New Member: Foundry Labs
The British Chamber of Commerce in Japan is delighted to welcome Foundry Labs to our ever-expanding membership base. As artificial intelligence continues to move from emerging technology to everyday business reality, companies like Foundry Labs are playing an important role in helping organisations navigate this rapidly evolving landscape. Their addition further strengthens the breadth of knowledge and experience represented across our membership.
In their own words, Foundry Labs is a Tokyo-based AI consultancy that helps enterprises turn the promise of artificial intelligence into results that show up on the floor, in the P&L, and in day-to-day operations. Rather than stopping at strategy decks or point-solution demos, we take on the full arc of AI adoption: from problem definition and proof of concept through to production deployment, adoption support, and ongoing operation.
We work across three connected service lines. Our consulting practice designs and implements AI systems end-to-end, from architecture through to rollout. Our education practice builds AI literacy at every level of a client organisation, from executive teams setting strategy to the forward deployed engineers and deployment strategists doing the building.
Our research practice keeps us at the frontier of what is technically possible, so what we recommend to clients today still holds up a year from now. A defining part of our model is Tokyo AI, the international AI community we founded in 2023 and which now underpins all three service lines. With more than 5,000 members — 70% from outside Japan — 300+ speakers, 70+ partner VC funds, and 80+ events a year, Tokyo AI gives us fast, flexible access to specialist talent for almost any project, without being limited to our own in-house headcount. It has also made us a genuine convening point for Japan’s AI ecosystem, connecting policymakers, corporates, researchers, and investors.
Our leadership team pairs deep global AI experience with long-standing roots in Japan. CEO Iliya Kulyatin has built R&D teams across seven countries and founded Tokyo AI. COO Cedric Wagrez led data strategy and operations at Stability AI and has spent over 20 years leading tech teams in Japan. CTO Declan Clowry spent years scaling enterprise AI at Palantir in the UK and Japan. That combination shows up in the work itself. We’ve deployed a secure, production-grade AI agent platform for one of the top Japanese banks operating inside an air-gapped environment; delivered a sales-forecasting analytics tool used by a major publisher ahead of new releases; run executive AI alignment workshops that turn 'should we use AI' into a concrete strategic roadmap; built a founder deep-search platform for a venture capital firm; t; trained the forward-deployed engineering team of one of Japan’s AI unicorns; and built an AI system for a US-based marketing platform to optimise channel and partner distribution and lift ROI on every campaign.
Our belief is simple: AI’s value isn’t in the demo, it’s in the deployment. We exist to make sure our clients get the latter.
Declan Clowry, CTO of Foundry Labs
'A decade of deploying AI across the UK, Europe and Japan taught me a simple truth: revolutions are not won by technology, they are won by the people determined to use it properly. That is why our truly international team of engineers chose Tokyo as the place to build Foundry Labs. In the white heat of this technological revolution, Japanese enterprise has what matters most: the will to do the thing seriously, and to do it well.'
Why did you join the BCCJ?
Foundry Labs sits naturally at the intersection of the UK and Japan. Our CTO, Declan Clowry, built his enterprise AI career as a digital transformation manager for the NHS before working at Palantir in the UK before bringing that experience to Japan, and our mission is fundamentally about bringing global AI practice into Japanese organisations. The BCCJ is a natural community for us: a trusted network of British and international businesses already established in Japan, many of whom are asking the same questions about AI adoption that we help our clients answer every day. Joining is also a statement of intent — we’re building Foundry Labs for the long term in Japan, and we wanted to be part of a chamber with the credibility and track record to match that commitment.
What do you most hope to gain from your time as a member?
Most immediately, relationships: with BCCJ member companies who are exploring what AI adoption should look like for their organisation, and who might benefit from a partner that takes projects all the way to production rather than stopping at a pilot. Beyond that, we’re hoping to build visibility and credibility within Japan’s international business community as a serious, established AI partner — and to learn from other members navigating their own growth and market challenges in Japan, many of which rhyme with our own.
What makes your organisation unique in your industry or market?
Most AI firms in Japan fall into one of two camps: strategy consultancies that hand over a roadmap and step away, or technical shops that ship a narrow tool. We do neither. We carry projects the full distance, from problem definition through to production deployment and ongoing operation, with a core team that takes direct responsibility for outcomes. We back that core team with Tokyo AI, our 5,000+ member international AI community, giving us fast access to the right specialist for almost any project rather than being limited to our own headcount. And our leadership pairs global AI scale-up experience — Palantir, Stability AI, multi-country R&D — with over 20 years of hands-on experience operating in the Japanese market. That combination of full-stack technical depth, industry breadth, and genuine Japan fluency is rare to find in a single organisation here.
What recent achievements or milestones are you most proud of?
A few stand out. We built a secure, production-grade AI agent platform for a Japanese bank, running inside an isolated environment with enterprise-grade access control — a genuinely hard infrastructure problem, solved end-to-end. For a US-based marketing platform, we built an AI system that optimises how campaigns are distributed across channels and partners, materially improving ROI on every campaign it touches. We also spent a month training the forward-deployed engineering team of one of Japan’s AI unicorns, transplanting Palantir-calibre deployment practices into a Japanese organisation. And Tokyo AI itself, the community we founded in 2023, has grown to more than 5,000 members and 80 events a year — proof that the ecosystem-building side of what we do is working as well as the client work.
What kind of collaborations or connections are you most interested in building through the BCCJ?
We’re interested in two directions at once. First, British companies operating in or entering Japan who are exploring what AI adoption should look like for their business — whether that’s a first strategic conversation or a specific implementation problem. Second, Japanese companies exploring the same questions, where we can help bridge to global AI practice. In both cases, we work at every level of an organisation: with executives shaping strategy, with frontline teams who have to live with whatever gets built, and with the engineers building and maintaining the systems themselves. What we’re ultimately looking for are organisations that want to build new tools and capabilities that empower their teams — not just adopt AI for its own sake.
Contact & Links
Foundry Labs K.K., MIEUX Shibuya Building 8F, 5-3 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0044