Aging demographics, labor shortages, the adoption of GenAI, and the 2023 implementation of e-invoicing are driving companies to automate finance, tax, procurement, and HR in Japan. Yet only 16% of digital transformations succeed, and that’s only 4-11% in traditional industries. The main barriers? Weak leadership commitment, a rigid culture, and a lack of digital talent. LayerX offers an AI SaaS platform to help enterprises scale back-office automation.
LayerX, a Japanese AI SaaS startup that enables businesses to cut back-office workload, has raised $100 million in a Series B round led by TCV, marking the U.S. fund’s first investment in a Japanese startup.
The company declined to disclose its valuation, but said both the valuation and the size of the round are among the largest ever raised by a 7-year-old Japanese startup at the Series B stage. Other investors, including MUFG Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Innovation Partners, JAFCO Group, Keyrock Capital, Coreline Ventures, and JP Investment, also joined the Series B round, bringing the total raised to $192.2 million.
The startup’s key offerings include Bakuraku, a platform that automates corporate spending workflows, covering expense management, invoice processing, and corporate card operations — for more than 15,000 companies; Alterna, a retail digital securities investment platform developed in partnership with Mitsui & Co.; and Ai Workforce, a generative AI solution designed to streamline workflows and harness enterprise data.
Founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneur Yoshinori Fukushima, who studied machine learning at the University of Tokyo and previously launched the news app Gunosy, which was later listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, LayerX grew out of one of his digital transformation (DX) and blockchain projects.
The founder launched LayerX after identifying a significant bottleneck in Japan’s enterprise workflows: paper-based invoice processing. This insight prompted the team to pivot into SaaS with their AI-driven platform, Bakuraku, Fukushima told TechCrunch, adding that the platform’s AI-native user experience quickly gained traction, helping LayerX secure major strategic partnerships, including with MUFG, or Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, and paving the way for its latest funding round.
Despite a wave of digitalization, many Japanese companies still rely on paper and Excel for expense reimbursements and invoice processing, the CEO continued. Domestically, the startup competes with Money Forward Cloud Keihi, freee, and Rakuraku Seisan. Globally, its rivals include SAP Concur, Rippling, Brex, Ramp, Spendesk, and Airbase. In the AI Workforce space, it faces competition from Harvey, Fukushima noted.
Bakuraku differentiates itself with an AI-driven user experience. The company continuously upgrades automation features like “auto-entry and document splitting,” while also investing in AI agents and AI-enabled business processing outsourcing (BPO). Its team includes “more than 12 former CTOs and a Kaggle Grandmaster.” Bakuraku offers a comprehensive, integrated platform covering “expense management, invoice processing, corporate cards, workflows, e-ledger compliance, attendance, and receivables — all in one solution,” Fukushima added.
The startup has closed its Series B funding less than two years after securing its Series A in November 2023. Its signature platform, the Bakuraku Suite, has seen significant growth, the 7-year-old company said.
“We passed 10,000 customers in February 2024 and reached 15,000 by April 2025, with more enterprise clients coming on board,” the CEO said. “Headcount has also grown from about 220 employees in October 2023 to around 430 as of the end of July 2025.”
LayerX is on track to reach $68 million, equivalent to ¥10 billion, faster than any SaaS company in Japan’s history, according to the company. “The growth benchmark known as T2D3 was achieved ahead of schedule, and we expect to surpass the previous domestic record, which took eight years from product launch, in under five years,” Fukushima said.
Ai Workforce counts Mitsui & Co. and MUFG Bank among its clients, while Bakuraku serves customers such as Ippudo, IRIS Ohyama, the Imperial Hotel, and Sekisui Chemical.
Looking forward, the company targets approximately $680 million (¥100 billion) in annual recurring revenue by fiscal year 2030, with roughly half expected to come from its AI agent business. It also plans to grow its workforce to around 1,000 employees by 2028.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/