Hiroki Kudo

Hiroki Kudo is an entrepreneur and investor based in Vancouver. Born in Canada, he holds a master’s degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology and an MBA from INSEAD (2008). He began his career as a project manager at IBM Japan before moving into management strategy consulting at Corporate Value Associates. In 2010 he was a founding member of Locondo, the Japanese fashion e-commerce platform that listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2017. The following year he founded MerryBiz, an accounting and back-office outsourcing service for small and mid-sized businesses, which reached ¥1.2 billion in revenue at roughly 50% gross margin and ¥20 million in operating profit before its exit in 2023. In 2015 he co-founded the Fintech Association of Japan and served as its first Co-Representative Director, working on the amendment of the Banking Act and other financial legislation and bringing together more than 400 financial institutions and 200 startups to build out Japan’s fintech ecosystem. He moved to Canada in 2021 and teaches and mentors on UBC’s entrepreneurship programs. He founded CloudCost, an IT infrastructure company, in 2023, and the investment firm True Value Investments Pte. Ltd. in 2025. Through Vancouver Impact Ltd. he helps build Canada’s climatetech community and co-organizes Climate Global, the country’s largest climatetech event. He also invests as an angel, mostly in climatetech.