CLIENT STORY
How Lux’s Insights Save Kurita Water’s Innovation Team 100 Hours Per Topic
By saving Kurita Water’s innovation team hundreds of hours annually and equipping them with deeper, faster, and broader insights than standard databases, Lux Research enables faster exploration, smarter decisions, and greater innovation momentum across high-impact growth areas.
Client Challenge
Innovation at Kurita demands continuous exploration of emerging and often unfamiliar markets, including carbon dioxide removal, circular economy solutions, and alternative energy technologies. However, venturing into new spaces without a clear, efficient starting point can slow progress, narrow the team’s focus too early, and increase risk.
Kurita needed a partner who could deliver more than basic information: they needed strategic insights, deep analysis, and external perspectives to accelerate decision-making and de-risk innovation initiatives.
Deep Analysis
Explore New Markets
Mitigate Risk
“How we start each exploration really affects every single step downstream.”
About Kurita
Kurita Water is a global leader in industrial water treatment, delivering cutting-edge chemical, equipment, and engineering solutions across sectors like semiconductors, food and beverage, petrochemicals, and steelmaking. At Kurita Water, the Innovation team — led by Nobuyoshi Takiguchi — identifies strategic partnerships with startups to drive sustainable innovation and create new value for customers.
Nobuyoshi Takiguchi
VP of Strategy & Innovation
Pendekatan Kami
Kurita initially partnered with Lux Research nearly seven years ago to strengthen and streamline their innovation process. Rather than relying on slow, fragmented desktop research or generic industry databases, Kurita leverages Lux’s unique model that combines curated research, analyst expertise, and strategic perspectives.
Accelerate Access to Insights
Instead of gathering scattered public information, Kurita can jumpstart exploration with structured, trusted research tailored to emerging technology spaces.
Broader, Cross-Industry Perspectives
Lux’s team of analysts bring multi-disciplinary expertise, helping Kurita avoid becoming overly focused on narrow opportunities and instead, view new markets with a holistic, strategic lens.
Deeper Startup and Technology Assessments
Unlike basic market databases, Lux provides rigorous, in-depth evaluations — highlighting risks, opportunities, and strategic fit.
Critical Hypothesis Framing
Lux acts as an external sounding board, helping Kurita formulate strong, expert-backed hypotheses that guide early exploration efforts and enable smarter decision-making from the outset.
By embedding Lux into their innovation workflow, Kurita not only accelerated their entry into unfamiliar industries, but also enhanced the strategic quality of their new initiatives —positioning the company to discover more opportunities with greater confidence and efficiency.
“What we can learn from the Lux innovator assessment is much, much, deeper than other sites or databases. The depth of the analysis is what we value.”
The Benefit
Working with Lux Research provides Kurita Water with clear, differentiated benefits:
Research Efficiency
Kurita saves an estimated 100 hours per topic area, across 5 to 7 major topics per year. This enables their innovation team to cover more ground with fewer internal resources, kickstarting new initiatives faster and sustaining momentum across an expanding portfolio of emerging technologies.
Risk Insight
Lux’s startup evaluations and Innovator Assessments help Kurita not just identify promising opportunities, but also inform critical decisions. With greater insight into potential risks and market dynamics, Kurita is able to prioritize resources and partnerships with more confidence and precision.
Strategic Depth
Where standard databases offer surface-level information, Lux delivers comprehensive, analyst-curated insights and points of view. These multi-disciplinary pieces give Kurita a sharper competitive edge.
Market Vision
Lux helps Kurita look beyond immediate opportunities and avoid narrow assumptions, ensuring that new initiatives align with larger market trends and emerging dominant ecosystems — critical for long-term success.
Conclusion
Today, Lux Research continues to serve as a vital partner in Kurita’s innovation journey—functioning not just as an information provider, but as a true “exploration springboard” that drives faster, smarter, and more impactful innovation.
