August 2, 2022

KDDI Corporation

KDDI invested in vivola Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; Representative: Yukari Tsunoda; hereinafter, "vivola"), a provider of AI services that support women's health, through KDDI Open Innovation Fund III (operated by Global Brain Corporation; hereinafter "KOIF III"), which aims to incubate new business co-creations with promising venture startups.

With the accelerating decline in the birth rate in Japan, the number of births in 2021 was 810,000, which is the lowest ever recorded. At the same time, the number of babies in Japan born through in vitro fertilization as part of infertility treatments exceeded 60,000. On the other hand, there are more than 500,000 infertility treatment patients in Japan who want to have children but cannot. These patients face a variety of challenges, such as variations in treatment policies that make it difficult to have a systematic understanding and lead to an uncertain lifestyle while undergoing treatment, as well as the high stress of frequent clinic visits and the associated mental and physical issues arising from prolonged exposure to this stress.
vivola aims to resolve such issues surrounding infertility treatment, both for patients and for medical institutions, through activities such as providing information with data-based evidence, working to improve medical access through digital transformation (DX), and providing the "cocoromi" infertility treatment data analysis app.

Through this investment, KDDI will provide its various assets to support the business growth of vivola by increasing awareness of the "cocoromi" infertility treatment data analysis app, while also promoting the achievement of diversity and inclusion in society, which is the aim of the "Connecting hearts and minds - Promotion of diversity and inclusion" initiatives in the "KDDI Sustainable Action" SDGs.

(Reference)

• ■Overview of vivola Co., Ltd.

  • (1)

    Company name: vivola Co., Ltd.

  • (2)

    Headquarters: Eclat Shibuya 5F, 3-6-2 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

  • (3)

    Date founded: May 2020

  • (4)

    Business activities:

    • Provision of cocoromi infertility treatment data analysis app (for patients)
    • Development of vivola-KARTE medical institution linkage system (for medical institutions)
    • Implementation of company seminars on reproductive literacy (for municipalities and companies)
    • Collection and analysis of medical data for development of similar case database (for medical institutions)

  • (5)

    Representative: Yukari Tsunoda
    URL: https://www.vivola.jp/ (in Japanese only)

• ■About KDDI Open Innovation Fund

  KDDI Open Innovation Fund is a corporate venture fund that supports a broad range of venture companies. The currently active KDDI Open Innovation Fund III focuses on the areas of AI, IoT, data marketing, fintech, B2B SaaS, and entertainment with a total operating fund of 20 billion yen.