PLAID Inc., Raises 2.7 Billion JPY in Funding

Shinagawa, Tokyo - PLAID Inc. (CEO Kenta Kurahashi, hereinafter referred to as “PLAID”), the creator of the CX platform “KARTE” for digital marketers, raised a total of 2.7 billion JPY in funding through private equity placement with existing shareholders, Femto Startup LLP, Eight Roads Ventures Japan, and new underwriters MITSUI & CO., LTD. , MITSUI SUMITOMO INSURANCE Venture Capital Co.,Ltd., SMBC Venture Capital Co.,

Mizuho Capital Co.,Ltd., Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd. (in random order), in addition to bank loans from banks including Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Left: CEO Kenta Krahashi
Right: CTO Naoki Shibayama

Up to this date, PLAID had already raised approximately 650 million JPY from Femto Startup LLP and Fidelity Growth Partners Japan. Accumulated total amount of funding since the release of closed beta version of “KARTE” in July 2014 adds up to approximately 3.4 billion JPY.

Since its official launch in March 2015, number of web-sites and companies implementing “KARTE” have continued to increase. Within these three years, it has analyzed an accumulated total of 2.2 billion users, and up to 548 billion JPY of total annual sales for EC clients, which accounts for approximately half of our clients.

In terms of operating revenue, we have successfully achieved monthly surplus in March 2017. KARTE has been organically growing at a rate succeeding the growth index ”T2D3”*, an index used mainly at overseas software provider for business through cloud system (so called SaaS). Its growth stands comparison with globally known SaaS services.

* “T2D3” is a short for “triple, triple, double, double, double”, referring to a company’s annualized revenue growth. It is mainly used in overseas start-up business circle and considered as an index for a successful cloud/SaaS service. As a fact Salesforce and Workday (cloud service for human resources) went through a rapid growth that trace this index.

Objectives of Funding

The main objectives of this fund raising are:

1. to begin a full-scale marketing investment
2. to strengthen hiring activity in all profession in association with expansion of business area such as mobile applications
3. to construct a scalable development framework to handle increasing data along with the business spread into non-EC categories (such as real-estate, financial industry)

Furthermore we have already started KARTE implementation to some overseas companies in area such as North America, Taiwan and Singapore, and will accelerate our movements towards full-scale entry into overseas market as well as our investments to R&D projects, “K∀RT3 GARDEN” (KARTE GARDEN) as an example.

Underwriters

• Femto Partners Inc.
  (5-53-67 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo General Partner: Tetsuya Isozaki)
• Eight Roads Ventures Japan
  (7-7-7 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo Head of Japan: David Milstein)
• MITSUI & CO., LTD.
  (1-1-3 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo President & CEO: Tatsuo Yasunaga)
• MITSUI SUMITOMO INSURANCE Venture Capital Co.,Ltd.
  (1-2-5 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo President: Hisakazu Ishigami)
• SMBC Venture Capital Co.,Ltd.
  (1-3-4 Yaesu, Chuo-ku, Tokyo President: Tatsufumi Ishibashi)
• Mizuho Capital Co.,Ltd.
  (1-2-1 Uchisaiwai-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo President: Hajime Saito)
• Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd.
  (1-7-17 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo President: Muneki Handa)

About KARTE https://karte.io/

“KARTE” is a one-stop service that provides a prompt analysis and a real time visualization of web site visitors’ behavioral data on a per-person level, to allow marketers to make appropriate communications with each and one of their customers. The service began in March 2015. With its high extensibility, communication with the customers are not limited to online and can be spread into multiple scenes and channels. It also has the flexibility to integrate with any other existing services allowing different ways to approach each business owner’s marketing needs. KARTE lets you understand your customer deeply from various data and create a better customer experience (CX).

If you would like more information about the topic, please email Yukiyo Sakurai, Public Relations, at press@plaid.co.jp.