FOUNDERSPRESENTED BY

S2S-Japan Submission Guideline
Our goal is to connect Japanese life-science innovators with US investors and to help
them develop their technology into start-ups on the global stage. We will do so by
providing entrepreneurial feedback from experienced US VCs, which is otherwise hardto access in Japan.
Successful S2S submissions will describe discoveries and technologies with the highest
therapeutic potential and a practical development path to clinical proof of concept.
SEMIFINALISTSSUBMISSIONS
1. Writtensummary
One paragraph

2. Slide deck
Meets
criteria~Seven slidesCompetitive
selectionWork withmentors
Assessmentof scienceand scientists

FINALISTS
Competitiveselection(≤10 finalists)

Further workwith mentors
Presentation at
final event

The submission process will be held in two rounds. The first will be a one-paragraphwritten executive summary. Based on this, applications that meet the criteria will beinvited to submit a second submission: a slide presentation (~7 slides). Semi-finalists
will be selected from the second submissions to work with mentors, and ultimately no© 2024, Science2Startup

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more than 10 finalists will be selected to work further with mentors and present at thefinal event in November 2024 (Tokyo).
Please only submit non-confidential materials. We are happy to help with yoursubmissions! If you have any questions or need further information, please feel free tocontact us at info@s2s-japan.com

General Requirements & Suggestions•••

Company can exist, or be pre-company (not formed yet)
The technology must be available to be developed (i.e., IP licensed to the company,or is available to be licensed)
NOTE: Since the goal is to connect Japanese founders with US investors, companiesformed in Japan (KK, GK) may need to do a corporate inversion (US parentcompany) in order to satisfy most US investors.

1st Submission – Executive Summary
Goal: Concisely communicate the potential for your science/innovation, its therapeuticpotential, and path to get to clinical proof-of-concept. This executive summary,sometimes called a “blurb,” is useful for email introductions or when requestingmeeting at investor conferences.
Template:
Open with a one-sentence overview that includes:• The name of your company (or a founder’s name if you have not formed acompany yet),• Company status (e.g. Japanese KK, Delaware C-corp, or pre-company formation),• Year of formation (if a company exists)• Location (e.g. based in Tokyo, OIST, etc.),• Brief description of your technology/science/platform (e.g. AI-based antibody
discovery; high throughput screening system for macrocyclic peptides; novel
small molecule targeting validated inflammatory pathways, etc.)
Examples:Dr. Kawasaki’s pre-company is a
start-up based in Tsukuba, Japan,
developing a novel CNS organoid
discovery platform.

© 2024, Science2Startup

Songoku Therapeutics is a Japanese
K.K. founded in 2021 andheadquartered in Yokohama that isdeveloping small molecules targeting
DBZ, which was previously thought tobe undruggable.

Page 2 of 5•One or two sentences to describe what your technology is enabling:o Explain the clinical value of your technology, such as an unsolved clinicalproblem that you are addressing, or are addressing better than existing
options.
o This section is important to ensure novel, useful science is being
developed.
Examples:(Dr. Kawasaki’s pre-company
continued) Our organoid platform isable to assess disease pathology(e.g., genetic defects, target knockdowns) in human brain organoidsystems with brain area specificneurons, enabling CNS drug
discovery in the most accessible
human-like system besides an actual
human. Using this platform we arehoping to understand thepathogenesis of indications such as
autism and then develop therapeutic
approaches to addressing suchdisorders.

•(Songoku Therapeutics continued)
DBZ has been well established as arisk factor in cancer and we aim todevelop our therapeutics initially inglioblastomas. Our team elucidatedthe structure of the DBZ receptor
using cryoEM and used ourproprietary AI-based structure-based
rational design algorithms to develop
novel chemical entities.

One or two sentences to describe the company or pre-company’s current statuso What is the company’s, or at least the lead program’s, progress to date?
Examples:(Dr. Kawasaki’s pre-companycontinued) We are currently
assessing two new genetic
mutations that could be causative
for autism and hope to finalize ourfirst target by the end of this year.

•(Songoku Therapeutics continued)
We have identified our leadcandidates and have shown in vivo
proof of concept. These compounds
are currently being assessed forsafety in non-GLP toxicity studies.

One sentence to describe the team or founders or support systemo Key people on the team, founders, academic institution. Any strength
points that you have regarding the people or the institute(s) involved,
why that gives you credibility, and why that might make investors more
excited.

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Examples:(Dr. Kawasaki’s pre-companycontinued) Our technology wasdeveloped by Drs. Toyoda andMitsubishi, both professors at The
University of Tokyo, who worked
together for a decade and achieved
their first publication together in
Nature in 2018 regarding theirorganoid platform.

•(Songoku Therapeutics continued)
Our founder Dr. Yamcha is a Wolf
Prize winning chemist who has
dedicated his academic research tostructure-elucidated medicinechemistry.

Final sentence is the “ask” – what are you looking for from investors?
o If an investor likes the technology, what it enables, current stage, andteam, how much are you asking for, what do you aim to accomplish withthis investment, and what value would that accomplishment create for theinvestor? If you are a pre-company and you aren’t sure how much youneed to raise yet, that is ok, that is part of your ask
o If you have already raised capital this can be clarified here
Examples:(Dr. Kawasaki’s pre-company
continued) We have been entirely
funded by non-dilutive grants
thus far and are currently seeking
investors to help us withcompany formation andstrategize the right amount ofcapital to raise in a Seed round inorder to take our first targetforward.

•(Songoku Therapeutics continued)
The company has received $1M in a
SAFE note, on top of $5M in nondilutive grants, and is currently
raising a $10M Series Seed tocomplete IND-enabling studies for
our lead program.

Attachment (optional)o You may submit one page only of supporting scientific data if you feel it isimportant to support your submission. Please make the data selfexplanatory and focus on communicating why the data matters.
o No confidential data please.

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Example:(Songoku Therapeutics continued)This attachment shows the binding
affinity of our lead compound ST007, showing nM activity, relative
to previously published DBZtargeting compounds such as XYZ1234, which only achieved uMactivity.

2nd Submission – Overview Presentation:
Goal: this PowerPoint presentation would be typically used for an introductory meetingand is commonly sent ahead prior to a meeting. Often this presentation will determine
whether an investor wants to even spend the time to take a meeting or not. It is
critically important that the slides speak for themselves. This means an investor canunderstand the key points and the conclusions without verbal overlay. Finally, usually
the goal for these slides is to get the first meeting, or to go from the first meeting to asecond meeting. So don’t feel compelled to have to get every single detail across. Justenough information to get an investor interested to take the next step!
Requirement: no more than 10 slides (not including title slide).
Template• The 5−8 sentences from the Executive Summary serves as the outline for theslides in the Overview Presentation• Additional slides regarding:o One or two data slides
o Competitive landscape and your differentiationo A development timeline, particularly for the first year. Even better would
be a timeline vs budget (the “money slide” or the “elephant slide”)
o Check out RA Capital Management’s guide on Board Meeting bestpractices, particularly section 4 regarding the elephant slide:https://www.racap.com/saber• Advice:o Whatever your scientific area of expertise, your expertise is likely great
than that of your investor audience. So, keep the science and data slides aseasy to under as possible. Keeping it to one or two data slides is probably
best
o Investors are more likely to want to spend the time to understand yourscience if they are attracted to what it enableso As a reminder: the slides need to speak for themselves. Practice this byhaving a friend read the slides without you talking through them – didthey capture the right points and draw the right conclusions?

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