Sento (千都, "thousand cities") is a Kyoto-based deep tech startup building digital infrastructure for tomorrow's cities.

We believe Japan's cities are an early model of the global urban future. They are dense, walkable, and highly functional, and at the same time marked by aging infrastructure, demographic decline, and the need to balance modernity with cultural continuity. Urban technologies that succeed in this context can have relevance far beyond Japan.

Our flagship technology, Ninja Codes, is a new class of precision location tracking markers that are invisible at a glance — machine-readable patterns embedded into surfaces as subtle shifts in color, woven into the urban fabric rather than sitting on top of it. Inspired by Kyoto’s landscape ordinances (景観条例) and deployable at scale across city spaces, the technology lays the foundation for a wide range of applications, from augmented reality to robotics, to operate seamlessly in urban settings.

Born out of a scientific research project launched with backing from the Japanese government (Wikitopia Project), we combine academic rigor with a strong focus on real-world deployment. We build in Kyoto, but for a thousand cities worldwide. If our vision resonates with you, we'd love to hear from you.