What Is Akari, the University of Tokyo AI Startup Valued at ¥100 Billion Five Years After Its Founding, Actually Doing? An Interview with Co-Founder Naruaki Ishikawa

Ishikawa entered the University of Tokyo in 2019. Soon after, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and there were almost no university classes. While searching for something to throw themselves into, Ishikawa was introduced to the world of startups by Noro, a first-year classmate who is now the company's CEO.

Before entering university, Ishikawa had never thought about startups and was playing in a band. They loved getting absorbed in something together with friends, but at a time when they were wondering where to direct that passion, they were inspired by Noro, who had long been strongly interested in starting a business. Taking advantage of the lack of classes, Ishikawa went on to work full-time at around four venture companies, and co-founded Akari while still a student.

Ishikawa describes Akari as a company that installs cutting-edge technology, centered on AI, into industries in order to upgrade them. There is no particular company Akari benchmarks itself against, but parts of its business resemble software companies that offer AI-based consulting, custom development, and SaaS.

Asked why the company does not use the term "DX business," Ishikawa explained as follows. Its core business right now is embedding Akari's AI into clients' operations to drive DX and, more recently, AI transformation (AX). However, that is just one way of upgrading industry through technology, and simply the most easily understood form. There is also a model in which Akari's technology is combined with the services and solutions clients provide, and the technology spreads through society as clients roll them out. Because there are many such forms, the company deliberately uses the expression "upgrading industry."

Akari has two businesses. One is the DX solutions business, which keeps a high degree of customization for each company and builds solutions to order to fit clients' operations. The other is the AI SaaS business, in which Akari builds products in advance and rolls them out to clients. These are not heavily customized and are offered as tools to standardize operations across an entire industry.

Its main focus is the "manufacturing and construction industries" (monozukuri), centered on construction and manufacturing. As an easy-to-understand example from the custom side, Ishikawa cited a project with Daiwa House. The challenge was to raise the order-closing rate of new sales staff, but with as many as 2,000 housing plans, it was hard for newcomers to choose the best plan. The project created a system that makes it easier even for new staff to select the optimal plan. As a more in-depth example, Ishikawa described a project to optimize the layout of factory lines at a manufacturer, finding the arrangement that maximizes output and production efficiency. The company combines a variety of technologies to address diverse challenges.

On the product side, in addition to bringing AI to back-office work in construction, Akari offers industry-specific generative AI for four sectors: construction, manufacturing, logistics, and wholesale/retail. These have a UI/UX similar to ChatGPT or Gemini and have been taught the terminology and other specifics of each industry.

When the interviewer asked, "Many executives know they need AI but don't know whom to turn to, so isn't the demand huge?", Ishikawa replied that AI and DX have become key management themes at every company, and that Akari works alongside them as a partner.

Ishikawa named the company's focus on the manufacturing and construction industries as the most obvious difference from other AI startups. It does work in other industries too, but it narrows its focus to a certain extent.

Ishikawa gave three advantages of narrowing the focus to specific industries. First, the technologies those industries need get developed in-house. Second, because the company has trained on large amounts of tacit-knowledge data held by manufacturing and construction companies, data that does not exist on the web, its proprietary algorithms trained on that data keep evolving internally. Third, a deep understanding of the industry enables the company to make bold proposals and reform business processes.

Ishikawa sees the business environment as a tailwind. Technological progress has greatly expanded what is possible, and clients' understanding of AI has deepened. In the past, the conversation was at the stage of "What is AI?" and "What can it be used for?", but now society as a whole has a much better gut sense of what it might be used for, Ishikawa says.

Recalling the early days, Ishikawa revealed that for about a year and nine months after founding, they and CEO Noro stayed overnight in the office, effectively living there. It was a period like the early days of a startup you'd see in a TV drama or film. The company now has about 430 employees and has become a diverse organization. Ishikawa noted that people no longer work the way they did back then, and that it has become a comfortable place to work.

The interviewer mentioned that while waiting at reception, every employee who passed by said hello, and that they sensed more passion than the cool image the public tends to have of AI companies. Ishikawa connected this to "Thoroughness in the Ordinary" (bonji tettei), one of the principles of the company's code of conduct, "Akari-do." It is the idea of doing ordinary things as a matter of course, such as greeting people and not being late for meetings. Ishikawa believes a company that does these basic things properly first is a strong company.

At the top of Akari-do sits the overarching concept "Aspiration Is Everything," with five principles beneath it:

• Simplicity and Fortitude
• Thoroughness in the Ordinary
• Blazing Speed
• Overwhelming Ownership
• Unity

According to Ishikawa, these include taking on challenges with a positive attitude, doing the basics properly, doing what is essential without pretension (Simplicity and Fortitude), and uniting with teammates, and together they represent a high-intensity, professional team.

Akari-do was decided around the beginning of 2023, when all the full-time employees at the time got together. About two years after founding, they talked about putting into words why they had been able to grow so rapidly, and about preserving the temperament of the early days as a strong culture for decades to come. It was not a newly proclaimed ideal, but a verbalization of things they already valued.

As an example, Ishikawa cited meeting start times. Joining a meeting that starts on the hour exactly on the hour is late; even back then, the habit was to enter during the 59th minute so that the meeting could start right on time. When they thought about what mindset this reflected, they concluded that doing ordinary things as a matter of course is surprisingly difficult, and that just doing them thoroughly is a sufficient competitive edge, so this was "Thoroughness in the Ordinary," and that is how they organized it. When the interviewer laughed, "I wanted to hear your secret growth hacks, and instead we're talking about showing up to meetings properly," Ishikawa responded that they haven't really used anything like secret hacks.

Asked about the connection to the company's profitability, Ishikawa said they think that attitude is linked to it. Since the very beginning, the company has kept repeating the basic principle of generating its own revenue and expanding the business by investing that revenue. Other means could also be used as options, but the starting point is always that.

The first large external raise was about ¥5 billion from Mitsubishi Electric, announced on January 29, 2026. As for how it will be used, Ishikawa said they want to invest aggressively in developing new technologies, starting with physical AI, and in expanding the business through M&A.

On why they chose Mitsubishi Electric, Ishikawa explained that they wanted to partner on technology development for the era of physical AI. Mitsubishi Electric is one of Japan's leading manufacturers and has assets such as on-site data and a global sales network. By combining Akari's technology with those assets, they want to create one-of-a-kind "Made in Japan" AI, centered on physical AI. This cannot be achieved without combining on-site data with technology and algorithms, which is why they joined forces.

It started when Mitsubishi Electric's president and CEO Noro met at an event and hit it off. Ishikawa added that Mitsubishi Electric's president had said the same thing recently. The fundraising did not come first; synergies in business and technology development came first.

On the path to becoming a unicorn in five years, Ishikawa says there isn't really any grand story of overcoming a near-collapse. They built up what they needed to do and wanted to do, one thing at a time, while bringing many teammates on board, and before they knew it, the company had grown this far.

They never set a ¥100 billion valuation as a goal, but Akari has declared that it will "become the number one company in Japan and in the world," and ¥100 billion was one milestone along the way. In the first month or two after founding, when they were gathering the first ten or so people, they used the line "We're going to build a ¥100 billion company in five years, so why not join us?" almost like a catchphrase. They haven't said it since. At the time, some people reacted with "What are you talking about?", but there were also teammates who believed in them. They weren't specifically trying to make it happen, but Ishikawa says they are happy it ended up coming true. When the interviewer prodded, "Wasn't it somewhere in the back of your mind?", Ishikawa replied that perhaps something vaguely envisioned had caught up with them.

However, this is not the goal, and since the top companies have market capitalizations on the order of hundreds of trillions of yen, there is still a long way to go. Ishikawa named ¥1 trillion as the next milestone and said they want to reach it as quickly as possible. They believe it is an entirely achievable figure by global standards, and said they want Akari to lead the trend of Japanese startups reaching a global level.

On the keyword "Japan" appearing in the company's name and messaging, Ishikawa first said that, as someone born and raised in Japan, they want to contribute to the country. They then gave the example that 2026 features the WBC and the FIFA World Cup, where cheering for the national teams creates a sense of unity across the country, and said they want to do the same through startups and ventures. They also believe it is important for startups born in Japan to first achieve results in Japan and then go out into the world.

The strategy Ishikawa cited for breaking into the global market is collaborating with Japan's manufacturing and construction industries. Based on the view that Japanese manufacturing technology is still something the country can be proud of globally, they believe that if they partner with excellent companies and create "Made in Japan manufacturing AI" trained on data from Japanese factories and construction sites, it will become a technology that succeeds around the world. For the time being, partners will mainly be Japanese companies, and they envision this gradually expanding worldwide as Akari becomes one of Japan's flagship companies.

Finally, asked about personal goals, Ishikawa prefaced the answer by saying they are linked to the company's mission, then said that first, they want to upgrade Japanese industry. There was a time, in the first year of the Heisei era (1989), when 14 of the top 20 companies in the world by market capitalization were Japanese, and Ishikawa sees that as having shifted with the arrival of the internet era. They want their generation to upgrade Japanese industry once again with AI, the technology of a new era, and to revive Japan as an economic powerhouse.

Through that, Ishikawa said, they hope to give people in Japan courage and hope. If even one more person thinks, "Akari is working hard, so I want to work hard too," that would be what makes their work worthwhile and something to be happy about, Ishikawa said in closing.