Founders · #58 of 111
Kaisei Hamamoto 浜本階生
Co-founder & CEO, SmartNews
1,430X followers · @kaiseh · checked 2026-10-17
—note followers
¥44.3Braised by the company, as of 2021-09
Verified 2026-10-17: Company site / press release · Company site / press release
Background
An engineer. Built the web crawler and news reader "Crowsnest" in 2011. When it got little traction, he and Ken Suzuki kept the engine and relaunched it as the SmartNews app in 2012. Source
Public appearances
| Undated Interview | "More engineer than executive": SmartNews co-CEO on its strengths and overseas growth (logmi) 「経営者というよりはエンジニア」スマートニュース共同CEOが語るサービスの強みと海外展開 Hamamoto describes himself as an engineer first. He explains the pivot from Crowsnest to a native app. Summary by The Raising Sun. From search-result summary of the article. |
| Undated Interview | The career of the engineer who built SmartNews (gihyo.jp) 第4回 浜本階生―SmartNewsを作ったエンジニアのキャリア A career interview tracing Hamamoto's path from personal crawler projects to co-founding SmartNews. Summary by The Raising Sun. From search-result summary of the article. |