User:Kakka42/sandbox

UTEC - The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners - is a Japanese Venture Capital firm associated with academic institutes such as The University of Tokyo. UTEC is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and mainly invests in Deep tech companies backed by science and technology, and has altogether invested in more than 100 startups in Japan and worldwide. UTEC has an AUM of over $780 million, making it one of Asia’s largest deep tech VC firms. UTEC receives bulk of its funding from private institutional sources.

History
In April 2004, UTEC was co-founded by the then University of Tokyo management and Tomotaka Goji, a bureaucrat-turned-Venture Capitalist who previously crafted Japan’s Limited Partnership Act (enforced in November 1998) that formed the basis for venture capital funds in Japan.

Investments
UTEC invests in seed/early-stage startups in sectors such as Healthcare & Life Sciences, Information Technology (IT), and Physical Sciences & Engineering.

Apart from Japan, UTEC also invests in mostly science-based companies from USA, Singapore , India , UK and other countries. With the launch of its fifth fund, UTEC also launched UFP (UTEC Founders Program), a new initiative to help deep tech founders commercialize their work.

Prominent exits of UTEC include:


 * PeptiDream: a Japanese biotech company that held a market capitalization of over $5 billion as of January 2018


 * AI Inside: a Japanese Artificial Intelligence company that held a market capitalization of $2.5 billion as of January 2021


 * 908 Devices: a US-based Mass spectrometry company that held a market capitalization of $1.4 billion as of March 2021


 * Neural Pocket: a Japanese Artificial Intelligence company that held a market capitalization of $1 billion as of August 2020


 * Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory (ACSL): a Japanese drone startup that was approved for its IPO by the Tokyo Stock Exchange in November 2018


 * Mujin: a Japanese intelligent robot controller company that performed an MBO (management buyout) in February 2019


 * Fyusion: a US-based computer vision startup was acquired by automotive corporation Cox Automotive in December 2020


 * PopIn: an online ad-tech startup that was spun-out from The University of Tokyo was acquired by Chinese technology behemoth Baidu in May 2015


 * GLM: a Kyoto-based automobile chassis platforms company was acquired by Hong Kong-based listed company O Luxe Holdings Limited in July 2017


 * Phyzios: a Japanese simulation technology startup was acquired by Google in February 2013