Hello! This is the PR team at CLOViZ Inc.!
Many of you are probably wondering what exactly CLOViZ is and what kind of members belong to it.
In this blog, we'll introduce CLOViZ's members in interview format. While touching on the vision and values CLOViZ is pursuing, as well as each member's role and skill set, we'll showcase the strength of the team as a whole and the appeal of each individual.
In this article, we'll introduce CLOViZ Inc. — the company driving POKER Q'z forward — with President Masaki at the center!
1. The Backgrounds of CLOViZ's Founding Members
——First, please tell us about your backgrounds!
Masaki (President & CEO):
Until July of this year, I worked in the entertainment industry at Nippon Television. That said, what I was really interested in when I joined wasn't program production itself, but how to make programs viable as a business. In fact, I had many opportunities to work on producing new IP and generating non-broadcast revenue, such as live events. The IP development projects I worked on include audition shows like “Nizi Project,” “BISH THE NEXT,” and “XY.”
I've also been involved in the elementary school education business founded by my mother, which now operates in more than 20 locations across Japan.
Our founding philosophy, “If you're playing, you're learning,” grew out of my experience in both the entertainment and education businesses.
Kitsugi (COO & Director):
I originally worked at a foreign-affiliated consulting firm, mainly leading digital transformation (DX) initiatives and building data analysis platforms for major corporations. Through that work, I became deeply interested in solving business challenges with technology, taught myself programming along the way, and also gained experience across a wide range of fields — including business management and product management at a blockchain venture company.
In the process, I became increasingly interested in the potential of B2C products and began to want to build products of my own. It was around then that I met Masaki, whom I already knew, and when I consulted him about an education × AI business plan amid the recent AI boom, we talked about how applying that idea to poker could be interesting. That conversation was what got CLOViZ started.
Goto (Director):
I joined after Masaki asked me for advice on founding the company and invited me to appear on the YouTube show “POKER ROYALE.” Unlike the other two, I'm seriously engaged with poker as a player, so my role is to propose app improvements from a player's perspective and to gather supporters by leveraging my network in the poker community.
Masaki:
I met Kitsugi at a blockchain startup I was helping out with, and a few years later we met again and talked about starting a business together. Coming from a consulting background while also being able to engineer, he's a two-in-one talent who oversees the entire company.
Goto is truly amazing. He graduated at the top of his class from Kaisei High School and was even named Mr. Todai during his time at the University of Tokyo. He's also appeared on the TV show “Todai King.” But it's not just his credentials that are impressive — he has a wonderful personality to match, making him an absolute powerhouse. Just by being involved with the company, he leaves a great impression on everyone around him.
As a poker player, Goto also has a deep understanding of the challenges players face and the needs they have. It's very reassuring that he brings that perspective to education and business.
Although they're not here today, this company's strength lies in members with Japan's top-tier AI research expertise and poker knowledge. For example, we have members at the University of Tokyo researching game AI and natural language algorithms, the president of the University of Tokyo poker club and its members, and people who play cash games and tournaments overseas. Their expertise is a huge asset on the app's design and technical side.
2. Entertainment × Education
——It's amazing that you've gathered members with both poker and technical expertise! Please tell us about the background behind CLOViZ's founding and the aspirations you've put into POKER Q'z!
Masaki:
Actually, CLOViZ isn't just about poker — we plan to expand into the “entertainment × education” business. Poker is simply our first theme.
This philosophy has two main origins. One is my experience in the entertainment industry. When producing audition shows, we heard from many viewers that beyond enjoying the shows as entertainment, they felt “I want to give it my all too.” It's something you can enjoy as pure entertainment, yet it also gives viewers energy for the next day. I felt enormous potential in this “entertainment × education” combination, and it became one of the themes I want to pursue for life.
The other is a discovery from the education business my parents run. There, an AI-powered, gamified math curriculum has produced remarkable results — data showed that learning time increased eightfold compared with traditional paper-and-pencil learning. Children naturally keep learning because it feels like play, and knowledge sticks along the way. What's more, the admin dashboard visualizes each child's strengths and weaknesses, enabling optimized learning tailored to the individual.
I thought this mechanism could be applied to poker, a market with strong growth potential ahead of it.
Three main aspirations went into launching POKER Q'z. First is the desire to make poker learning accessible to more people. Smart people who can study on their own can make use of existing analysis tools. But from my own experience, I think there are many people who “have played poker for years but have never studied it” or “don't know how to learn.” For those people, I wanted to create an environment where they can think about what they would do in a near-real situation, learn whether the outcome was good or bad, and see where their own judgment ranks among everyone else.
Next is the democratization of knowledge. Like shogi and Go, poker insights were traditionally only available through local communities such as study groups. We want to make that knowledge accessible to far more people. By creating an environment where anyone in the world — not just people with the right connections — can access high-quality learning, we hope the entire community levels up.
Finally, there's the realization of a community that promotes a cycle of learning and practice. Our idea is that “practice is an individual battle, but the preparation stage can be tackled together.” By creating a place where members share knowledge with one another and discuss their successes and failures in practice, we believe people can grow more consistently and effectively than they would learning alone.
——To be continued in Part 2...