Japan Mints First Robot Billionaire

Yoshiyuki Sankai, founder and head of cyborg-robot maker Cyber dyne, joins the ranks of Forbes’ Billionaires at a $1 billion net worth as the share price of his medical robotics company has quintupled since its March debut on Japan’s Mothers market for start-ups.
The University of Tsukuba PhD  invented Cyber dyne main sci-fi offering, the Robot Suit HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) in tandem with “cybernics,” a multidisciplinary academic field which combines bionics, electronics and physics and others to create robot parts for the body (think: the 1970s U.S. TV Show Six Million Dollar Man made real). These robot arms and legs take over when our own fail through age or physical impairment. In Japan, the company rents HAL suits to hospitals and nursing homes. These same suits are also in use in Europe. They read electrical pulses in nerves going to the muscles, and offer the potential to restore movement. About 470 suits in all are currently being used in medical and non-medical facilities. Though bulky (some weigh up to 80 pounds) and expensive (approximately $150,000), Sankai has been working on more agile and cost efficient suits that will be able to be assist more people regain mobility.

“I hope they will eventually be treated like glasses. Glasses used to be nothing more than gadgets that enable people with limited vision to see things better, but now they’re enjoyed as a fashion item, too,” Sankai stated in an interview with a Japanese publication.

Yoshiyuki Sankai

Sankai vision is a hit with investors despite the fact the company is still in the red. It projects to break even in fiscal 2015 helped along by the government’s   subsidies to develop even more sophisticated robotics for the country’s growing elderly care markets. Forecaster SNS Research projects that this year the global market for what it terms “wearable devices” will account for nearly $20 Billion in revenue, and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 40% over the next six years. Following this zeitgeist, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced his plans to stage a Robot Olympics alongside the 2020 summer games in Tokyo.

Sankai, 56, started on his robotics path from an early age. While in elementary school he read Isaac Asimov “I, Robot” and experimented with frogs and electrical currents. He went on to complete a doctorate in engineering from the University of Tsukuba, where he studied artificial organs. Sankai created the first prototype for HAL in 1997, and founded Cyber dyne in 2004 once he had a marketable product. Forbes included Cyber dyne in its 2005 E-gang issue on robotics noting in a follow-through that Sankai had raised $15 million to construct a 20,000-square-foot research and production center near Tokyo and start certification processes in Europe. Since then, interest in Sankai work has skyrocketed.

But Sankai is keeping close control over his carefully built company. When he took Cyber dyne public, he invoked an innovative dual share structure not typical for Japan. Class B shares, which he owns entirely, make up about 42% of all outstanding shares but count as double the total voting rights of the remaining issued common shares. Companies with such a structure are more difficult takeover targets – important for Sankai because he wants his technology to be used for peaceful purposes not military or “unethical” ones.