SmartHR company profile: valuation, funding & revenue

This SmartHR company profile covers the company's valuation, revenue, funding rounds, investors and history. SmartHR works in HR technology, with a focus on cloud HR and labour management. It was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Its latest valuation on record is US$1.6 billion (Series D) (2021). Every figure links to a public source, and anything the company hasn't disclosed is marked as such.

Revenue

ARR of ¥15 billion — Annual recurring revenue, measured at quarter-end (company-reported), as of 2024. Source: SmartHR.

Funding history

SmartHR timeline

Key dates from the sources on this page, oldest first. Metric snapshots are listed after the funding events.

• 2013 — SmartHR is founded in Tokyo by Shoji Miyata and Kensuke Naito.
• 2021 — Series D: ¥15.6B (about US$142.5M), valuing the company at US$1.6B. Investors: Light Street Capital, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Whale Rock and others.
• Jul 2024 — Series E: US$140M. Investors: KKR and Teachers' Venture Growth (leads); existing investors.
• February 2024 — ARR (US dollars): About US$100 million as of February 2024; FY2023 revenue about US$80 million.
• July 2024 — Employees: About 1,000.

Investors

Overview

SmartHR makes cloud software for human resources and labour management in Japan. Companies use it to handle employee onboarding, social insurance and tax paperwork, year-end tax adjustments, payslips, employee records, performance reviews, training and organisational analysis. It started by digitising the mountains of paper forms that Japanese employers traditionally had to complete, and has grown into a broad HR platform used by companies from small firms to large enterprises.

SmartHR was founded in Tokyo in 2013 under the name KUFU; the SmartHR product launched in 2015, and the company later took the product's name. Shoji Miyata founded the company and Kensuke Naito joined as a co-founder. It became one of Japan's best-known software unicorns and a symbol of the country's growing startup scene.

Why Japanese HR needed digitising

Japanese employment administration has historically been paper-heavy. Joining a company, changing address, taking parental leave or completing the annual year-end tax adjustment involved numerous forms, stamps (hanko) and submissions to government offices. Government initiatives to promote digital administration, including electronic filing and reducing the use of hanko, created an opening for cloud software. SmartHR simplified these processes into online forms that employees fill in themselves, with data flowing into HR records and government filings automatically. The time savings for HR teams were significant, which drove fast adoption.

Products

• Labour administration: onboarding and offboarding, social insurance, employment contracts and year-end tax adjustments.
• Employee database: a central record of employee information that other functions use.
• Talent management: performance evaluations, skills, surveys and organisational charts.
• Payroll and apps: payroll calculation and an app store of integrations and add-ons.

Business model

SmartHR sells subscriptions priced by number of employees and modules used. Its strategy is to become the "system of record" for HR in Japan: once a company's employee data lives in SmartHR, adding new modules is easy, raising revenue per customer over time.

Growth and funding

SmartHR said its annual recurring revenue reached ¥15 billion in 2024. TechCrunch reported ARR of about US$100 million as of February 2024 and FY2023 revenue of about US$80 million. In 2021 it raised ¥15.6 billion (about US$142.5 million) in a Series D at a US$1.6 billion valuation, with investors including Light Street Capital, Sequoia Capital Global Equities and Whale Rock. In July 2024 it raised a US$140 million Series E led by KKR and Teachers' Venture Growth, the late-stage arm of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan; the company declined to disclose the valuation, so we use the Series D figure as the last confirmed one.

The IPO question

Japanese media and investor commentary in 2026 reported that SmartHR had considered a Tokyo Stock Exchange listing but postponed it, reportedly because of disagreements over valuation, with ARR described as having grown substantially since 2024. We haven't seen a company statement on IPO timing. Japan's IPO market has historically valued software companies at lower multiples than the US, and the exchange's growth market has seen many smaller listings, which affects how and when late-stage startups choose to go public.

Competition

SmartHR competes with Japanese HR and payroll software providers such as Works Human Intelligence, freee and Money Forward, as well as global HR platforms. TechCrunch named Rippling as its closest global comparable. Its advantages are its brand, product quality, focus on Japanese HR requirements and large customer base.

SmartHR at a glance

SmartHR is a Tokyo HR software company founded in 2013 by Shoji Miyata, with Kensuke Naito as co-founder. It reported ARR of ¥15 billion in 2024 (about US$100 million). It raised ¥15.6 billion at a US$1.6 billion valuation in 2021 and a US$140 million Series E led by KKR and Teachers' Venture Growth in July 2024.

Japan's startup ecosystem

Japan has historically produced fewer venture-backed unicorns than the US or China, for reasons including a conservative corporate culture, lifetime employment norms and an IPO market that allowed companies to list early at small sizes. That has been changing: government programmes have encouraged startups, more international investors are active, and companies like SmartHR and Sakana AI have raised large rounds. KKR's involvement in SmartHR reflects global private equity's growing interest in Japanese technology.

Comparing HR platforms across countries

HR software is highly local: employment law, tax, social insurance and cultural practices differ between countries, so platforms that succeed at home often find expansion hard. That's why there are strong local champions such as SmartHR in Japan, Employment Hero in Australia and Personio in Germany. Global platforms tend to handle multinational employers, while local specialists serve domestic companies with deep compliance needs.

Questions for buyers in Japan

• Does it handle social insurance, year-end tax adjustments and electronic filing?
• How easily do employees complete forms on their phones?
• Which modules and integrations do you need now and later?

Year-end tax adjustment: a killer feature

Every year, Japanese employers must complete a "year-end tax adjustment" (nenmatsu chosei) for each employee, reconciling income tax withheld during the year with the amount actually owed, taking into account deductions such as insurance premiums and dependants. Traditionally this meant distributing paper forms, chasing employees for completed forms and supporting documents, checking them by hand and entering the data into payroll systems. For HR teams, it is one of the busiest and most stressful periods of the year. SmartHR turned this into an online process in which employees answer simple questions on their phones and the system calculates and files the results. For many Japanese companies, that single feature was enough to justify adopting the product, which then opened the door to its many other modules.

Latest developments (October 2026)

SmartHR has delayed its stock market debut. Bloomberg reported in July 2026 that the Japanese HR software company postponed its planned Tokyo IPO to at least 2027 after investors questioned the valuation sought, according to Private Equity Wire. The company had been working with Daiwa, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. SmartHR has not commented publicly. Its last priced private valuation remains the 2021 figure in our profile. See our HR tech guide.

What to watch

Watch for an IPO decision and valuation, ARR milestones, product expansion into payroll and talent management, and acquisitions.

Takeaways

Japanese companies can cut HR paperwork significantly with cloud tools. Founders can learn how regulatory change opens markets for software. Investors should note how differences between private and public market valuations affect IPO timing.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from the public sources below. Where sources disagreed, we used the company's own announcement or a primary news report. Private-company data changes; check the date beside each figure.

1. TechCrunch
2. SmartHR