Japan is much further ahead in real AI deployment than most people realize. Today we talk with David Ha, CEO of Sakana AI, Japan's clearly most valuable, and arguably most innovative, AI startup, and he explains how Japanese enterprises are using AI in production environments today. We talk about selling advanced software to conservative enterprises, how Sakana is customizing existing LLMs to fit Japanese sensibilities, and why smaller, more flexible routing models will likely win out over the massive, expensive frontier models. David also shares some great advice for anyone starting a startup in Japan. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes When it's best build for Japan instead of (or before) going global How to raise money overseas as a KK and raise large rounds in Japan It's actually very easy to start a startup in Japan Sakana AI's three-stage go-to-market strategy The tradeoffs between B2B and B2C strategies in Japan How to drive AI adoption in the Japanese enterprise Designing AI workflows that prevent users from outsourcing decision making Why routing models will win in the market over frontier models What "data sovereignty" actually means in practice in Japan How Sakana AI is adapting existing models to make them reflect Japanese sensibilities David's best advice to founders in Japan Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Sakana AI Follow them on Twitter @SakanaAILabs Connect with Sakana on LinkedIn Follow David on Twitter @hardmaru Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs. I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me. To say that AI is hot right now understates the mania. AI startups accounted for over 60% of global VC investment in 2025, and things are on track to be even more AI-focused this year. And while investor and media attention remain stubbornly focused on the U.S. and China, things are moving surprisingly fast here in Japan, although things are moving in a slightly different direction. Today we sit down with David Ha, the co-founder and CEO of Sakana AI, Japan's most valuable and arguably most innovative AI startup. Now this episode's a bit longer than usual, but it is well worth your time, because by the end, you'll understand why the frontier model companies, the open AIs, the Anthropics, might be pursuing a flawed and very expensive strategy, and why there's a real chance for Japan to be a global leader here. In fact, as David explains, enterprise AI adoption in Japan is far more advanced than most people realize. And we're talking about actual production deployments here, not just POCs and press releases, but actual daily use. Now David and I talk about raising capital from both Japanese and foreign VCs, the global importance of AI sovereignty, the best way to drive AI adoption in large conservative Japanese companies, and why AI use in Japan is more widespread than you probably expect. But you know, David tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, we're sitting here with David Ha, the co-founder and CEO of Sakana AI. So, thanks for sitting down with me. I really appreciate it. David: Awesome. Yeah, it's actually really great to have a chat with you, Tim. I mean, as you know, I've been following your podcast for more than a decade before I started a company. Tim: I mean, I love to hear that. I honestly do. Nothing makes me happier. David: Yeah. I mean, I have no idea that I would start a company like 10 years ago. Tim: Let's start with the founding, because the Sakana AI team is really an interesting test case in Japan, I think. So, the founding team itself, it's a mixture of foreigners and Japanese. Tell me about it. Tell me how it came to be, how the three of you got connected and thought this was a good idea. David: It's a really unique, I would say, experiment. I founded this company a little bit less than three years ago. It's myself, David Ha, and Llion Jones, my colleague at Google, who was one of the co-inventors of the transformer architecture, the T in ChatGPT. And when you start a company in Japan, it cannot just be two foreigner guys, especially if you want to be the frontier AI company in Japan. But luckily, I was able to recruit my friend Ren Ito, who used to work at Mercari. And he was sent to Mercari Europe as well to run Mercari, one of the original unicorns. Tim: So, how did you know Ren? David: We worked together at different startup events before. Earlier, also, I worked at another startup briefly called Stability AI. At that time, Ren was working in the UK for that company, and I was working as a contractor remotely in Japan. So, we connected there. Tim: And you were kind of like, hey, I've got a better idea. David: Yeah, something like that. The best way to meet co-founders and colleagues is when you're working at other startups. And when you're working at other companies. Tim: I think that's so true because it is being able to work with someone and see how they work and having that experience is invaluable when picking a founding team. David: Yeah, I totally agree. I think in our founding team, not just the co-founders, many of our employees, the founding employees, are people that I've personally worked with at Google, at Goldman Sachs in Japan, also at other companies like Mercali and Yahoo in Japan, like people that we know. And I think when you've worked with someone before and you kind of know how to coordinate different tasks and work together well, it's like a great mix. Tim: Yeah, yeah. There's fewer surprises, the better, right? So, tell me about the kind of pre-seed team. Was it just you three? David: Yeah, it was just us. It was crazy. I think all three of us have different motivations of starting this company. I'll tell you mine. So, our company is founded in Japan to develop AI technology for Japan. Like when I was looking at your podcast like 10 years ago, there's like many founders in Japan, like they really want to go international right away. They want to move to the valley and try their luck. But there's also other companies that are focused on Japan. Remember this, one of your podcast episodes, like you have so many startups in your podcast. One of them are like focusing on developing the product that produced the best invoices for Japan. Like those companies. Tim: That's a need. But you guys, I mean, I think what's unique about Sakana is that you had a product that, I mean, yes, it's targeted to Japan, but it's truly a global market. And when you first raised money, you went overseas. Your first round was from overseas investors rather than Japan. So why? David: Yeah, exactly. I mean, for us, having worked at Google before and Goldman Sachs before, I think like my experience is generally easier to raise money from overseas markets. Tim: Well, I agree with that for sure. David: Especially in the VC ecosystem. I think in Japan, the VC ecosystem is growing. There's a support, lots of government support as well. But at the end of the day, if you want to have a strong funding round, we wanted to go direct to Sand Hill Road. So, I think what happened was when I started this company, I co-founded with Llon at the beginning. We just announced that we're going to start a company called Sakana AI, an R&D company in Japan. And I just basically sat there working on our tech, working out what we're going to do. And from there, we had many reverse inquiries. Like maybe on Twitter, because I have some following on Twitter as well. Tim: So, inquiries from VCs? David: Yes, from VCs. Basically, all of the VCs reached out to us. Tim: Both Japanese and foreign or primarily…? David: Many foreigners as well. I worked at Mountain View for Google for a few years, and many VCs knew me at the time. I also had many personal connections in that community. So basically, if you have a choice, you might as well try to pitch to Deluxe Capitals, the Vinod Khoslas, the Andreessens, and the Sequoias of the world, right? Tim: So, for the seed round, you raised $30 million. But then the next round, you came back to Japan, and you raised something like $200 million from a series of rounds of Japanese investments. And so why the shift back to Japan? David: For our seed round, it made sense for us to raise from Silicon Valley investors. I think also the nature of the VCs, especially in the seed round, when you raise from prominent Silicon Valley VCs, they want to dominate the entire round. Because the seed round of a company is your highest cost of capital. It's the lowest valuation if your company continues to exist. So, if a VC has decided that they're going to bet on you at the seed stage, it makes sense for them to invest as much as possible. So, there was not a lot of room to involve other companies at our seed stage. We did make room for NTT and Sony and KDDI, but we couldn't. Basically, the first year of our existence is primarily R&D driven. There's absolutely no plan for monetization. As we started out, we wanted to build a foundational R&D company in Japan. We recruited many of our top research colleagues from Google, Prefer Networks, Stability AI. And we set out to actually produce pretty amazing research in the first year, like the AI scientists. Something like that didn't exist before. Tim: And it's actually got a published research paper now, right? David: Yeah. I mean, after two years, it got published in Nature magazine, like the top scientific journal. Tim: That's amazing. David: That's not going to make me money directly as a company, but as a researcher, it's kind of proud that a Japanese AI company can publish something in Nature. Tim: Absolutely amazing proof of concept and proof of suitability. David: So,...
