SMBC Group Orchestrates Co-creation by the Startup Ecosystem Platform, “Mirai Cross”

The forerunner of the Mirai Cross program was launched in 2015. The primary goal at the time was to seek out and support university-based startups, as well as organizations that possessed great technology but hadn’t started a business. But it didn’t go so far as fostering alliances between large enterprises and startups or helping startups enhance their corporate value.

Five and a half years ago, I was the first person to be seconded to a startup from SMBC under its new startup secondment program “Decchi,” the winning entry in the make-a-pitch-to-the-president contest. I made the rounds of many different departments within the bank to propose a service of the startup I worked for, but none of them would even give the service a try, and they offered only limited support. That made me realize firsthand that the toughest thing for a startup is the process of bringing a new business into being and changing society.

When you consider the sheer potential of a bank, a bank should surely be able to offer support for startups with everything required to drive growth, not just funding. It should have the ability to cross-connect various initiatives. That’s why we designed Mirai Cross, a completely updated version of what we had been doing. I’ve been keeping busy ever since as one of the founding members.

Mirai Cross centers on four companies: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, SMBC Nikko Securities, SMBC Venture Capital, and Mirai Works. It revolves around three pillars: an acceleration program, a program supporting alliances between large enterprises and startups, and organizing seminars and events. Business corporations, venture capital firms, local governments, and experts who support our aims, as well as a wide range of other startup ecosystem players, have lent us their help.

The advantage of being a bank, I think, is its ability to create new businesses by acting as a bridge with a multitude of companies. It doesn’t just provide financing. Banks have relationships with a wide range of customers regardless of industry or sector. That’s an advantage that no other type of company can emulate. And it translates into Mirai Cross’s greatest strength.

Our list of partner business corporations, for example, covers an impressive range of industries, from chemicals to the travel sector, real estate, and insurance. This diverse network has enabled Mirai Cross to spawn a whole series of alliances and capital and business partnerships between business corporations and startups.

We’re also focused on cross-connecting different regions by leveraging our network of locations across Japan. In August 2023, we held an event called KyotoX, which might be described as the Kyoto version of Mirai Cross. This involved five startups making their pitch to local financial institutions in Kyoto in conjunction with the governments of Kyoto Prefecture and the City of Kyoto. The event’s goal was to put local small and medium-sized enterprises in contact with startups. We’ve already held a similar event in Kobe. We’re planning an initiative to link up the entire Kansai region.

An iconic example would be the capital and business partnership between Shin Nippon Air Technologies, one of our partner companies, and the startup EAMS Robotics in December 2022. Even if you enjoy a dominant position in your industry, the hurdles to forming an alliance with a startup are considerable. Shin Nippon Air Technologies had never formed an alliance or financial partnership with a startup before. Mirai Cross offered support tailored to its collaborative requirements, thus enabling it to surmount the considerable obstacles, and so the alliance was born. That, I think, was a big achievement.

Another of our partner companies, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, teamed up with startup UrbanX Technologies. Together they released a service called DORA-RECO (Dashcam) Road Manager, which helps inspect roads in December 2021. Event data recorders are installed in company vehicles, and roads are inspected using AI. This increases the efficiency of the inspection process, which previously had to be performed by human eye.

There have been cases of other capital and business partnerships and service rollouts as well. Our efforts are steadily bearing fruit.

A variety of factors come into play. If you simply introduce a startup to a large enterprise and leave it at that, their alliance will go nowhere. Here’s what SMBC Group does to bridge the gap. We size up the requirements of both the startup and the corporation and come up with a proposal once we know exactly what they’re each looking for. We may also get the startup to put together a concrete proposal for an alliance.

In addition, we avail ourselves of the staffing service offered by Mirai Works, one of the program partners. We find someone on the Mirai Works HR platform with the requisite expertise to function as bridge-builder between the business corporation and the startup. They then act as a kind of dedicated personal assistant, providing a full range of support to make the alliance happen. Having a person with the right expertise act as go-between allows both sides to form a clearer picture of how the alliance will work. It also leads to smoother communication.

About 20 partner companies currently participate in the Mirai Cross platform. This year we’re also focused on creating forums where large companies interested in working with a startup can network and exchange business ideas. We look forward to seeing alliances between large enterprises emerge in the process.

We arranged for our partner companies to give reverse pitches. Usually at a pitch event it’s the startup that delivers the presentation. But at this event large companies gave presentations on what kind of startup they’d like to work with and what they’d like to do together. The event was a big success. At the reception afterwards, people from startups and representatives of large companies engaged in lively discussions on how exactly they could collaborate. The people from the startups were pleased with the event because it was an efficient way of forming connections with business corporations and the relevant arms of SMBC.

We run a program that seed and early-stage startups all over Japan can enter. After undergoing training and mentoring, they make their pitch to venture capital firms and business corporations. The startups that sign up come from many different business sectors. About 30 percent are in the technology field and another 30 percent in IT. There are also a lot in biotechnology and healthcare.

Banks have always worked behind the scenes. From now on, though, I believe we’ll need to be there for all who challenge themselves to starting something new by arranging everything they require, and meanwhile keep spawning new businesses ourselves.

We’ve been explaining that need to each of the departments concerned with startups or involved in new businesses and getting them on board. By integrating the departments in this way, we can ensure that they become familiar with other departments and know what each other are doing.

Even within SMBC Group, the dynamism to take on new challenges is now palpable. Bank employees attend acceleration program seminars of their accord and initiate discussions on alliances with startups.

For starters, we want to keep spawning new businesses by fostering partnerships between partner companies and startups under the Mirai Cross program.

When you mention business alliances or open innovation, people perhaps tend to think of them as the exclusive preserve of large enterprises. But that’s not really the case. These are things that all Japanese companies should be engaging in. While expanding this program, we hope to become a bridge-builder by acting as all-around facilitator and arranging everything.

If alliances and open innovation become the norm, there will be greater flexibility in the labor market five or ten years down the road, bringing changes to the employment scene. Challenging yourself to start something new will become a matter of course. The advantage of a bank is its ability to cross-connect various initiatives. By leveraging that advantage, we hope to make the dynamism to take on new challenges part of the lifeblood of society.

Building a platform that empowers more people to challenge themselves will help Japan break free from its stagnation. And if mechanisms designed to allow large enterprises and startups to create new businesses together are replicated en masse, then maybe companies that rival the likes of Google and Apple will emerge in the process.

It’s exciting to think that I’m now preparing the ground for just such a future.