Nikkei reported earlier this morning that Tokyo-based Freee, a Japanese startup behind a cloud-based accounting platform under the same name, is planning to get listed on the TSE Mothers Market in December. Serving over 1 million SMEs all across Japan, the startup is now ranked in the 5th place in valuation among Japanese startups and expects to raise it up to $1 billion through the IPO. Founded in 2012, the platform allows users to scan and read invoices, sort out them, and even automatically create financial statements. In partnership with 270 banks and other financial institutions in Japan, it also allows users to manage the movement of funds by integrating with their baking accounts. The accounting startup has secured more than $140 million US to date from many VCs and other businesses such as Line. Nikkei says the company has filed an application for an IPO, and is expected to get approved by TSE soon. See also: Japanese accounting startup Freee secures $8.3M from SBI’s FinTech Fund, others Japan’s cloud-based accounting startup Freee raises $29 million in series C round Japan’s accounting startup Freee raises $6M from Pavilion Capital and Recruit Holdings Japanese accounting startup Freee raises $2.7 million from…
Freee CEO and co-founder Daisuke Sasaki Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Nikkei reported earlier this morning that Tokyo-based Freee, a Japanese startup behind a cloud-based accounting platform under the same name, is planning to get listed on the TSE Mothers Market in December. Serving over 1 million SMEs all across Japan, the startup is now ranked in the 5th place in valuation among Japanese startups and expects to raise it up to $1 billion through the IPO.
Founded in 2012, the platform allows users to scan and read invoices, sort out them, and even automatically create financial statements. In partnership with 270 banks and other financial institutions in Japan, it also allows users to manage the movement of funds by integrating with their baking accounts.
The accounting startup has secured more than $140 million US to date from many VCs and other businesses such as Line. Nikkei says the company has filed an application for an IPO, and is expected to get approved by TSE soon.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Studio Ousia revealed last week that it had completed an AI (artificial intelligence) inquiry response system using deep learning named QA Engine and that the system was adopted to the auto-answering system of Japan’s cloud accounting system Freee as its first client. The system supports the questions-and-answers style and can hand over questions to human operators when users are dissatisfied with the answers. Freee expects an improvement in customer satisfaction and the efficiency of helpdesk works through the QA Engine adoption. Studio Ousia won an AI quiz competition in Quiz Bowl style at an international conference focused on natural language processing NAACL (North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics) held in San Diego last June. QA Engine was developed leveraging the competition-winning technologies. The firm plans to launch QA Engine as an API (application program interface) service of elemental technologies applicable to answer support system in call centers, human resource matching system or chatbot. See also: Japan’s Studio Ousia wins global NEEL Challenge competition with Entity Linking technology Japan’s Studio Ousia to launch new affiliate solution for bloggers Japan-based Phroni introduces smart add-ons for Dolphin and Sleipnir mobile browsers As recent…
Tokyo-based Studio Ousia revealed last week that it had completed an AI (artificial intelligence) inquiry response system using deep learning named QA Engine and that the system was adopted to the auto-answering system of Japan’s cloud accounting system Freee as its first client. The system supports the questions-and-answers style and can hand over questions to human operators when users are dissatisfied with the answers. Freee expects an improvement in customer satisfaction and the efficiency of helpdesk works through the QA Engine adoption.
Studio Ousia won an AI quiz competition in Quiz Bowl style at an international conference focused on natural language processing NAACL (North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics) held in San Diego last June. QA Engine was developed leveraging the competition-winning technologies. The firm plans to launch QA Engine as an API (application program interface) service of elemental technologies applicable to answer support system in call centers, human resource matching system or chatbot.
As recent topics in this field, Japanese online shopping mall Lohaco’s inquiry response system named Manami-san, which was developed based on a chatbot Caiwa provided by Exiis-Lab, received attention by becoming able to cover one-third of all inquiries to its customer support service. AI developer AL+ (pronounced as “alts”) developed an API Rewritable Memory-based Retrieval (RMR) as a core technology of chatbot and launched a bot development environment AL+ BotFramework supporting LINE or Twitter too. Japan’s BPO (business process outsourcing) / call center service major TransCosmos (TSE:9715) invested in New York-based bot development environment startup Reply.ai this month, and announced that the firm is going to localize the platform for the Japanese market while focusing on introduction to customer support services of the Japanese enterprises.
Studio Ousia was founded through the Keio University SFC (Shonan Fujisawa Campus)’s incubation program, and launched a keyword autolink plugin for smartphone / browser named Phroni in 2012. The firm raised 70 million yen (about $610,000) from Nissei Capital in March of the same year in its series A round, and 100 million yen (about $870,000) from Tokyo-based system developer NID (TSE:2349) in August 2014.
Studio Ousia CEO Ikuya Yamada explains the base technologies of QA Engine at NAACL Image credit: Jordan Boyd-Graber
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
TechCrunch Japan reported last week that Tokyo-based Freee, a Japanese startup behind a cloud-based accounting platform under the same name, has fundraised 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) from several investors including FinTech Fund, an investment fund recently launched by a subsidiary of Japanese financial service giant SBI Holdings (TSE:8473). In conjunction with the previous series C round funding in August, the latest funding means the company has fundraised 4.5 billion yen ($37.3 million) in 2015 to become the most-funded unlisted company in Japan last year. Meanwhile, SBI Holdings recently announced a strategic partnership with Yello Mobile, a Seoul-based conglomerate of Korean mobile startups, for cultivating FinTech businesses in Japan and Southeast Asia. Currently serving over 400,000 companies in Japan, the company announced in December that it has partnered with 11 Japanese megabanks including Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) and Mizuho Bank, giving them an access to accounting data of SMEs and freelancers using the Freee platform upon their approval so that these banks can provide new financial services such as loans using the data for eligibility of expenditures. In contrast to a study by University of Oxford predicting artificial intelligence will replace many jobs including accountants, Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki…
Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki
TechCrunch Japan reported last week that Tokyo-based Freee, a Japanese startup behind a cloud-based accounting platform under the same name, has fundraised 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) from several investors including FinTech Fund, an investment fund recently launched by a subsidiary of Japanese financial service giant SBI Holdings (TSE:8473).
In conjunction with the previous series C round funding in August, the latest funding means the company has fundraised 4.5 billion yen ($37.3 million) in 2015 to become the most-funded unlisted company in Japan last year. Meanwhile, SBI Holdings recently announced a strategic partnership with Yello Mobile, a Seoul-based conglomerate of Korean mobile startups, for cultivating FinTech businesses in Japan and Southeast Asia.
Currently serving over 400,000 companies in Japan, the company announced in December that it has partnered with 11 Japanese megabanks including Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) and Mizuho Bank, giving them an access to accounting data of SMEs and freelancers using the Freee platform upon their approval so that these banks can provide new financial services such as loans using the data for eligibility of expenditures.
In contrast to a study by University of Oxford predicting artificial intelligence will replace many jobs including accountants, Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki does not think this will happen because accountants will be able to provide business owners with useful advice on business decisions by leveraging automated systems like Freee.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Freee, a cloud-based accounting platform startup under the same name, announced today that it has fundraised 3.5 billion yen ($29 million) from US-based VC firm DCM, Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098), Japan Coinvest Limited Partnership in the series C round. With the latest funds, the company has fundraised 5.2 billion yen ($43 million) since its launch in 2012. See also: Japan’s accounting startup Freee raises $6M from Pavilion Capital and Recruit Holdings Japanese cloud-based accounting startup Freee raises $8M Japanese accounting startup Freee raises $2.7 million from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM At a news conference this July, Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki revealed that he aims to make his company a unicon, a startup worth over $1 billion. Cloud-contained society, a new product concept by Freee, was announced following the introduction of several initiatives by the Japanese government, such as the launch of e-Gov API (application program interface) and the national identification number system, as well as the change of the electronic form storage method for tax documents. These changes may accelerate the adoption of cloud-based systems into many business applications, encouraging many startups to focus on cloud-based services for businesses. Freee also aims…
Tokyo-based Freee, a cloud-based accounting platform startup under the same name, announced today that it has fundraised 3.5 billion yen ($29 million) from US-based VC firm DCM, Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098), Japan Coinvest Limited Partnership in the series C round. With the latest funds, the company has fundraised 5.2 billion yen ($43 million) since its launch in 2012.
At a news conference this July, Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki revealed that he aims to make his company a unicon, a startup worth over $1 billion.
Cloud-contained society, a new product concept by Freee, was announced following the introduction of several initiatives by the Japanese government, such as the launch of e-Gov API (application program interface) and the national identification number system, as well as the change of the electronic form storage method for tax documents. These changes may accelerate the adoption of cloud-based systems into many business applications, encouraging many startups to focus on cloud-based services for businesses.
Freee also aims to be a platform that supports small businesses. Using the funds, the company plans to develop services supporting a wider range of back office operations for small businesses. Freee launched a company foundation support service in June, followed by other menus like cloud-based accounting and payroll services. The company will launch a new service supporting the Japanese national identification number system for businesses in October, followed by supporting the change of the electronic form storage method by end of 2015.
Competition in this sector is heating up as many companies are shifting to cloud-based services. Sasaki explained how his company beats the competition:
Freee has the top share in Japan for cloud-based accounting, having accumulated much knowledge. In addition, we are the only company focused on cloud-based services for small businesses, which means our resources are focused on the targeted niche.
Based on all these factors, our designs for easy user operations are common in our all services. Many surrounding services will be integrated into the Freee accounting platform – taking a high share of the industry, which will also benefit our users.
Tokyo-based Freee, a startup that provides cloud-based accounting platform under the same name, just announced today that it has fundraised 630 million yen (about $6 million) from Singapore-based Pavilion Capital and Japan’s Recruit Holdings. Pavilion Capital is a subsidiary of Singapore’s state-backed investment conglomerate Temasek Group. This follows their previous funding of $8 million from US-based DCM and Japan’s Infinity Venture Partners. See also: Japanese cloud-based accounting startup Freee raises $8M Coinciding with this announcement, the company added an expense reimbursement feature to the platform, which allows users to streamline their expense reimbursement process by scanning receipts with their smartphone camera. This feature is available with an iOS app, but an Android version and a desktop interface will also support the feature. via CNET Japan
Tokyo-based Freee, a startup that provides cloud-based accounting platform under the same name, just announced today that it has fundraised 630 million yen (about $6 million) from Singapore-based Pavilion Capital and Japan’s Recruit Holdings. Pavilion Capital is a subsidiary of Singapore’s state-backed investment conglomerate Temasek Group. This follows their previous funding of $8 million from US-based DCM and Japan’s Infinity Venture Partners.
Coinciding with this announcement, the company added an expense reimbursement feature to the platform, which allows users to streamline their expense reimbursement process by scanning receipts with their smartphone camera. This feature is available with an iOS app, but an Android version and a desktop interface will also support the feature.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Freee, the operator of a cloud-based accounting solution of the same name, has raised $8 million from two venture capital firms, including DCM and Infinity Venture Partners. This is according to a Nikkei reported earlier this morning. Prior to this funding, the company secured a $500,000 in seed round funding from DCM back in March of last year, and a $2.7 million series A round of funding from DCM and Infinity Venture Partners back in July. The total amount of funding to date has reached $11.2 million since the company’s launch back in July of 2012. For more information about the company, check out our brief interview below with their execs from back in October. In this space, their competitor Money Forward also raised $5 million from Jafco back in October.
Tokyo-based Freee, the operator of a cloud-based accounting solution of the same name, has raised $8 million from two venture capital firms, including DCM and Infinity Venture Partners. This is according to a Nikkei reported earlier this morning.
Prior to this funding, the company secured a $500,000 in seed round funding from DCM back in March of last year, and a $2.7 million series A round of funding from DCM and Infinity Venture Partners back in July. The total amount of funding to date has reached $11.2 million since the company’s launch back in July of 2012. For more information about the company, check out our brief interview below with their execs from back in October.
Our readers may recall that a couple of Japanese mobile payment solutions recently struck partnerships with tablet-based register apps. And now there’s another announcement in this space. Tokyo-based Freee, the startup behind the Cloud-based accounting app of the same name, announced yesterday that it has partnered with Recruit Lifestyle. Freee will integrate with Recruit Lifestyle’s tablet-based register app AirRegi in order to automate invoicing and accounting at retail stores, thus cutting out much time-consuming work. Since its launch back in November, AirRegi has acquired more than 35,000 merchants across Japan (as of March 18th, 2014). Freee has more than 60,000 user accounts, including freelancers, startups, and SMEs. The company recently introduced an iOS app aiming to help their users finish accounting tasks without having to spend so much time in front of a desktop terminal. via Internet.com (Japan)
Our readers may recall that a couple of Japanese mobile payment solutions recently struck partnerships with tablet-based register apps. And now there’s another announcement in this space.
Tokyo-based Freee, the startup behind the Cloud-based accounting app of the same name, announced yesterday that it has partnered with Recruit Lifestyle. Freee will integrate with Recruit Lifestyle’s tablet-based register app AirRegi in order to automate invoicing and accounting at retail stores, thus cutting out much time-consuming work.
Since its launch back in November, AirRegi has acquired more than 35,000 merchants across Japan (as of March 18th, 2014). Freee has more than 60,000 user accounts, including freelancers, startups, and SMEs. The company recently introduced an iOS app aiming to help their users finish accounting tasks without having to spend so much time in front of a desktop terminal.
The quality of start-ups nominated for tonight’s CNet Japan Startup Awards is high, and Japanese entrepreneurs are seeking to solve problems on par with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. This is part seven of our preview of the nominees. The rest can be found here. Tokyo Otaku Mode Tokyo Otaku Mode (or TOM) is the 500 Startup graduate that exploded on the startup scene with a massive Facebook presence. The most fascinating part about TOM is how its growth trajectory has been the reverse of most startups. The normal flow goes something like this: a few entrepreneurs have an idea, build their product, then market it. But TOM started out by building a massive Facebook following of millions of fans. Since TOM hit critical mass on Facebook, it has been trying to figure out a problem most entrepreneurs would love to have: Well, we have reach. What’s next? From building iOS and Android apps, to an Etsy-like UGC strategy, it’s been fun watching them stumble uphill. Or as one of their angel investors, Craig Mod, perfectly summed up, “building their shrine”. Freee Like Quickbooks, BodeTree, Xero, Yendo, Zoho, et al., Freee is a cloud based software that helps small businesses with their…
The quality of start-ups nominated for tonight’s CNet Japan Startup Awards is high, and Japanese entrepreneurs are seeking to solve problems on par with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. This is part seven of our preview of the nominees. The rest can be found here.
Tokyo Otaku Mode
Tokyo Otaku Mode
Tokyo Otaku Mode (or TOM) is the 500 Startup graduate that exploded on the startup scene with a massive Facebook presence. The most fascinating part about TOM is how its growth trajectory has been the reverse of most startups. The normal flow goes something like this: a few entrepreneurs have an idea, build their product, then market it. But TOM started out by building a massive Facebook following of millions of fans.
Since TOM hit critical mass on Facebook, it has been trying to figure out a problem most entrepreneurs would love to have:
Well, we have reach. What’s next?
From building iOS and Android apps, to an Etsy-like UGC strategy, it’s been fun watching them stumble uphill. Or as one of their angel investors, Craig Mod, perfectly summed up, “building their shrine”.
Freee
Like Quickbooks, BodeTree, Xero, Yendo, Zoho, et al., Freee is a cloud based software that helps small businesses with their accounting. Founded by five-year Google veteran Daisuke Sasaki, who led Google’s small-to-medium sized business marketing in the APAC region, Freee fills a much needed hole in Japan. While working for Google, he realized a there was a huge problem with web-based accounting software, often only working on certain browsers and with a not so friendly user experience.
This year has been a huge year for Freee. They re-branded, raised $27M Series A, and added features and functions to streamline tedious paper-to-digital administrative tasks.
Freee addresses relevant problems for any small- to mid-sized businesses and is building partnerships [1], features, and functions that prove they are one step ahead of their competitors. Recently they added a POS (point of sale) system on their iPad app, and last week they announced a collaboration with receipt tracking app ReceReco to simplify the paper receipt tracking process.
Schoo
Schoo
Schoo is an online learning platform founded by entrepreneurs with editorial backgrounds. Their vision is to encourage other entrepreneurs to be ‘eternal students’ by providing e-learning content focused on the startup and venture world. We recently talked with the founders about their strategy for building a quality e-learning space, and I encourage you to check out that discussion [2].
Coiney
Coiney is the fourth major player in mobile payment solutions along with PayPal Here, Square and Rakuten SmartPay. All four have similar products and strategies. Square and PayPal Here have challenges most US based companies have: localization. Coiney knows and understands the Japanese market as the founder is ex-PayPal Japan.
Rakuten SmartPay’s obstacle is that Rakuten is a massive corporation. In order to quickly gain traction in a highly competitive field like mobile payments, agility is a necessity. If Rakuten SmartPay can figure out how to move and iterate quickly, they will become a major player, as Rakuten Ichiba has existing relationships with small businesses in Japan. Keep in mind that Base is also a mobile payment solution player to be reckoned with, tackling market penetration in a different way [3].
This is definitely one race to keep an eye on.
Good luck to all four finalists tonight at the CNet Japan Startup Awards!
Partnerships with Suica and Seven and i Holdings Co. to track, record, and automate transportation and credit card expenditures. ↩
Freee is the Tokyo-based startup behind a cloud-based accounting solution. Readers may recall it has previously raised seed funding worth 50 million yen (about $523,000) back in December, and raised series A funding worth 270 million yen ($2.7 million) back in July. They recently relocated their office, and we visited the new location to speak with Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki and COO Sumito Togo to hear about their future plans. The company recently partnered with Tokyo-based startup Ubiregi, integrating the Freee accounting platform with the latter’s cloud-based POS (point of sales) system earlier this month. For small retailers or restaurant owners, this integration lets you automate your back office tasks, ranging from daily cash to accounts. By making use of such a service, they can save a lot of time and refocus their efforts on providing a better experience for their customers. In Japan, the penetration rate of cloud services is very low, not only at big companies but also at SMEs. Cloud services can easily provide up-to-date solutions for users. In order to encourage business people to change the paradigm of the Japanese business scene, we need to provide something more than cloud services. If we can create something…
Freee is the Tokyo-based startup behind a cloud-based accounting solution. Readers may recall it has previously raised seed funding worth 50 million yen (about $523,000) back in December, and raised series A funding worth 270 million yen ($2.7 million) back in July.
They recently relocated their office, and we visited the new location to speak with Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki and COO Sumito Togo to hear about their future plans.
The company recently partnered with Tokyo-based startup Ubiregi, integrating the Freee accounting platform with the latter’s cloud-based POS (point of sales) system earlier this month. For small retailers or restaurant owners, this integration lets you automate your back office tasks, ranging from daily cash to accounts. By making use of such a service, they can save a lot of time and refocus their efforts on providing a better experience for their customers.
In Japan, the penetration rate of cloud services is very low, not only at big companies but also at SMEs. Cloud services can easily provide up-to-date solutions for users. In order to encourage business people to change the paradigm of the Japanese business scene, we need to provide something more than cloud services. If we can create something special in the Japanese market, we can top the global market at the same time.
In the past for SME owners, when you bought software for your back office operations, you were forced to buy a cheap edition if you couldn’t pay high license fees. Many companies could not use the full features of software that enterprises were making the most of. We thought this was ridiculous and we wanted to develop solutions to help SMEs liberate themselves from routine tasks and use more time for doing creative jobs.
Their team is working on adding new features to the platform but paying attention to keeping it simple so that people who are not accounting-savvy can keep using them. In the future, they expect to add several features like an instant-submission income tax report, and automating payroll calculations.
On their 12-person team Freee has seven engineers, but is hiring new people who can work on a variety of issues ranging from mobile app development to server-side maintenance. If any of our readers are interested, feel free to contact the company via thier recruiting page.
Tokyo-based cloud startup Freee announced today that it has raised 270 million yen (approximately $2.7 million) in a series A funding from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM. This follows the previous seed round where the company secured seed funding of 50 million yen (about $523,000) from DCM back in December. Coinciding with this new funding, the startup rebranded its company name to Freee from CFO K.K., coinciding with the name of its accounting service. At the time of its launch back in March, CEO Daisuke Sasaki stated his goal of acquiring at least 10,000 users in its first year. Surprisingly it is way ahead of that pace, acquiring 6,500 users in the last four and half months, 1.7 times faster than expected. The startup originally planned series A funding for the end of this year but moved up its timeline to accelerate service expansion and user growth. With these new funds, the startup is expecting to hire additional staff and intensify its system development. According to Mr. Sasaki, their users have given them a lot of feedback, and they have been adding features and refining user interface based on those responses. He believes these efforts have helped them acquire many…
Tokyo-based cloud startup Freee announced today that it has raised 270 million yen (approximately $2.7 million) in a series A funding from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM. This follows the previous seed round where the company secured seed funding of 50 million yen (about $523,000) from DCM back in December. Coinciding with this new funding, the startup rebranded its company name to Freee from CFO K.K., coinciding with the name of its accounting service.
At the time of its launch back in March, CEO Daisuke Sasaki stated his goal of acquiring at least 10,000 users in its first year. Surprisingly it is way ahead of that pace, acquiring 6,500 users in the last four and half months, 1.7 times faster than expected. The startup originally planned series A funding for the end of this year but moved up its timeline to accelerate service expansion and user growth.
With these new funds, the startup is expecting to hire additional staff and intensify its system development. According to Mr. Sasaki, their users have given them a lot of feedback, and they have been adding features and refining user interface based on those responses. He believes these efforts have helped them acquire many new users, and now his first priority is to form a responsive team.
Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki
The company has three key topics that it will focus on moving forward: opening up to third-party services, easing collaborative work, and providing a better user experience. They plan to introduce an API that encourages third-party developers to connect with its platform, which should help the platform in terms of its collaborative capabilities. To improve user experience, they are expecting to introduce a native app for tablet devices to allow users to record and sort out their revenue and expenses regardless of where they are.
Some of our readers may recall that the company previously won the top prize at the Infinity Ventures Summit back in May, a conference hosted by Japan’s Infinity Ventures Partners. We’ve seen more than a few outstanding financial apps in the Japanese startup scene, and Freee can be considered to be among the best of them.
Freee 
Masaru Ikeda
Junya Mori
Takeshi Hirano
Mona Nomura
Tokyo-based cloud startup 
