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Tokyo-based WealthNavi, the company offering a technology-based asset management service under the same name, announced that IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on December 22 with plans to offer 2.5 million shares for public subscription and to sell 1,559,400 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 13,094,300 shares. The underwriting will be led by SBI securities while WealthNavi’s ticker code will be 7342.

Based on the estimated issue price of 1,100 yen (about $10.5), the company will be valued at 49.5 billion yen (about $474.5 million). Its share price range will be released on December 3 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on December 7 and pricing on December 11. According to the consolidated statement as of December 2019, they posted revenue of 1.55 billion yen ($14.8 million) with an ordinary loss of 2.06 billion yen ($19.7 million).

WealthNavi was founded back in April of 2015 by CEO Kazuhisa Shibayama who previously worked at finance ministries of Japan and UK respectively after graduating from the University of Tokyo. After leaving the public sector, he joined McKinsey to risk and asset management projects for institutional investors.

The robo-advisory service provides a fully-automated asset management platform so that users can enjoy long-term and diversified investments. The company has now acquired 340,000 accounts and managed assets worth over 310 billion yen ($3.0 billion). The company was ranked in 10 of the most valued private companies in Japan by Nikkei last year.

WealthNavi is well known for having raised funds from more than 20 VC firms. Led by CEO Shibayama (24.84%), the company’s major shareholders include SBI Holdings and SBI Investment (13.5%), GREE Ventures (9.18%, now known as Strive), Infinity Venture Partners (6.39%, now known as Infinity Ventures), and Global Brain (5.96%, Global Brain also joins co-investment with Sony Financial Ventures), DBJ Capital (2.80%), and UTokyo Innovation Platform (2.40%).

See also:J

• Japan’s leading robo-advisory startup WealthNavi gets $41M in funding and loans
• Japanese robo-advisory startup WealthNavi secures $15M series B from SBI, others

Tokyo-based WealthNavi, the company offering a technology-based asset management service under the same name, announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised 1.5 billion yen (about $15 million) in a series B round. Participating companies in this round were SBI Holdings, SBI Investment, Mizuho Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, DBJ Capital, and Infinity Venture Partners.

Additionally, the startup has partnered with SBI securities and Sumishin SBI Net Bank, both of which are subsidiaries of SBI Holdings, to offer the robo-advisory service to SBI’s 2.6 million online banking customers plus 3.6 million stock trading customers. This funding means that the company has fundraised a total of 2.1 billion yen (about $21 million) since the company’s launch back in April of 2015.

WealthNavi offers a cloud-based robo-advisory service that helps middle-income people better locate diversified investments internationally. The service was officially launched in July this year.

It is said that SBI Group has been massively helping regional banks and credit unions nationwide in Japan adopt FinTech services since they are typically small and have few resources to catch up with the new trend unlike typical megabanks. Through the partnership with the financial conglomerate, WealthNavi also expects to gain access to a huge base of potential customers that these regional institutions possess.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy