Kinneko Works | Cross-border Business Development

Kinneko Works

Cross-border Business Development

Japan · Taiwan · Southeast Asia

What We Do

Strategy

Define the right market, direction, and approach.

Explore

Discover needs, markets, technologies, and people.

Develop

Build businesses, partnerships, and pathways to market.

Where We Work

Japan · Taiwan · Singapore · Malaysia · Philippines · Thailand · and beyond

How We Work

Understand

What is really happening?

Identify

What really needs to be solved?

Design

What should we do?

Develop

Make it happen.

Continuously revisit and refine as we learn.

Services

Market Entry

Enter and develop new markets.

New Business Development

Create and develop new businesses.

Selected Experience

Market Entry

Challenge

The pitch focused on presenting a broad range of technologies rather than making a compelling case for investment and collaboration.

Contribution

Redesigned the information and pitch to establish the company’s technological superiority, world-changing impact, and credibility, driving investment and collaboration decisions. Delivered the pitch and drove discussions with Japanese investors and corporations, bridging language, business, and cultural differences.

Outcome

Positive feedback led to discussions about expanding support for the Japan market entry.

Challenge

Creating business opportunities required more than language support. It required understanding the startups’ technologies, their underlying value and applications, while uncovering the real needs behind what potential customers initially expressed.

Contribution

Engaged with companies visiting an international trade show in Taiwan, identified their underlying needs, connected those needs with what the startups could enable, and translated technical, business, and cultural contexts to move conversations toward business opportunities.

Outcome

Created concrete business opportunities for 4 startups, leading to in-depth discussions on potential collaboration across Taiwan, Japan, and Singapore.

New Business Development

Challenge

An existing wastewater-to-energy concept was built around selling the supplier’s own equipment rather than customer value.

Contribution

Redesigned the solution from the customer’s perspective, optimizing technology and cost while shifting from equipment sales to a recurring service model.

Outcome

Proposed the business plan to prospective customers in Thailand, gathered operational insights from their factories, and further refined the model.

Challenge

Transform an R&D concept for organic hydroponics into a commercially viable business.

Contribution

Led the business from market validation and business planning through the design, procurement, and launch of a pilot facility, working across internal teams and external partners.

Outcome

Established and operated the pilot facility, validated customer needs and commercial feasibility, and supported the decision on whether to proceed with commercialization.

Challenge

Help newly hired employees turn early-stage ideas into viable new business plans while developing their own ability to think and decide.

Contribution

Mentored teams through dialogue and questioning, supporting their thinking and encouraging them to pursue ideas they found genuinely interesting, while providing practical guidance on customers, markets, business models, and research methods.

Outcome

Supported approximately 20–30 teams over 2 years in developing new business plans and making their own informed decisions.

Updates

2026 Nov

Kinneko Works website launched

2026 Jun

Supported Japan Team at AI TAIWAN 2026

About

Kinneko Works

Kinneko Works is a business development company that creates and develops new business opportunities across markets and borders.
We explore needs, technologies, people, and markets, discover new possibilities, and develop them into businesses and partnerships.
Find something interesting. Make it even more interesting.

Founded

2026

Headquarters

Ginza, Tokyo, Japan

Corporate Number

6010003050366

Founder

Nobuaki Sato

Business Cat-alyst | Founder

Nobuaki Sato is a business development professional with over 18 years of experience in new business development, cross-border business, and technology commercialization.
His professional experience spans 11 countries across Asia, Europe, and the United States. He identifies new possibilities across people, technologies, companies, and markets, and develops them into business opportunities.
His approach is simple: find something interesting and make it even more interesting.

Media

stand.fm Apple Podcasts

note

Contact

For business inquiries, connect with me on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn →