Winners of the Award for Academic Startups 2022 Program Selected

1. Outline of the Award for Academic Startups 2022

Since its inauguration in FY2014, the Award for Academic Startups program has been honoring promising, excellent university-developed startups selected from among venture businesses that make use of the research and development outcomes achieved by universities and other institutions (national, public and private universities, colleges of technology, research and development institutions under the national government and local governments, national research and development agencies, and non-profit corporations, including public interest corporations). The program also especially seeks to honor universities, companies, and other entities that have contributed to the growth of such startups.
It aims to further promote the establishment of businesses that make use of R&D outcomes achieved by universities or other entities, encourage startups to innovate further, and encourage universities and companies to support university-developed startups.
The secretariat of the program called for applicants for the FY2022 program from March 28 (Mon.) to May 16 (Mon.), 2022, and 34 entities applied. The Screening Committee of external experts for the Award for Academic Startups 2022 examined the application documents and held interviews with the applicants. Following this screening, eight university-developed startups and the universities and companies supporting them were selected as winners.

For details on the winners, please visit the website for the Award for Academic Startups 2022 program (in Japanese) .

Winners will also introduce their work and take part in a panel discussion at Innovation Japan 2022 -University Fair and Business Matching- Online on October 7 (Fri.), 2022. For details, visit the Innovation JAPAN website (in Japanese) here .

2. Outline of the winners and the award (For details, see Appendix 1.)

Winner of the METI Minister's Award

• Startup: bitBiome, Inc.
• Supporting university: Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University

Outline

• bitBiome, Inc. is a startup developed at Waseda University that is using a vast, innovative microbial genome database constructed with their proprietary technology to transform the biomanufacturing industry.
• Their genome analysis technology, bit-MAP®, is the world's only single-cell genome analysis technology for microbes. It enables users to decipher microbes' genomic information from just a single cell with high precision.
• They are using this single-cell genome analysis technology to construct the world's largest and highest-resolution microbial genome database and aiming to overhaul the industry's structure by way of these microbial genes.
• The biomanufacturing industry is a key one within Japan, and this company's database is positioned as a one-of-a-kind genome mining platform within it. It has a lot of potential for growth in the future.

Division in Charge

Industry-University Collaboration Office, Industrial Science and Technology Policy and Environment Bureau