Digital Garage Opens a Startup Incubation Center in San Francisco to Accelerate Investment Business on a Global Scale

Tokyo & San Francisco, (November 1, 2013) — Digital Garage, Inc. announces the opening of “Digital Garage @ 717 Market Street” (henceforth, DG717), their newly founded incubation center in San Francisco focused on cultivating startup companies. DG717 will be a hub for entrepreneurship, culture, art and technology from around the world, bringing together the experience of established companies, partners, and investors into a vibrant and innovative environment. More details: http://www.dg717.com/

“For more than three decades, Tokyo and San Francisco have been two of the world’s leaders in technological innovation,” remarked Digital Garage President Kaoru Hayashi. “As the lines between international markets continue to fade, the benefits and knowledge our two communities can share and build upon is nearly limitless. We’ve never been more excited about the potential for our future ventures with this new incubator in San Francisco.”

DG717 will be home to over 20 startups on the first floor co-working space, along with DG subsidiaries, Neo Innovation, New Context Services, and strategic partner companies. The coworking space is expected to be open on December 1st, 2013.

Digital Garage has been encouraging the growth of entrepreneurs through Open Network Lab, one of the most successful startup incubators in Asia. DG717 will use the know-how polished at Open Network Lab, to help entrepreneurs and artists from multiple countries to grow on a global scale. Digital Garage plans to strengthen their incubation business by promoting the growth of early talent and connecting them with well-established businesses.

As a precursor to the launch of the new tech-community space, promising Japanese and Bay Area startups selected by Open Network Lab will showcase and pitch their products to interested partners and the venture capital community on the evening of Monday, November 4th. More information at the event website: http://dgopennetworklab.splashthat.com/

“Working with Digital Garage to invite intelligent and creative people into the new space,” said Joi Ito, Co-founder and Board Director of DG. “We are eager to share our expertise with new partners, and are looking forward to the wealth of knowledge those partners will bring to our projects.”

“Bringing together design, engineering, and strategy not only requires the right people, it takes the right kind of workspace,” said Neo Founder & Chairman, Ian McFarland. “DG717 provides a dynamic place for our team and clients to collaborate and enables us to support the broader ongoing community dialog. We’re looking forward to using the space to host regular meet-ups, hackathons, and also bigger events like our upcoming New Context Conference.”

Setting the foundation for the soon-to-be-opened DG717, Digital Garage and Neo are hosting the New Context Conference, a two-day event Nov. 5th & 6th. With an eight year history in Japan, the debut of the New Context Conference in San Francisco will feature intellectually stimulating presentations, conference sessions, and in-depth workshops.

New Context Conference is an invitation-only event hosted by Joi Ito of Digital Garage, and will feature keynotes from Joi, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Oblong Industries co-founder John Underkoffler, and a full day of lectures and case studies with Neo’s top engineers, designers, strategists and partners on the art of crafting digital products. More information available on the conference website: http://www.dg717.com/

About Digital Garage:
Digital Garage (www.garage.co.jp/en/) is an innovative cutting edge Japanese tech company. For nearly 20 years, it has led the internet revolution in Japan by bringing the ISP, early search engine localization, and bringing important companies like Technorati and Twitter to the Japanese market, where they lead the social media revolution successfully. Its founders, Kaoru Hayashi and Joi Ito, are global leaders in the tech, art, and culture scene. Digital Garage is also home to Open Network Lab (Onlab), one of the most successful startup incubators in Asia and has also opened its doors in San Francisco.

About Neo:
Neo (www.neo.com) is a consultancy of makers who believe that digital products should deliver true value to people’s lives. Neo helps organizations make smarter choices about what they create and how they create it. Their engineers, designers, and strategists work in tandem to tackle the riskiest, thorniest challenges head-on, and then deliver meaningful outcomes to both our clients and their customers. With offices in North and South America, Asia and Europe, Neo’s clients include start-ups, governments, and large enterprises like Time, American Express, PayPal, Sunlight Foundation, GE, AT&T, ICANN and Turnstone.

Media Relations
Vanessa Camones & Aaron Colter
theMIX agency for Neo
neo@themixagency.com
(503) 705-3461


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