Japan’s corporate world is going through a major shake-up. Between an aging workforce, shrinking labor pool, GenAI adoption, and a push for e-invoicing since 2023, companies are realizing they can’t keep doing things the old way.
Finance, procurement, HR, and tax teams are buried under paperwork, while the country’s digital transformation track record isn’t exactly stellar — only 16% succeed, and in traditional industries, that drops to a painful 4–11%.
That’s where LayerX steps in. This Tokyo-based AI SaaS startup is on a mission to cut through Japan’s back-office chaos. And now? They just raised a whopping $100 million Series B led by U.S. giant Technology Cross Ventures (TCV) — its first-ever investment in Japan.
Add in local heavyweights like MUFG Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Innovation Partners, and JAFCO Group, and LayerX’s total funding now stands at $192.2M. Big numbers, big ambitions.
LayerX’s flagship platform, Bakuraku, is basically the all-in-one “corporate admin assistant” Japan didn’t know it needed. It automates expense reports, invoice processing, corporate card ops, and compliance — already serving over 15,000 companies, from the Imperial Hotel to Ippudo ramen. LayerX also runs Alterna, a digital securities platform with Mitsui, and AI Workforce, a GenAI-driven workflow optimizer already trusted by MUFG.
Founded in 2018 by Yoshinori Fukushima (the same guy who launched news app Gunosy), LayerX was born from a simple frustration: Japanese businesses were still drowning in paper invoices and Excel sheets.
The pivot to SaaS paid off big time — in just two years since Series A, customer growth skyrocketed, headcount nearly doubled to 430 employees, and revenue is pacing to hit $68M (¥10B) faster than any SaaS company in Japan’s history.
The roadmap? Fukushima says LayerX is gunning for $680M ARR by 2030, with half of that coming from AI agents. They’re also planning to scale to 1,000 employees by 2028.
In short: Japan’s back-office bottleneck just met its AI-powered bulldozer.
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