Japan-based Next Ventures India joins 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, on Tuesday announced a collaboration extending academia and industry cooperation.

Beyond Next Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in medical and life science fields.

IIT Hyderabad in a press note said that its Japan Connect program is a distinctive strength of IITH, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship is the core expertise of IITH, with 200+ patents & 100+ Startups on campus.

“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,” a press note from IIT Hyderabad said.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof BS Murthy, Director of IIT Hyderabad said that 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 of 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.

Expressing delight in this collaboration, Tsuyoshi Ito, CEO, of 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.”