Japan-based accounting software provider Freee has raised $60m in a series E round featuring messaging platform Line, financial services firm Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and consumer credit provider Life Card, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
The corporates were joined by undisclosed institutional investors in the round, which increased Freee’s funding to approximately $142m altogether.
Freee runs a cloud-based accounting and human resources platform it claims has attracted more than a million businesses. More than 3,500 third-party apps and services have been built on top of the platform, which employs more than 5,000 certified accountant advisors.
The series E funding will enable Freee to grow its offering, further build out its ecosystem and attract more third-party developers. It is exploring integrations with messaging apps Slack and Line, as well as customer relationship management platform Salesforce.
Freee is also looking into further collaboration with financial services providers, with a marketplace for financial products one possible option. Users can already share their data with banks when applying for loans and other credit products.
The company raised $29m in a 2016 series D round that included Salesforce Ventures, the corporate venturing unit run by Salesforce, as well as electronics producer Sharp, insurance provider Nippon Life and funds run by financial services firm SBI Holdings.
Future Creation Fund, a venture capital fund backed by carmaker Toyota and financial services firm Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, also took part in the round, as did DCM Ventures, Japan Co-Invest and Chibagin Capital, a subsidiary of financial services firm Chiba Bank.
The FinTech Fund had already invested $8.3m in Freee in December 2015, four months after human resources provider Recruit Holdings, DCM and Japan Co-Invest supplied $30m in series C funding for the company.
Recruit’s investment arm, Recruit Strategic Partners, had already contributed to a $12m series B round for Freee in 2014 that included DCM, Infinity Ventures and Pavilion Capital, a subsidiary of Singaporean state-owned investment firm Temasek.