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

Takeshi Hirano Takeshi Hirano
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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 Japan, Arbor 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. I…

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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 Japan, Arbor 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. ↩

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Japanese accounting solution provider, A-SaaS, raises $6.6 million

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
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Accounting SaaS Japan, or A-SaaS for short, is a Tokyo-based startup providing solutions to Japanese accounting firms. The startup announced that today it has raised 625 million yen (approximately $6.6 million) from SalesForce.com, GREE Ventures, and Mobile Internet Capital [1]. Computer systems used at Japanese accounting firms have been mostly dominated by a few vendors for a long time [2]. In partnership with SalesForce.com, the startup plans to optimize their solutions so they can be operated on SaaS environment Force.com, with plans to jointly intensify sales and marketing efforts with the SaaS company. There are about 32,500 accounting firms in Japan, and almost 80% of their systems are dominated by Japan’s top 3 accounting system providers. The startup expects to replace 5,000 of them with their SaaS solutions by the end of 2017, which accounts for 15.4% of all accounting firms in the country. A-Saas was launched back in 2009 by Toshinao Morisaki. He previously worked with accounting solution vendor JDL, and served as the president of its subsidiary Ibex Airlines. Gree Ventures is, of course, the investment arm of Japan’s social gaming giant Gree. Mobile Internet Capital is a VC firm launched by ex-Intel Japan Chairman Ikuo Nishioka. ↩ Japan’s three leading vendors…

a-saas_salesforce_greeventures_mic

Accounting SaaS Japan, or A-SaaS for short, is a Tokyo-based startup providing solutions to Japanese accounting firms. The startup announced that today it has raised 625 million yen (approximately $6.6 million) from SalesForce.com, GREE Ventures, and Mobile Internet Capital [1].

Computer systems used at Japanese accounting firms have been mostly dominated by a few vendors for a long time [2]. In partnership with SalesForce.com, the startup plans to optimize their solutions so they can be operated on SaaS environment Force.com, with plans to jointly intensify sales and marketing efforts with the SaaS company.

There are about 32,500 accounting firms in Japan, and almost 80% of their systems are dominated by Japan’s top 3 accounting system providers. The startup expects to replace 5,000 of them with their SaaS solutions by the end of 2017, which accounts for 15.4% of all accounting firms in the country.

A-Saas was launched back in 2009 by Toshinao Morisaki. He previously worked with accounting solution vendor JDL, and served as the president of its subsidiary Ibex Airlines.

  1. Gree Ventures is, of course, the investment arm of Japan’s social gaming giant Gree. Mobile Internet Capital is a VC firm launched by ex-Intel Japan Chairman Ikuo Nishioka. ↩
  2. Japan’s three leading vendors for accounting firm solutions are TKC, JDL, and MJS. ↩

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  1. Japan’s accounting solution provider A-SaaS raises $8.5 million
  2. Japanese personal accounting startup Money Forward raises $5 million
  3. freee-logo Japanese accounting startup Freee raises $2.7 million from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM

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