Kiyo began his entrepreneurial journey while still in university, launching a food import business and an e-commerce venture focused on coffee. In 2009, he founded Nobot, a mobile advertising startup that rapidly grew to become Japan’s second-largest mobile ad network. Just two years after its founding, he achieved one of Japan’s largest startup exits at the time, selling Nobot to Mediba, a KDDI subsidiary, for several billion yen. In 2013, he moved to San Francisco and founded Chomp, Inc., which developed a photo-sharing app for restaurant meals. Two years later, in 2015, he co-founded the Tokyo Founders Fund, investing in approximately 30 startups—primarily in the U.S. A central figure in the Japanese startup community in Silicon Valley, he has helped grow a network of 80 to 100 founders and entrepreneurs. Local media have referred to him as the “Godfather of Japanese Startups in San Francisco.” He continues to take on new challenges as an entrepreneur and is currently leading Noxx, an AI-driven recruiting startup that connects top-tier engineering talent with companies around the world.