Japanese venture wins Startup World Cup

March 26, 2017

Silicon Valley- UniFa, a Japanese venture company offering a robot service to take care of children at kindergartens and nurseries, won the Startup World Cup on Friday.

The company, based in the central Japan city of Nagoya, plans to use the prize money of one million dollars for overseas business expansion.

UniFa’s MEEBO robot automatically recognizes children’s faces, take photos of them to share with their families and remotely checks their body temperatures to inform teachers of fevers.

“I thought such a child care service is unique to Japan, but I’m delighted with the high evaluation in the world stage,” UniFa President Yasuyuki Toki said.

The Startup World Cup was held for the first time, at the initiative of San Jose-based Fenox Venture Capital. Friday’s final in San Francisco was joined by 15 startup businesses that won the regional preliminary round. Jiji Press