[Feature: Prospects for University-Launched Startups] Nobuaki Shindo: The Form of University-Launched Startup Support Aimed for by Keio University

2024/05/07

There are two reasons why fostering startups is important for Keio University. The first is the change in social demands placed on universities. While the traditional mission of a university has been education and research, in recent years, there has been a requirement to contribute to society by linking these results to solving social issues and creating innovation. The second is to cultivate "leaders of the whole of society," which is The Mission of Keio University. Demonstrating an entrepreneurial spirit, overcoming difficulties, and pioneering new fields has been a tradition since the founding of Keio University. By inheriting this tradition and fostering startups, we will produce human resources with pioneering leadership.

The university is a comprehensive university consisting of 10 distinctive undergraduate faculties, 14 graduate schools, and 30 Research Centers and Institutes, and many startups based on a wide range of education and research results are being born. In the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's "FY2022 Survey on University-Launched Ventures" (announced in May 2023), the number of venture companies originating from this university increased to 236 (compared to 175 in the previous year), ranking first in the country in terms of the number of increases and leaping to third in total number (from fifth in the previous year). Furthermore, in "Japan Startup Finance 2023" published by Uzabase, Inc. (announced in January 2024), our university ranked first in terms of the amount of funding raised by university-launched startups (approximately 51 billion yen).

The background to these breakthroughs includes the cultivation of entrepreneurial spirit through various entrepreneurship education programs conducted by each faculty and graduate school, startup support by the newly established Startup Division in the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the university headquarters (described later) and Keio Innovation Initiative (KII), a university venture capital firm, and the university's unique cooperative support mechanism (university ecosystem) based on the spirit of Keio Gijuku Shachu cooperation. Based on these, we will introduce the university's efforts to foster startups.

While various entrepreneurship education programs were being conducted at the university, in the past, there was no sufficient internal system for fostering startups, and we relied on the self-help efforts of internal entrepreneurs and researchers. In FY2021, the current executive board established the Startup Division within the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the headquarters organization responsible for the university's industry-academia collaboration functions. As of May 2024, this division has six full-time practitioner faculty members from industry (Startup Division | Keio University Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship). In collaboration with the Intellectual Property Division, Open Innovation Division, and Strategic Planning Office within the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, we are promoting the industrialization of the university's research results and actively promoting support activities for fostering university-launched startups while advancing cooperation with Keio Innovation Initiative.

In the Startup Division, to enhance the content of entrepreneurship support, we conducted an entrepreneurship awareness survey for all faculty, staff, and students last year. As a result, we found that there is a very high need for support related to "human resources," "funding," and "environment preparation," such as education to become an entrepreneur, entrepreneur community networks, providing community opportunities such as accompaniment and sounding boards for entrepreneurship, introduction of team members and external experts, support for obtaining funds for entrepreneurship, and the development of internal rules and facilities for entrepreneurship. Referring to these needs, the Startup Division is promoting entrepreneurship support within the university, focusing on two activities: (1) revitalization of the startup community, and (2) startup fostering support and internal environment development.

To revitalize the university's startup community, we are pursuing various initiatives. As an initial step, we have completely revamped the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship website (Keio Startup). Here, we provide various entrepreneurship content, such as various events and news related to entrepreneurship, application methods for grants, subsidies, and acceleration programs, support activities undertaken by the Startup Division, and information on startups born from the university.

In addition, we are actively cultivating entrepreneurial spirit and providing opportunities for entrepreneurial activities to students, faculty, and staff by hosting, co-hosting, sponsoring, or participating in various acceleration programs and events held inside and outside the university (such as the Gyukyo Jissen Entre Salon, Keio Healthcare Venture Contest, 1stRound entrepreneurship support program, Greater Tokyo Innovation Ecosystem (GTIE), Research Studio medical startup fostering program, and Mirai X).

The university introduced the "Keio University Startup Community Program" in December 2022 with the aim of further promoting the social implementation of research and education results through the creation of university-launched startups.

This system is an initiative to systematically support the creation and growth of startups from the university, and the university proactively defines the companies to be supported (see the following URL for requirements: https://www.keio.ac.jp/en/research/startup-support/startup-system/).

The Startup Division acts as a hub to provide support measures related to people, things, and money required by entrepreneurs and startups through agreements with various partners. At the same time, we are utilizing this system to revitalize the community between the university and startup companies.

To enhance the support of this system, the Startup Division is deepening cooperation with and receiving support from various external stakeholders. We will introduce each initiative.

The Startup Division, in cooperation with various Mita-kai and Keio University alumni, provides support such as advice on formulating business plans and fundraising, mentoring, and company establishment when faculty, researchers, and students prepare for or start a business. We believe that multifaceted support is necessary for the creation and growth of startups, and the fact that we can receive various support from Keio University alumni who are active in many fields is a great strength of the university.

In addition, donations from Keio University alumni to the university are allocated as internal entrepreneurship support activity expenses for the promotion of entrepreneurship and are used as the source of funds for various initiatives of the Startup Division. In this way, support from Keio University alumni and Mita-kai organizations contributes significantly to the development of the university's startup ecosystem.

The Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship is strengthening startup support in collaboration with corporate partners, with the aim of strengthening the university-launched startup ecosystem and building a role model for promoting academia-originated innovation. Here are a few examples.

・Construction of the "Keio Version EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) Model" to match faculty and researchers who produce excellent research results with management professional talent who lead entrepreneurship (Agreement concluded with BizReach, Inc. in December 2022: Keio University and BizReach Conclude Partnership Agreement Aiming to Create World-Class Deep Tech Startups, Launching "Keio Version EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) Model" | Topics | Keio Startup)

・Collaboration on spreading startup understanding and entrepreneurship awareness among students, faculty, and staff, and considering high-quality and efficient startup support activities through data utilization (Agreement concluded with for Startups, Inc. in May 2023: for Startups and Keio University Conclude Agreement for Creating New Growth Industries through Social Implementation of Research and Education Results, Starting Collaboration Centered on Information Platform "STARTUP DB" | Topics | Keio Startup)

・Collaboration to accelerate the creation and growth of university-launched startups through the provision of computing resources to Keio University Startup Community Program companies and the provision of technical/human resource support and information required by startups and entrepreneurs to the university (Agreement concluded with AWS Japan in September 2023: Keio University Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and AWS Japan Conclude Partnership Agreement to Accelerate Creation and Growth of University-Launched Startups - AWS Japan to Provide Multifaceted Support such as Computing Resources, Technology, and Human Resources - | Topics | Keio Startup)

Keio Innovation Initiative, Inc. was established in 2015 and manages venture capital funds totaling 35 billion yen, including investments from external financial institutions. In October 2023, as a third fund, we proceeded with the university to establish an impact investment fund that invests in projects where social impact can be identified, aiming to pursue both the creation of social and environmental impact and financial returns.

Keio Innovation Initiative has invested in 46 startups (as of October 2023) that utilize the results of universities and research institutions, mainly our university. It is also working on company creation from university research seeds, with a wealth of experience in 8 cases of founding support and 12 cases of management/recruitment support, and results have already emerged, such as 3 portfolio companies being listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market. The Startup Division is advancing the fostering and support of startups born from the university in various forms while working closely with Keio Innovation Initiative.

To date, many deep tech startups in fields such as healthcare/health and digital technology have been born from the university, but it remains difficult for faculty and researchers with research seeds that contribute to social implementation to create business plans themselves, find customers, and negotiate with venture capital firms to proceed with entrepreneurship and fundraising. Therefore, the Startup Division has started activities to support faculty and researchers aiming for entrepreneurship by accompanying them through their individual challenges and needs. Sometimes, consultations on intellectual property strategy, technology transfer, sorting out research in the laboratory and business, and obtaining funds including grants and subsidies occur, so we are launching entrepreneurship consideration teams for each research seed, including members from the internal Intellectual Property Division and Keio Innovation Initiative. In addition, we have introduced a mechanism to publicly recruit external professional management talent who will proceed with these entrepreneurship preparation activities as the university's Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) under the agreement with BizReach (mentioned above). We have established a comprehensive support system where human resources who can overcome the challenges of entrepreneurship and fundraising felt by faculty and researchers together and participate in company management even after entrepreneurship join the team as accompanying partners.

In addition to the above, the Startup Division provides support for corporate establishment such as company registration preparation, shareholder agreement consultation, and opening corporate accounts, as well as customer hearings and public relations support for business companies and CVCs, support for recruitment activities for management talent and experts (joint public recruitment), loan consultation and introduction to other venture capital firms, introduction to various acceleration programs, and support for providing vendor preferential programs, performing individualized support according to the needs of teams and individual companies for the growth of startups in collaboration with agreement partners and Mita-kai.

In addition, in October 2023, we launched the "Keio Startup Incubation Program (KSIP)," a university-wide incubation program that systematizes individualized accompaniment support, including the aforementioned Keio version EIR model. The goal of this program is to achieve the two goals of "entrepreneurship" and "fundraising." By making it a university-wide program at Keio, we also expect synergistic effects by forming an unprecedented community where researcher and entrepreneur teams, who tend to be isolated, can connect, share knowledge, challenges, and success stories, and compete with each other. We plan to expand this KSIP community so that, in addition to the aforementioned EIRs, supporters such as Keio University alumni and Mita-kai who sympathize with the fostering of startups from the university can also participate.

Furthermore, in conjunction with this incubation program, we are currently preparing to establish a "Startup Support Fund" to supply the capital for a new internal gap fund that can be flexibly used for research/verification toward commercialization and entrepreneurship preparation activities.

The university does not currently have its own funding program for entrepreneurs and currently receives public grants and subsidies from JST, NEDO, etc. However, since agile utilization is difficult, we plan to promote entrepreneurship and commercialization from university seeds by establishing the university's own gap fund.

The university has strong independence for each faculty, graduate school, and campus, and innovation and startup creation activities are progressing in each, but there is a challenge that activities are dispersed and information exchange and interaction are difficult to progress. In addition, to respond to the fostering of innovation and startups born from the fusion of research areas in different fields and the further promotion of industry-academia-government-finance collaboration, we believe it is necessary to develop a more integrated physical community space.

At the Shinanomachi Campus (School of Medicine and University Hospital), startup creation derived from the university's seeds born through basic and clinical research and education centered on medical sciences and life sciences, and social implementation activities through joint research with companies, are being actively promoted. To further strengthen the characteristics of the Shinanomachi Campus, we are preparing to open a university-wide incubation facility (CRIK Shinanomachi / Center for Research and Incubation, Keio University; see the following URL for details: CRIK Shinanomachi | Keio University Shinanomachi Research & Incubation Center) with the functions necessary for startup support at the Shinanomachi Campus, aiming for an opening at the end of May 2024. At this facility, it will be possible to promote data-driven research and demonstration tests using medical data, etc., and for startups to establish corporations (registration) and move in. We also plan to form a unique entrepreneur-centered community where they can receive various support leading to the growth of startups, such as support from the Startup Division, venture capital, and professionals.

In this way, by developing the "mechanism" of KSIP and the new gap fund, and the "place" of CRIK Shinanomachi, we will accelerate the fostering of startups from the university.

I have introduced the university's current efforts to foster startups, and in the future, we would like to strengthen the following three activities.

Centering on the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, we will proceed with efforts to discover excellent research seeds within the university, create strong intellectual property, strengthen intellectual property strategy and technology transfer activities, and overcome various challenges related to the entrepreneurship process (formulation of policies and regulations for intellectual property, conflict of interest, and technology transfer, as well as regulations for handling stocks, etc., generated as license consideration). Through this, we will provide an environment where startups are easily born from the university and encourage the growth of startups that are globally competitive.

We will promote further strengthening of the cooperation system related to startup fostering between the headquarters and campuses and between campuses, in collaboration with entrepreneurship education activities conducted at each campus, and work to continuously produce leaders such as entrepreneurs who tackle social issues from the university.

We will aim to promote further collaboration and cooperation between the university and various external stakeholders, including Keio University alumni, Mita-kai and other alumni organizations, entrepreneurs, supporters, and companies including partnership agreement partners, to encourage the revitalization of the startup ecosystem surrounding Keio University.

Through these efforts, we will promote delivering the results of the university's education and research to society through startup fostering, and investing in the cultivation of leaders involved in next-generation education and research activities using the consideration for intellectual property rights and donations from supporters as a source of funds. Keio University, as a leader of society, aims to continue contributing to society sustainably by promoting a cycle for solving social issues and investing in the future through the fostering of startups.