Company Deck｜Ver. 2026
Materials discovery,
redesigned at the nanoscale.
3DC, the world’s first producer of nano-architected carbon at industrial scale.
Leadership
The inventor, and leaders with experience scaling development, manufacturing and sales.
Takuma Kuroda
Representative Director, CEO
Nitto Denko
Samurai Incubate
Hirotomo Nishihara
Representative Director, CSO
Professor, Tohoku University
Inventor of GMS
Kei Mizutani
CRO / Revenue
Nitto Denko
Head of startup business
Tokio Kuwata
CTO / Technology
Sony Energy Devices
Samsung SDI
Panasonic Energy
Satoshi Washio
CMO / Manufacturing
Toyo Ink (now artience)
Former overseas plant manager
Ryoichi Moriya
CFO / Finance
SMBC Nikko Securities
McKinsey & Company
The bottleneck
The trade-off in battery performance
Energy density
Energy density
Raising the active material content or the coating weight makes it harder for electrons and ions to move.
Rate
Rate capability
Faster charging and discharging require more electron- and ion-conduction pathways — but adding conductive additive reduces the fraction of active material.
Cycle life
Life and safety
Expansion and contraction during cycling breaks down the electrode. With silicon anodes the expansion is an order of magnitude larger.
Primer
What a conductive additive is
An electrode consists of active material, binder and conductive additive. The additive links the active particles and forms electron-conduction pathways — a small amount of carbon.
Current collector
- Active material
- Conductive additive
- Electrolyte
SO WHAT
It is only a few percent of the electrode.
But if it becomes the bottleneck,
no active material, however good, will perform.
- Electron pathways: the more particles touch across surfaces and connect over distance, the lower the resistance
- Ion-transport pathways: the more interconnected the pores, the deeper the electrolyte reaches
- Durability: the fewer the functional groups and the more stable the surface, the slower the degradation
The limit
With existing additives, you cannot choose the structure
Commodity, low cost
Carbon black
Point contacts break the conductive path
- Particles are small and touch at points, so conductive paths break easily
- Many surface functional groups react with the electrolyte and accelerate degradation
- Structure is fixed by production conditions and cannot be changed
Highly conductive, high cost
Carbon nanotubes
They bundle easily and are hard to disperse
- Conductivity is high because they connect as lines, but they bundle and are hard to disperse
- The range over which diameter and length can be controlled is limited
- Metal catalysts used in synthesis leave contaminants that compromise battery safety
Structure by design
Graphene MesoSponge®
Structure carries electrons, pores carry ions
- A deliberately created network forms the conductive path
- Template-derived hollow mesopores retain electrolyte and form ion-transport pathways
- Functional groups are remarkably few, so it is chemically stable and side reactions barely occur
Market shift
The market is changing what it asks of materials
LFP, dry electrodes, silicon anodes. The three currents moving the market today all hinge on the conductive additive.
Growth of LFP
Share expanding, led by Chinese and Korean makers.
What it demands
The cathode itself conducts poorly, so both electronic and ionic conduction are required.
Dry electrode process
Solvent-free processes improve productivity.
What it demands
A structure that conducts as a dry powder, and the durability to withstand pressure.
Silicon anodes
Higher capacity to support on-device AI features.
What it demands
A flexible scaffold that absorbs expansion without breaking.
What is needed is a carbon material whose structure can be designed.
The material
A hollow, porous structure built from walls one graphene layer thick
- Extremely low functional group content
- The basal plane is exceptionally large and edge functional groups remarkably few → chemical durability
- Hollow three-dimensional graphene walls
- A zipping reaction forms graphene into a hollow structure → physical durability (reversible elasticity)
- Distinctive interconnected pores
- Primary particles form an interconnected porous network → good catalyst dispersion and ion transport
- Rare structural tunability
- Choosing the template lets us design pore size, shape and network → control over the nanostructure
Our business
Two businesses
Materials
Bringing GMS to energy
and storage applications.
The first application is a conductive additive for lithium-ion batteries. Joint development with battery manufacturers has confirmed substantial performance gains.
Focus areas
- Conductive additives (lithium-ion, all-solid-state and others)
- Scaffold material for silicon-based anodes (Si/C)
- Precious metal catalyst supports (fuel cells, PEM electrolysers)
Solutions
Turning tacit knowledge
into organizational knowledge.
A platform combining a data foundation that embeds domain knowledge with AI features, turning know-how that tends to live in individuals into an asset of the organization.
Offerings
- An AI platform for battery and materials R&D (launch planned for 2027)
- Manufacturing consulting by battery process engineers
Material business
From proving performance in high-end domains, to expanding the market
-
Premium LiB
Design-in secured
-
High-end LiB
eVTOL, drones, DC
-
Commodity
Automotive, ESS
-
Semiconductors
Heat and RF absorption
Now
Design-in secured in premium lithium-ion applications.
The premium segment is receptive to high-value component technologies, letting us establish GMS production technology and profitability at the same time.
Next
Moving into high-end applications where rate and capacity translate directly into value.
The electrolyte retention and reversible elasticity proven in premium applications become the differentiator.
Then
Expanding into commodity batteries for vehicles and energy storage.
The stage at which production scale supports full recovery of fixed costs — and we become a market leader in a still-growing market.
Beyond
Applying the experience of delivering value through structural control to new growth markets such as semiconductors.
Entering larger, higher-value markets and growing the company further.
Material business － Momentum
Sample volume and output are both accelerating
Monthly sample volume supplied
Monthly production volume
※ Absolute values on the vertical axis are withheld for business reasons. Bar heights show month-on-month relative comparison.
Solution business － Problem
Materials development still depends on individual experience
3DC addresses the four walls that stand in the way of digital transformation in R&D.
Capture
Nothing is recorded digitally
Documents, instrument logs and floor notes never end up in a form anyone can use later
In practice
Today’s task
> A long-term single source of truth
Fragmentation
Data never joins up
Records are fragmented across files, samples and departments; tracing one experiment means a long search
In practice
Convenient for me
> Usable by everyone
Succession
Know-how lives in people’s heads
Judgment and technique that never reach a written procedure leave with the person who held them
In practice
Ask that person
> Organize and document
Use
The value never comes out
Tools get introduced, but few can use them, the answers are not trusted, and they are abandoned
In practice
Local optimum per person
> Organizational optimum
These four walls are ones 3DC itself ran into as a materials manufacturer, and defined for itself.
Being built by people who know the domain from the inside is itself the strength.
Solution business － Product
Tacit knowledge from the bench, into an asset the organization can use
An all-in-one AI platform built around how experiments actually run in battery and chemical development — from the bench through scale-up. Planned for launch in February 2027.
- For engineers
- No transcription, no manual entryHand over the file you already have and it becomes the record
- For managers
- No going around asking your teamRecords connect across functions and phases, and can be traced on the spot
- For executives
- No losing expertise when veterans retireData and floor know-how stay linked, and AI can draw on them
AI-Ready
data foundation
×
Experiment-first
AI agents
Workplace
Our three locations
Sendai, Miyagi
Sendai head office
On the Tohoku University campus. The center of our foundational carbon-material R&D.
Toki, Gifu
Gifu plant
Where the GMS production line runs — the heart of the business.
Kawasaki, Kanagawa
Kawasaki office
The base for management, sales and corporate functions.
Life at 3DC
The same energy, on and off the clock
From the east of Japan to the west, offsites and gatherings across our sites build relationships where people speak openly as equals, regardless of position or tenure.
Annual / rotating between sites
Company offsite
Once a year, members from every site gather at one location and discuss our mission, vision and code of conduct again, in our own words.
Bi-annual / Gifu
Golf competition
A twice-yearly competition for anyone who wants to join. Sales, manufacturing and corporate across generations — one of the most popular internal gatherings.
Occasional / Sendai and Gifu
Research & production workshops
Because each site does different work, we sometimes run hands-on sessions to help everyone understand what the others do.
Occasional / around Kanto
Futsal tournament
Through connections between startups, we take part in a futsal tournament, competing with companies from other industries.
Open roles
The positions 3DC is hiring for right now
International sales
Selling to leading battery makers in China, Korea, Europe and the US. Customer samples are already in evaluation; your role is to secure design-in.
Business development
Lead capital and business alliances, reporting directly to the CEO. Design the shape of the business itself, not just sell the material.
Product development
Product development for battery materials and new applications — from template design to grade development, with GMS’s tunability as your instrument.
Full-stack engineer
A core member building the AI platform for battery and materials R&D, leading the creation of a new product from the front.
