News Release
FY2025
Participation in Event by the EIC, Europe's Largest Deep Tech Support Initiative
-Using Advanced Materials to Seek Solutions to Challenges Through Partnerships with Startups-
JX Advanced Metals Corporation (President Hayashi Yoichi, hereinafter "the Company") participated on October 7, 2025 in the EIC-JETRO Europe Innovation Challenge, an event held jointly by the Japan External Trade Organization (Chairman and CEO Ishiguro Norihiko, hereinafter "JETRO") and the European Innovation Council (hereinafter "EIC"), at JETRO's Tokyo Head Office.
The EIC is an initiative founded to promote innovation in Europe by supporting startups, and to date, has funded over 3,000 such ventures in the region. Its matching programs bring together corporations and high-potential startups that meet EIC standards, enabling them to collaborate on innovative technology and services.
Organized to promote technological tie-ups between European deep tech startups1 and Japanese corporations, the EIC-JETRO Europe Innovation Challenge was the Council's first-ever event to be held outside of Europe and as such, received a high level of attention internationally. The event involved the EIC selecting 27 European startups via a public competition based on their proposals for solving challenges posed in advance by five Japanese corporations, including the Company. The startups then came to Japan to explore possible tie-ups with those corporations.
At the event, the Japanese corporations explained their challenges, followed by the startups presenting their proposed solutions to the challenges and taking part in individual interviews aimed at collaborations with the participating corporations. In response to the Company's call for innovative materials and environmentally friendly technologies, a number of startups offered technology proposals. On the following day, October 8, those startups visited the Company and engaged in discussions about the Company's competitive core technologies and products at its SQUARE LAB showroom and event space. The startups' proposals will now be carefully considered with a view to formulating concrete collaborations.
The EIC-JETRO Europe Innovation Challenge was the result of the development of ties between JETRO and the EIC, which boasts a network of European startups, and was based on JETRO's J-Bridge (Japan Innovation Bridge)2 international cooperation platform. In our "JX Advanced Metal Group 2040 Long-Term Vision," the Company has established a policy to actively advance co-creative R&D for creating new technology-based businesses. We believe participating in this event will further accelerate these efforts.
Going forward, the Company will continue striving to contribute to the development of a sustainable society by actively undertaking co-creative R&D projects with partners inside and outside Japan to develop and market innovative advanced materials.
Notes:
1.Deep tech startups: Startups aiming to employ advanced innovative technology deeply rooted in science and engineering to solve various challenges, to market these developments, and use them to solve social problems.
2.J-Bridge: A business platform launched to facilitate encounters and collaboration between Japanese companies and businesses from other countries. Member corporations can receive information on promising overseas enterprises and help in matching with potential partners, as well as expert advice appropriate for their level of business development.
Presentation at the EIC-JETRO Europe Innovation Challenge
Discussions at JX Advanced Metals' SQUARE LAB