Minister Yamagiwa, in charge of Start-ups, held an open meeting at One&Co!

The Japanese government is planning to increase the number of startups 10 times in 5 years, and is planning to formulate a plan to nurture startups by the end of 2022.

After the introduction of each company’s business, we had a 3-hour discussion revolving and comparing about the startup ecosystems in Singapore and Japan, including what are the essential elements needed to increase the number of global startups from Japan.

Mr. Naganuma from ACALL, a member of One&Co, said, “To increase the number of global startups, it is important to change the way we look at risks and new challenges, not to mention the technical hurdles. He commented that while it is sometimes the right decision not to go global because it is viewed in regards to as short-term risk, is also vital to face that gravitational pull and that show can harvest a large return in either the medium to long term.

Miss. Toyama of Toyo Seikan commented, “The difference between the Japanese and Singaporean ecosystems is diversity. The Singaporean government is proactive in transferring technology from overseas and has established a system that facilitates entry from the outside. As a result, not only startups, but also investors, business companies, and government and public institutions are multinational and diverse players. This means that local startups are trained from birth with a global perspective. They can choose the business environment that suits them best on a global basis. From an investment perspective, startups that only include Japanese investors holds certain negativity from foreign investors when considering investments from overseas.”

Pertaining to this, Some comments were made: such as, “Japanese companies should somehow collaborate with not just Japanese companies, but also consider investing globally.

The Minister then commented, “I think there are many open innovation hubs in the U.S. and Europe where Japanese companies can meet with collaboration partners, but I have not seen or heard much about them in Singapore. I was concerned about how it was going, but now I know that One&Co is fulfilling that function, which is very encouraging. We also received a lot of sympathy and support for our new challenge and our “raison d’etre “-1 to 0 (Enriching future lifestyles by turning minus one into zero)“.

One&Co will be launching several new projects from now on, so please do keep a look out for them.