11 startups came to Tokyo for Innovation Weekend’s grand finale. Here are the winners

After five events, four countries, and 40 pitches, Innovation Weekend returned to Tokyo to crown the grand prize winner of SunBridge Global Ventures’ worldwide startup pitch contest. Under the mantra ”Be global or die local”, 11 of the most promising growth-stage startups from Japan, the US, and the UK took the stage in front of an audience of fellow entrepreneurs, investors, and tech industry insiders.

With the exception of Osaka winner Gyazo, the top two finishers from previous events in Singapore, Tokyo, London, and Boston were invited to the grand finale. The second and third-place finishers from Osaka were invited to pitch after Gyazo declined. One additional startup was selected to pitch at the final by public application.

Here are the top four overall finalists, in descending order, as chosen by the audience:

Special Prize: FitnessCubed (Innovation Weekend Boston winner)

FitnessCubed, the winner of Innovation Weekend Boston, was technically the fourth-place finisher by audience vote. It was awarded an on-the-spot prize by SunBridge Group chairman and CEO Allen Miner and SunBridge Global Ventures president and CEO Ikuo Hiraishi. Disappointed that the overwhelmingly Japanese audience chose Japan-based startups for the top three winners, the pair negotiated return airfare for a member of the FitnessCubed team to come back to Japan within the next year to meet with potential investors and distributors for the startup’s under-desk elliptical trainer. The smartphone-connected fitness device, named Cubii, was successfully funded on Kickstarter. It allows office workers to stay fit and costs less than swapping your existing desk for a more health-focused standing desk.

“We really wanted a startup from overseas to be the winner or one of the runners-up,” Hirashi told Tech in Asia. “I think it was because of the lack of English ability of the audience. Maybe some of them could not understand exactly what the startups are doing, even though all the pitches were translated to Japanese.”

Other foreign contenders included:

• Haystakt, an online marketplace for crowd-sourced bulk buying


• Vivid Technologies, a startup that wants to shake up call centers with interactive voice response (IVR) technology


• Every-one.co, a digital advertising platform that crowdsources consumer-generated content for brands


• OtoSense, a mobile app that listens and learns the sounds in your environment to give you alerts

Runners-up: Loupe (Public pitch presenter) and AgIC (Innovation Weekend Tokyo runner-up)

A tie for second saw two Tokyo-based startups honored: Loupe, which operates a social network for elementary, middle, and high school teachers called Sensei Note, and circuit board printing startup AgIC.

Loupe made its first appearance on the Innovation Weekend stage after being selected by SunBridge from public applications. AgIC, on the other hand, is no stranger to local pitch contests – having won last month’s TechCrunch Tokyo Startup Battle as well as the Btrax-sponsored Japan Night VII semifinal in September.

First prize: Sciement (Innovation Weekend Tokyo winner)

Lightning struck twice for home-town hero Sciement, Innovation Weekend Tokyo’s winner. Despite still not nailing down a business model, CEO Hirofumi Seo (pictured left, with Hiraishi) impressed the audience with his startup’s medical animations that allow patients to visualize the human anatomy and the internal effects of various diseases and trauma – all without requiring specialized medical knowledge. One potential revenue stream that Seo is exploring is using 3D printing to produce physical models of internal organs scanned by MRI. You can read an in-depth interview with the Tokyo University M.D. below.

See: Sciement uses 3D animation to explain medical problems

Despite his concern about the English-language pitches falling on deaf ears, Hiraishi seemed pleased that the healthcare-focused startup took the grand prize.

“When we started Innovation Weekend in 2011, almost all of the startups in Japan were doing social apps,” he added. “However, in the last three years, the startups have become more diversified, picking up on segments like medtech, IoT, security, and so on. I think the local startup ecosystem is growing and I hope Tokyo is going to be more globally-minded in terms of technology and innovation.”

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11 startups came to Tokyo for Innovation Weekend’s grand finale. Here are the winners