What is Baseconnect, Inc.? Who is Yuki Kunishige (國重 侑輝 )?

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…

Before getting into the meat and potatoes, have a gander at the opening video on the “corporate website”: http://company.baseconnect.in/

First, there is scant information available in English about the company, but this is on Bloomberg,

https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=547091793

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.

The most concise description of the company in English is found on a website called Fintech Ranking finance industry related article from May 2017 (http://fintechranking.com/2017/05/01/japans-answer-to-y-combinator-just-graduated-its-next-3-companies/) reads:

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)

The first investor on the list is a fund operated by the city government of Kyoto called Kyoto Startup Fund (京都市スタートアップ支援ファンド: ). However, I archived that page in December (screenshots below: https://web.archive.org/web/20180912133805/http://www.city.kyoto.lg.jp/sankan/page/0000229807.html), and though the company lists it on their page, the city has taken the information down (http://www.city.kyoto.lg.jp/sankan/page/0000229807.html). I suppose that they took it down (http://www.city.kyoto.lg.jp/sankan/page/0000229807.html) after it had been up for a year (note the date of December 22, 2017), but intend to check.  

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:

http://www.city.kyoto.lg.jp/sankan/cmsfiles/contents/0000229/229807/1221kouhoushiryou.pdf

http://kyoto.dga.jp/?kw=%E4%BA%AC%E9%83%BD%E5%B8%82%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E6%94%AF%E6%8F%B4%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89&ie=u&search_button=%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%83%88%E5%86%85%E6%A4%9C%E7%B4%A2

Another investor listed is named Masao Ito (伊藤将雄), a former Rakuten engineer who founded a company called User Local (https://tech-camp.in/note/interviews/33146/). He is described as an angel investor who has a company  that develops big data analytics: http://thebridge.jp/en/2015/05/user-local-funding

That company is one described here on a Japanese government website available in English: https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/mjcompany/

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.

https://www.green-japan.com/company/5433?case=login

https://www.zaikei.co.jp/releases/568127/

http://company.baseconnect.in/news/11934/