A Day of Startups, Large Corporates, and Co-creation - GBAF 2023 Report

Written by the Universe Editorial Team

The Global Brain Alliance Forum 2023 (GBAF 2023) was held last year in December. The GBAF is Global Brain (GB)’s annual event held to take a closer look at the latest startup trends and bolster collaboration between startups and large corporations.

This time again, President & CEO Yasuhiko Yurimoto kicked off the event by unveiling the company’s new strategies, which was followed by sessions including panel discussions joined by many guest speakers and a startup pitch battle.

A networking party was held at the end of the event for startups and large corporations to get connected. We saw many participants sharing updates with each other and looking for new business opportunities. Today, we share with you a digest of the GBAF 2023.

The investment outlook and GB’s new strategies

Our CEO Yurimoto was the first to come on stage, using statistics to draw a big picture of the startup market environment in the US, Europe, and Japan, under the title “New Trends in Global Investment Environment.”

According to Yurimoto, despite the harsh investment environment and the tough IPO market in the US and Europe, Japanese startup investment hasn’t plunged as much and the island country’s IPO market is stable. He talked about how the Japanese startup environment is nice and calm by referring to GB’s track record of having achieved more IPOs with its portfolio startups than top tier US VCs between 2022 to 2023.

He also shared his outlook that with market correction, the funding winter in the US and Europe will start to thaw from 2025, adding that the Japanese startup market will likely recover from the latter half of 2025 to 2026.

Yurimoto likens today’s startup market to the 2008 financial crisis. Companies are going bankrupt making the competitive landscape look favorable, and massive layoffs are lowering the hurdle to hire good talent. All of this presents prominent startups a chance rather than a challenge. He wrapped up his presentation by noting that startups will need to seize this opportunity before 2025 when the market is expected to come back up.

In his afternoon session, Yurimoto presented GB’s new strategies. After reflecting on the past year’s activities including investment results, exits, and the newly formed venture capitalist team, he highlighted GB’s growth as an organization, which is now performing as well as the top tier venture capital firms around the world. He also shared upcoming initiatives yet to be implemented in order to continue achieving high results in 2024 and onwards. See the details here.

Expansion in Africa from the eyes of an expert

Africa was pinpointed as the key region in GB’s new strategies shared by Yurimoto. In the afternoon session titled “Potential of African Market and Japanese Companies’ Business Expansion into Africa,” the audience learned about the attractiveness of the market.

Sorita, GB’s venture capitalist investing in Africa, explained the potential of the African market in the first half of this session. He stressed that the once rather heated startup investment market is starting to stabilize, making it easier for investors to find startups doing business down to earth.

The second half was a panel discussion joined by guest speakers who are knowledgeable in business expansion into Africa.

Three guest speakers came on stage: Motoya Tamino, Ernst & Young ShinNihon; Naonobu Fuwa, JICA; and Yukari Yokotani, Honda Trading.

The four discussed, among many other topics, the keys for businesses to succeed in entering the African market, differences among African countries, and characteristics of investment sectors. The session also covered the risks we should keep in mind when doing business in Africa and real-life challenges the guests came across, making the session a very insightful one for those thinking to expand in Africa.

Education, AI, and LLM…the rising stars on stage

In 2022, GB launched its accelerator program XLIMIT. At the GBAF 2023, seed-stage startups selected for the 2nd Batch of XLIMIT presented their businesses in the session titled “XLIMIT Showcase.”

Five startups came on stage, all with different target customers and in different sectors ranging from educational service, metaverse, AI to LLM. The audience leaned in to listen about the newly born services presented by the startups.

Is hands-on support necessary for startups?

GB puts energy and effort in supporting its portfolio companies. A session to introduce the Value Up Team, GB’s core function in offering hands-on support to startups, was held for the first time.

The CEOs of three startups that received support from the Value Up Team joined the panel discussion—Findy’s Yuichiro Yamada, Lisse’s Miki Fujita, and Monoxer’s Kotaro Takeuchi. The Value Up Team’s leader Shin Masamune moderated and led the discussion, asking the startups what support they had received, the outcomes, and their frank feedback.

We scarcely have the chance to learn about hands-on support seen from the eyes of the startups. This session, where startups shared their real hands-on support experience, showcased how GB works with its portfolio companies post investment.

Where is climate tech now and what can Japan do?

Climate tech needs will continue to rise, as it is the answer to climate change issues. GB is also focusing our investment in this sector. In this session titled “Latest Trends in Climate Tech and Decarbonization Strategy to Succeed Globally,” we learned about climate tech which is attracting attention around the world and how companies should handle decarbonization.

German climate tech company PIONIX GmbH’s CEO Marco Möller came on stage with GB’s venture capitalists: Rina Obi, located in Europe, and Satoko Murata, specializing in climate tech.

PIONIX solves compatibility issues faced by EV charging systems that come with various standards. Marco deep dived into Europe’s climate tech environment, keys for Japan to promote carbon neutrality, and takeaways from European case studies from his viewpoint as a climate tech player.

At the end, he stressed the importance of large-scale global-level collaboration to achieve carbon neutrality in the world. He asked the large corporations in the room to work together and ride the wave of clean technology.

GBAF’s annual pitch battle–Who won the day?

The Startup Pitch Battle has been held every year at the GBAF. Seven startups in the limelight selected out of our new portfolio companies from the past year took part in the battle.

The details of this session will be covered in a different article.

A networking party where you can meet over 40 startups

After the main sessions came the networking party, where more than 40 startups leading the next generation set up booths. Startups from various different sectors gathered in one room—AI, climate tech, robotics, fintech, HR tech, healthcare, and the list goes on.

The venue was full of a good atmosphere, and we saw startups and large corporations actively communicating and looking for business opportunities. It would make us more than happy if the GBAF 2023 and the networking party had opened up doors for as many co-creation initiatives as possible.