Lifeness Co., Ltd. is pleased to announce that it has been selected for the \u201cAcceleration Track\u201d of the FY2026 \u201cSupport Program for Securing Management Talent at University-Spun-Off Startups (MPM)\u201d (hereinafter referred to as \u201cthis program\u201d), which was open for applications by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), a national research and development corporation.<\/p>\n
This project aims to diversify routes to acquire management personnel for university-launched startups and to create and grow university-launched startups by identifying human resources who are interested in starting their own business or participating in the management of a startup (hereinafter referred to as \"management personnel\") and matching them with technology seeds from universities and other university-launched startups. The program aims to diversify routes for university startups to acquire managerial talent and to create and grow such talent.<\/p>\n
Since 2014, Libanes has been promoting \u201cTech Planter,\u201d a program aimed at pre-startup researchers and newly established startups, with the goal of building an ecosystem to discover and nurture business opportunities in the deep tech sector. Furthermore, in 2016, we launched the \u201cRegional Tech Planter\u201d program, which works in partnership with local governments, regional banks, universities, and companies to build ecosystems aimed at creating new industries in regional areas; this program is currently active in 12 regions. As of April 2026, we have identified more than 6,000 teams both in Japan and overseas, with approximately half of them being pre-startup teams.<\/p>\n
As part of these nationwide efforts, in fiscal year 2024, Lifeness was selected for this project with the goal of developing recruitment channels for management talent during the early stages of university-based startups in regions facing challenges in identifying such talent, and we undertook initiatives to build a management team. Furthermore, building on these efforts, we launched the venture builder program \u201cGERMINATION REACTOR\u201d in 2024 and have been working to improve our methods for selecting management talent and building relationships with researchers.<\/p>\n
This fiscal year, we will develop and implement a program for this project that features the following three elements.<\/p>\n
(1) Researchers and business executives engage in discussions on an equal footing from the outset to collaboratively develop hypotheses regarding both commercialization and new technology development
\n(2) Redesign the entire program as a training program lasting approximately four months and establish a process that enables mindset development and team building in a short period of time
\n(3) Form an \u201cIgnition Team\u201d composed of communicators, venture capitalists, and experts in business and intellectual property strategy, among others, to vigorously drive the process from identifying promising ideas to building relationships between researchers and business leaders, facilitating decision-making, and commercialization<\/p>\n
As part of this project, we will be recruiting researchers from local universities who are aiming to start their own businesses, as well as prospective business leaders interested in the social implementation of research findings and entrepreneurship. If you are interested, please contact us.<\/p>\n
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NEDO Press Release<\/strong><\/p>\n