Japan enterprise blockchain supplier LayerX raises $40m
Japan’s LayerX, an enterprise technology supplier that incorporates blockchain into functions such as expense management, has raised JPY 5.5bn (USD 40m) from a mostly local VC syndicate.
Jafco, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Spiral Capital, Z Venture Capital, GMO Venture Partners, Anri, and Prime Partners participated in the Series A round with support from Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Estate.
They were joined by UK-based Dawn Capital and Singapore’s Beenext Capital Management. Mitsubishi Estate invested via its Bricks Fund Tokyo, a vehicle it set up last year with Prime Partners targeting a corpus of JPY 10bn.
The capital will be used to build out sales capacity and develop new products, keeping with the theme of corporate spending data. It builds on a JPY 3bn seed round in 2020 featuring Jafco, Anri, and Z Venture Capital, then known as YJ Capital.
LayerX describes itself as a financial technology and software-as-a-service start-up aimed at digitalising all aspects of business activity. It claims to have helped around 3,000 companies streamline operations around invoice processing, expense reimbursement, and corporate cards since its inception in 2020.
In a statement, Ryu Muramatsu, a founding partner at GMO, described the company’s offering as a sophisticated workflow and business infrastructure product that could revolutionise of corporate expenditure-related operations in terms of productivity.
Much of the technology behind LayerX is artificial intelligence, but the company is increasingly touted as a blockchain provider. This is perhaps most visible in a new digital asset management services business line launched in a joint venture with Mitsui & Co.
Corporate digitalisation has become a prominent theme in Japan given the country is ranked relatively low in these competencies globally. Only 9% of Japanese retail is online (versus 24% in China); digital talent represents 1% of the workforce (3% in the US); and penetration of mobile banking is 6.9% (35.2% in China).
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