I’m Masashi Takegami, the CEO of EBONiBO.
I was born in 1996 in Kanagawa Prefecture. I’m 30 years old, and I currently do three main jobs.
I hope that through them you can get a sense of what kind of person I am.
The first is data analysis at a research firm specializing in the entertainment industry, where I work on film: surveying audience interest before release and forecasting box office revenue. The second is corporate planning at a company that develops agricultural robots and AI to support cultivation, working toward agriculture that is still thriving 100 years from now. The third is EBONiBO, the company I founded, and that is what I’d like to tell you about here.
I founded EBONiBO in 2023.
Until now, we have worked in education, including the co-development of “4CsGRAM”, an index for measuring children’s non-cognitive skills. We were fortunate to receive recognition both in Japan and abroad, but the market was not yet ready, and we were not able to continue it as a business.
With Mr. Duke — Special Track Winner, Global EdTech Startup Awards 2025 @ExCeL London
What I learned from that experience is that simply making something good is not enough for it to reach people. Unless you convey its value and create a place where the people who need it can find it, even the best things get buried (and it’s the same in my film work…). It may sound obvious, but learning it through real experience meant a great deal to me. Then, with my move to Kagoshima, I started a new business: a regional trading company.
There are two main things I am working on now.
The first is to expand sales channels, including overseas, and give farmers more options.
The second is to create fans, people in Kagoshima who come to love Kagoshima’s agricultural products even more.
Many of you have probably seen the current worldwide matcha boom in the news or on social media. I did too.
When I spoke with a local government official some time ago, I heard this story: “There was a tea farmer who was never told that prices had soared because of the matcha boom, and who kept selling at the same price as before. Some farmers even learned about the boom for the first time on TV.”
Information that reached me as a matter of course was not reaching the very people who make the product. That came as a strong shock. Of course, I think these are limited cases. Even so, there are people making excellent products who are not receiving the value they deserve. What we need to return to producers is both options for where to sell, and information about what is happening in the market. That is what I came to feel strongly.
The experience I have gained so far is put directly to use in this work.
From my agricultural work, the sense of the real issues in the field. From my film work, the marketing skills of telling the appeal of a work as a story and bringing in new fans.
Tea and other agricultural products all have a story of the people and the land that raised them. I want to deliver those stories to the people who should hear them.
Above all, I want to compete with what Kagoshima already has.
Rather than bringing something in from outside, I want to deliver the value nurtured in this land to the world, together with the people of Kagoshima. That is my work at EBONiBO.
For Kagoshima’s primary industries, I will give my all to what I am able to do now.
Thank you for reading to the end.
From here on, I’ll casually share what I feel through my work and my life in Kagoshima.
Thank you for your continued support!
