Japan Post Capital leads $26m Series E for Sansan
Japan Post Capital has led a JPY3 billion ($26.4 million) Series E round for Sansan, a Tokyo-based company that applies cloud technology to business card management services.
Other participants include SBI Investment, DCM Ventures, and T Rowe Price. The capital will be used for an expansion into Southeast Asia. It brings the company’s total funds raised to date to about JPY11.4 billion. “With fresh funding, we are well positioned to strengthen the whole value chain from marketing to sales, and customer success,” Chika Terada, CEO of Sansan, said in a statement.
Founded in 2007, Sansan uses cloud-enabled optical character recognition software to digitize business cards, track the job changes of people on record, and monitor their social media presence. The system is positioned as an “internal social network of business contacts” that is particularly supportive to sales and marketing departments. It claims an accuracy rate of 99.9%.
Sansan's services are used by more than 7,000 companies globally, including tech conglomerate Lenovo and pharmaceuticals giant Merck & Co. Early traction in Southeast Asia includes uptake by Singaporean entities A*Star and Ngee Ann Polytechnic, as well as the Singapore-based units of Tokyo Gas, Mitsui OSK Lines, Shimadzu, and Sumitomo Chemical.
Other investors in Sansan include Mirai Creation Investment, Salesforce Ventures, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment, Sparx Group, Nissay Capital, Energy & Environment Investment, GMO Venture Partners, Innovation Network of Japan, Nikkei Digital Media, CyberAgent Investment, and Recruit Incubation Partners. Last year, the company received a JPY4.2 billion Series D.
Japan Post Capital was established in 2017 to support Japanese start-ups that have the potential to leverage the network and brand power of Japan Post Group. A similar venture was launched earlier this year in the form of Japan Post Investment Corporation. It combines the resources of Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance to back later-stage pre-IPO companies, including technology start-ups.
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