They ran tea shops and podcasts. Now they're in the arms trade.
Terra Drone CEO Toru Tokushige is pivoting his civilian drone company into the defense sector following pressure from the Japanese government to bolster military capabilities. This shift reflects a broader trend of tech startups increasingly engaging with defense agencies amid rising geopolitical tensions.
Why it matters
The integration of agile tech startups into the defense industrial base is changing how nations approach military procurement and rapid innovation.
Toru Tokushige, CEO of Terra Drone. Noriko Hayashi for BI In early May 2025, Toru Tokushige was alone in his Tokyo office when the general came knocking. It was the Golden Week, Japan's biggest holiday, and everyone else was on vacation. Manabu Shimamoto, a retired major general, had come to implore the 56-year-old CEO of Terra Drone to help secure Japan's future. Their country desperately lacked drones , Shimamoto explained. Small drones. Cheap drones. Drones that could literally fly off the production line. Drones that could swarm and kill . Tokushige, whose publicly listed drone company has been entirely civilian since its inception in 2016, had spent years researching the military side of the industry. Thrice he'd looked into the market, and thrice had chosen not to pursue. It was too complex, too archaic, with too much red tape.
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