About Us
Create the world where people can be themselves in their work,
beyond language, time, and location differences
Company Name
Yaraku, Inc.
Location
Tokyo HQ: 16F, Link Square Shinjuku, 5-27-5 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0051
Europe Office: 207 Avenue Louise, Box 4, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Founded
August 2009
President & CEO
Suguru Sakanishi
Number of Employees
39 (as of December 2025) [Careers]
Website
Corporate page (https://www.yaraku.com/en/about/)
Capital
¥222,090,165 (including capital reserve)
Business
Planning, development, and operation of multilingual communication tools
Investors
Konica Minolta, Inc., Advanced Media, Inc., Sony Network Communications Inc., Dogan Beta, Inc., board members, employees, and others
Management
President & CEO
Suguru Sakanishi
Born in Fukuoka. After graduating from Waseda University, he moved to the United States. In New York, he founded a marketing agency and supported U.S. companies with online marketing for the Japanese market. After returning to Japan, he started Yaraku, Inc. in 2010. He is a co-author of Jidou Honyaku Taizen (ENGLISH HACKER'S HANDBOOK), a book on practical ways to use machine translation for English-related work.
Director, CTO
Jonas Rydenhag
Born in Sweden. After spending approximately eight years working on web development in Gothenburg and contributing to numerous projects, he decided to relocate to Japan, a long-held interest. He first spent two years studying Japanese to deepen his understanding of the culture and language, then joined the Yaraku team to leverage both his language skills and technical background.
Executive Officer, Head of Sales Division
Kazuhiro Nagao
Born in Fukuoka. After graduating from Kyushu Institute of Design, now Kyushu University, he began his career at a trading company and spent approximately 30 years in sales, business development, and sales organization management. In 2001, he joined McAfee Japan as head of domestic sales. He later achieved strong results in domestic strategy planning and business development at multiple global SaaS companies. He joined Yaraku in 2024.
Outside Director
Yuichi Yatsuhashi
Born in Chiba Prefecture. After graduating from the University of Tokyo, he joined the Boston Consulting Group when it was still little known, working on business strategy projects for various companies. He later moved into the private equity industry and now focuses on developing next-generation business leaders. He is a professor at the Graduate School of Leadership and Innovation, Shizenkan University.
Outside Director
Kenichiro Kusuyama
Born in Saitama Prefecture. After graduating from International Christian University (ICU), he worked in overseas sales at Sharp before joining CyberAgent in 2000. He later moved to Thomson Reuters, where he became head of the media business in Japan in 2007 and launched several joint ventures. After serving as an Executive Officer at Aucfan Co., Ltd., he founded Principle Co., Ltd. His goal is to become a businessperson who can thrive on the global stage.
Audit & Supervisory Board Member (Outside)
Nobutoshi Maeda
After graduating from Waseda University, Nobutoshi Maeda worked at Nippon Investment & Finance and WERU Investment. In 2019, he founded NV Ventures Co., Ltd. and became its representative. For more than 20 years, he has supported technology startups and has served on committees and programs including MEXT's START and the Cabinet Office. He currently serves as a NEDO catalyst and as a mentor and committee member for multiple accelerator programs.
Supervisor
Chief Evangelist
Masaru Yamada
Born in Tokyo. He holds an M.A. in Linguistics from West Virginia University and a Ph.D. in Intercultural Communication, Translation and Interpreting Studies from Rikkyo University Graduate School of Intercultural Communication. After working as an in-house interpreter at Ford Motor Company and as an industrial translator, he founded Translation Lab Inc. He has served as a board member of the Japan Association for Interpreting and Translation Studies and the Asia-Pacific Association for Machine Translation (AAMT).
Executive Advisor
Executive Advisor
Kenzo Oiwa
Born in Fukuoka. He has held key positions for over 30 years at major foreign-owned IT companies, including Executive Officer at Symantec Corporation, Director of Consumer Business at McAfee Japan, Senior Executive Vice President at Lenovo Japan, and President & CEO of Acronis Japan. Leveraging his extensive IT industry experience and broad network, he works at the intersection of translation and digital transformation to redefine the social value of generative AI-powered translation support tools.