SunBridge-Backed Japanese Entrepreneurs Win Innovation Awards in Silicon Valley Competition

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SunBridge congratulates Phyzios, Inc. and Morpho, Inc. for their selection as Innovation Award Winners at Plug and Play Tech Center’s iEXPO 2010. iEXPO is Silicon Valley's Premier International Investment Forum in which startup companies make rapid-fire presentations to a jury of over 40 leading VCs and an audience of four hundred technology entrepreneurs. Of the 35 companies that presented, Phyzios and Morpho were joined by KaleidoFlex as the event’s three award winners.

“To have two of these excellent companies beat three dozen of the top global startups in Silicon Valley is very gratifying. It is especially rewarding after the success in last year’s event in which two of the three Tokyo 21c Club startups that SunBridge brought to the event also won.”

Phyzios and Morpho along with Apollo Japan Co, LTD presented in the competition at the invitation of SunBridge, a venture capital and innovation services firm with offices in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, and at Plug and Play Tech Center in Silicon Valley. The three companies were chosen by earlier winning a competition held by Mitsubishi Estate’s Tokyo 21c Club in which 20 Japanese startup companies presented their investor pitches to a team from SunBridge. The three winners then joined SunBridge in Silicon Valley for a week of industry networking and presentation refinement before the iEXPO competition.

“Phyzios’ success would not have been possible without the support of SunBridge,” said Takeyuki Ogura, Founder and CTO of Phyzios. “We appreciate SunBridge’s attention to detail in understanding our business and their enthusiastic effort in helping us best present Phyzios’ great potential.” Phyzios has created eight top-ten iPhone applications and its physics-based animation and video game creation platform, Phyzios Studio, enables user generated content and gaming applications with the realism of high-end video games.

“Morpho, Inc. has experienced strong business success in Japan and my visit to Silicon Valley increases our confidence that Morpho will be equally successful internationally,” said Masaki Hiraga, President of Morpho. “We are thankful for the opportunity that SunBridge provided to share our story at iEXPO and for their contribution to our victory.” Morpho’s camera enhancement software is available on a majority of smart phones in Japan.

“Winning the Tokyo 21c Club competition and presenting at iEXPO has been a great experience for Apollo,” said Ikuko Kishigami, Vice Present of Yokohama-based Apollo. “We look forward to ongoing collaboration with SunBridge in both Japan and the US.” Apollo’s Screencode technology allows the inexpensive printing of hidden codes on packages and documents that are used for anti-counterfeiting authentication applications.

“After the rigorous competition among some of Japan’s best new companies at the Tokyo 21c Club we were confident in the potential of Phyzios, Morpho and Apollo to do well both as presenters and as businesses,” said Allen Miner, Founder and CEO of SunBridge. “To have two of these excellent companies beat three dozen of the top global startups in Silicon Valley is very gratifying. It is especially rewarding after the success in last year’s event in which two of the three Tokyo 21c Club startups that SunBridge brought to the event also won.” At Plug and Play’s 2009 international investment forum, Netoff, one of Japan’s leading ecommerce startups and Pankaku, a Keio University iPhone gaming startup were selected as two of the three Innovation Award Winners. “That two winning companies came from Japan, not only once but two years in a row, speaks to the high quality of Japanese entrepreneurs and startups and also to the effective partnership between SunBridge and Tokyo 21c Club to identify the most exciting new technology companies in Japan.”

Also noteworthy is that both of the 2010 Innovation Award winners, Phyzios and Morpho, are based on technology initially developed at and spun out of the University of Tokyo, each were incubated by The University of Tokyo’s SEED: Science Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development Program, and received funding from The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Co. “We see the success of Phyzios and Morpho as validation of the University of Tokyo’s efforts to support entrepreneurship,” said Katsuya Hasegawa, SEED Project Professor, who joined the companies at iEXPO. “We are grateful to the ongoing support of SunBridge for the University of Tokyo’s efforts and look forward to continued partnership.”

About SunBridge

SunBridge Corporation offers venture capital, IT services and globalization support for both Japanese and US technology companies. SunBridge’s principals share a rich heritage of having founded Oracle Japan and held senior executive positions with IBM Japan and other leading technology companies. SunBridge successfully co-founded salesforce.com Japan and ITmedia, and has invested over $100m in more than 65 portfolio companies in both Japan and the US, resulting in eight successful IPOs and two major acquisition exits generating over $17 Billion in current market capitalization. SunBridge offices are located in Tokyo, Osaka, Silicon Valley and Cleveland. More information can be found at www.sunbridge.com and www.sunbridgepartners.com.