Startups Building the Future: GBAF 2023 Startup Pitch Battle

Written by the Universe Editorial Team

At Global Brain (GB)’s annual conference, the Global Brain Alliance Forum 2023 (GBAF 2023) held on December 1, 2023, seven startups in the limelight selected out of our new portfolio companies from the past year came on stage to join the Startup Pitch Battle 2023.

This year’s judges were:

• Nobuhiro Ariyasu, Entreprenuer and Angel Investor
• Kiyotaka Kobayshi, Co-founder and CEO of Noxx Inc.
• Yusuke Sato, President and Representative Director of STORES, Inc.
• Masanori Sugiyama, Outside Director of ACSL Ltd.

In this article, we bring you the full picture of the Pitch Battle.

New Innovations: Aiming to automate every industry

New Innovations is a startup envisioning “automating every industry.” Their business consists of the “root C business,” where they operate unmanned coffee stands for the consumer market and the “OMO business,” through which they offer manpower-saving robots and hardware to businesses.

root C is a smart unmanned coffee stand offering users coffee that matches their taste preferences which the machine teaches itself using AI and machine learning.

This product is unique in that it completely transformed the “cost structure” of the coffee industry. By achieving a fully automated operation, New Innovations has significantly cut the cost incurred in conventional coffee manufacturing processes. The money can instead be used to purchase high quality coffee beans and for improving the machine learning accuracy, which enables the startup to provide a tastier coffee compared to other products in the same price range.

In their OMO business, the company combines software and hardware to provide solutions for brick-and-mortar companies. Currently, they sell their products to various different Industries including restaurants, retail, hotels, and logistics.

One question asked by the judges was, “Given the generally low unit price of coffee and hence the difficulty of generating profit, is the OMO business your main source of revenue?” To this, CEO and CTO Nakao responded by explaining the high profitability of root C. With root C, a coffee business can be started simply by plugging in, which means that it does not have physical constraints like brick-and-mortar cafés. If coffee is not selling well at a particular spot, then all you need to do is to move the machine to a new place. He went on to explain that the company is maintaining a high profit through its root C business in its entirety instead of adding up profit gained by selling a cup of coffee one after another, insisting that both businesses are important pillars generating revenue.

Bloomo Securities: Breaking the wall for investment beginners

Bloomo Securities’ mission is to make investing accessible to everyone. This startup offers a securities service for long-term asset formation with which users can invest in US stocks and ETFs using their smartphones.

By referring to data such as the number of new securities accounts opened in Japan, CEO Nakamura explained that the outbound investment market is expanding. He says an estimated 10 million people in Japan have interest in investing but do not have experience, and pointed out that the number of individual investors will certainly increase.

On the other hand, according to Nakamura, individual investors face walls as they continue investing. Many beginners use the S&P 500 index but they come across the difficulty of stepping up and moving on to the next phase of investing. Learning complex industry-specific finance knowledge can be challenging, and Nakamura says he himself experienced setbacks.

But Bloomo solves such pain points. With Bloomo, a smartphone app solely focused on US stocks and overseas ETFs, anyone can effortlessly start long-term investment.

Bloomo has two unique functions. One is the “portfolio investment function,” a one-stop investing function with which users simply need to set the allocations for each stock and deposit Japanese yen to complete the investment. All a user needs to do is to set the allocation ratio, say “20% for Amazon stock and 10% for US bonds” and they can start investing right away. The second is the “community function.” Users can copy the other investors’ investing methods with a simple tap.

In his presentation, Nakamura shared interesting insights that he gained through the over 100 user interviews he conducted by himself since the nascence of the company. He stressed that the team is earnestly developing a user-centered product ahead of the official release. (As of December 1, 2023.)

Spiral.AI: A unique and interesting conversation with Generative AI

ChatGPT drew the world’s attention to generative AI. Spiral.AI is among the few Japanese companies specializing in generative AI, offering a service focused on large language models (LLMs).

According to CEO Sasaki, global big tech companies are competing in IQ, which is all about hitting the bull’s eye with LLMs. On the contrary, he says Spiral.AI is also focused on the EQ of LLMs, in other words making conversation unique and interesting.

In his pitch, he introduced the company’s service named Naomi.AI which is based on an LLM trained to copy a Japanese celebrity Naomi Majima’s personality and speech style. Users can enjoy having conversations as if they were talking with Naomi Majima. Since the first launch, the service is beginning to gain core users who enjoy chatting with Naomi.AI every day.

Spiral.AI plans to develop its business placing entertainment businesses at the core, with intentions to leverage LLMs in various industries and sectors. Also, looking toward the future, Sasaki shared his view of the world and the potential of generative AI.

“One day we might be able to create a world where we have LLMs with our own personalities, and they will get our work done for us while we are asleep.”

Kasanare: A generative AI company transforming customer support

The next startup on stage was Kasanare, another generative AI company. Kasanare aims to solve customer supported-related business issues using generative AI.

Customers are looking for support that is aligned with their own IT literacy levels and purchase histories. However, if you look at things from a company’s standpoint, it is not an easy task to be on top of all the customers’ statuses and offer meticulous support given their limited resources.

But Kasanare is the answer. When Kasanare is implemented on an e-commerce website, the customer simply needs to highlight a word displayed on the page, and an AI will provide explanations and product comparison charts. Users can experience support that is truly customer-centered.

CEO Yasuda highlighted that Kasanare is not merely a chatbot. He said that they are aiming to realize what the users are looking for–”customer support that makes customers feel like they have real humans sitting next to them.”

The startup is tuning its service for each customer company to address the often pointed-out hallucination problem (where AIs generate false information) and to improve response accuracy.

Lastly, Yasuda appealed to the audience saying, “ LLMs are a must for any industry. We would love to work with you as a business partner to transform your customer support using LLMs.”

Yanekara: Solving the EV dilemma with technology

Electric vehicles (EVs) have become commonized in Japan. But its power supply issue is big. If people charge their cars during on-peak hours when many people are going home from work or school, that could put a strain on the power supply. It is said that one thermal power generator is needed to charge 100,000 EVs at once. So here is the dilemma–the more EVs spread, the more thermal power plants we need.

Yanekara is a deep tech startup tackling such issues. The company offers two services: YaneCube and Yanebox.

YaneCube is Japan’s first EV charging plug which can be turned on/off remotely. It solves the problem of excess power demand by peak shaving, reducing electricity expenses. YaneCube is already used by customers including the Ginza Post Office in Tokyo which runs about 100 EVs. Demand is on the rise from energy companies and energy management services for households.

Yanebox is a product which enables efficient EV charging compared to conventional charging/discharging services. The company reviewed the conventional circuit configuration used for chargers/dischargers from scratch, and after developing 300 prototype boards, they created Yanebox. One user who has implemented Yanebox at home has achieved 94% energy self-sufficiency and a near-zero monthly electricity cost.

CEO (and CTO) Matsufuji stressed that “the Gen Z team members who have gathered under the vision to achieve Japan’s energy self-sufficiency and the senior members with high technological skills have made Yanekara this big,” saying, “the team is excited to solve energy issues together with everyone here in this room.”

Jij: Using mathematical calculations to solve companies’ complex challenges

Deep tech startup Jij is a Tokyo Institute of Technology spin-off developing software for mathematical optimization with the mission of solving complex computational challenges companies face.

Mathematical optimization is a mathematical method used to find the optimal answer under certain conditions and limitations. Jij has two businesses in this field: JijZept, a middleware platform for mathematical optimization, and a consulting service using JijZept.

CEO Yamashiro said that “formularizing” a problem is the most difficult step in mathematical optimization, explaining that “JijZept offers support for formularization.” Any developer will be able to configure a computational optimization workflow using JijZept.

JijZept has already established use cases in various areas including generator control, traffic signal control, communications-related calculations, and materials science to name a few. Yamashiro also shared an example to demonstrate its high value, where JijZept actually achieved a 70% cost reduction compared to writing calculation codes in the conventional way.

When asked which industries he hopes to leverage the platform in, Yamshiro’s answer was “energy, manufacturing, and materials development.” According to Yamashiro, the manufacturing line is the most challenging target for SaaS optimization, given how they run under different conditions at different factories. He explained that this is where JijZept comes into use with its ability to conduct optimal individualized calculations.

Cierpa & Co: Solving the ESG management pain points altogether

In recent years, we are seeing rapid progress around sustainability initiatives in Japan. Companies are mandated to disclose their ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) information in order to improve transparency toward investors and other stakeholders.

Companies’ sustainability personnels are busy dealing with ESG information disclosure and the 100 to 200 surveys sent form evaluation organizations every year. We often hear that all of this keeps companies from working on essential ESG management activities (sustainable management activities that are mindful of ESG). In addition, although ESG scores sent to companies from evaluation organizations are important criteria to determine a company’s value, its calculation method is a black box, consequently making it difficult for companies to come up with ways to improve the scores.

Cierpa & Co’s cloud service SmartESG is the solution for such ESG management-related pain points. SmartESG consists of four major functions, namely Workflow, Database, Matrix, and Benchmark.

Workflow improves work efficiency of responding to surveys and around ESG data scattered across various departments. Database consolidates the ESG-related data in one place, allowing users to check the data easily.

CEO Sugimoto explained that SmartESG is not merely a tool to improve work efficiency, but a tool to bring ESG management to the next level, pointing out the Matrix function as a symbolic piece of the product. AI maps out the ESG evaluation items that the market is looking for, clarifying the common points and evaluation perspectives of evaluation organizations and disclosure standards. AI is also used for Benchmark, which benchmarks disclosures of companies with strong ESG, allowing users to start analyzing right away. From SmartESG user companies, Cierp & Co has received positive feedback saying not only were their information disclosure burdens reduced, but “the product helped clarify next challenges to tackle, and we can now focus on the targets for improving our scores.”

Going forward, Sugimoto plans to expand the product use to various other stakeholders including ESG evaluation organizations, in addition to corporate customers. He envisions turning SmartESG into a “de facto standard tool for nonfinancial infrastructure.”

Bloom Securities, Spiral.AI, and Yanekara won the awards

After the seven startups gave their pitches came the judging by the audience and the judges. The winners of the awards were: Bloomo Securities for the GBAF AWARD, Spiral.AI for the AUDIENCE AWARD, and Yanekara for the PITCH PANEL AWARD given by the judges.

At the GBAF 2023, we had startup companies in a wide range of sectors from robotics to AI, fintech, and deep tech come on stage, and the audience including many large corporations passionately listened to their presentations. We would be more than happy if the Pitch Battle gave a big break to startups and large corporations for co-creation.