Brief: Salesforce joins $38m investment in company that digitizes your business cards

Photo credit: sjenner13 / 123RF Stock Photo.

Tokyo-based Sansan digitizes all those business cards you pick up at meetings and conferences, turning them into a cloud-hosted contact database.

Competitors: CamCard, Evernote

How it compares to competitors: Sansan has a diversified product range, tailoring its business card management platform to the needs of both individual professionals, and organizations.

Traction

• More than 1.5 million registered individual users
• Over 6,000 premium corporate users
• Client organizations include Intel, Japan Post, Mizuho Bank, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, SAP, Seven & I Holdings, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Tokyo Gas, Toyota, and the Japanese government’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry
• Offices throughout Japan and overseas in Singapore

Funding details

Amount raised: US$38 million
Funding stage: Series D
Investors: Future Creation Fund (backed by Sparx Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Toyota), DCM Ventures, Salesforce
Investment type: Equity
Purpose: To expand into new markets – most notably India – and to fund further development of its corporate-focused products
Total disclosed funding to date: US$79 million