Japan's Baseconnect gets $41m Series B

Jafco, Japan Post Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and NTT Docomo Ventures also participated. They were joined by employment agency En Japan, business intelligence provider Uzabase, and Kyoto Shinkin Bank.

It brings total funding since the company’s inception in early 2017 to more than USD 62m, according to AVCJ Research. This includes a JPY 1.8bn Series A in 2020 featuring YJ Capital, Jafco, Bank of Kyoto, Canal Ventures, East Venture, Future Venture Capital, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, and Mizuho Capital, among others.

YJ Capital, formerly Yahoo Japan Capital, and East Ventures were the first institutional backers in February 2017. ZVC remains a subsidiary of Yahoo Japan, which is itself part of Z Holdings, Japan’s largest internet group. It is mandated to focus on technologies, including B2B software, that support Z Holding’s broader network.

Baseconnect positions itself as a technology provider that helps small to medium-sized enterprises digitalise their sales functions, thereby increasing efficiencies in areas such as labour productivity.

The flagship product, Musubu, launched in 2018, is used by more than 100,000 companies, according to a statement. It is touted as an all-in-one sales and recruitment digitalisation service, able to identify customer candidates with a high probability of closing, conduct sales approaches, and analyse customers.

Human resources technologies, job platforms, and teamwork support tools represent a discrete and attractive niche for private equity and venture capital in Japan. Jafco, Salesforce Ventures, and Mizuho Bank were active in this space as recently as last August when they backed a JPY 4.5bn Series B for oVice, a virtual co-working start-up.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Japan
• YJ Capital
• JAFCO
• Japan Post Bank
• Salesforce Ventures