the globe, there was one question that I wanted to ask all of them.
What does Japan really have to offer globally? How can Japan compete and even regain its status as a global leader in robotics? I mean, is this even possible now? Well, I've collected all of their responses into a single, focused episode for you. You'll see that there are some common themes and also a few surprises. But overall, the world is feeling very optimistic about what's happening in Japan.
But you know, my guests tell that much better than I can. So let's get right to the interviews. So we're sitting here with Junghee Ryu, the founder and CEO of RLWRLD, who's building dexterity models for robots.

Ryu Junghee,  Founder and CEO of RLWRLD
Tim: Thanks for sitting down today.
Junghee: Thank you for having me today.
Tim: You've got an office here in Japan. You've spent a lot of time in Japan. What unique strengths do you think Japan has in the area of humanoid robotics and physical AI?
Junghee: One of the biggest pros of the Japanese market is the culture. Think about the US citizens. They hesitate to just embrace the power of the humanoid. But in Japan, I met a lot of their kind of C-suites here. They know the power of humanoid because you guys already experienced the early times and the robot like Ashimo or Aibo.
And there are a lot of their animations like Atom, Gundam, Evangelion. So culturally, I think that the Japanese society is ready for embracing the human power.
Tim: You know, that's a really interesting point, because in media and popular culture in Japan, robots and humanoid robots in particular are almost always positive and helpful.
Junghee: Yeah, the companion of humankind.
Tim: Right. And like in Hollywood movies, they tend to be very dangerous.
Junghee: Yeah. The enemy of mankind.
Tim: Right. You get the Terminator. So that's really interesting. And have you found that in your conversations in Japan and your pilots that companies are more willing and more open?
Junghee: Yeah, because the Japanese society suffered about population cliffs since 30 years ago. So it's a long time. So mostly their industry leaders, they understand the urgency, the demands for automation, especially the focus on the humanoid. Already they automated almost everything. But the remaining things should be done by their human level dexterity and intelligence. That's why.
Tim: Well, it's definitely exciting times. And it sounds like you guys are doing great things in Japan.
Junghee: Not only great things for Japan, great things for all the mankind in this world.
Tim: Absolutely. So thanks so much for sitting down.
Junghee: Thank you for having me.
Tim: I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you.

Leopold Beer, VP Sensing Division of Renesas Electronics
Tim: So we're sitting here with Leopold Beer, the VP and General Manager of the Sensing Division of Renesas Electronics. So thanks for sitting down.
Leopold: Thank you for having me.
Tim: So listen, with your time in Japan and at this Humanoid Summit, what unique strengths do you think Japan has to offer the world in terms of humanoid robotics and physical AI?
Leopold: Definitely there are lots of things that Japan brings in already today and can bring in in the future. Starting from my company, Renesas, with the broad portfolio of semiconductors, we already serve lots of these applications. But when you look at the specific context of Japan, Japan always has been an innovator in terms of robotics and automization. And I think the Japanese society is much more open to technology than in some European societies.
I'm not talking for the US, but in Europe, there's always a kind of skepticism. When you bring in a new technology, okay, what's the risk? And I think Japan is much opener to technology. So having the foundation of these strong technologies companies, and I name Renesas one of them, but there are others playing very strongly in the field of automization.
And given this openness of the society, and as we heard this morning, even the willingness of the society to bring in more automation as a solution to solve social problems, but Japan is the perfect environment.
Tim: And so do you see this openness on both the industrial commercial side and the consumer side?
Leopold: Absolutely. I think there are two sides of the story. On one hand, of course, robot manufacturers, they want to push their solution. On the other side, there needs to be an acceptance and the pull from the market. And I think we have both in Japan.
Tim: So Japan might end up being the perfect testbed, the perfect place for proof of concepts to figure out how to make all of this really work.
Leopold: I would say yes. That'd be fantastic.
Tim: Well, listen, Leopold, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down.
Leopold: It was a pleasure.
Tim: I've really enjoyed it.
Leopold: It was a good talk. Thank you.
 
Mehrdad Farimani, Founder and CTO of MERPHI
Tim: So we're sitting here with Mehrdad Farahmani, the founder and CTO of MERPHI. So thanks for sitting down.
Mehrdad: Thank you, great to be here.
Tim: With your time in Japan so far and what you've seen here at the Humanoid Summit, what unique strengths do you think Japan has to offer the rest of the world in terms of humanoid robotics and in physical AI?
Mehrdad: Absolutely. So when I was very junior, young in robotics, Japan was the place to go for humanoids. We had Asimo and we had all these great robots from SoftBank and we had all these different companion robots and social robots.
Tim: That was more than 20 years ago.
Mehrdad: It was, right?
Tim: It’s amazing.
Mehrdad: And there were actually, to be honest, there were two countries who were really leading robotics. One was Japan, the other was Germany. So Germany or DLR in Germany, they created some of the greatest robots out there. So has Japan. And Japan was, of course, leading more.
And then one of my surprises over the years was that what happens to both Germany and Japan. Germany also, they really slowed down. And actually, we had this funny conversation with a friend the other day and we were like, okay, is it that they slowed down or the other countries they kicked off? Because I remember in 2012 that there were only six countries that they were building humanoid robots.
So of course, US, France, Germany, Japan, and we had Iran and then one more country, I don't remember. China was not even among them, right? And now we see that China is actually leading a lot in the human area only in this 15, 20 years. So one of the things is that for me, what has always been interesting about Japan is the culture that accepts robots.
People who live with robots and they like robots. And one of the greatest robots, not a humanoid, unfortunately, but one of the greatest robots created in the history of robotics is a robot called Paro, P-A-R-O. It's a robot for elderly care. It's a companion robot.
Tim: Oh, yes, yes, absolutely.
Mehrdad: There's an amazing story behind it. Technologically, it's competing very well with today's technology and everything. But so what was the story? There was this research center. They built that robot. They built something around 3,000 units. They distributed all over the world. Actually, in Sweden that I'm living, we have a few of them.
And they're in the museums mostly. And then they stopped. They stopped the production because they were like, yeah, this was a research project. Research is done. So we don't want to make money out of it.
Tim: I see that happening so much. There's so much wonderful innovation and then it never gets fully commercialized.
Mehrdad: Exactly. I have two reasons for that, actually, so today my job is mostly, to be honest, advising investors and startups mostly on the human area. And I usually think a lot about what are the underlying reasons behind this.
One of the reasons is that robotic companies has historically been created by roboticists. Even today they are. It's only the few past years that they were created by business people or entering robotics.
Engineers and roboticists,...