tale of one's life on the stock exchange

The Cycle of "Enthusiasm, Persistence, and Inspiration
will lead the company to a new stage of growth.

Aiming to become an astronaut, but unable to achieve his goal, he started his own business.

Morimoto was born in 1966 in Osaka, four years before the first World Expo to be held in Asia. As a boy, he played baseball and basketball, training his body and mind rigorously. He also studied hard and entered Toyonaka Prefectural High School, a prestigious local school. As a boy, Morimoto had a secret dream. It was to become an astronaut. Morimoto was informed that becoming an Air Force pilot was a shortcut to becoming an astronaut, so he entered the National Defense Academy. However, his eyesight deteriorated during his studies, and he had no choice but to give up on the path to becoming a pilot. Morimoto changed his mind and chose to join the Maritime Self-Defense Force. He served on a Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer, but retired in 1994. Morimoto then studied semiconductors at the National Defense Academy, and his experience with semiconductors as his graduation research theme led him to Applied Materials Japan, Inc. Morimoto was leading a fulfilling life, but when the IT bubble burst in 2000, many IT companies were forced to undergo structural reforms in order to survive, and a sense of uncertainty overshadowed the entire industry. Morimoto took this opportunity to leave Applied Materials in 2003, as his desire to "do what I wanted to do" grew stronger by the day. While searching for his own path, Morimoto heard at a university alumni association that there was a field of discovery (a process in which a specialized contractor assists in the extraction and analysis of evidence), which was necessary for the unique litigation system in the United States. In conducting this discovery, high-tech techniques such as forensics, which make full use of IT to identify evidence of information leaks and corporate fraud, are used, but many Asian companies that do not know how to structure and fight lawsuits in the U.S. are having a hard time with this process. Morimoto wanted to do something about this situation. He initially encouraged several acquaintances to start their own businesses, but no one responded positively. So he decided to start his own business. However, at this point, he had no product, no connections, and no funds. The fact that there were no companies like UBIC (now FRONTEO Co., Ltd.) in Asia at all was the spirit behind his decision to start his own business. Morimoto was driven by a sense of mission: "We have to do it. In 2003, UBIC was born in a small office in Akasaka, Tokyo. The company began importing and selling forensic tools made in the U.S., but these tools were not available in Asian languages, including Japanese. Seeing a commercial opportunity, Morimoto decided to be the first in the world to develop Asian language analysis technology in-house and to deploy it in the field of discovery support. Several people who shared Morimoto's enthusiasm joined UBIC, which had just been founded, and the in-house development began. After much effort, a Japanese-language version of the software was released, and law enforcement agencies and major companies purchased it. Morimoto thus entered the world of discovery while gaining ground.

Our motto is "Enthusiasm, Persistence, and Inspiration.

Morimoto's motto as a manager is "enthusiasm, persistence, and inspiration. Without enthusiasm, nothing can begin. However, transient enthusiasm is not enough to keep a business going. If you engage in a new business, you will always need to take on challenges. Hard work, both mentally and physically, is required to overcome them. What makes this possible is persistence, and what is realized and accomplished with enthusiasm and persistence impresses those around it. And the excitement of those around them becomes a new source of heat, and the next cycle begins. With this enthusiasm and persistence, Morimoto has independently developed the world's first and only Asian-language electronic discovery support tool, Lit i View®. Morimoto recalls, "The fact that we were able to develop this tool on our own was a great confidence booster and asset for UBIC. Morimoto recalls, "The hard work we put in at that time would prove to be of great significance in the future.

Listed on the Mothers section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange and then on the NASDAQ in the U.S.

Later, as the number of Japanese companies expanding overseas increased, orders began pouring in from well-known firms. Four years after its establishment, UBIC's business as a discovery vendor took off, and in June 2007, UBIC was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers (now Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth). Morimoto had hoped that the listing would increase the company's name recognition and credibility and accelerate its growth, but sales to Japanese companies did not go as smoothly as he had hoped. While the listing on TSE Mothers certainly increased UBIC's visibility among Japanese firms, it did not increase its visibility among most clients and stakeholders, including Asian and U.S. firms, as much as he had hoped, nor did it increase UBIC's presence in the United States. Morimoto's next step was to establish a U.S. subsidiary. In December 2007, just six months after listing on the Mothers market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, UBIC established UBIC North America, Inc. This was the beginning of a series of large contracts from Japanese companies, but Morimoto was not satisfied with the status quo. He then decided to list his company on the NASDAQ in the United States. While many people involved in the project were against it, Morimoto was motivated by his belief that "UBIC's mission is to create a world where Western and Asian companies can compete on an equal footing on a global scale. Thus, a Japanese venture company founded less than 10 years ago was listed on NASDAQ in the United States. Morimoto's insistence on listing on NASDAQ was also intended to overcome the obstacles to growth in the litigation support business in the United States. The selection of a discovery vendor to provide litigation support in the U.S. is strongly influenced not only by the will of the client company, but also by the will of the lawyers in charge of the litigation. Therefore, the company felt strongly that it was necessary to win their trust by becoming a NASDAQ-listed company. （In order to further accelerate growth, Morimoto did not loosen the reins: In August 2014, he acquired TechLaw Solutions, Inc. and made it a subsidiary. The company has a history of over 30 years as a U.S. discovery vendor and takes great pride in its employees. Although TechLaw Solutions is a medium-sized company, it is highly regarded in the U.S. for its project management know-how and high quality services, which it has acquired through experience, and has strong connections with the U.S. Department of Justice. Morimoto says, "We could not have acquired TechLaw Solutions without going public in the US. Furthermore, none of the company's employees quit and stayed on as a team. That in itself indicates UBIC's growing credibility in the US. And that, in turn, is a major driving force for UBIC as it aims to dramatically expand its business in the U.S.

Potential of AI engine "KIBIT

UBIC expanded its performance with the successful development of the "Lit iView" series, which dramatically improves the efficiency of discovery work. In addition, UBIC successfully developed its own artificial intelligence, "KIBIT," which utilizes the tacit knowledge of experts. While conventional artificial intelligence is based on statistical processing, UBIC's was developed based on the unique concept of "behavioral information science," which combines behavioral science, which analyzes human behavior and thought patterns, and information science, which makes full use of statistics and data mining. The UBIC's completely unique concept of utilizing "tacit knowledge," which is said to be "non-verbalized knowledge based on human senses and experiences," in its tacit form, enables the artificial intelligence to acquire even the "intuition" of experts and incorporate it into various problem-solving processes. In other words, UBIC's artificial intelligence is distinctly different from conventional artificial intelligence, and a Behavioral Information Science Laboratory has been established within the company to conduct research and development of such artificial intelligence. The technology for extracting necessary data with a high degree of accuracy from the vast amount of data cultivated through litigation support is expanding its potential for use as the most important data analysis technology in big data analysis. In the future, "KIBIT," which utilizes the tacit knowledge of experts in various fields, will be able to perform big data analysis in place of people, thereby enabling speedy and highly accurate analysis results to be used for the advancement of society. The technology that UBIC has nurtured so far is beginning to show great potential as it moves out of the realm of litigation and legal affairs.

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