A tri-geo engineering firm that actually operates from Tokyo.

Why a permanent Tokyo hub changes the game

A Tokyo mailbox, many French consulting firms have. A locally-subcontracted BPO, even more. But a real office operated by senior Abbeal engineers who ship code to production daily for both Japanese AND European clients — that's rare. Since 2018, Abbeal operates from Higashi-Azabu (Minato-ku): we sign contracts in yen, invoice in yen, declare in JPY in Japan. Opposite model from the « French consultant parachuted in for 3 months ». The Tokyo hub provides: access to a Japanese tech market largely closed to foreigners (60% of JP tech companies refuse to work without an on-site contact), a cultural and linguistic bridge run by bilingual JP/EN/FR engineers, and an 8-hour timezone advantage over Europe for Follow-the-Sun delivery.

What we do from Tokyo

Local hiring of Japanese seniors

Direct sourcing on JP market (LinkedIn JP, Bizreach, Wantedly), technical validation in Japanese AND English, dual-axis scoring (technical + values alignment). We don't « place » — we integrate into our teams, or support the client's permanent local hiring when relevant.

Client projects from Tokyo

Embedded teams at Money Forward (data backbone for new digital bank, Databricks + AWS Tokyo), Cartier (private LLM fine-tuned on Cartier infra, ongoing 4.5-year engagement), Pichet (AI Vision on real-estate floor plans, Next.js 16 + Claude Vision + Snowflake), Le Monde (Insights team operated from Tokyo for 6 years). Plus industrial robotics JP engagements (cf 80 AGV ROS 2 warehouse case).

Bridge to Paris and Montréal

For European clients wanting a Japan presence without setting up their own subsidiary: Abbeal Tokyo serves as a complete interface. Local hiring of Japanese, contract signing in Japanese jurisdiction, APPI compliance management, knowledge transfer to European teams. The « plug-and-play Tokyo hub » option that saves a European CTO 18 months of setting up an office.

Stack: what gets built from Tokyo

The Tokyo hub specializes in 3 tech lines, without excluding the rest:

• Embedded robotics and edge AI: Rust + ROS 2 + Isaac Sim. Typical case: warehouse AGV fleet, autonomous AMRs, computer vision on production lines. Tokyo advantage: proximity to JP industrials (Toyota, Fanuc, Yaskawa, SoftBank Robotics).
• AI-first software: LLM agents in production, RAG over Japanese corpora (character-intensive vs Latin), fine-tuning pipelines on AWS Tokyo GPUs. Native APPI compliance (Japanese GDPR equivalent).
• Critical industrial software: high-availability back-ends, Japanese ERP integrations (SAP JP, Oracle JP, Glovia), legacy COBOL/mainframe modernization (Japanese bank client case: 4M lines in 14 months).

Practical cases in production

• Money Forward — FinTech joint venture, Japanese leader × major banking group. Stack Databricks + Delta Lake + dbt + AWS Tokyo + Unity Catalog. Team led from Tokyo, 24/7 operations via Follow-the-Sun.
• Pichet Japan — AI Vision on real-estate floor plans, Next.js 16 + Sanity + Claude Vision + pgvector + Snowflake + Vercel. Visually impressive use case backed by local fine-tuning.
• Japanese bank COBOL modernization — 4M lines of COBOL migrated in 14 months via multi-agent AI (Archeologist, Architect, Cleaner). Differentiating case study, unique methodology.

The Abbeal Tokyo team

Sébastien Lonjon (CEO) has been based in Tokyo since 2024. Marie Nuellas, Alexandre Lim and the Mobbeal team are permanently based in Higashi-Azabu. Engineers on mission at our Tokyo clients (Money Forward, Le Monde, Pichet, etc.) gravitate around the office for team rituals. JLPT N2+ for engineers in contact with Japanese clients, FR/EN bilingual for the rest. Physical Tokyo presence, not a full-remote distributed team.