Silicon Valley-APAC Industrial Innovation Bridge

We're excited to launch the inaugural Silicon Valley-APAC Industrial Innovation Bridge Forum on October 6 in San Francisco at #SFTechWeek, bringing together strategic CVCs and deeptech investors from across Asia with the Silicon Valley ecosystem, focused on frontier innovation and APAC supply chains.

The technologies needed to power the next decade of industrial transformation are being built in Silicon Valley. The capital and deployment pathways to scale them are concentrated across Japan, Korea, SE Asia and Australia. This event brings both sides of that equation into the same room.

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AGENDA | Tuesday, October 6 | SVB, San Francisco

8:30 AM | Arrival & Coffee

Light breakfast, informal networking. Please arrive between 8:30 and 9:00 AM; the program starts on time.

9:00 AM | Welcome & Opening Remarks

9:15 AM | Panel I: Closing the Loop: Critical Minerals from Mine to Recycling

10:00 AM | Panel II: Physical AI in Action: Robotics, Automation & the Power Behind It

10:40 AM | Coffee Break

Open networking with investors, corporates and startups

11:00 AM | Technology Showcase

Six featured technologies, presented by Bakar Labs and Startup Navigators for Climate

11:30 AM | Wrap-up

11:40 AM | Light Snack & Exhibition Tables

Open networking. The venue closes at 1:00 PM.

Bringing a colleague? Please make sure they are registered on this page so their name is on the building security list.

Who'll be in the room

A deliberately small group of Deeptech VC, CVC and corporate innovation principals with active APAC mandates, alongside the founders and technologists building the solutions they're looking for. Including reps from Honda Xcelerator Ventures, Marunouchi Innovation Partners, Idemitsu Kosan Co.,Ltd., Sony Ventures, SK Telecom Ventures, ENEOS Americas Inc. Mitsui Chemicals Group, MOL Group, Kansai Electric Power Co Inc, At One Ventures, B Capital, Xora Innovation, S2G Investments and more.

Why now

The US industrial build-out runs on critical minerals and manufacturing capacity that sit across APAC — Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Southeast Asia — and this forum connects the strategic investors securing that supply chain with the builders bringing frontier industrial technology to market.

What to expect

A tightly curated half-day session built around two themes shaping industrial competitiveness across the Pacific:

• Critical Minerals & APAC Supply Chains: The Technology Imperative — where the real bottlenecks are in extraction, processing, and materials substitution, and who's closing the gap between lab and deployment

• AI Infra & Physical AI: The Industrial Compute Buildout — what it actually takes, in power, chips, and compute, to move AI from simulation into robotics, logistics, and manufacturing at scale

A Technology Showcase follows, featuring startups curated by Bakar Labs Energy & Materials at UC Berkeley. Investors can pre-book meetings with presenting companies ahead of the event.

The day closes with extended networking, giving the room real time to turn conversations into next steps.

Organizers

Convened by ArkTerra Partners, co-anchored with Bakar Labs Energy & Materials, with Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO SF) and Silicon Valley Bank.

Sponsors: Griting AI is a Silicon Valley-based startup founded in 2025 that builds AI talent trust infrastructure to modernize how organizations identify, evaluate, and hire artificial intelligence professionals. Founded by Jie Zhang, the company uses multi-agent systems with evidence-based, auditable evaluation to convert capabilities, behaviors, and growth trajectories into talent capital data assets, enabling long-term decisions across evaluation, development, and enterprise ecosystem transformation.

Strategic event partner: Startup Navigators provides advisory services in the Climate Tech and startup-corporate innovation.

Photography and recording notice

Photos and video will be taken at this event and may be used by the organizers and co-hosts for event recaps, websites, social media and promotional materials. By attending, you consent to being photographed and recorded and to the use of your image and likeness for these purposes. If you would like to opt out, please let a member of the organizing team know at check-in.