Interview
The Japanese startup building technology that could revolutionize microscopy

IDDK is a Japanese startup, founded in 2017 by Soichiro Ueno, formerly with TOSHIBA, who’ve developed a unique microscopic observation technology. They’ve received funding from JAXA in addition to equity investments from TOSHIBA, DNP, and Misuzu Industries, and were the winners of the pitch competition at the Space Tech Summit 2023 in Israel. They’re already building global partnerships for their MID (Micro Imaging Device), which does not use a standard optical lens found in conventional microscopes, but instead uses a single-chip, semiconductor processing visual technology.

In fact, the company is developing automated bio-laboratories in outer space working to design space experiment missions, and hope to play a role in the next generation of cutting edge scientific discoveries.

We spoke to IDDK’s Co-CEO and CFO, Kohei Yoshioka, about their startup journey, and their ambitious plans to scale and send their technology to outer space.

My background is finance, and I decided to join IDDK because of the passion I felt when I spoke to the founder, Mr. Ueno.

MID is a technology invented by our founder. It is a one chip microscopic observation technology. So if you use MID, you don't need a lens and camera to digitally get microscopic data.

IDDK is a totally different environment compared to the large enterprise where I worked for past several years. We have only eight employees and our office is only in Tokyo. When I started working in IDDK, I had to start from creating rules of the company. But it was interesting, I think I am more comfortable working in startups rather than large organizations.

We aim to deliver our technology, MID, to places where conventional microscopes were historically inaccessible due to physical, technical or economical restrictions. We believe MID is a technology that can create a better future for humanity through increased accuracy and accessibility in diagnosis, observation, and discoveries.

The challenging conditions of outer space makes bringing big and heavy traditional microscopes difficult. Our MID offers a solution, enabling researchers to conduct detailed experiments on several platforms, including the International Space Station, but also beyond the satellites. The type of research that can benefit from our technology is drug development, vaccine production, tissue engineering, cancer research and protein research, things like that.

Space is one area we are focusing on now, but we are sure that our technology can be applied in terrestrial settings as well, such as medical or sanitation and primary industries such as agriculture or fishing.

But, most people don't know that space experiments can benefit the people right on Earth. For example, when you do protein crystallization in a microgravity environment, it can create large and perfect crystals because there is no gravity. Crystallized protein will help scientists to discover and research new drugs for diseases like muscular dystrophy.

Graduating from the accelerator program of Starburst Aerospace is one of our milestones. Last May we also won a pitch contest in a space tech summit held in Israel.

Also, we executed MoU with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai, to offer space bio-experiment service using IDDK technology to United Arab Emirates researchers and scientists, and also to spread this service to other countries in the Middle East. This MoU was exchanged in front of the Japanese Prime Minister and UAE President at the UAE and Japan Business Forum.

Our service will be demonstrated next year and our service will begin in 2025.

There are a lot of challenges we've faced since I joined, starting from making business models, business brands and building a worldwide supply chain to deliver our service to end users. There’s also marketing, not only to develop customers, but also to educate customers. When you do business in the space field, access to the global ecosystem is required to find business partners to optimize our supply chain.
We haven’t overcome all the issues, but we are trying to address those challenges with the support of accelerators, including one sponsored two years ago by JETRO.

We joined several programs offered by JETRO and received much support. We went to some international conferences, financially and operationally supported by the JETRO team and also participated in the Techstars program, sponsored by JETRO. That support is really helpful for startups because we always have human resource limitations.

So I feel like the JETRO team are also IDDK members. We need to continue our effort year over year to build our presence, and this means we need continuous support from JETRO.

When we look at the market for experiments and manufacturing using microgravity environments, McKinsey issued a report saying it will be a $5 to $6 billion market in 2025.

Five years after the demonstration next year, IDDK is looking to democratize space bio-experiments, we will provide space experiment platforms to generate innovation to address social issues that cannot be resolved through ground-based research alone. We will provide a one stop shop for microgravity service to end users. This means that IDDK will help design the space mission together with end users, fabricate the experiment unit using our technology, then facilitate launching satellites for microgravity research.

We have a lot of things to tackle and step up to the next stage but I'm satisfied with the journey so far. We are looking for customers, investors, and talents who would like to join our journey to generate innovation to address social issues that cannot be resolved through ground-based research alone.

*1 Photo form Prime Minister’s Office of Japan HP