Japan’s accounting solution provider A-SaaS raises $8.5 million

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This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Accounting SaaS Japan (A-SaaS for short) announced today that it has fundraised a series B funding worth 1 billion yen (or about $8.46 million) from Fidelity Growth Partners JapanArbor Ventures, I Mercury Capital, and Mobile Internet Capital. Mobile Internet Capital participated in the previous round [1].

Coinciding with the funds, Fidelity’s Japan head David Milstein will join the board of A-SaaS. A-SaaS will hire new people to strengthen systems development and sales promotion efforts using the funds.

Since its launch back in June of 2009, A-SaaS has offered a cloud-based accounting platform targeting small/medium-sized enterprises. In June of 2013, they partnered with Salesforce.com and fundraised 625 million yen ($6.25 million) from GREE Ventures and Mobile Internet Capital as well as other investors. A-SaaS is a first-of-its-kind which has been followed by other startups like Freee (launched in July of 2012) and Money Forward (January of 2014).

The company was founded by Toshinao Morisaki, the former president of Ibex Airlines and the former director of JDL (Japan Digital Laboratory, TSE:6935). He started A-SaaS by raising funds from 800 tax accountants and took almost five years to introduce its first prototype. While there are 35,000 accounting offices of all types in Japan, A-SaaS has acquired about 1,600 accounting offices as users to date.


  1. I Mercury Capital is the investment arm of Japan’s internet company Mixi. Mobile Internet Capital is a VC firm launched by ex-Intel Japan Chairman Ikuo Nishioka. ↩