Japan's ChatWork raises $12.5 Series B round
Japan-based business chat platform ChatWork has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding from Jafco, SMBC Venture Capital and GMO Venture Partners.
The company, which was set up in 2011, works with 86,000 companies across 204 countries, providing a multi-lingual platform that has secure messaging, video chat, task management and file-sharing functions. The core product is free and users pay for additional services.
ChatWork raised $2.5 million in its Series A round last year, provided by GMO. Around the same time, the company's US equivalent - Slack - completed a $160 million Series E round at a valuation of $2.8 billion.
ChatWork claims to be the number one business chat app in Asia and will use the new capital to support growth in the US and other Western countries. The company already has an office in Silicon Valley, as well as bases in Tokyo and Osaka.
"Given ChatWork's proven success, we believe they are uniquely positioned to accelerate their global expansion and further innovate business chat for the future of work," Keisuke Miyoshi, a board member at Jafco, said in a statement.
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