Globis Capital Partners, the corporate venturing vehicle for education services provider Globis, led a ¥4bn ($37.3m) funding round for Japan-based construction management technology provider Andpad yesterday.
Enterprise software producer Salesforce’s investment arm, Salesforce Ventures, also took part in the round, along with venture capital firms DNX Ventures and Beenext. The company aims to close it at $56m in September this year.
Founded in 2012 as Oct, Andpad has created a cloud-based software tool to help construction project managers streamline on-site operations. It has been downloaded by more than 2,000 companies and has some 50,000 registered users.
The capital will be used to boost product development and improve customer experience in a bid to accelerate the industry’s digitisation efforts and help it cope with labour shortages.
Salesforce Ventures, Beenext and DNX Ventures had originally invested in the company in March 2018 when they provided $3.8m in series A funding, following an eight-figure yen (¥10m = $89,000) amount from angel investors including Yō Shibata in 2016.
Andpad closed its series B round at $22.6m in September 2019, the funding coming from the series A investors and Globis Capital Partners as well as Chibagin Capital, Iyo Bank Capital, Kyoto Bank Lease Capital and Senshu Ikeda Capital, on behalf of financial services firms Chiba Bank, Iyo Bank, Bank of Kyoto and Senshu Ikeda Bank.
