Globis leads $22m Series C for Japan's Trend Express

JIC Venture Growth Investments, DNX Ventures, WM Partners, Sapphire Capital, Dentsu Ventures, Dimension, MTG Ventures, and AirTrip also participated. Previous backers include NTT Docomo Ventures, Japan Post Capital, Accord Ventures, Draper Nexus Venture Partners, and Evolable Asia.

Trend Express spun out from Hotto Link, Japan’s largest social data provider, in 2015. It supports marketing and business development activities related to the “bakugai” phenomenon, a term for shopping booms created by Chinese tourists in Japan.

Services include forecasting tools for inbound customers, public relations, cross-border e-commerce support, product development, production demand refinement, research, advertising, and distribution.

The fresh capital will support technology development, engineer recruitment, and the addition of corporate personnel to prepare for an IPO. There will also be efforts to explore cross-border corridors other than with China.

The company has continued to grow sales by 200% a year or more on average since 2019 despite severe impacts related to the pandemic, according to a statement. It expects the development of new business lines in areas such as social commerce will allow it to triple its growth rate.

There are high hopes for a boom in inbound tourism in Japan following a relaxation of travel restrictions. In July, Taiwan-based travel start-up KKday, which counts Japan as its largest market, closed a USD 95m Series C on expectations that the whole of Asia, excluding China, would be open next year.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Support services
• Technology
• Consumer
• Japan
• China
• Globis Capital Partners
• Japan Investment Corporation (JIC)
• WM Partners
• e-commerce