Born and raised in Kobe in Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture, Mikitani graduated from Hitotsubashi University in 1988 with a degree in commerce. After university he started working at the Industrial Bank of Japan, breaking for three years in 1991 to study at the Harvard Business School. The earthquake that struck Kobe in 1995 changed his outlook, and he decided to leave the banking industry, and do something to help regenerate Japan’s economy. With this in mind, he set up the Crimson Group, a consulting organization.

A year later in February 1997, Mikitani, along with three co-founders established MDM, Inc. an e-commerce company, following on the footsteps of the recently launched Amazon. On the 1st of May of that year, their online marketplace Rakuten Ichiba was launched, changing its name to simply Rakuten in 1999 and floating on the Japanese Stock Exchange in 2000.

In 2010 the business started to focus on international markets, buying companies in Europe and North America. Today it has sales of almost US$6 billion. They have large sponsorship deals with FC Barcelona and Golden State Warriors, an NBA franchise.

The company invested US$300 million n Uber competitor Lyft, with Mikitani joining their board. They also bought Viber in 2014 for US$900 million, a competitor of WhatsApp.