Japanese Startups: What Is freee?

Published 09 Jul 2021

In this series of articles, we are focusing on the Japanese startups that recently got in the spotlight, discussing their concepts, goals and activities. Today’s company is freee.

freee

Overview

freee is a market leading provider of cloud-based accounting and HR software in Japan.

Vision

Create a platform that empowers anyone with ideas, passion and skills to easily grow a robust and streamlined business.

Goal as a Team

1. Create examples and the future

freee continues to push boundaries and be free from precedents or customs. freee leads various areas of business such as organizational strategy, operations, finance and human resources, and will create the future.

2. World-class quality

freee seeks to continue offering the best service to our users and always remain a global benchmark with the value our service provides. freee will continue to improve our products and services through investments from global investors and cultivate itself from their broad view.

3. Believe in members' growth

Only the growth of members can grow freee. freee makes great efforts to support each member, who possesses infinite possibilities, to allow them to grow and become a "new me".

Products

freee operates 2 services: freee 会計(kaikei) and freee 人事労務(jinjiroumu)

1. Accounting freee (freee 会計)

Accounting freee is an integrated accounting software solution optimized for SMBs. Accounting freee is designed to be easy to implement and use without specialized training in accounting or bookkeeping. We believe Accounting freee is a uniquely positioned, integrated solution, which enables customers to provides powerful functionality that enables customers to streamline their accounting functions and automatically integrate accounting data and other operational data to enhance overall operational efficiency and decision-making.

Service URL: https://www.freee.co.jp/

2. HR freee (freee 人事労務)

HR freee is a cloud-native integrated payroll software solution, providing payroll and other human resource related functions optimized for SMBs. HR freee provides core HR functions required by SMBs, including automated functionality for a number of functions that enables businesses to increase efficiency. HR freee supports a wide range of fully-integrated functions and tools.

Service URL: https://www.freee.co.jp/hr/

Market Cap

546.006B (JPY) / Bloomberg Markets (as of 07/08/2021)

Investors

Japan: Infinity Ventures, Recruit Strategic Partners, SBI Investment, Nippon Life Insurance, MUFG Bank

US: DCM Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Greyhound Capital, T. Rowe Price

(Source: Pitchbook)

Top Message (from freee Co-founder & CEO Daisuke Sasaki)

I have had many opportunities to learn about the challenges facing small businesses firsthand through my experiences as the CFO of a startup company and working in SMB marketing at Google Inc. (currently Google Japan LLC), as well as through my family's experience running a hair salon that has been in business since my grandparents' generation. I noticed again and again that small businesses were failing to effectively use technology and struggled with back office work such as accounting and payroll calculations, and that these roadblocks were holding them back from running their actual business.

To address these challenges, I founded freee in 2012, and we soon after released Accounting freee as a unique, integrated accounting software solution designed with small businesses in mind. That was the point when we began our mission to empower small businesses to take center stage.

At the time, the launch of accounting and payroll software that was designed to be a cloud-native and integrated ERP platform for small businesses and that aimed to automate the overall operations of a business was a novel and innovative idea. Since then, we have continued to refine our solutions with the support of like-minded innovators who were inspired by our original idea, and we have grown into a highly unique platform serving more than 150,000 paying customers.

At freee, we believe that small businesses can uniquely benefit from technologies that leverage cloud computing, data and AI to grow strong businesses and work smarter. In line with our mission discussed above, we will continue to offer innovative solutions in pursuit of our vision to create a platform that empowers anyone with ideas, passion and skills to build a strong business in a smart and efficient way.

In growing our business and working to deliver even greater value to society, the following three areas have been and will continue to be key priorities.