
The SaaS Source: June 2024
This month’s roundup of news in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry in Japan covers the launch of new platforms and major venture capital investments.
Japan Cloud Consulting Looks to Build Strength in IT Infrastructure
As a June 13 article in Weekly BCN reveals, Japan Cloud Consulting is aiming to draw overseas SaaS companies in the IT infrastructure field (in Japanese). The company believes that there is a greater shortage of engineers in this field than in business applications, and that bringing advanced SaaS tools will alleviate the labor shortage in this field and improve the productivity of engineers. Japan Cloud receives applications to enter the Japanese market from dozens of overseas companies every year, and to date, it has attracted 17 overseas companies to Japan. While the majority of these companies have been in the business application field, Japan Cloud is actively attracting IT infrastructure companies such as observability platform New Relic, system operation support company PagerDuty, and API management platform company Kong.
Neilsoft Unveils Platform for Tracking Building Quality and Progress
According to a June 20 article in The Hindu, the engineering services and software solutions provider Neilsoft has introduced ConstructMonitor, a SaaS solution for managing construction quality and progress. The majority of Neilsoft’s customers are in the construction, manufacturing and industrial plant segments, and the new platform is aimed at addressing construction project quality issues in larger construction projects such as commercial offices, high-rise buildings, data centers, hospitals, industrial plants, factories, malls, IT parks, and other infrastructure projects. Neilsoft is based in India, and has developed ConstructMonitor in collaboration with Tokyo-based Fujita Corporation. As Raghuram N.M., president of Neilsoft India Solutions Business said: “The solution offers customizable visualization capabilities and intuitive dashboards providing a comprehensive view of the construction project and empowers remote users to determine the ‘as-built’ accuracy of the under-construction building.”
AI Voice Platform Receives Investment Boost
IVRy, a company that produces a conversational voice AI SaaS platform, has received an investment from BRICKS FUND TOKYO, a May 27 press release published on Nikkei explains (in Japanese). The platform, which is also called IVRy, aims to improve business efficiency and productivity for large and small companies. The company also develops voice dialogue AI functions using large-scale language models. The startup hopes to grow into a new communications infrastructure that not only automates telephone responses, but also automates all types of dialogue. BRICKS FUND TOKYO is Mitsubishi Estate’s corporate venture capital fund that seeks to develop growth industries by investing in and supporting startups that are working to create medium- to long-term social impact, such as solving social issues and transforming industrial structures.
Leading Cloud Migration Tool Adds New Features
AvePoint Japan Inc., a developer of cloud data management tools for businesses, has added new functions to FLY SaaS, its cloud migration tool for businesses, a June 20 press release published on PR Times reports (in Japanese). FLY SaaS will begin supporting migration from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365, and because it is a SaaS-type migration tool, it does not require the construction of an environment such as a relay server, making migration projects simpler. The company’s decision to focus on the Google-to-Microsoft migration feature is a response to the fact that the number of requests to offer this migration increased more than threefold between 2021 and 2023.