Press Releases 2018
SoftBank Announces Third Round
‘SoftBank Innovation Program’ Winners
SoftBank to tie up with 8 companies and conduct test marketing
May 31, 2018
SoftBank Corp.
SoftBank Corp. (“SoftBank”) today announced results for the third round of its ‘SoftBank Innovation Program’ launched in November 2017. SoftBank will tie up with eight companies from Japan and abroad to conduct test marketing and consider future commercialization.
The SoftBank Innovation Program's aim is to create new value by combining the innovative solutions and technologies of other companies with SoftBank's own resources*1. The third round of the SoftBank Innovation Program was open to five categories—AI as a Service*2, Disrupt*3, EdTech*4, Home*5 and AR (augmented reality) / VR (virtual reality). SoftBank received approximately 300 entries and selected eight from the AI as a Service, Disrupt and AR / VR categories to consider for commercialization.
Through the SoftBank Innovation Program, SoftBank will continue to seek to create new value by teaming up with companies around the world.
- [Notes]
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- *1For more on the SoftBank Innovation Program, please visit the official website.
- *2Artificial intelligence (AI) provided as a service
- *3Innovative solutions that disrupt preconceived notions
- *4Solutions that fuse education and IT
- *5A variety of services and solutions (including smart homes) that use homes as a touch point
- *1
Outline of Test Marketing Items
Theme | Company | Overview |
---|---|---|
AI as a Service | Retrieva |
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Disrupt | uLikeKorea |
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UsideU |
|
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Nihonshu Oendan |
|
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AR/VR | eyecandylab |
|
ObEN |
|
|
wrnch |
|
|
Salin |
|
Outline of Companies to Conduct Test Marketing
Retrieva, Inc. (headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo)
Provides solutions for various tasks by utilizing AI technology
URL | https://retrieva.jp/ (Japanese) |
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uLikeKorea Co., Inc. (headquartered in South Korea)
Provides health monitoring services for cattle herds using IoT
URL | http://www.livecare.xyz/new/ |
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UsideU, Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo)
Provides hybrid AI solution for remote communication or multi-modal automated communication
URL | https://www.usideu.com/ (Japanese) |
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Nihonshu Oendan Inc. (headquartered in Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo)
Provides solutions for sake, from brewing to consumption
URL | https://welovesake.com/ (Japanese) |
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eyecandylab Corp. (headquartered in California, US)
Provides solution that imparts new experiences to TV programs with AR
URL | http://www.eyecandylab.com/ |
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ObEN, Inc. (headquartered in California, US)
Provides solutions by generating personalized AI avatars from one photo and a brief voice recording, authenticating and securing the avatars with blockchain technology
URL | http://oben.me/ |
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wrnch inc. (headquartered in Canada)
wrnchAI uses deep learning to understand human motion and behavior from standard video
URL | https://wrnch.ai/ |
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Salin Co., Ltd. (headquartered in South Korea)
Provides platform that enables communicating with avatars among users while watching VR video
URL | http://salin.co.kr/ |
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