#3 Stay Alive Until the Wind Comes: Finatext’s Journey from Founding to IPO and Beyond

Finatext Holdings went from a consumer app to being the infrastructure behind Japan's financial institutions. It listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2021 and is now building for the AI era. In this episode, we're joined by Finatext’s Co-founder & CEO Ryota Hayashi to talk about his journey from entrepreneur to public-company CEO — perseverance, risk management, how founders should choose investors, and what it takes to thrive in the AI era. AGENDA: • 00:00 Introduction • 01:12 What Finatext does and the legacy problem in Japanese finance industry • 03:00 An entrepreneur father, the IT boom, and deciding to become a founder • 05:50 Moving to the UK: Bristol, and Deutsche Bank London after Lehman shock • 11:53 The initial days when nobody cared, building what people want, and the first hit • 16:50 Luck, risk management, and why founders who don’t quit get their hit • 19:00 Pivot to B2B infrastructure and the Nowcast acquisition • 21:04 How founders should choose a VC, and the resilience trait he looks for in entrepreneurs • 27:20 Life after the IPO and thriving in the AI era • 34:38 Pessimism is the state, optimism is the will Links: • Finatext Holdings (https://finatext.com/) • Ryota Hayashi’s letter to Finatext Shareholders (https://contents.xj-storage.jp/xconte...) • Finatext Holdings on UTEC's portfolio page (https://www.ut-ec.co.jp/english/our_c...) • Passion for success behind rise of fintech startup — The University of Tokyo (https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/fe...) • Susumu Fujita (Founder of CyberAgent) - Ryota Hayashi’s role model (https://www.cyberagent.co.jp/en/corpo...) Connect with the guest Ryota Hayashi and host Kiran Mysore: • Ryota Hayashi (  / ryota-hayashi-60282717  ) • Kiran Mysore (  / kiranmysoreravi  ) Stay tuned for more stories from the land of the rising sun.