freee announced today that it has received $2.7 million in Series A funding from DCM and Infinity Capital Partners, which will enable the company to accelerate its product development. The company also announced that it has tracked more than 6,500 sign-ups from Japanese small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) for its automated accounting/bookkeeping platform and successfully started to convert those businesses to paid customers.

'In Japan, more than 99% of SMBs use stand-alone accounting software for bookkeeping, all of which require dual-entry bookkeeping knowledge. Most accounting software users manually input data by looking at invoices and receipts,' said Daisuke Sasaki, CEO and co-founder of freee. 'On top of that, there was no full-stack accounting software that runs on Mac or tablets in the market even though an increasing number of SMBs rely on those platforms. As a result, using accounting software has been a big pain for SMBs.'

freee is an automated online accounting software developed for SMBs. It syncs with your bank accounts and credit card accounts and automatically categorizes income and spending through text analysis. All users have to do to generate financial statements is to review how freee has categorized items and click to approve. Because freee is a jargon-free product and can automate bookkeeping, any SMBs can keep books effortlessly.

'freee is so easy to use even for someone like me who did not have any bookkeeping or accounting knowledge. With freee, it's easy to see where money comes from and where money goes to and now I have a clearer view on how my business is going. It was simply an amazing experience that I can keep books just by clicking to approve,' said Tetsunori Yuasa, a freelance online marketing consultant.

With Series A fund, freee will accelerate its product development in the following three areas:

Automation and integration: Automate bookkeeping processes further by integrating freee with various tools used by SMBs including POS, e-commerce platforms and CRMs;
Collaboration: Make collaboration much easier by adding access control features, communication features and workflow features;
Excellence in user experience: Enhance user experience on all devices.

freee was launched on Mar 19, 2013 and is offered to SMBs operating under the Japanese taxation system. It takes freemium model and its paid plan begins at 980 JPY (~10 USD) per month per business. The company, formerly named as 'CFO K.K.', was founded in July 2012 led by Daisuke Sasaki, who previously headed up Google's SMB marketing in Asia Pasific region. freee is the winner of Invinity Ventures Summit Launch Pad 2013 Spring, the most prestigious demo event in Japan. More details are available on http://www.freee.co.jp (Japanese only)

About DCM
DCM is an early stage venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Tokyo with more than $2 billion under management. DCM has investments in more than 140 technology companies across the United States and Asia and provides hands-on operational guidance and a global network of business and financial resources. DCM has backed industry-leading companies such as 51job, About.com, Clearwire, eDreams, Foundry Networks, Kabu.com, Sling Media, SMIC, and VanceInfo as well as upcoming startups such as Bill.com, Bridgelux, Happy Elements, PapayaMobile and Trion Worlds. Recent successes include China-based IPOs: Renren, BitAuto, DangDang, Luxin and VIPShop and US-based M&A and IPOs: Fortinet, PGP (Symantec) and Sandforce (LSI).

About Infinity Venture Partners
Infinity Venture Partners is the Asian arm of e.ventures and an early-stage venture capital firm focusing on the consumer services via the internet and mobile network in Greater China and Japan. The firm is the organizer of the Infinity Ventures Summit, the biggest and most prestegious conference for CEOs in the internet and mobile industry in Japan.