How Do You Communicate “Value That Society Does Not Yet Recognize”?
A branding project that connected advanced technologies born in a university laboratory to society as a brand envisioning the future.
THINKCYTE is a deep tech startup with proprietary technology that combines AI and high-speed imaging to analyze and identify cells quickly and with high precision.
At the time of the project, the company was still in its early startup stage, with little public recognition or established brand foundation. What existed was the founders’ vision for the future and highly advanced research technology developed within a university laboratory.
In the deep tech field, having excellent technology alone is not enough to gain social recognition. It was essential to build a brand that could communicate to investors, partners, and other stakeholders how this technology could change the future, and help society believe in a value that had not yet been widely recognized.
In this project, THINKCYTE was redefined not simply as a research and development company, but as a brand envisioning the future of medicine and life sciences. As a University of Tokyo-born startup, we designed brand communication that could connect laboratory-born technologies with society.
Context
Even Outstanding Technology Can Be Difficult for Society to Understand
THINKCYTE’s technology was highly advanced, combining high-speed imaging and AI analysis to identify and analyze cells with exceptional speed and accuracy. However, the technology was extremely specialized, making it difficult not only for the general public, but also for investors and other stakeholders to intuitively understand its value.
In addition, THINKCYTE was still in its early startup phase, and its brand and social credibility had not yet been fully established. Particularly in the deep tech sector, it is not enough to simply possess innovative technology. It is equally important to communicate what kind of future the company aims to create.
However, simply explaining research details and technical specifications made it difficult for people to understand what the technology could actually change or what kind of impact it could have on society. A major challenge was how to communicate the value of a future that did not yet visibly exist.
What THINKCYTE truly aimed to achieve was not simply the development of analytical technology, but the transformation of the future of medicine and life sciences themselves. The key question was how to communicate that vision and potential to society in a way that could build trust.
Approach
Designing the Brand Not as “Research Results,” but as a “Vision for the Future”
This project began by redefining THINKCYTE not simply as a research and development company, but as a brand envisioning how the future of medicine and life sciences could evolve.
Rather than focusing on explaining technologies such as high-speed imaging and AI analysis themselves, we organized the communication around the future those technologies could create and the changes they could bring to people and society. In doing so, we translated highly complex technologies into value that society could understand.
Through repeated interviews with the founders and extensive brand research, we reconstructed the entire brand communication strategy. Instead of presenting research details and technical specifications, we created a structure that naturally communicated the future THINKCYTE was aiming for, helping establish both trust and brand identity during the company’s early startup phase.
The project also involved carefully organizing the founders’ ideas and research background, visualizing not only the technology itself, but also the vision and social meaning behind it as part of the brand. This created a foundation for communicating technologies born in a university laboratory to investors, partner companies, stakeholders, and society as a whole.
Outcome
From “Complex Technology” to “A Brand That Envisions the Future”
Through these efforts, THINKCYTE evolved beyond a simple research and development company into a brand recognized for its potential to shape the future of medicine and life sciences.
Users became able to imagine not only the technical specifications and research details, but also the kinds of futures the technology could create. As a result, the value of the company began to be understood not through the complexity of the technology itself, but through the social change that technology could enable.
In addition, the consistent brand expression contributed to building credibility and connecting the company with society during its early startup stage.
Furthermore, this project demonstrated a new approach to branding for deep tech startups — one that focuses not on simply explaining technology, but on envisioning the future and communicating that vision to society.
As a result, the project became more than a corporate website initiative. It established a brand foundation that translated technologies born in a university laboratory into future social value and connected them with society.
This project was also an effort to build a brand capable of presenting value that did not yet exist in society as “a future people could believe in.”
The sincere commitment to pursuing not only technology itself, but also the future and social meaning beyond it, became a powerful reminder of what it truly means for a startup to deliver new value to society.
Type
faces
Color
Schemes
RGB / 246 243 241
CMYK / 5 5 5 0
HEX #F6F3F1
RGB / 161 133 110
CMYK / 44 50 57 0
HEX #A1856E
RGB / 53 46 82
CMYK / 88 91 51 22
HEX #352E52
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