Growth Hub #16 - By Founders, For Founders w/ Keita Morikawa (Opera Tech → Sierra)

Growth Hub is Shibuya Startup Support's recurring gathering for candid conversation about building and scaling ventures in Japan. For its 16th edition, the spotlight is on Keita Morikawa, who co-founded Opera Tech in Tokyo in late 2024 and saw it acquired roughly 17 months later by Sierra, the customer-experience AI agent company founded by Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor. Keita walks through the full arc: the original thesis that led him to leave McKinsey, winning the first Japanese enterprise customers, building the founding team, and how the cross-border relationship with Sierra formed and turned into an acquisition. He also reflects on what it is like to build inside one of the world's fastest-moving AI companies, where he now leads AI agent development at Sierra Japan. Guest moderator Kenneth Jeng steers the conversation. The session offers founders a rare, concrete look at an early-stage cross-border exit to a tier-1 Silicon Valley acquirer, a path few founders in Japan have drawn.