An organisation that keeps learning, for every small business in Japan.

For about twenty years I worked in asset management, at Fidelity and then Capital Group², in Tokyo and Hong Kong. In 2017 I joined an internal team asked how the firm should use data and technology in the age of AI, and the following year I studied in Harvard’s Business Analytics Program (HBAP)¹. What I took from both was that technology on its own changes very little. What matters is whether an organisation can take what its people know and turn it into something everyone can use and build on, and that people grow fastest when they learn alongside others. That conviction is why I left Capital Group in 2021 and started Terakoya.AI.

We began by supporting students learning online. But as I met owners of small and mid-sized companies, through my university teaching and business gatherings, and as they showed me around their workplaces, I kept seeing the same picture. At one small factory, every item of inventory is still counted by hand and written down on paper. Everywhere there are too few people, and the know-how that keeps the business running lives in one or two people’s heads. When they are away, work stalls; when they leave, their experience leaves with them. And the smaller the company, the less likely a large IT firm is to help.

Terakoya.AI exists to make these companies organisations that keep learning. Our product, Terakoya, uses AI to capture the day’s work and the reasons behind decisions, so that they stay with the company and the next person can use them straight away. You can start with one task or one team. AI moves the work forward; people check it and decide. Your knowledge stays in your own company’s drive.

I am still a student myself, studying for a master’s degree at Harvard, because I believe learning is what keeps people and companies strong. Show us one part of your work, and let us start there together.

Paul Li, CEO, Terakoya.AI