Participated · Equity · Feb 2022

ABABA operates a two-sided HR platform that connects employers with students who have already advanced to the final interview stage elsewhere, using this high-intent signal to improve matching quality and cut recruiting costs. Now in its fifth year, the flagship service is used by roughly 3,000 companies and boasts exceptionally high student Net Promoter Scores, with many users crediting the product for transforming their job search experience. To support rapid growth the company is shifting from a "generalist" culture to a divisional structure, building sales-enablement processes and overhauling business workflows ahead of a planned IPO. Alongside scaling the core ABABA product from “10→100,” the team has launched a second offering, REALME, and envisions extending its proprietary data set into mid-career hiring and broader career-long support over the next three to five years. Cumulative fundraising now totals ¥1.82 billion, including a recent ¥1.25 billion Series B that blended equity and bank debt, reflecting what management calls strong external confidence in both growth prospects and fiscal discipline. Although revenue figures were not disclosed, leadership points to intense engagement on both sides of the marketplace as evidence of clear monetisation potential. The company’s culture is anchored in the core value "Help your neighbour," and management is actively re-engineering processes to improve productivity and labor conditions as it scales.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2019

VCV.AI provides an AI-driven hiring platform that conducts automated 'robo-video' interviews and screening calls using facial and voice recognition to assess candidates' mood, nervousness, and behavior patterns. Candidates record video on a computer or smartphone (iOS or Android) and do not have the ability to prepare answers in advance. VCV positions the product as a tool to enhance recruiters' capabilities, enabling them to screen a larger number of candidates more efficiently. The company says its platform can save companies over 20 hours of work with recruiting bots operating 24/7. Clients already include PWC, L’Oreal, Danone, Mars, Schlumberger, and Citibank. VCV has raised $1.7 million and plans to use the funding to continue technology development, strengthen its position, and open an office in Tokyo.