This post introduces yet another suspected
intelligence agency front company in the IT sector (like several other IT
startup front companies (without even listing front companies connected to James
Riney and Bit Coin) operated by suspected intelligence operatives I’ve examined
here on this blog to date; e.g., connectfree (Christopher Tate: https://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.com/search?q=Kristopher+Tate),
Hacarus (Kenshin Fujiwara: https://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.com/2016/11/ive-mentioned-this-guy-before-in.html),
and Green Lord Motors (Hiroyasu Koma: http://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.com/2017/11/who-is-hiroyasu-koma-of-green-lord.html),
Ship&co (Thomas Bertrand: http://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.com/2017/09/website-featuring-thomas-bertrand.html,
who has another company called Bento&co.) to name just 4 of them)—is special
because it was established within 2 blocks of my apartment a little over a year
ago, long after I first started to expose the scenario here.
In short, they are trying to appropriate the IT startup business model and use it to infiltrate (and basically overrun) Kyoto with people connected to the political establishment. Their aim is to present their project as creating a "Silicon Valley" in Japan... So they are destroying residential neighborhoods a 1,000 years old and unrealistically increasing population density in neighborhoods where there are no sidewalks, etc., to create a faux Silicon Valley, as the original runs its course. These front companies appear to have one thing in common, the use of AI. That would appear to be a core component of the planned trajectory.
It bears emphasizing that, as described below, the company claims to employ 584 people. Since the building is literally 2 blocks from where I reside, I will take some video and upload it. Documenting the destruction of this neighborhood is long overdue.
This one also happens to have some public support from the city (promotional publicity), bringing the “Japan Inc.” phenomena into focus in its present
state and presented here in English for an international audience…
First, there is scant information available in English
about the company, but this is on Bloomberg,
and consists of the following:
Baseconnect Inc. develops and operates
BaseconnectList, a corporate sales support database. The company offers a cloud
based database for targeting corporate sales and creating a company list for
prospective customers. The company was founded in 2017 and is based in Kyoto,
Japan.
Baseconnect is a database of businesses’ contact information to help speed up the process for creating sales attack lists.
There are roughly 4 million businesses in Japan, 60 percent of which are focused on business to business sales according to an estimate by Baseconnect.
The startup currently has contact details and basic information for 10,000 businesses and hopes to cover all 4 million in Japan within a year.
Users can search for potential clients and export an attack list for around US$0.25 per company. The startup also plans to create a monthly subscription service which provides even more specific information like revenue or investor relations papers.
That is, what the company is purported to do is to
sell a list of potential clients to companies. That’s it. Sound economically viable?
They are represented as having great potential and
backing from venture capital, an angel investor, and even the city of Kyoto
(public funds). The only actually defining feature of that “business model”, if
one could call it that, is that it is sounds so ludicrous that it couldn’t possibly be
seen as impeding the business practices of any such legitimate company, thereby
enabling them to circumvent being subject of a criminal complaint under Article
233 of the Japanese Penal Code. The same could be said, to varying degrees, for
the other companies listed above and described on this blog.
Regarding the economic viability, on their website (on this webpage: https://sales.baseconnect.in/) they show a few case studies for promotional purposes, one of their client" (a company named "NewRevo" which is probably a frontman for another front company in the network...) states that they were able to generate a list of potential customers in 3 minutes as opposed to 1 hour, making their work more efficient. So, first it admits that anyone can do by themselves (by Googling, for example) what it is that the company claims to be selling as a service (20 times more efficient than Googling...). Secondly, even if you tried the service out, after you had them generate such a list once, why would you subscribe to a monthly service? That case study is this one (https://sales.baseconnect.in/use_cases/54):
So, to reiterate, basically the company appears to claim to use AI to create a database that enables customers to generate a list of potential clients 20 times faster than if they Googled it themselves, and they have garnered $2.8 million USD in investments for that. They also claim to have 5,000 companies subscribing to their service.
The founder and CEO, Yuki Kunishige, fits the same
mold as Christopher Tate, Hiromasu Koma, etc. That is to say, he has no
previous achievements or track record in the field with established companies
that would justify investment in such a ludicrous business model, etc. In fact,
this guy lowers the bar even further, as he is purported to have launched the
company with such backing just out of college, with absolutely no relevant
experience, etc. Perhaps they’re trying to make him out as a Bill Gates or Mark
Zuckerberg type of success story. In fact, it’s hard to find any information
about him online, aside from this profile (https://www.wantedly.com/users/595):
Self
introduction1990年生まれ。大阪府出身。
高校生の時から、国際協力団体を立ち上げたりNGOでインターンを行うなど、国内外の貧困問題に関わる。立命館大学国際関係学部に入学。18歳からITベンチャー３社でフルタイムインターン。その後、フリーランスのWebデベロッパーとして、30以上のプロジェクトを手掛ける。
21歳の時、インターネットスタートアップの株式会社Campusを創業。月間ユーザー数400万人を達成する。その後事業売却を行い、Baseconnect株式会社を設立。
高校生の時から、国際協力団体を立ち上げたりNGOでインターンを行うなど、国内外の貧困問題に関わる。立命館大学国際関係学部に入学。18歳からITベンチャー３社でフルタイムインターン。その後、フリーランスのWebデベロッパーとして、30以上のプロジェクトを手掛ける。
21歳の時、インターネットスタートアップの株式会社Campusを創業。月間ユーザー数400万人を達成する。その後事業売却を行い、Baseconnect株式会社を設立。
To summarize, it
says that he was born in Osaka in 1990, and was an intern with an international
cooperation NGO in high school, and has been involved in addressing poverty
within Japan. He studied international relations at Ritsumeikan University in
Kyoto, and has been a full-time intern at 3 IT venture companies from when he
was 18 years old. After that, he was a freelance web developer who worked on
more than 30 projects.
When he was 21
years old, he launched Internet startup Campus. The corresponding webpage on Japanese website Wantedly (https://www.wantedly.com/companies/Campus) page could not be archived, so a screenshot, but no time to investigate:
They claim that that company reached 4 million
users a month.
Then he sold that company and launched Baseconnect, Inc.
Screenshots of his personal page (it was possible to archive this page):
This company overview data
shown at the bottom of the webpage (https://sales.baseconnect.in/) describing their "List" service and results indicates the following company data
(translated from the Japanese shown below the English):
Company Overview
Company Name: Baseconnect Inc.
Capital: (Approximately) $2.8 million USD (280,000,000 yen)
Employees: 584
Major Investors: Kyoto City Startup Fund, YJ Capital, Mizuho Capital, User Base, East Ventures, Genasia Ventures, Masao (Angel Investor, CEO of User Local)
会社概要
社名
Baseconnect株式会社 / Baseconnect Inc.
資本金
2億8000万円（資本準備金含む）
従業員数
584名
主要株主
京都市スタートアップ支援ファンド・YJキャピタル・みずほキャピタル・ ユーザベース・ジェネシアベンチャーズ・East Ventures・伊藤将雄(エンジェル投資家・ユーザーローカル社長)
I told Glenn Paquette (defendant in the
lawsuit) about this company when he showed up in Kyoto at the cafes I frequent,
but no one else. I will post some updates on Mr. Paquette if necessary.
There had been two pdf files available on
the deleted page as well, but those are also gone, and I didn’t bother
downloading them:
I intend to expand the list of Japanese webpages about
the company below, and eventually examine to certain suspect aspects about the
company and the feasibility thereof.
