Collision Conference 2024 was held in Toronto, Canada from June 17-20, 2024. Collision is a startup, innovation, and technology conference that has been held annually in Toronto for years, welcoming promising startups throughout the country and the world to come to Canada, make connections, and solve global issues. This year, three startups from Yokohama, Japan made the trip to Toronto to participate in Collision and explore expansion into the North American market.

Collision is the largest tech conference in Canada, and according to the City of Toronto, this year’s conference included 800 speakers, 1,400 journalists, 1,000 investors, 2,000 startups and 300 partners from more than 140 countries to foster connections and tackle real-world challenges. Among those number, were three startups from Japan that traveled from Yokohama to participate.

The three startups participated in Collision 2024 a collaboration between Toronto-based Yokohama City and Toronto Metropolitan University’s incubator/accelerator “DMZ,” which supported the companies’ acclimation to the North American market through a support program tailored to these Japanese companies based on DMZ’s “YYZ” soft-landing program, and provided them a stage at the DMZ booth on the Collision Conference floor to pitch at.

Here is more information about the Yokohama-based startup companies that participated in Collision 2024:

• AZAYAKA Japan

  • Developing revolutionary sensor-embedded fabrics to deliver data and analysis to any activity. These sensor-enhanced fabrics provide a multitude of possibility, from analysis to avoid stress-related injuries for athletes to GPS-tracking clothing.
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• Code Meee

  • Creating tailored environment aromas through AI and analytics to deliver customers with personalized and customized aromas for spaces, homes, venues, offices, and more.
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• InterDomain

  • Pioneering human-generated energy and health through their proprietary grid-connected exercise bike and connected data platform.
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These companies were able to explore the Canadian and North American ecosystems in Toronto at Collision 2024, making connections with potential business partners, investors, and customers, and making lasting connections with a world-leading incubator like DMZ.

As was announced during the conference, this is the last year that Collision Conference will be held in Toronto. In 2025, the conference will change names to “Web Summit Vancouver,” and will be held in—you guessed it—Vancouver. Yokohama is sister cities with Vancouver, and hopefully this new initiative to bring Canada’s largest tech conference to Vancouver can result in even more opportunities for Japanese companies from one of Japan’s largest and most innovative cities to explore international markets.

For more information on startups from Yokohama, see our Startup Directory, or our articles on Yokohama companies.