SmartHR, a Japan-based cloud human resources software provider backed by corporates Digital Garage, Nissen and Tokio Marine & Nichido, raised ¥15.6bn ($142m) in series D funding yesterday.
Investment manager Light Street Capital led the round, which was first reported by Nikkei last month. Arena Holdings, Greyhound Capital, Signifiant’s The Fund, Sequoia Heritage and Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Whale Rock Capital Management and an undisclosed company also took part in the round.
Founded in 2013 Kufu, SmartHR has built an enterprise software platform that enables users to automate workforce management-related tasks such as employee payroll and insurance premiums.
The round took the company’s overall funding to approximately $217m. It had closed a $56.8m series C round featuring All Star SaaS Fund, Beenext, Coral Capital, Light Street Capital, Signifiant’s The Fund and World Innovation Lab (WIL) in mid-2019.
Insurance firm Tokio Marine & Nichido and marketing group Nissen had participated in a $13.8m in a series B round for SmartHR in 2018 alongside Coral Capital.
Beenext, Coral Capital (then 500 Startups Japan) and WIL had all chipped into a $4.9m round for the company in mid-2016. It had secured a six-digit dollar amount from internet group Digital Garage’s DG Incubation subsidiary, Beenext and East Ventures earlier in the same year.
