Growth Hub #17 - By Founders, For Founders w/ Vik Kashyap (Toi Labs)
The Growth Hub is our regular gathering for an open exchange on the realities of building and scaling ventures in Japan.
The setup in Japan: 29.4% of the population is over 65, and the Ministry of Health expects a shortfall of 570,000 care workers by 2040. Demand for care keeps rising; the workforce doesn't. For facilities that can't hire, the remaining lever is technology that cuts the work itself.
Toi Labs builds one version of that lever. Its TrueLoo smart toilet seat - one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2024 - uses computer vision and AI to turn a routine into continuous health monitoring, catching dehydration or UTIs before they become hospital admissions. No wearables, no apps, nothing for residents to learn or staff to manage - the data collects itself.
A harder problem was distribution. Japanese bathrooms have had one reference point since 1917. Toi Labs' answer was not to compete with TOTO but to bring it in as a strategic investor.
Founder Vik Kashyap came to this as a patient first. Diagnosed with a medical condition at 28, he developed a treatment for his own condition, later published in Science Translational Medicine. He then built Canopy, a digital health platform acquired by Aetna, and now also invests at Battery Ventures.
At Growth Hub #17, Vik breaks down:
The macro case - what a worker care deficit does to buyer incentives, and where the spend goes
Why the bathroom - the logic of passive monitoring, and the value of data that asks nothing of anyone
TOTO - converting the incumbent into an investor, and what institutional validation takes in Japan
Selling into senior care - pilots, procurement, and the unit economics of hardware inside Japanese facilities
The founder's path - from treating himself to building for everyone else
This interactive discussion will be moderated by Francisco (Special Advisor, Shibuya City).
Conducted in English.
Special thanks to Izumi Negoro, Shiho Watabe, Nozomi Kakiuchi, and Lynn Stevenson-Hatayama who helped make this session happen.
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Shibuya Startup Support is an initiative by the Shibuya City Office to support startups looking to launch or expand in Japan. We provide guidance, visa and incorporation support, and access to a thriving local ecosystem.
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