Mitsubishi to Support Startups Originating from University of Tokyo; Support Aims to Boost Japan’s Competitiveness

The Yomiuri Shimbun

1:00 JST, March 30, 2025

Mitsubishi Corp. and the University of Tokyo announced Friday that they will launch a joint program to support startups.

The program is aimed at supporting the development of technologies and businesses at the university from the early stage through to commercialization.

The company from fiscal 2025 plans to donate ¥600 million to the university to keep the program running for four years. The program is intended to identify promising technologies and ideas originating from the university and provide support for market research, commercialization and other activities.

Mitsubishi also plans to consider introducing funding sources and extend end-to-end support from the launch of a business until its operations are on track.

The university has strengths in such fields as space, robotics, biotechnology, medicine and quantum computers. A total of 577 startups had originated from the university as of the end of fiscal 2023.

“We will bring the University of Tokyo’s startups to the next level,” the university’s president, Teruo Fujii, said at a press conference on Friday. “We want to strengthen the industrial competitiveness of Japan as a whole.”

Mitsubishi has also supported Kyoto University researchers aiming to start their own businesses.

“We want to support researchers so that they can conduct research and commercialize their ideas freely. We won’t seek returns,” Mitsubishi President Katsuya Nakanishi said at the press conference.