Sleekr’s latest funding signifies Japanese appetite for Southeast Asian startups

Money Forward team at the company’s October 2017 Tokyo IPO / Photo credit: Money Forward

Sleekr, an Indonesian HR and accounting management platform, has secured funding from Tokyo-based fintech firm Money Forward in its first investment outside of Japan.

The partnership is representative of growing interest in Southeast Asia from a newer generation of Japanese tech businesses, as they seek opportunities for growth beyond home shores – though this could change as more Chinese capital flows into the region. 

Sleekr started out by providing personnel management software as a service, and then diversified into cloud accounting services after acquiring fellow Indonesian startup Kiper in November 2016. It now has around 80 employees.

Sleekr’s only disclosed fundraise to date was a US$35,000 seed round in December 2014.

The size of the investment hasn’t been revealed, but Naoya Kanesaka, the Japanese company’s chief financial officer, told Tech in Asia that the amount is significant given the size of the parties and the extent of their partnership.

“Including Sleekr, we have invested between US$2 million and US$3 million into five companies so far. Sleekr is of a comparably larger size,” he said.

Aside from the investment, Money Forward will share know-how with Sleekr. Money Forward co-founder and CEO Yosuke Tsuji has also been appointed to the startup’s board of directors.

Money Forward, which went public in a US$25 million Tokyo IPO last October, walks the line between fintech and enterprise software. It offers a range of financial management products that include cloud-based accounts as well as payroll, invoice, and expenses processing features.

According to Kanesaka, Money Forward has a 60 percent market share and is the number one software choice among Japanese accounting firms.

Photo credit: Money Forward

There is clear overlap with Sleekr’s offering, but Money Forward sees this as an opportunity for synergy and a way to tap into the potentially lucrative Southeast Asian market.

Kanesaka noted that Money Forward already has an accounting and payroll product in Japan, so they don’t expect to bring Sleekr there. But, as he pointed out, “there are a lot of things we can learn about product strategy and marketing strategy.”

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