Photo by Jelena Rudi
One of the many Japanese e-residents who moved to Estonia, Kota Alex Saito, seconds Vatter’s words on why he initially became an e-resident three years ago: “It sounded like the future. So I decided to come to Estonia just for 3 months to experience the actual e-Estonia and avoid the hot and humid Japanese summer. But this experience – the lovely environment, friendly people and stimulating business environment – turned my life upside down. A year later, I declined the job offer from a consulting firm in Japan to physically relocate to Estonia and found a company, all thanks to the e-Residency programme.” After initially working for Veriff, an Estonian startup, Saito has now set up his own company. SetGo works with a wide range of startups in IT, trading and even a sports association, offering them consulting services to bridge Estonian and Japanese business environments. “E-Residency really helped my relocation to Estonia even though it does not work as a visa. I can do almost the same things that an Estonian does.” As a contributor to Forbes Japan and other business media as well, Saito is essentially one of the soft-power agents telling the story of e-Estonia and its business environment. “In the long term, it would make sense to set up a subscription-based model,” Vatter sums up his plans and adds that it’s more about the quality and less the quantity. “And why not reach the number of 10 million e-residents sometime in the future?”
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