GLOBAL – Hakuhodo Group creative agency SIX Inc. (Minato-ku, Tokyo; Takeshi Nozoe, President & CEO) has been named Best Bootstrap Company for Lyric Speaker, its next-gen speaker, at SXSW Interactive Festival’s 7th annual SXSW Accelerator competition. Part of South By Southwest (SXSW), one of the world’s largest music, film and technology festivals, SXSW Interactive Festival was held in Austin in the US state of Texas from March 13–17.
The Best Bootstrap Company award is presented to the up and coming team that demonstrates the greatest creativity and potential across all categories in the competition without having received significant funding. Held for the seventh time this year, the win by a Japanese company marks the first time an Asian company has been amongst the winners at the SXSW Accelerator competition.
The SXSW Accelerator competition is the marquee event of SXSW Interactive Festival, where leading startups from around the world showcase some of the most impressive new technology innovations to a panel of judges and a live audience. This year’s SXSW Accelerator competition drew entries from over 500 companies worldwide. SIX was the first Japanese company to pass the pre-event judging, being named a finalist in the Entertainment and Content Technologies category.
SIX President & CEO Takeshi Nozoe said, “It is very gratifying to be recognized not only for our technology and ideas, but also for our business instinct. We look forward to doing business around Lyric Speaker with companies around the world.”
With the goal of providing music fans around the world with a next-generation music experience, SIX will redouble its efforts to actualize Lyric Speaker, and seeks business partners from around the world for a joint venture or other capital arrangement.
