| Representative |
Sousuke Yasumura
Born and raised in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, he spent his childhood immersed in basketball. In sixth grade, he won the national championship, but his dream of becoming a professional player was dashed by a fracture during his middle school years. During high school, he continued to play basketball while attending the University of Tokyo. After graduation, he gained experience as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. Through supporting digital transformation (DX) initiatives in manufacturing and construction industries, he became acutely aware of the challenges faced by frontline workers supporting Japan's infrastructure. This experience fueled his strong desire to dedicate his life to contributing to the construction industry, leading him to decide to found KENCOPA, where he remains today. |
| Main Achievements |
August 2025: Raised 200 million yen in seed round funding.
July 2025: Selected for Triangle Ehime 2.0 “National Collaborative Base Partnership Program.”
July 2025: Selected for Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications “ICT Startup League.”
March 2025: Selected for Kansai Startup Incubation Program “Kidou” Phase 3. |
| Childhood Dream |
In sixth grade, he won the national basketball tournament and vaguely dreamed of becoming a professional player. However, during middle school, he experienced being rejected from the prefectural team and playing against Rui Hachimura, which made him keenly aware of the harsh reality of becoming a professional. This experience became the catalyst for him to put an end to his basketball career. |
| Influential People, Things, and Events |
Person: “Co-founder Nakata's grandfather”
Thing: “Generative AI”
Event: “Consulting experience at a major general contractor” |
| Motivation, Goals, and Ideal World |
What inspired me to start my own business
During my time as a consultant at McKinsey, I was involved in supporting digital transformation (DX) in B2B sectors such as manufacturing and construction. While I was impressed by the excellence of the front-line workers who support Japan's infrastructure, I also felt a sense of stagnation and outdated practices throughout the industry. In particular, during a DX promotion project at a general contractor, I was impressed by the wisdom of the skilled techniques that had been cultivated over many years, but I also felt a strong sense of crisis about the current situation in which the number of people capable of carrying out these techniques is rapidly declining. Additionally, living and working alongside construction workers on-site, I directly experienced the harsh realities of their labor conditions. This, coupled with the growing sense that the construction industry in Japan may not survive without change, and my determination to contribute to this industry even at the risk of my own career, became the decisive factors in my decision to start my own business.
Our Goals and the World We Want to Create
The current construction industry is facing a severe shortage of skilled workers, as those who supported the infrastructure during the high-growth era are retiring. We are working to promote the inheritance of skills through AI across the industry and to realize unprecedented value creation. As the first step, we have developed the AI agent “Kencopa” to automate and autonomize construction management tasks such as tedious document creation, fundamentally transforming the way work is done on-site. This will create an environment where young technicians can focus on their core duties, revitalizing the appeal of the industry. Looking ahead, we envision not only the automation of construction management but also the automation of construction itself. We aim to establish a service that goes beyond domestic operations and makes a global impact. We seek to restore Japan's construction and infrastructure industries to their former glory as the “best” in the world and build a strong, forward-looking industry. We will achieve this vision through the collaborative efforts of AI and on-site workers. |
