Less nerdy take on Slack snaps up $12.8m series B funding

Image via Flickr user peoplezchronicles.

ChatWork, a workplace social network and messaging app, has raised JPY 1.5 billion (US$12.8 million) in series B funding. Japanese venture capital firm JAFCO led the investment, which was made public overnight.

The startup is based dually in the US and Japan.

If Slack is the go-to team chat app for startups and techies, ChatWork is gunning to be the leader for more traditional small- and medium-sized businesses. It offers cloud-based team messaging, video chat, file sharing, task management, and contact management all in one place, so users aren’t forced to wrangle a suite of apps to cover each.

Hayato Ishida, ChatWork’s global product manager, tells Tech in Asia that the major differentiator from Slack – and regional competitors like TypeTalk and Jandi – is extending collaboration tools beyond the immediate team or company and emphasizing ease of use for non-technical professionals.

“There are a lot of chat apps available on the market now, but most of them focus only on enhancing internal collaboration,” he says. “[ChatWork] can be used for both internal and external communication. For example, users can now invite people from outside their company by sending a unique link to their group chat.”

According to Hayato, the funding will be used to reach even more teams outside of Japan. The startup is targeting growth in the US, Europe, and Latin America. He declined to share details about ChatWork’s current user base and demographics, but said that more than 86,000 companies across the globe use the service. That’s an additional 20,000 since we last spoke to ChatWork in April last year, when the startup claimed to be adding 30,000 new individual users a month.

ChatWork raised US$2.5 million in series A financing led by Japan’s GMO Venture Partners last spring. GMO – along with fellow domestic investors Shinsei Corporate Investment and SMBC Venture Capital – also joined the latest round.

JAFCO led another multi-million dollar investment just two weeks ago when it backed fashion subscription box startup AirCloset.