Tokyo - TECHFUND Inc. Raised 120M JPY Using Blockchains to Accelerate Entrepreneurs

SHIBUYA-KU, Japan - July 18, 2018 - PRLog -- TECHFUND Inc. (Co-CEO Peaske Kawahara and Yuta Matsuyama. Tokyo, Japan.) raised 100 Million JPY in Pre Series A round from Nomura Holdings' corporate venture capital fund (Nomura Incubation Investment Limited Partnership), UNITED, Inc, Infoteria Corporation, some notable angel investors, and 20 Million JPY in debt financing from the Seibu Shinkin Bank, Japan Finance Corporation, which total 120 Million JPY.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ce2dek1oxqsq1fk/180713_ogp_1.jpg?dl=0

■ Overview

This funding is aimed at development of "ACCEL BaaS" (https://accel-baas.io/) (*1) which supports blockchain application development and acceleration of creating new distributed startup ecosystem.

TECHFUND recognizes the current increasing expectation for blockchain technology and its solution such as Dapps, DEX (Decentralized Exchange), ICO(*2), STO(*3) as a favorable opportunity of producing new entrepreneurs support system.

Starting from "ACCEL Baas", TECHFUND will focus on research and development of products which will back up marketing and funding of startups.
It includes promoting blockchain technology to function properly and be common in various products and businesses, and planning "Entrepreneur support ecosystem in the new era" which covers funding platforms of currently no best practice such as ICO or STO.

*1 BaaS: Blockchain as a Service, which means to a cloud service providing blockchain functions in application development.
*2 Initial Coin Offering: A funding method with cryptocurrency using utility tokens.

*3 Security Token Offering: A funding method with more secured tokens.

Cooperation with the corporate investors enables blockchain related new businesses using ACCEL BaaS. Professional advisory from angel investors comprises suggestion about the new ecosystem of supporting entrepreneurs and efficient usage of TECHFUND's progressive technology, which leads the society to step up to the next phase.

■ Comments from investors
Infoteria welcomes TECHFUND's blockchain solution, "ACCEL BaaS". Infoteria has taken aggressive actions such as "ASTERIA WARP" to deliver blockchain values to various companies. We decided to invest since ACCEL  BaaS will enable multiple blockchains easily to decrease the development obstacles and we predict more developers can deal with blockchains.
(Infoteria Corporation CEO Yoichiro Hirano)

We got an opportunity to invest in the excellent team of TECHFUND. UNITED Group has launched COINAGE, Inc. at October, 2017 which takes cryptocurrency trading related businesses and proceeded consideration about expansion of blockchain related businesses. We would like to cooperate with TECHFUND to achieve its and our group's vision.
(UNITED, Inc. CEO Tomonori Hayakawa)

I would like to congratulate on the announcement of "ACCEL BaaS". I have kept in touch with TECHFUND from its founding and thanked for the opportunity to invest this time. Through my experience of blockchains, I think the most effective way for blockchains and smart contracts is security tokens and TECHFUND takes action for its gradual deregulation, which determines me to invest. I will continuously support it in various aspects.
(Star Fragments LLC Representative Partner / UZABASE, Inc. Chief Technologist Hideyuki Takeuchi)

■ About TECHFUND

TECHFUND is the STARTUP SCIENCE ACCELERATOR which was founded on October 9, 2014 (Tech Day), with a vision called "Entrepreneur is the coolest job!". Started working as the world's first technology investment fund to support start-ups by "Technology Investment(*4)" investing technology instead of money like Sweat Equity. It has been engaged in mentoring and due diligence of more than 250 teams and carried out technology investment in six companies. As of 2018, its business includes following.

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[ACCELERATOR SERVICE]  The support program developed for start-up is provided as "ACCEL PROGRAM for BIZ (formerly SUNRISE PROGRAM)" mainly for listed companies, contributing to creation of more than 30 innovations. Currently, "ACCEL BaaS", which accelerates blockchain application development, is provided.

[STARTUP SCIENCE SERVICE] It develops credit rating service centered on startup credit score "ACCEL SCORE (accelerator score)" derived by artificial intelligence and ICO token analysis service.

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*4 Technology Investment：Investment method that invests technology instead of money and assumes equity in return. Overseas it is called "sweat equity".

■ Related URL

"ACCEL BaaS"

https://accel-baas.io

■ Corporate summary

Corporate name: TECHFUND Inc.
Location: 2-11-8 Higashi Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Establishment date: October 9, 2014 (Tech Day)
Capital: $ 1.2 million (as of July, 2018, Including capital reserves)
CEO: Peaske Kawahara, Yuta Matsuyama
Business description: Technology investment programs for entrepreneurs, innovation programs for large companies, development of blockchain cloud service, ICO related businesses.

URL: http://techfund.jp (https://techfund.jp)
Official Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/techfund.inc