Kaname Hayashi

GROOVE X CEO

1973 Born in Aichi prefecture
1998 Joined Toyota Motors, developed Aerodynamics such as Super car LFA
2003 Aerodynamics Development for Formula 1 at Toyota
2004 Aerodynamics Development for Toyota Motorsports GmbH (Germany)
2007 Mass Production Car Development Management at Product Planning Department (Z) at Toyota
2011 Participated in the external first class of Masayoshi Son’s Successor Training Program, ‘Softbank Academia’
2012  Became Developer for the semi-humanoid personal robot “Pepper”
2015 Founded Groove X, became CEO
2016 Raised Seed Round of 1.4bil yen(roughly 13mil$), one of the largest seed round in Japan
2017S Raised 4.35bil yen(roughly 4mil$) for Series A
2018 Released ‘LOVOT’, Family Robot that nurtures Love
2019 Awarded The Verge’s BEST ROBOT PRIZE at the largest consumer technology Exhibition CES.  Awarded COOL JAPAN AWARD 2019