SmartHR, a Tokyo-based provider of a cloud-native human resources management platform, raised $140 million in Series E funding. The round was led by TOKYO-KKR and Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG) that backed Beamery and Kry, with participation from existing shareholders. While the valuation of the company after this fundraising remains undisclosed, it reached a $1.6 billion valuation with its Series D round of $142 million.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its growth, including through the development of new solutions, talent acquisition, and organic and inorganic growth strategies.
Growth in HRtech
There is a growth in the demand for HR tech across the world. This is evident from the recent investment in US-based Rippling, which SmartHR claims to be its close comparison, Gusto, a payroll management service, and Deel for cross-border payroll management. Also, Remofirst, which helps its customers hire globally without local offices raised $25 million.
At this point, SmartHR has also raised the fresh funding. Reportedly, the company has witnessed annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $100 million as of February 2024.
What does SmartHR do?
Founded in 2013 by Kensuke Naito and Shoji Miyata, SmartHR is a cloud-native HR management platform that provides a suite of tech-enabled human resources management solutions. These solutions are focused on employee management and administration, growth, talent management, and employee productivity. Through its comprehensive range of solutions, SmartHR serves a diversified spectrum of businesses including large enterprises and SMEs.
Mukul Chawla, Partner and Head of Growth Equity, Asia Pacific, KKR, said, “As one of Japan’s leading human resource Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms, SmartHR is playing a critical role in enabling the country’s drive towards greater workforce productivity, while leaning into accelerating digitalisation and cloud penetration. Through our technology growth strategy, we look to support innovative, disruptive local champions with our expertise, best practices and networks across KKR’s global platform. SmartHR is an exceptional example of Japan’s new economy, and we are delighted to work with the company’s management, board and TVG in supporting SmartHR in the next phase of its growth.”
Olivia Steedman, Executive Managing Director and Global Head, Teachers’ Venture Growth, said, “SmartHR has demonstrated innovative ways to help companies of every size improve how they manage and develop their workforces. As Japanese companies increasingly transform their businesses with digital solutions, SmartHR is well-positioned to support a variety of their labor management needs. We look forward to working alongside KKR to help accelerate SmartHR’s growth journey while also leveraging our global expertise to find ways to be a value-adding partner.”
