venture capital
MUFG Innovation Partners (MUIP), the corporate venture capital arm of Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), has completed a strategic investment in Finnish cloud infrastructure provider Verda Cloud Oy. The commitment forms part of a broader $189 million financing round that has elevated Verda to unicorn status. The funding
payments
Tokyo-based FinTech firm Infcurion, in partnership with CCI Group, announced that regional lender Hokkoku Bank launched its new merchant acquiring service, "Smart Plan," on October 1, 2026. The initiative marks the inaugural commercial deployment of Axios, Infcurion’s next-generation, fully cloud-based acquiring platform. Key Details
SaaS
Tokyo-listed FinTech provider Money Forward is a leading Japanese Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and financial technology company. The firm provides business-to-business (B2B) cloud software covering accounting, human resources, and contract management—currently serving over 493,000 paying business clients—alongside a personal finance management (PFM) application
payments
FinTech and marketing firm Digital Garage (TSE Prime: 4819) has announced a significant feature expansion for "CurePort," an online medical payment service co-operated with Resona Holdings (TSE Prime: 8308). The upgrade deepens the platform's integration with "WebORCA Cloud," a widely adopted medical billing
banking
The fiscal year ended March 31, 2026, was defined by a complex macroeconomic environment in Japan. While the economy maintained a gradual recovery, corporate activity was heavily influenced by the normalization of monetary policy and sharp currency volatility. Crucially, persistently elevated resource prices exerted upward pressure on labor costs—evidenced
credit card
Infcurion and the CCI Group, with strategic support from Visa Worldwide Japan, have launched "Axios", a next-generation, full-cloud acquiring platform that arrives as a decisive response to Japan's "Cashless" initiative, marking a critical transition from rigid, legacy on-premise systems to a
payments
Digital Garage Group, through its payment subsidiary DG Financial Technology (DGFT), is executing a targeted vertical expansion designed to capture value in Japan's most resistant cash-heavy sectors. By embedding its proprietary "Cloud Pay" infrastructure into specialized B2B and B2C workflows, the group is transitioning from
SaaS
Money Forward (TSE: 3994), a leading Japanese provider of back-office SaaS and financial management solutions, has delivered a surprisingly positive first-quarter performance for the fiscal year ending November 2026. The company achieved a positive operating profit of JPY 170 million, defying initial expectations of a loss. The results,
venture capital
Plug and Play Japan, the regional arm of the global innovation platform and venture capital firm, has successfully completed the final closing of its debut investment vehicle, "Plug and Play Japan Fund I." Total capital commitments for the fund surpassed its initial targets, reaching over 6 billion yen
mergers & acquisitions
Money Forward (TYO: 3994), a mainstay in the Japanese FinTech and SaaS landscape, is demonstrating a dual-pronged strategy in the face of challenging software company valuations: an aggressive horizontal expansion into the enterprise market via strategic acquisitions paired with a deep, vertical integration of AI agents to revolutionize both
accounting
Money Forward (TSE: 3994) is a prominent Japanese FinTech company providing a comprehensive suite of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for both businesses and individuals. As a leader in Japan's digital transformation landscape, the company is at a pivotal stage, balancing aggressive market expansion with an increasing
API
With the mission of "Making small businesses the world's leading players," freee develops and provides SaaS-based cloud services, including its integrated cloud accounting software "freee Accounting," which streamlines accounting, human resources, and labor management in an integrated manner. Furthermore, by providing its public