US-Japan Workshop Participants

US-Based Startups

AeroShield

AeroShield Materials

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Building Materials & Energy Efficiency

HQ

Waltham, Massachusetts

AeroShield Materials is an MIT spinout that manufactures the world’s most insulating, lightest, transparent materials. AeroShield enables the next generation of high-performance and energy-efficient products across windows, freezers, automotive, aerospace, and more.

BrightLight Photonics

Brightlight Photonics

FOUNDER

Joshua Yang

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Photonics & Quantum

HQ

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Brightlight Photonics develops on-chip lasers and amplifiers made from titanium-doped thin-film sapphire and custom photonic solutions in the visible and ultraviolet, from bare chips to fiber-interfaced devices.

CavilinQ

CavilinQ

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Quantum Hardware

HQ

Cambridge, Massachusetts

CavilinQ provides the most economical, clean, and continuous path to next-generation fault-tolerant quantum computers and quantum data centers.

Estat Actuation

ESTAT Actuation

FOUNDER

Stuart Diller

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Robotics & Actuation

HQ

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

ESTAT Actuation builds ESTAT clutches are 10x lighter, 10x more compact, and 1000x more efficient than conventional clutches. ESTAT clutches use electroadhesion to “glue” and “unglue” surfaces, enabling new actuator designs for mobile robots, logistics robots, wearable robots and manufacturing systems.

Flow Cellutions

FlowCellutions

FOUNDER

Becca Segel

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Grid Storage & Battery Diagnostics

HQ

Houston, Texas

FlowCellutions builds state-of-health diagnostics, proprietary sensing, and predictive maintenance software for grid-scale/flow batteries to extend battery life, prevent critical-infrastructure outages, and reduce O&M/OPEX for battery manufacturers, data centers, hospitals, and grid operators.

Gallox Semiconductors

Gallox Semiconductors

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Semiconductors & Photonics

HQ

Ithaca, New York

Gallox Semiconductors develops ultrawide bandgap gallium oxide (Ga2O3) transistors and diodes that eliminate that inefficiency, enable more powerful electronics circuitry, and reduce a system’s size, weight, and engineering complexity with target applications including data center, EV charging, satellites, drones, and aircraft.

Helix Earth

Helix Earth

FOUNDER

Rawand Rasheed

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

HVAC & Climate Tech

HQ

Houston, Texas

Helix Earth develops the first retrofit system that gives commercial buildings fresher air, lower humidity, and lower energy costs without replacing a thing. Powered by NASA technology.

Liftoff Technology

LiftOFF Technology

FOUNDER

Lorenz Olbrich

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Energy Storage & Batteries

HQ

Somerville/Boston, Massachusetts

LiftOFF Technology develops next-generation battery cells that deliver up to 3× higher energy density with improved safety, using abundant, domestically available materials. Their drop-in technology scales on existing lithium-ion manufacturing infrastructure. Backed by Breakthrough Energy and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, they accelerate technology development through AI-driven R&D.

MacroCycle Technologies

MacroCycle Technologies

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Sustainability & Circular Materials

HQ

Cambridge, Massachusetts

MacroCycle Technologies’ patented technology recycles plastic and polyester waste into virgin-grade MacroCycle PET or polyester resins to improve companies’ ability to meet sustainability goals, including satisfaction of PCR Regulations, elimination of landfill and ocean-bound plastics, and lowered Scope 3 emissions, all without a green premium.

Oleo

Oleo

FOUNDER

Gabriella Dweck

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Biofuels & Biomanufacturing

HQ

Berkeley, California

Oleo delivers reliable, lower-carbon fuel feedstocks at price parity with conventional alternatives. By converting waste into economical feedstocks, Oleo unlocks new production capacity for profitable advanced fuel pathways, ultimately, accelerating the transition to cleaner fuels.

Pascal Technology

Pascal

FOUNDER

Adam Slavney

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

HVAC & Sustainable Cooling

HQ

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Pascal is commercializing solid refrigerants as cleaner, more efficient alternatives to gas refrigerants in a wide variety of heating, cooling, and refrigeration systems. Solid refrigerants eliminate the greenhouse gas emissions and air and water pollution caused by leaking gas refrigerants while improving the energy efficiency of refrigeration systems by at least 20%, all at similar costs to conventional systems. Pascal has fully integrated its solid refrigerant into a commercial refrigerator and is actively developing a solid refrigerant beverage cooler, in partnership with a major beverage brand.

Phase3D

Phase3D

FOUNDER

Niall O’Dowd

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Additive Manufacturing & Inspection

HQ

Chicago, Illinois

Phase3D is on a mission to empower the additive manufacturing industry by offering a trusted part quality assurance technology. We produce quantitative measurements of the AM process using Fringe Projection to correlate build anomalies to material properties and part quality for all AM applications.

Sensate Robotics

Sensate Robotics

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Robotics & Tactile Sensing

HQ

Los Angeles, California

Sensate Roboticsâ„¢ builds multimodal tactile sensors and robotic gripping systems that give machines a true sense of touch and automate the work where irregular objects, quality judgment, and delicate handling meet a hard labor constraint. The company’s debut is in fruit handling, where the need is urgent, and the work still depends on human hands. The same technology reaches every industry where touch is the missing input.

SirenOpt

SirenOpt

FOUNDER

Jared O’Leary

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Advanced Manufacturing & Materials Characterization

HQ

San Leandro, California

SirenOpt provides real-time, non-destructive materials characterization for advanced manufacturing using cold atmospheric plasma and AI through its PlasmaSens platform, targeting batteries, semiconductors, aerospace, power generation and other thin-film/coating manufacturers.

VioNano Innovations

VioNano Innovations

INDUSTRY/SECTOR

Semiconductor Materials

HQ

Cambridge, Massachusetts

VioNano develops specialty polymeric materials for advanced semiconductor manufacturing, helping chipmakers build smaller, faster, and more cost-effective chips for AI and quantum infrastructure.

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