NEC and NEC X Announce First Graduate from Corporate Accelerator Program

TOKYO and PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NEC Corporation, a leader in IT and network technologies, and NEC X, the innovation accelerator for NEC’s emerging technologies, today announced that Inguo.io is the first graduating company from NEC X’s Corporate Accelerator Program (CAP). NEC X guided Inguo.io’s entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) participants through the steps of customer discovery and development, along with business model validation. This CAP process allowed Inguo.io to systematically determine its problem-solution fit, conduct its product-market discovery, and then clearly define its target market within the U.S. As a result, Inguo.io now has a clear path for success from today’s official launch as a startup company in New York City, home to many cutting-edge marketing businesses that can greatly benefit from its offerings.

“We are honored to be the first graduate of the NEC X corporate accelerator program,” said David Wolfe, CEO and founder at Inguo.io. “Not only did the CAP give us access to truly groundbreaking technology from NEC, it also helped us develop a unique business model and begin refining it with actual customers in a matter of months. This combination of innovative technology access with a well-resourced and clearly defined mentoring process for commercialization provided us with a greater chance for rapid success than we found with any other incubator program.”

“Our NEC X CAP accelerates the development and success of startup businesses by pairing them with NEC’s cutting-edge technologies in fast-fail batch cycles,” said Shige Ihara, CEO of NEC X. “As the first graduate of our program, we are happy to announce Inguo.io’s spinout, which will provide a broad range of organizations, such as market research firms and academia, with an easy way to make sense of their data and use it to make profitable improvements.”

The NEC X CAP process begins by introducing prequalified EIRs, who have the right mix of business acumen and technology aptitude, to researchers from NEC Labs, who present and demonstrate the technologies they would like to commercialize. After these group sessions, such as the invite-only NEC X Tech Showcase events, prospective EIRs can apply to participate in the projects that interest them. Those selected as EIRs then drive the CAP’s structured commercialization process, including strategic positioning definition, customer development, and other business and marketing activities. NEC X funds each CAP project and can also provide other resources, such as engineers, designers and domain advisers.