Makoto Nishida
 
MOONRAKERS TECHNOLOGIES
CEO
 
He joined Toray Industries in 1993. In his twenties, he took on his first new business venture, securing a major contract with UNIQLO through direct sales, which became the starting point for collaboration between the two companies. In his second new business initiative, he extended the supply chain all the way to finished products, pioneering a concept that now underpins Toray’s textile business, which has grown into a trillion-yen-scale operation.
 
In November 2023, he launched his third new business, the D2C project “MOONRAKERS,” spinning it off as an independent startup through a secondment-based entrepreneurship model. The project won the Grand Prize at the Japan New Business Awards and the Excellence Award at the TMIP Innovation Award, and was also nominated for awards by Forbes and Makuake, attracting significant attention today.