TBWA\HAKUHODO has announced a new partnership between TBWA\HAKUHODO\QUANTUM, a unit within the agency that runs a corporate accelerator program, and Hardware Club, a global venture capitalist that provides support to startups worldwide on key hardware issues including manufacturing and distribution.

TBWA\HAKUHODO established TBWA\HAKUHODO\QUANTUM in Spring 2014, in search of new opportunities that lay beyond advertising and communication. Through their corporate accelerator program, the team matches promising start-ups with established corporate partners to create new groundbreaking approaches to both their product development and business models. The team has successfully provided support for a number of large Japanese corporation and start-up teams, helping to achieve real innovation over the past two years.

Headquartered in Paris and with offices in San Francisco and Taipei, Hardware Club is a private community for the best early-stage hardware startups around the world, covering Europe, North America and Asia. It has gathered more than 120 startups from more than 20 countries, including Misfit Wearables, Thync, Edyn, Narrative Clip, Prynt and Reach Robotics. The club’s entrepreneurs benefit from the community network, as well as free access to the best manufacturers and retailers around the world. Hardware Club also invests at seed stage in some of their member startups.

Through this new partnership, TBWA\HAKUHODO\QUANTUM and Hardware Club are now able to offer services that include support for:

· Global startups entering the Japan market

· Startups in Japan entering the global market

· Collaborations between large Japanese corporations and global startups

Jerry Yang, General Partner, Hardware Club, who has been leading its entry into the Japan market, commented, “Japan is very important for the Hardware Club both in terms of consumer electronics market as well as for potential in the startups. For our startups from USA and Europe, Japan is important markets to expand into, hopefully at a relatively early stage and along with local investors, to further accelerate the revenue growth.”

“For us as investors, we also believe in the future of the hardware startups born in Japan, due to its long history of engineering, design and respect for users,” Yang added. “With the collaboration with TBWA\HAKUHODO\QUANTUM, we look forward to a long-term mutually beneficial relationship both in Japan and globally.”

Yuta Inoue, Director, \QUANTUM Accelerator, TBWA\HAKUHODO\QUANTUM commented, “I am so excited to announce our partnership with Hardware Club. This collaboration will further strengthen our network globally, and add huge value to the services that Hardware Club and QUANTUM currently offer to startups in US, Europe and China, enabling them to more effectively enter the Japanese market and vice versa. This partnership also offers Japanese hardware startups greater exposure to the Hardware Club and the opportunities this can bring them.”

QUANTUM website: click here

Hardware Club website: click here