2025
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11
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05
JIC Venture Growth Investments (VGI), the manager of JIC Venture Growth Fund No. 2 Investment Limited Partnership, today announced that it has invested in UPWARD Inc. (UPWARD).
UPWARD is a startup dedicated to boosting the productivity of field sales professionals, a sector where digital transformation (DX) has been notably slow. Under its mission, "To innovate the last one mile of fieldwork," the company provides "UPWARD," an AI agent for field sales designed to solve this challenge. The application features automatic activity logging powered by location technology, as well as automatic recording and summarization of sales meetings. By dramatically reducing the burden of data entry—a major barrier to CRM adoption—"UPWARD" promotes on-site CRM utilization and powerfully supports the overall efficiency of sales activities.
The primary goal of this investment is to support productivity improvements for field sales teams, which have lagged in DX. Amid Japan's declining workforce, enhancing productivity has become a critical issue across all industries. The field sales sector, in particular, has faced significant challenges with low productivity due to its heavy reliance on individual-dependent processes, which has hindered digitalization. While many companies have attempted to improve efficiency by introducing CRM systems, adoption has often stalled because the manual data entry becomes a significant burden for on-the-ground sales staff.
As a premier solution to these challenges, "UPWARD" has been adopted by over 400 companies in Japan, boasting a top-tier track record as a SaaS product for field sales. For sales representatives, the tool reduces the workload of reporting and route planning, allowing them to concentrate on customer interactions. For management, it enables the formulation and execution of data-driven sales strategies by leveraging high-quality data accumulated in the CRM.
The funds from this investment will be allocated to expanding the AI product development capabilities, recruiting talent to drive business expansion, and funding marketing and sales activities to grow the customer base. Furthermore, the capital will be used to pursue non-organic growth through potential overseas expansion and M&A.
Through the business growth of UPWARD, VGI expects to see the realization of enhanced sales productivity for all companies with field sales operations.
The information contained in this notice is current at the time of publication and subject to change without notice.
