Science for Capital — fusion and industry creation through technology integration

What was discussed

The session discussed the conditions for growing a fusion industry through entrepreneurship by researchers. It introduced the founding of Kyoto Fusioneering and the history of its fundraising, and discussed the significance of founding the company at a time when private investment was expanding worldwide. The business model of supplying peripheral equipment for power generation to each company without developing the reactor core in-house, and the cooperative relationships in the industry built on colleagues from academic societies, were also taken up. The possibility of expanding research laboratories and a mechanism for continuously sending entrepreneurs out of them was discussed.

About this session

Fusion may sound like an overwhelmingly technical field. Yet Kyoto Fusioneering, the first fusion startup in Japan to become a unicorn, pursues a business as an integrator of technologies from around the world, more than as a developer of its own. From a position at the frontier of industry creation, we dig into the moment at which technology connects to industry.

Speakers

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  Shutaro Takeda

  Keio University　Associate Professor, Graduate School of Media Design, and Director of the Fusion Industry Research Center, KMD Research Institute

  He became a researcher after working for the United Nations and with the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers, and specialises in fusion engineering and sustainability science. He was a programme-specific associate professor at Kyoto University and co-founded the fusion startup Kyoto Fusioneering. Since 2022 he has been an associate professor at the Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, researching plant design, power systems and the socio-economics of fusion energy, and as director of the Fusion Industry Research Center he works to connect academia, industry and policy.

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  Yuko Sasahara

  DiscussantNTT DOCOMO Ventures　President, CEO and CCO

  She joined NTT DOCOMO in 1995 and worked on planning and specifying the i-mode service and its handsets, and on handset line-ups and UI and design strategy. From 2014 she ran a new-business programme supporting internal entrepreneurs. Since 2021 she has led NTT DOCOMO Ventures, working on co-creation with startups and venture investment. After further lifestyle business development at NTT DOCOMO, she became its President, CEO and CCO in July 2025. She holds an MIT Sloan Fellows MBA.

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  Tomohito Oyobe

  ModeratorInstitute of Innovative Design, Institute of Science Tokyo / Hakuhodo DY Holdings Inc.　Specially Appointed Professor / Fellow

  He co-founded quantum inc., a startup studio, as an internal venture within the Hakuhodo group, and served as its representative director for ten years from its incorporation in 2016. He stepped down as representative in April 2025 and, after a period as chairman, is now a fellow at Hakuhodo DY Holdings, supporting incubation across the group. Alongside running quantum he founded, in 2017, an AI startup applying machine learning to sports data, growing out of joint research with the University of Electro-Communications; the business was later sold to a digital advertising company. Drawing on a decade spent incubating new businesses for more than a hundred large companies, he works chiefly on carve-outs and company creation, and since 2021 has been a specially appointed professor at the Institute of Innovative Design at his alma mater, Institute of Science Tokyo (formerly Tokyo Institute of Technology), working to create deep-tech startups out of the university. He also teaches entrepreneurship at the university's newly established startup education organisation.