Tech Bureau, a Japanese fintech and cryptocurrency company from Japan, has raised US$767,500 from Shinsei Bank and OKWave to expand business and increase headcount. The investment brings its total amount of funding raised to over US$22 million.
Tech Bureau is the developer of mijin, a private blockchain software built on NEM, as well as Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Zaif, for which it was granted a Virtual Currency Exchange license by the country’s financial watchdog back in September.
The new funding comes at a time when Tech Bureau is looking to boost its presence overseas, notably in the US, Europe, as well as in its other locations across Asia. The company said it will use the capital to expand and improve its Zaif exchange and services, build mijin CloudChain, a blockchain-as-a-service cloud product, and invest in new businesses.
Earlier this year, Tech Bureau launched COMSA, an ICO fundraising and cross-chaining platform built on the NEM blockchain protocol.
For its ICO-focused platform, Tech Bureau got financial backing from Japanese venture capital firms Nippon Technology Venture Partners, FISCO Capitals, and ABBALab Inc. The project raised US$87 million in the first 25 days of its month-long ICO, which ended yesterday.
COMSA provides companies with consultation, expertise, and solutions to support their very own ICOs. The solution has already aroused great interest from firms and blockchain projects. Timebank and VERSES, among others, are set to launch their token sales on COMSA.
Timebank is a marketplace for buying and selling professionals’ “time” developed by Metaps, a Japanese tech firm listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while VERSES is a virtual economy protocol designed to enable Virtual Reality Commerce (vCommerce).
For Takao Asayama, CEO of Tech Bureau, the traditional financial industry should not fear cryptocurrencies, ICOs and blockchain, but rather embrace these technologies as “tools to get a huge first mover advantage and surpass competitors.”
Tech Bureau’s technology and solutions should be viewed as “a new weapon for them,” he said.
