Japanese Corporate Innovation Outposts in the US East Coast

The world’s innovation activity is overwhelmingly concentrated on the US coasts.
On the West Coast, Silicon Valley is by far the dominant global tech hotspot. 
On the East Coast, the two well-connected cities of New York and Boston build 
the second-largest tech cluster in the world.
Suppose the continuous flow of large corporates setting up their innovation outpost 
and antennas in Silicon Valley (416 Open Innovation Outposts operated by 332 global corporates) is no longer news. In that case, the presence of 162 Open Innovation Outposts operated by 121 global companies (the number of corporate innovation 
outposts on the East Coast) represents a very interesting data point for two main reasons:

• It is a very recent phenomenon: 42% of them have been established in the past 
3 years, and 68% after 2015.
• It is expected to significantly grow: the number of corporate innovation outposts 
in NYC and Boston is 39% of the ones in Silicon Valley, although East Coast scaleups are 74% of the ones in Silicon Valley, and capital invested is 45%.

Prior research shows that Japanese corporations represent the largest foreign contingent in Silicon Valley. In the Bay Area, 66 Japanese conglomerates (20% of the total) run 90 innovation outposts (22% of the total).
This research (run by Mind the Bridge with the support of JETRO) which is specifically focused on the East Coast tech hub – shows some intriguing evidence:

• Japan is the first country, outside the US, in terms of corporate innovation presence also on the East Coast.
• The share of Japanese innovation corporate presence in New York and Boston is even larger than in Silicon Valley: we track 58 outposts established by 46 Japanese companies, respectively 35% and 38% of the total.
• That gives Japan the role of first mover in the US East Coast – second-largest tech ecosystem in the world, which is growing at warp speed.