The Growth Hub is our regular gathering for an open exchange on the realities of building and scaling ventures in Japan.
Back in March, one of Silicon Valley's hottest AI companies acquired a 17 months old Tokyo startup.
The buyer was Sierra, a customer-experience AI agent company founded by Bret Taylor (chairman of OpenAI, former co-CEO of Salesforce) and Clay Bavor (ex-Google). Sierra has raised over $630M, is now valued at around $15 billion, and is building the "Agent OS" that automates customer support and sales for global brands. The startup they acquired was Opera Tech, founded in late 2024 by Keita Morikawa (CEO) and Kiyohito Kunii (CTO).
Opera sits inside a run of acquisitions alongside Receptive AI and the French YC startup Fragment. The unicorn was looking for teams that understood how to deploy autonomous AI agents inside its respective market enterprises.
Homegrown software startups seldom exit to tier-1 Silicon Valley giants this early. Keita went from consultant in London, to founder in Tokyo, to a cross-border exit, to now leading AI agent development at Sierra Japan. It's a blueprint few founders here have ever drawn.
At Growth Hub #16, Keita joins us to walk through the whole arc:
Steering the conversation is our guest moderator, ****Kenneth Jeng, joining the Growth Hub team for this session.
Special thanks to Stéphane E. Fouché and Mari Matsuzaki, who helped make this session happen.
🗼 About Shibuya Startup Support
Shibuya Startup Support is an initiative by the Shibuya City Office to support startups looking to launch or expand in Japan. We provide guidance, visa and incorporation support, and access to a thriving local ecosystem.
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