IVS is one of Japan’s largest startup conferences, launched in 2007. People in different positions—entrepreneurs, investors, operating companies, government officials, and students—gather around the creation of new businesses.
In the past, it was an invitation-only closed conference centered on investors and startup executives, held repeatedly across Japan. Since 2023, it has shifted to a ticketed format, expanded its annual scale to 10,000 participants based in Kyoto, and grown into a platform for the entire startup ecosystem.
New businesses cannot be started alone. People with technology, knowledge, capital, customers, and experience are usually in separate places and rarely have opportunities to meet. IVS exists to create those points of connection.
On the session stages, speakers at the forefront of each field share their insights, and at the startup market, participants can directly engage with 300 domestic and international startups. Side events launched by participants themselves have expanded year by year, spreading beyond the venue. The six-minute elevator-pitch gateway for startups, “IVS LAUNCHPAD,” has received more than 5,000 total entries; among past presenting companies, more than 60 have achieved exits, and over 100 have raised more than 100 million yen in funding.
Over the course of three days, both planned encounters and completely unexpected ones take place. Many of the conversations exchanged here become turning points for future businesses. For everyone who participates, we strive to create practical opportunities for the future, and to take a step toward solving social issues and advancing new industries.
“Be the catalyst for the next generation.”—This is our mission.
IVS MISSION
IVS MISSION
It is always the outliers who create the future. Even among water molecules, there are always a small but steady number that, propelled by intermolecular motion, leap out into the air. Individuals filled with the energy of transformation appear in much the same way. In human society, they are a minority, and as solitary beings, they experience countless “first pains.”
Yet one person—a mass of heat so intense it seems like a mad flame—moves people’s hearts, and then another, and another, drawn together trembling with that heat. Before long, that heat becomes a swell, creating a movement powerful enough to change society. One person’s dream, madness, and conviction can dramatically alter the world line ten years later.
And behind it all are those who breathe life into sparks that could go out at any moment. There are those who believe in the heat of the future. They understand that the resources needed to ignite a great blaze are capital, knowledge, and talent—and that these are born from the successes of those who came before and expanded through repeated reinvestment. Only success can increase the probability of the next success. That is precisely why more people must succeed for the sake of the future, and why we need a mechanism through which that success can circulate.
IVS, together with next-generation entrepreneurs creating a new society and supporters who believe in the future, weaves the heat of transformation into the next era and builds a community and platform where the cycle toward success turns smoothly. People who seek change freely and openly express the future, talk about it, and empathize with one another. Let us create such a place. Let us create a system where opportunities for success arise spontaneously. A place that makes entrepreneurs want to come back to IVS. A place like that.
IVS VALUE
IVS VALUE
History
History