IVS2026 from the Ground: The Invitation-Only "IVS CORE" Area and the LAUNCHPAD Winner

According to Okui, IVS CORE is a closed area within IVS2026. Admission is by invitation and screening, and it brings together roughly 1,000 decision-makers. Off-the-record 90-minute sessions and networking take place there, and it is described as a place where concrete decisions on fundraising, business partnerships and policy get moving.

The filming took place during a networking lunch. At the venue, corporate decision-makers were exchanging business cards and discussing the sessions. Okui's view is that, since these are people who made a point of coming to Kyoto on a weekday, many of them are highly serious participants. She also notes that attendees came not only from Japanese companies but from many different countries.

The first person interviewed was the CTO and co-founder of Kotoba Technologies. They earned a PhD at the University of Washington in the US, and the other co-founder also holds a PhD, specializing in AI and natural language processing.

The company builds real-time voice applications. According to the CTO, its app is distributed through SoftBank and other channels and has reached about 200,000 users. At its core is a model that translates directly and quickly from speech to speech. The company is also developing core voice AI models, such as speech-to-text and text-to-speech. These can run on servers as well as on-device on mobile phones.

Asked what they had been discussing for the previous ten minutes or so, the CTO said they had been talking about real-time voice. The company is in talks with many enterprise customers in Japan and the US, and has already begun licensing its technology to large companies in both countries. The conversation had been about whether those efforts could be accelerated further.

On what they hoped to get from IVS CORE, the CTO said they had long felt a difference between Japan and the US. Even so, seeing this many people from the startup world gathered in one place, they felt Japan might come to have a similar atmosphere, and were happy about that. They said they wanted to help this momentum spread.

Next was the head of KINS, a company that works with the microbiome, including gut flora. Centered on bacteria, the company runs multiple businesses spanning testing, healthcare, medical institutions and supplements. It also operates medical facilities. The CEO also mentioned an initiative in the fertility treatment field that aims to change the state of bacteria and thereby change figures related to treatment outcomes, but the details are unclear because the subtitles are indistinct.

KINS is a Silver Sponsor of IVS and has a booth in a separate location from CORE. Asked why they came to CORE as well, the CEO said they place importance on interacting with investors and networking.

Asked what they had gained, the CEO mentioned a new business aimed at executives that the company launched around October of last year. As a chance to speak directly with that customer base, CORE is of very high quality, they said. Gatherings of around 30 people happen from time to time in Tokyo, but there are few places where you can meet hundreds, or even 1,000, people at once. That, they said, is the big draw.

Okui also spoke with Sugaken, who happened to be at the venue. It was Sugaken's first time attending, and they said they came with high expectations.

Sugaken noted that lately there has been a sense that "startups are over." They had felt that Japanese startups were being swallowed up by global industries and were finding it hard to make their mark. But looking around the venue, they felt that wasn't the case at all. They hope things will change so that startups can claim a much bigger position within Japan, and said they had come this time to look for such startups.

On AI, Sugaken said they see Japan as having extremely low productivity by global standards, putting it in an "extremely dire position." That is precisely why, they said, not just AI startups but every industry should first use AI to raise the baseline. If additional value from AI is then built on top of that, the value of Japan as a whole seems likely to rise. They said they hope startups will take on that role as well.

The other area they raised was inbound tourism. Tying it to the significance of holding the event in Kyoto, they said the tourism industry absolutely cannot be ignored, and that they hope to see startups emerge that can make an impact there.

Okui describes the booth area as less a simple exhibition and more a place where conversations about business, investment and the next services are actually moving forward. One booth with an eye-catching VR device belonged to Neuralport, a company from Kyoto.

The company is developing "ZEN EYE Pro," a VR system that measures the state of the brain through the eyes in one minute. The hardware can be either PICO or Meta; what the company develops is the VR software. The technology estimates brain state from eye information such as pupils, gaze and blinking, and is patented in Japan and the US.

The company is based at Kyoto Research Park. When Okui said she had thought it was an American company, the representative laughed and replied, "I really want to go to America."

The name "ZEN" has a story behind it. A relative of the representative is the head priest of a temple in Arashiyama, Kyoto, and the company wanted to share with the world the feeling of subtly balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems through zazen meditation. It recently also released "Totonou VR," positioned as a way to get that "totonou" refreshed state in one minute without going to a sauna. It is currently being used at lounge facilities as well as by people who push their brains hard, such as graduate students at the University of Tokyo and Osaka University.

The video then moves to the venue of the pitch competition "LAUNCHPAD." Several speakers' pitches were introduced, albeit in fragments.

The first was a store robot for the retail industry. The speaker explained why robots are rarely seen in supermarkets. Stores are cramped and full of ordinary shoppers, so there are many constraints, including high safety requirements, robot size and price. Even if industrial robots are brought in, they can only be used outside business hours. So the company developed a store robot specialized for retail. With its compact body, it can carry 100 kg of goods and pass staff and customers smoothly and safely.

The second pitch addressed the challenges facing elderly people living alone. According to the speaker, there are 9 million elderly people living alone nationwide, a number expected to exceed 10 million. Without a guarantor, they cannot be admitted to a hospital, sign a rental lease or move into a nursing home. They cannot receive the medical care they want or live where they want to live, and are unable to lead an ordinary life. The speaker called these people "solo elderly refugees" and said the company is working to solve this problem.

The third was a space pitch. The speaker pointed out that SpaceX has revolutionized rocket transport, and an era in which anyone can more easily go to space is about to arrive. However, the situation changes completely when you look at the destinations rockets carry things to. The speaker also said that, blocked by barriers such as stringent precision requirements, all programs had ended by last year. The subtitles are unclear in this section. The company's solution was to launch building materials and assemble them in space.

The results were announced starting from fifth place, and the winner was Space Quarters, a space architecture company. Taking the stage, CEO Takahashi said that since the company started in 2022, it has committed to "building structures in space" and staked everything on that alone.

In an interview right after the win, Takahashi explained the company's stance as follows: rather than speaking to space experts or people in the space industry, unless you present a future that lots of people can get excited about, space development has no future. Takahashi said they believe the win recognized that aspect as well, and were very happy about it.

This was Takahashi's first time presenting at IVS. They recalled that participants met many times, watched each other's pitches and gave each other feedback. They received plenty of criticism from the other speakers, and pointed out anything that bothered them in return. It was, quite literally, mutual sharpening, and Takahashi said pitch contests like that are rare. The participants also became friends and can ask each other for solutions to shared challenges. Takahashi described LAUNCHPAD as a place with a highly developed sense of community.

Takahashi also said it is an event that draws a lot of attention, including from existing investors and VCs. As a place to look for the seeds of new partnerships and investment, they said, there may be nothing better.

Finally, Okui asked judge Kathy Matsui for her overall assessment. This was Matsui's sixth year judging, and she said she felt this year's quality was the highest of all. Compared with a few years ago, she said, the level of applicants is very high, and the range of fields they cover has broadened greatly.

Okui asked about the "kilocorn" Matsui had mentioned in her opening remarks. A kilocorn refers to a company valued at around 1 trillion dollars, beyond unicorns and decacorns. Asked whether there were signs this time that such a company might emerge, Matsui answered, "I think there are." She added the caveat that, of course, it is still early days.

Matsui then laid out the conditions. Unless a company takes on business ideas or ventures that no one has thought of before, it will never become a company of that scale. Citing SpaceX as an example, she expressed the view that businesses people around you call "crazy" are more likely to become kilocorns, and with that, the interview came to a close.