KENNDO builds, funds, and runs businesses in Southeast Asia together with Japanese companies — and puts its own capital into them. If you are looking for a Japanese counterpart who carries the same risk you do, start here.
THE GAP
Not because the technology is wrong, and not because the market isn't there. They fail on structure.
Feasibility studies, grant applications and pilot projects are treated as the deliverable. Nobody is accountable for what happens after the report is filed.
Decisions need a company, a bank account, a licence and a payroll on the ground. Advisory firms don't hold any of these — so execution stalls the moment the consultant's contract ends.
A partner who takes a fee is not a partner. Incentives diverge the first time the project needs more money or more time.
KENNDO exists because we got tired of watching this happen. So we started holding the entity ourselves.
WHAT WE OWN
KFI ｜ PT. Kenndo Fisheries Indonesia
Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia — established December 2021
A foreign-invested Indonesian company, established and operated by KENNDO. We process octopus and other marine products for domestic and export markets, and we run it ourselves: the licence, the plant, the payroll, the buyers, the working capital, the quality system.
When we tell you what it takes to build a processing operation in eastern Indonesia, we are describing our own balance sheet.
Read the KFI story →HOW WE PARTNER
We invest our own capital and take a seat at the table. Minority stakes through to joint ventures, in businesses we help operate.
We establish and run the local entity — incorporation, plant, hiring, accounting, supply chain, quality, and project management.
Through us, projects reach Japanese corporates, capital, technology, quality standards, and public funding programmes.
WHERE WE WORK
Southeast Asia, with Indonesia at the centre — and, in practice, well beyond it. Our own capital and our own staff are concentrated in Indonesia. Our project work has run across Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Pacific and Central Asia, and we regularly take on markets we have not worked in before: assessing an unfamiliar country, finding who is worth partnering with there, and deciding whether the business stands up is itself part of what we do.
Countries where we have delivered work to date — not the limit of where we can go. If your market is not on this list, that is not a reason to stop the conversation.
FOCUS AREAS
We work wherever business can create durable value on both sides. In practice, our capital and our operating experience are concentrated in:
Food, agriculture and fisheries value chains — from catch and harvest through processing, cold chain, quality certification and export.
Adjacent areas where we have delivered projects: environment and water treatment ・ healthcare and medical logistics ・ construction and vocational training ・ regional industry development.
WHO WE WORK WITH
We work with operators, not brokers. We work with capital that can wait five to ten years. And we decline work whose only purpose is to secure a grant.
FROM THE FOUNDER
Before founding this company, I spent eleven years at JICA and Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, writing and running the country's development policy. I left because I concluded that aid alone does not create lasting change — business does.
Today I sit on the board of a processing company in Sulawesi, and I invest my own money into the ventures we build. I call this being a practitioner investor: someone who takes the same risk as the people he backs.
Kotaro Takahashi — Founder & CEO
MPA, Harvard Kennedy School ・ MA Economics, University of Tokyo
Tell us what you are building and where. If there is a fit, you will hear from us within two business days.