LayerX Raises $100M for AI-Powered Back-Office Automation Platform, Targeting $680M ARR by 2030
In Japan, a rapidly evolving business landscape is driving companies to automate finance, tax, procurement, and HR processes due to factors such as an aging population, labor shortages, the adoption of GenAI, and the implementation of e-invoicing in 2023. However, only 16% of digital transformations are successful, with traditional industries seeing even lower success rates of 4–11%. The primary obstacles to successful transformation are weak leadership commitment, a rigid corporate culture, and a lack of digital talent.
Addressing this challenge is LayerX, a cutting-edge AI SaaS platform designed to help enterprises streamline back-office automation. The company has recently secured $100 million in Series B funding, led by Technology Cross Ventures (TCV), marking TCV’s first investment in a Japanese startup.
The details of LayerX’s valuation were not disclosed, but the size of the round and the valuation place it among the largest ever raised by a seven-year-old Japanese startup at the Series B stage. Joining the funding round were MUFG Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Innovation Partners, JAFCO Group, Keyrock Capital, Coreline Venture, and JP Investment, bringing the total funds raised to $192.2 million.
LayerX offers a suite of key services, including Bakuraku, an AI-powered platform that automates corporate spending workflows, managing expense management, invoice processing, and corporate card operations for over 15,000 companies; Alterna, a retail digital securities investment platform developed in collaboration with Mitsui & Co.; and Ai Workforce, a generative AI solution designed to optimize workflows and leverage enterprise data.
Established by serial entrepreneur Yoshinori Fukushima in 2018, LayerX was born out of one of his digital transformation (DX) and blockchain projects. Fukushima identified a significant bottleneck in Japan’s enterprise workflows – paper-based invoice processing – which led the team to pivot into SaaS with their AI-driven platform, Bakuraku. The platform’s intuitive, AI-native user experience quickly gained traction, helping LayerX secure major strategic partnerships, including with MUFG and others, leading to its latest funding round.
Domestically, LayerX competes with Money Forward Cloud Keihi, freee, and Rakuraku Seisan. Globally, its rivals include SAP Concur, Rippling, Brex, Ramp, Spendesk, Airbase, and Harvey in the AI Workforce space.
Bakuraku differentiates itself through its AI-driven user experience, continuously enhancing automation features like “auto-entry and document splitting,” while also investing in AI agents and AI-enabled business processing outsourcing (BPO). The team includes “more than 12 former CTOs and a Kaggle Grandmaster.” Bakuraku offers a comprehensive, integrated platform covering “expense management, invoice processing, corporate cards, workflows, e-ledger compliance, attendance, and receivables—all in one solution.”
LayerX closed its Series B funding less than two years after securing its Series A in November 2023. The company has seen significant growth with its signature platform, the Bakuraku Suite, adding over 5,000 new customers since February 2024, reaching a total of 15,000 by April 2025, with more enterprise clients joining. Headcount has grown from about 220 employees in October 2023 to around 430 as of the end of July 2025.
LayerX is on track to reach $68 million, equivalent to ¥10 billion, faster than any SaaS company in Japan’s history, according to the company. “The growth benchmark known as T2D3 was achieved ahead of schedule, and we expect to surpass the previous domestic record, which took eight years from product launch, in under five years,” Fukushima said.
Ai Workforce counts Mitsui & Co. and MUFG Bank among its clients, while Bakuraku serves customers such as Ippudo, IRIS Ohyama, the Imperial Hotel, and Sekisui Chemical.
Looking ahead, LayerX aims to generate approximately $680 million (ÂĄ100 billion) in annual recurring revenue by fiscal year 2030, with roughly half expected to come from its AI agent business. It also plans to grow its workforce to around 1,000 employees by 2028.
