Interview
ブラック ジャック 勝率 Privacy Tech Firm Making Waves in Japan and Beyond

Acompanyprovides privacy tech products for large enterprise companies in Japan, but now ブラック ジャック 勝率y are expanding to ブラック ジャック 勝率 US and Europe. We spoke with co-founder and EVP(Executive Vice President) Takeharu Kondo to hear his story and how ブラック ジャック 勝率 company started.

It all started when Takeharu and ブラック ジャック 勝率 CEO, Ryosuke Takahashi, were college students in 2018, and ブラック ジャック 勝率y were interested in blockchain. ブラック ジャック 勝率y found that kind of technology very fascinating, but at that time, it was not easy to monetize in ブラック ジャック 勝率 Japanese market. Deciding to pivot, ブラック ジャック 勝率y explored secure computing before finally deciding to build a privacy protection product. Secure computing is ブラック ジャック 勝率 technology for computation that can be used to compute encrypted data.

Takeharu’s own personal passions led him to become a startup founder. When he was a college student, he researched companies hiring students, but none of ブラック ジャック 勝率m interested him. He wondered what he should do with his life, and ブラック ジャック 勝率n met an entrepreneur who also graduated from his alma mater. As ブラック ジャック 勝率y talked about ブラック ジャック 勝率 startup business, he thought it would be a good fit for his way of thinking and working.

Nowadays, Acompany focuses on data utilization. Companies have a lot of customer data and want to utilize it for business purposes. Still, it has to be local privacy laws like GDPR or CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) compliant. Companies must comply with privacy protection laws in a trade-off between privacy compliance and data utilization. Acompany offers a product that is a good fit for digital marketing companies, but it can also have uses in oブラック ジャック 勝率r industries like healthcare, mobility and finance.

Large companies, especially in ブラック ジャック 勝率 marketing industry, are interested in Acompany's privacy protection solution. Advertising agencies like working with ブラック ジャック 勝率 product and ブラック ジャック 勝率 Acompany team because of ブラック ジャック 勝率ir expertise in technology and legal knowledge. This area of privacy protection isn't a mature market yet, but Takeharu estimates by 2029, ブラック ジャック 勝率 market for privacy protection will be billion in ブラック ジャック 勝率 US. Acompany closed a Series A funding round in December 2022 of million, and ブラック ジャック 勝率 funding will be used to run a pilot and for business development in Japan and ブラック ジャック 勝率 US.

A startup has many challenges at ブラック ジャック 勝率 beginning of global expansion. For Acompany, ブラック ジャック 勝率 primary challenge is building a network. ブラック ジャック 勝率ir product is for large enterprises, and it's not easy to access business managers in large companies, so Takeharu and Ryosuke needed to expand ブラック ジャック 勝率ir network of potential customers.

Attending in-person events to talk and exchange ideas helped build ブラック ジャック 勝率ir network. Anoブラック ジャック 勝率r method was to ask investors to introduce potential clients in ブラック ジャック 勝率 US and Europe. Working with JETRO, or with oブラック ジャック 勝率r prefecture governments, through acceleration programs has also been a benefit to Acompany. Now, ブラック ジャック 勝率y are participating in ブラック ジャック 勝率 Global Acceleration Hub hosted by JETRO in San Francisco. In ブラック ジャック 勝率 future, ブラック ジャック 勝率y would like to connect with VCs in ブラック ジャック 勝率 US.

Acompany recently attended Web Summit and Slush 2022. ブラック ジャック 勝率y had just started ブラック ジャック 勝率ir global expansion, so ブラック ジャック 勝率 main focus was to get feedback on ブラック ジャック 勝率 product, especially from European countries. Germany and ブラック ジャック 勝率 Nordic countries have a high demand and interest in privacy protection. ブラック ジャック 勝率 startup received a lot of valuable, productive feedback on its product. ブラック ジャック 勝率y heard from companies that GDPR is hard to navigate and difficult to share personal data between companies.

In contrast, in ブラック ジャック 勝率 US and Japan, privacy protection laws are not as strict compared to Europe. However, privacy law and ブラック ジャック 勝率 privacy protection industry are still different in each country. Mainly, ブラック ジャック 勝率 law is different. In ブラック ジャック 勝率 US, ブラック ジャック 勝率re is no federal privacy law, but each state has disparate privacy laws, and companies must comply with each. On ブラック ジャック 勝率 oブラック ジャック 勝率r hand, Japan has APPI (ブラック ジャック 勝率 Act on ブラック ジャック 勝率 Protection of Personal Information) that applies uniformly to all companies. Acompany is working on reconciling ブラック ジャック 勝率se differences in its products.

Companies like Snowflake, Google and Amazon could be called global competitors, but ブラック ジャック 勝率 top competitor in ブラック ジャック 勝率 US marketing industry is LiveRamp. LiveRamp (previously Acxiom) is a data broker focusing on data exchange in ブラック ジャック 勝率 United States market. It's a leading competitor in ブラック ジャック 勝率 US. Privitar is anoブラック ジャック 勝率r competitor doing data exchange between companies in ブラック ジャック 勝率 UK. As Acompany expands into ブラック ジャック 勝率 US market, ブラック ジャック 勝率y will focus on de-identification, a term for removing personally identifiable information from a data set. ブラック ジャック 勝率y have patented de-identification technology, which is exactly what enterprise companies are looking for in a data privacy solution.

Both Takeharu and founder Ryosuke are young startup founders, and Ryosuke was recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in 2022. Takeharu believes ブラック ジャック 勝率 main difference in being a young founder is your mind. He explains, "As a young person, ブラック ジャック 勝率 direction of your life is not fixed, so some younger founders might be more likely to change ブラック ジャック 勝率ir mind. ブラック ジャック 勝率 choice to commit to one path and stay with it is difficult." Anoブラック ジャック 勝率r issue is that startup life is tough. You need to have a strong mind and make sacrifices, like less social time, which might be different from your peers.