Chai provides BuyChat, a LINE-native online-shop platform designed to let merchants open and operate EC stores fully within LINE. The product targets Japanese small businesses and aims to improve customer experience and drive fan formation to help merchants grow and compete more broadly. Current users include over 30% who are opening an EC shop for the first time, and some single-operator shops report monthly sales exceeding ¥700,000. Founder Nishizawa, who has a mathematics background, emphasizes data analysis and plans to build features that automatically propose message-distribution designs and other operational suggestions based on shop data. Chai says it will continue expanding service offerings to lower operational hurdles and better support small-business merchants across Japan.

Total raised

$1M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Aug 2023