I first came across the colorful and awe-inspiring melodies of maestro @ryuichisakamoto back as a teenager in the 90’s listening to his memorable movie soundtracks, and as I first went to Japan discovered the groundbreaking electronic music group @ymo he co-founded in the late 70’s, which became a genuine EDM blueprint for multiples generations onwards. And I was fortunate to listen to him live throughout the decades in both Paris and Tokyo. What continuously struck me has been Sakamoto-san’s boundless curiosity and genre-spanning experiments, from techno-innovator YMO-era synthesizer hits, Hollywood-sized orchestral works, haunting solo piano, to myriad of crossover collaborations with pop stars (and beyond). This is #creativity in some of its purest forms, and this autobiography is a incredible chronicle of a life excitingly lived: an intimate, contemplative, and fascinating recounting of the ups and downs of a dazzling life story as a musical journey. I have always been deeply inspired by how his unique brilliance transcended mediums as well as borders, and this memoir is a striking reminder of the enduring power of #art, in the wake of the fleeting nature of life.

Merci la @FrenchTechSF for the whirlwind journey deep down the past, present and future of #data tonight at @Snowflake HQ! ❄️ #FloconDeNeige 🇫🇷🇺🇸

When we started @Bastion, we believed stablecoins would become core financial infrastructure. But for the world’s largest enterprises and financial institutions to adopt them, that infrastructure would need to meet the regulatory standards they already expect from their banks. That meant building compliance, controls and governance into Bastion from the beginning, not adding them after the fact or waiting for others to pave the way. Today, the OCC granted Bastion preliminary conditional approval for a national trust bank charter, placing us among a small group of companies to reach this stage with the OCC. That matters because the bar should be high. Stablecoins are becoming part of the financial system, and the infrastructure powering them needs to be built for the regulatory and operational standards that come with that. Stablecoins are moving into the financial mainstream, but institutional adoption depends on infrastructure that can meet an institutional standard. We made the decision early to build Bastion for that standard. Today is an important validation of that decision, and we’re just getting started. bastion.com/article/bastion-…

The next wave of #stablecoin adoption will be driven less by the proliferation of new digital currencies than by their integration into the financial operations of global enterprises. In that context, our @Sony_Innov_Fund portfolio startup @Bastion’s conditional @USOCC approval marks a significant step toward that future, paving the way for #issuance, #custody, and #payments to operate under a single supervised entity. This fundamentally changes the enterprise adoption equation: rather than assembling fragmented #crypto infrastructure, institutions can access integrated financial rails designed to meet their existing standards for #compliance, #governance, and operational #resilience. Bastion's partnership with our @sonybank_jp unit embodies the scale of this opportunity, where beyond faster and cheaper transactions, making money programmable and interoperable across businesses, platforms, and geographies opens up exciting new possibilities. Big congratulations to @nassyweazy & the entire Bastion team, and onwards! ㊗️ bastion.com/article/bastion-…

The next chapter of #stablecoin is not merely about #crypto adoption, but rather about becoming the #infrastructure for global enterprise money movement. 💸 Our @Sony_Innov_Fund portfolio startup @yellowcard_app’s expansion into #Canada & broader North America marks another important step in that transition, connecting its deep roots in #Africa with a growing global network. For large enterprises, the opportunity is to move beyond fragmented cross-border #payment systems toward faster, more efficient and increasingly programmable financial flows. 🌎🇨🇦 With over $10B in processed volume and 65+ banking partners, Yellow Card is building the institutional infrastructure needed to turn that opportunity into reality. Congratulations to @chrismaurice and the entire Yellow Card team on another milestone in bringing #onchain money movement into the global financial mainstream! 💫 yellowcard.io/blog/yellow-ca…

It is back to school for the #tech world too; always energizing to be back in #NYC for @PrimaryVC annual Tech Summit! 🗽 So many insightful conversations on the future #AI, inference & #compute stack with exceptional #founders. 💫 #NYCTechSummit

We’re hiring a Product Manager at Bastion to lead our banking, compliance and risk platforms. You'll build infrastructure that will soon be used by some of the largest companies in the world and work with an S-tier team at a fast-growing financial institution. DMs open.

先日まで開催していた北米ツアーでは、Kotoba（@kotoba_tech）さんにご協力いただき、ライブ会場でリアルタイムの同時通訳を表示する取り組みを実施いたしました。 海外でライブ機会が増える中で、言語の壁を越えて、どうすればより近い距離で想いを届けられるか。ここ数年ずっと考えてきたことのひとつです。 今回、Kotobaさんの技術によってそのひとつの形を実現できたことを、心より嬉しく思います。 この取り組みをきっかけに、これからも日本発として、国や言語を越えて同じライブ体験を楽しんでもらえるようなチャレンジを続けていけたらと思います🤝🌏

Fabulous, fantastic, phenomenal @YOASOBI_staff live tonight in Oakland! Our @SonyMusic_JPN superstar duo from #Japan so perfectly embodies @Sony’s #Creative #Entertainment Vision of seamlessly connecting and weaving the worlds of #storytelling, #manga, #anime and #gaming in a cohesive, poetic artistic journey. 🇯🇵📚🎶👩🏻‍🎤 Taking its roots from deep songwriting blending fan-sourced as well as professionally authored poems, essays, letters or short messages, #Yoasobi’s narrative arcs skillfuly connect #meanings to #melodies. More than disjointed songs, the albums (and even more so the concert) flow like a novel, with successive waves of emotions lighting up the stage. Hence the aptly named “Never Ending Stories” concert tour across North America. Leveraging on the latest in #display technologies, #visual effects and dynamic, real-time #video compositing, the physical stage strikingly brings to life the rich, fantasy world of #Yoasobi, thus creating a vivid #Kando (emotional connection) with the nearly 20K fans fully immersed in the @OaklandArena! 💫 #感動 #アニメソング #小説を音楽にするユニット

Major milestone for our @Sony_Innov_Fund portfolio #startup @resembleai as it launches today DETECT-World, its #world #AI model approach to #deepfake detection. 🌎✨ Rather than relying only on artifacts left behind by known generators, DETECT-World adds a deeper layer that evaluates whether #lighting, #motion and temporal #continuity are consistent with physical reality, thus creating a stronger path toward detecting previously unseen, zero-day #generative models. 🎭 Strategically, this points to an important next frontier for #cybersecurity: moving from #reactive pattern and signature matching toward #predictive models that reason about how the real world should behave. As generative models proliferate and improve faster than defenders can continuously retrain against them, world-model-based #detection can meaningfully compress that adaptation gap and strengthen defenses against novel, previously unseen attacks. This becomes increasingly critical as #deepfakes move beyond #manipulated media into identity #fraud, executive #impersonation, social engineering and real-time communications #attacks affecting #enterprises across all sectors. Big congratulations to @zohaibahmed, @theonlysaqib and the entire Resemble AI team for pushing the cybersecurity stack toward defenses that are not just recognizing yesterday’s attacks, but increasingly capable of reasoning about what is real. 🛡️ resemble.ai/resources/introd…

Congratulations (or rather おめでとうございます) to our @Sony_Innov_Fund portfolio #startup @kotoba_tech for empowering @salesforce’s #Agentforce with native #Japanese language #voice interaction. ㊗️ Thanks to its #Koto foundational #AI model offering next-generation #Speech-to-Speech #translation with unbelievably low #latency, Kotoba enables very fluid and human like conversations. 🇯🇵 Having lived in #Japan and experiencing daily #customer support and interaction, I have seen how #phone remains the primary customer acquisition & retention channel, while the deepening labor shortage means #automation is a must-do for #enterprises. Hence super proud to see Kotoba offering a natural and trusted customer experience worth of Japanese’ expectations for #omotenashi. #日本語 #翻訳 #おもてなし #客様サポート prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/00…

A sobering reminder why #AI #deepfake detection & #security is no longer a “nice to have” but a must-do for any organization, no matter the industry or size. Our @Sony_Innov_Fund portfolio #startup @resembleai has the most accurate and sophisticated multimodal #audio & #video deepfake detection models!

Thrilled to welcome @yellowcard_app to the @Sony_Innov_Fund family as our latest #web3 portfolio #startup, as we join our friends at @bcap, @polychaincap and @scventuresDNA in this fundraising round! ✨ Yellow Card’s vision to build an enterprise-grade global #stablecoin infrastructure is deeply transforming how money moves across emerging markets: started in Africa and now rapidly expanding across Latin America, the Middle East, and APAC, Yellow Card is creating a comprehensive licensed #stablecoin networks for global finance. 🌍💸 By combining regulatory compliance with the speed, transparency, and efficiency of stablecoins, Yellow Cards helps reduce friction in cross-border #payments and #treasury operations, while expanding access to modern financial #infrastructure for banks, telecom operators, fintechs, and other large enterprises. ⚙️ As stablecoins continue their transition from #crypto-native assets to mainstream #financial infrastructure, Yellow Card is exceptionally well positioned to help power the next generation of global commerce. Look forward to working closely with @chrismaurice and the broader Yellow Card team in this exciting new chapter! 🚀 yellowcard.io/blog/yellow-ca…

Fantastic to see our @Sony_Innov_Fund #web3 portfolio #startup @talostrading teaming with @Kalshi’s prediction markets onto institutional #trading #infrastructure. 🎉 🤹🏻‍♀️ This is another strong step in Talos’ evolution from a leader in institutional #crypto trading to a comprehensive platform powering the next generation of 24/7 capital markets. As digital assets, perpetuals, #prediction #markets and other emerging asset classes converge onto digital rails, institutions will increasingly demand unified execution, risk management and comprehensive market data across every product. 💫 Congratulations to @KatzAnton & broader Talos team for the continued expansion of its infrastructure reach to underpin tomorrow’s always-on financial markets! 💸 talos.com/insights/talos-bri…

Thanks @KindredVentures for a fantastic #SFDeepTechWeek event yesterday! ✨ Thoroughly enjoyed the opportunityto share our rationale on why @Sony_Innov_Fund just invested in @kotoba_tech as #voice #AI is deeply reshaping human as well as #agentic UX. Super insightful discussion with @salesforce on how next-generation #speech models have the unique opportunity to empowet the next wave of both #enterprise as well as #consumer applications. 🗣️ And glad the broader audience could experience the latest live demos of Kotoba’s Speech-to-Speech #Japanese to #English #translation model by @jungokasai & @noriyuki_kojima, impressive #accuracy and ultra-low #latency. 🇯🇵🇺🇸

Inspiring to see our @Sony_Innov_Fund portfolio #startup @resembleai launching its next-generation #watermaking technology (PerTh Multimodal), a major step forward for #media #provenance and #traceability in the age of #AI-generated content. 🎭 As synthetic media becomes increasingly realistic, enterprises need trusted ways to verify origin, protect IP, and preserve chain of custody across #audio, #video, #images, and #text. What makes this especially exciting is the technical leap Resemble AI has made: building imperceptible, tamper-resistant #watermarks that can survive real-world transformations like compression, editing, re-encoding, and distribution across formats. 🎶🎥🖼️📝 From media and entertainment to finance, public sector, marketplaces, and healthcare, such trust infrastructure becomes foundational for how organizations create, distribute, and verify digital content. Another major step forward for Resemble AI to push the frontier of #responsible and #secure #AI. 🔐 resemble.ai/resources/perth-…

Thrilled to welcome @kotoba_tech to the @Sony_Innov_Fund family as our latest #AI investment, alongside our good friends at @KindredVentures and @SalesforceVC! ㊗️ Kotoba is is tackling one of the hardest frontiers in #AI: real-time speech-to-speech #translation & #interpretation that feel natural and seamless. Thanks to its state-of-the-art Koto foundational AI #model, Kotoba unlocks the next wave of #voice-based #UX and #interfaces, by allowing them to be natively #multilingual. ✨ Leveraging on its roots spanning both #Japan and #US, Kotoba achieves outstanding low-latency and accuracy from/to #Japanese and other #Asian languages, where grammar, word order, context as well as sentence construction can differ fundamentally from English and other Western languages. 🇺🇸🇯🇵 With multiple embedding & integration of Koto across enterprise and consumer applications well underway, alongside the recent launch of Kotoba's API & SDK, genuinely look forward to working closely with @noriyuki_kojima, @jungokasai and the broader Kotoba team as they scale their voice AI platform across both #Cloud as well as #Edge deployments! 🚀 gamesbeat.com/kotoba-technol…

Super inspiring #AI & #Agentic #startups pitching on stage today in the heart of San Francisco. Thanks @SiliconVlyBank for putting together such a robust showcase (with a view)! ✨🏙️🌞

Congratulations to our @Sony_Innov_Fund #AI #cybersecurity portfolio #startup @resembleai on being recognized as the top performer in the latest independent benchmark of #audio #deepfake detection solutions! 🎭✨ The results highlight an increasingly important combination of high detection #accuracy & low #latency inference, which are both critical requirements for real-time call center environments and large-scale #enterprise deployments. As AI-generated #voice #fraud continues to grow in attacks volume & sophistication, enterprise-scale solutions like Resemble AI become a critical layer of #trust and #security for customer service, financial services, and digital communications. Including balancing between minimizing both false negatives (letting deepfakes slip through) and false positives (incorrectly flagging legitimate customer interactions). 🗣️✅❌ podonos.com/blog/deepfake-au…

It was fantastic to welcome our @Sony_Innov_Fund #web3 portfolio #startup @talostrading in #Tokyo last week! 🇯🇵💫 Very timely to have @KatzAnton & the broader team showcase Talos’ comprehensive #trading, #execution as well as #crypto analytics platform as #Japan is rapidly embracing digital assets and many #banks, financial institutions as well as broader #enterprises can accelerate their on-chain product launches. 💸🚀