A slew of corporates were among the 12 investors that helped Japan-based human resources (HR) software provider NetOn close a ¥360m ($2.8m) round today, another sign of how software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology is seeing unprecedented expansion in the country.
Online data portal All About, travel agency AirTrip, beauty product distributor Beauty Garage, enterprise chat tool provider Chatwork, digital advertising agency Digital Advertising Consortium and hosting server provider Sakura Internet all took part directly in the round.
AG Capital, Carta Ventures, NCB Venture Capital and Tokai Tokyo Investment meanwhile represented consumer finance provider Aiful, equity management software producer Carta and financial services firms NCB Bank and Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings, respectively.
Private equity and venture capital firm PE&HR filled out the participants along with returning investor Daiwa Corporate Investment, part of brokerage Daiwa Securities.
Founded in 2004, NetOn helps small and medium-sized enterprises manage their HR tasks, with a focus on recruitment. It claims its platform has been used by over 47,000 companies in Japan.
After the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, more Japanese firms are adopting remote-first or hybrid workplace models using SaaS tools.
Salesforce Ventures Japan, a corporate venturing vehicle for enterprise software provider Salesforce, is one of the most active corporate venturers in the local ecosystem, and its former head Shinji Asada left the unit in early 2020 to set up a similarly themed VC firm called One Capital.
Corporates in Japan have been investing in local SaaS technology developers including NetOn peer SmartHR, which counts backing from internet company Digital Garage, marketing firm Nissen and insurer Tokio Marine & Nichido.
Such technology has also been applied outside of the HR space, for example, corporate-backed SaaS groups include restaurant digitisation company Toreta, construction management software provider Andpad and Synspective, which operates a satellite imaging data platform.
Chatwork’s investment in NetOn was already announced in December 2021, which came after a $2.3m round two years earlier that also featured multiple corporates.
