Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Scrum Ventures, an investment platform focused on Japan and the United States, has announced its list of early accepted startups, many of them Japanese, to its Food Tech Studio – Bites!, a global program aimed to solve the key challenges plaguing the food supply chain.
Food Tech Studio – Bites!, described as “a stage-agnostic, global community of best-in-class startups with a common vision of bringing better and more efficient processes within the food development ecosystem,” will address, among other things, the safety, waste reduction, and health issues faced by foodtech startups.
This is done in part by introducing the accepted foodtech startups to major corporations and industry thought-leaders who might help them along to the next stage in their journey.
This week Scrum Ventures released the names of the first twenty startups that will be a part of the program, with six of them being Japanese: CANEAT, COMP, Exawizards, FoodCode, Gifmo, and MiL.
There were said to be hundreds of foodtech startups from around the world that made applications.
Aside from the startups, Japanese companies dominate the list of “partners” and “strategic partners” that support the program. The combined list includes Fuji Oil Holdings, Nissin Foods, Ito En, Nichirei, Otsuka Holdings, Fujicco, House Foods, Kagome, Tokyo Gas, SIGMAXYZ, Hakuhodo, Tokyo Tatemono, Tsuji Culinary Institute, Hitachi Global Life Solutions, JR East, and Orange Page.
The complete list of startups to be accepted to the program is expected to be announced next month.
Scrum Ventures is based in San Francisco, but most of its officers are Japanese nationals, including founding partner Tak Miyata.