Japan-based Beyond Next Ventures India Join Hands with IIT Hyderabad to Boost Entrepreneurship

Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) and Beyond Next Ventures India Pvt Ltd (BNVI), Bangalore, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, to extend academia and industry cooperation. Japan Connect is a distinctive strength of IITH, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship is the core expertise of IITH, with 200+ patents & 100+ Startups on campus. Investment in innovations has resulted in the development of many pathbreaking technologies. This IITH-BNVI collaboration is going to usher in a new wave of innovations at IITH by investing and mentoring entrepreneurial ideas emerging from the IITH start-up community to go beyond bravely from ideas to markets.

“The MoU between IITH and BNVI is an iconic achievement to prove that the Indo-Japan collaboration has entered its next stage. The collaborations between the two countries are broader and more diverse, where startups and their ecosystems are the emerging key factors. I strongly support BNVI’s philosophy about Open Innovation to foster social innovation from early-stage technologies in laboratories. Such a philosophy is very important to utilize the academic research outcomes better and more for solving the real-world problems in both countries and even beyond.”, said Prof B S Murty, Director, IITH.

“IIT Hyderabad has a strong and broad startup ecosystem, including multiple incubation centres, entrepreneurship curriculums, and student organizations. The collaboration with BNVI will further increase the thrust of the startup ecosystem. Development and networking of Human resources are also important aspects of sustaining Open Innovation. IIT Hyderabad students will have more exposure to entrepreneurship experts from and through BNVI. I hope our students will get a positive stimulation and become more proactive to found a startup utilizing the learning and R&D in the institute.”, said Dr Kotaro Kataoka, Associate Faculty, IITH.

Expressing delight in this collaboration, Tsuyoshi Ito, CEO, BNVI, said, “The DNA of BNV in Japan is in nurturing ideas and talent at the high-end research and lab levels and converting them into successful ventures. We have been investing in India for the last two years, and it gives us immense pleasure to begin this new journey with IITH, which has Invention and Innovation as its core ethos. We look forward to partnering with existing initiatives of IITH and supporting them from a Japanese Venture Capital Perspective and bringing some of our best learnings from Japan to contribute further as well as give the students opportunities in the Indo-Japan Open Innovation Corridor.”

Emphasizing IITH’s Japan Collaboration, Shah Mayur, Head, Business Development, BNVI, said, “Congratulating IITH for their impeccable contribution to the Indo-Japan relationship, Mayur Shah added that it is our unwavering belief that the future of the India-Japan relationship will flourish on collaboration around Open Innovation. We at BNV have strived to rise beyond the traditional VC role and spearheaded the Japanese companies' collaboration with Indian Open Innovation Ecosystem. Our strong conviction on combining IDEAS from India and SCALE of Japan as a recipe for future Indo-Japan Economic Growth. This can be further catalyzed by leveraging the new collaboration with IITH.”

About Beyond Next Ventures India (BNVI)

Pushing beyond the boundaries of tomorrow. Beyond Next Ventures believes in the potential of Japanese science and technology. Our core mission is to grow and harness the potential of motivated entrepreneurs with revolutionary technology and commercialize their ideas to help build a better future and society. We focus on fostering an environment that stimulates maximum productivity and growth for entrepreneurs, providing professional assistance to support the commercialization and development of new industries and talent.

To know more, please visit: https://beyondnextventures.com/

Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) is one of the eight new IITs established by the Government of India in 2008. In a short span of 14 years, the institute has become a top-ranker. Currently, it has 284+ full-time faculty, ~3,800 students, nearly 200+ state-of-the-art laboratories, and five research and entrepreneurship centers. The institute has a strong research focus with approx Rs 535+ crore of sanctioned research funding, with PhD scholars accounting for about 30% of total student strength. IITH has more than 7,500+ research publications with 93,500+ Citations, 165 Published Patents, 1,700+ sponsored/consultancy projects so far with 500+ running projects, and about 100+ startups.

To know more, please visit: https://www.iith.ac.in/

Kids’ Food And Nutrition Startup ‘Lil’Goodness’ Completes of Seed Funding of ₹5 Crores

 

• Funding led by prominent institutional investor  Beyond Next Ventures (BNV), VC fund based out of Japan

 

• Funds to be used for expanding packaged foods product range, new digital interface with features such as real-time quality checks and 100% COVID-19 safe facilities.

‘Lil'Goodness’, a Bangalore based kids’ food and nutrition start-up, today announced the successful completion of their seed funding round of ₹ 5 Crores. 

The new investors in the round included Beyond Next Ventures (BNV), a Japanese VC Fund, led by Tsuyoshi Ito, President and Mayu Morishima, Executive Officer.  Top business leaders such as Sajan Pillai, former CEO-UST Global, and General Partner-Season two Ventures, the family of Lalit Pai, ex-CEO, Nightingales Healthcare and Dr. Muthu Krishnan, ex-CEO Tata Health have also earlier invested in the seed round. 

‘Lil’Goodness’ is empowering millennial moms with a unique combination of ‘goodness’ filled choices for their Lil’ ones. The company, led by IIM Calcutta alumnus, Harshavardhan & nutrition expert Pariksha Rao, is set to revolutionize the eating habits among children through a comprehensive ecosystem of fresh and packaged meal options integrated with technology to create awareness of eating right amongst kids at an early age. The start-up is focused on providing a range of kids foods based on good health to strengthen immunity, extreme focus on quality, hygiene and food safety, while providing the convenience of anytime, anywhere accessibility to moms. In the times of COVID-19, these core pillars are even more relevant.

Expressing his optimism on the fresh funding support, Harshavardhan, Co-Founder & CEO, Lil’ Goodness said, “We are excited to receive the additional investment support from ‘Beyond Next Ventures’. Given the current circumstances, this is indeed a good boost for the entire team. We, at ‘Lil’ Goodness’ have the vision to positively influence the eating habits of our future generations through tasty, nutritious food options. With this fund infusion, we are looking to further expand our product range & distribution of packaged foods, develop a digital interface that will enable mothers to order products directly to their homes through a contactless delivery option for the fresh meals business, SCoolMeal. We are already preparing ourselves for the new normal once this pandemic ends and are confident that our extreme focus on immunity based nutrition, highest standards of food safety, hygiene will be rewarded by our consumers."

Tsuyoshi Ito, President and Mayu Morishima, Executive Officer, Beyond Next Ventures said, "We are quite excited by the vision of the founders -Harshavardhan & Pariksha, in building a scientific food and nutrition brand focused on the kids. There is a huge opportunity for growth in this space especially as mothers look for healthy and hygienic solutions in the current context of COVID-19. We are impressed with the differentiated business model of the enterprise that combines the range between fresh meals and packaged foods, enabled by technology, and with a deep focus on principles of good nutrition”.

Sajan Pillai, General Partner, Season Two Ventures said, “I personally believe that in today's context good health, hygiene and the convenience of contactless digital ordering for convenience will be the key drivers in a COVID-safe world. Lil’Goodness founders have the right vision, attitude and hard work to make this happen. I am particularly impressed with the manner they have approached the go-to-market, from the perspective of an end to end solution to the mother’s daily problems. Given their experience in healthcare and nutrition, I believe the founders know what it takes to really understand and come up with innovative solutions in these challenging times”.

‘LiL'Goodness’, the packaged food brand, is currently offering 7 products across 67 stores in Bangalore and through online delivery app Amazon India. The products are designed to build immunity in kids using vegetables, cereals, and milk in crackers, porridges, and shelf-stable yogurts. These products are manufactured in hygienic, sterile facilities to ensure the highest quality of food safety and hygiene. The products contain zero preservatives and no artificial colors. Lil’Goodness also owns and operates sCoolMeal, a fresh meal brand, has partnered with 55 educational institutions in Bangalore serving around 1800 orders per day, in the next session it is expanding to across 90+ institutions in Bangalore. sCoolMeal is available at educational institutions, kids’ activity centers, and at home through online delivery app Swiggy.

The company is also introducing a new application that will enable mothers to order meals directly to their homes through a contactless delivery option. The kitchen facilities have been recently re-certified for ISO-22000 (2018), a testament to the high standards of hygiene being maintained. 

Additionally, despite being an early-stage start-up, as a socially responsible corporate, the company like many other big corporate giants stepped up its relief efforts towards COVID-19 pandemic and provided 30,000 meals to less privileged and less fortunate kids in Bangalore as part of the ‘Hope, Not Hunger’ program with Swiggy. 

The startup also recently was recognised as one of the top 5 most disruptive startups for customer value creation by FICCI-FLO.

C-CAMP and Japan's Beyond Next Ventures Launch Hub to Fund & Mentor Indian Life Sciences, Bio-Tech Startups

The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), India’s premier bio-innovation hub recently signed an Letter of Intent (LOI) with Tokyo, Japan-based venture capital firm Beyond Next Ventures (BNV), which is also one of the leading independent accelerators in Japan dedicated to incubation investment in technology start-ups.

The aim of this collaboration is to encourage and promote the best deep science innovations in the field of Life Sciences and Biotechnology in India.

The two organizations intend to create the C-CAMP – BNV Innovation Hub (CBIH) which will largely focus on facilitating Japanese investment of up to 5 million USD in Indian start-ups working on exciting technologies in the Life Sciences and Biotech domain.

This hub also aims to support start-ups in both the regions through exchange of human resources and technologies and through other facilitation programs and events to connect skilled talent, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in both regions.

C-CAMP has over the last few years interacted with over 500 start-ups and supported over 100 of these through funding, incubation and mentorship.

Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed, CEO & Director, C-CAMP said “C-CAMP has been identifying and supporting the most exciting early stage innovations and now looks forward to nurture many more such high-risk high-return innovations at an early stage through this collaboration with Beyond Next Ventures. This will be a fantastic start to build Indo-Japan collaborations for high-end innovations.”

Mr. Tsuyoshi Ito CEO, BNV said “We are very excited to jointly launch the “C-CAMP Beyond Next Ventures Innovation Hub” (“CBIH”) in collaboration with the top incubator in India C-CAMP. As the top accelerator and VC in Japan, we look forward to combining our experience and extensive network with C-CAMP to support new innovations in Japan and India. Through this collaboration, we plan to make full-fledged venture investments into the life sciences field of India and contribute to the industrial and economic development in India in the future."

Established in August 2014, BNV is an independent accelerator dedicated to incubation investment in technology startups. It is one of the few leading companies in the field in Japan with a wealth of investment experience ranging from support for commercialization of university seeds to venture investment, growth support, and excellent operation results, and JSTs university new industry creation program. It has been recognized as a business promoter at (START) and EDO's R & D venture support project. The first fund established in February 2015, and the second fund established in October 2018, totals less than 15 billion yen, operating as the country's largest fund as an accelerator, and will be invested in a large number of technology startups, supporting its commercialization and
growth.

BNV is actively working on commercialization support other than funding, "BRAVE acceleration program", for researchers / entrepreneurs such as universities and research institutes aiming to commercialize innovative technologies, matching with management human resources candidates, knowledge and human resources for commercialization realization We provide network and growth funds. In addition, a program called “Blockbuster TOKYO” That supports contracting from Tokyo and supports entrepreneurship in drug discovery and medical ventures and growth of drug discovery and medical venture companies also operates.

In February 2019, as a base to provide start-up companies in the life sciences area with support for commercialization including research and development, BNV launched the share lab / wet lab “Beyond BioLAB TOKYO” in Chuo-ku, Tokyo.

From March 2019, BNV started to provide a co-founder matching platform "Co-founders" specialized for technical seeds and researchers at universities(URL:https://co-founders.team/)and by providing the online matching opportunities and real support, we are helping to create a strong founding team.