Tomohiro Takano

Tomohiro Takano is the co-founder and CEO of Genomelink (operated by AWAKENS, Inc.), a Berkeley-based consumer genomics company building what he calls a 'DNA App Store.' The platform lets people who have taken tests from services like 23andMe or AncestryDNA upload their raw DNA data to unlock ancestry breakdowns, ancient-DNA comparisons, hundreds of trait analyses, and DNA matching. Takano started the company in 2016 as a weekend project in Japan with co-founders he met at university, moved to the Bay Area with no visa and little funding, and won a spot at Berkeley SkyDeck one day before the team was set to fly home and shut down. He frames himself as a 'risk manager' rather than a risk taker, and credits a liberal arts education for teaching him to ask the right questions.