SmartBank, which provides the household accounting prepaid card “B/43”, has raised 4 billion JPY ($26 million) in the first close of its Series B round, with 1.1 billion JPY ($7.2 million) coming from debt financing and 2.9 billion JPY ($18.8 million) from equity provided by its current investor, Global Brain.
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With this latest round of funding, the company’s total funding since its founding will be 7.08 billion yen. The funds raised this time will be used to recruit personnel to strengthen the organization and for marketing activities to acquire users in order to strongly promote the development of household finance improvement services that utilize generative AI.
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Smartbank has developed and is providing a new expense management service called “B/43,” which is a set of a “prepaid card” and a “household accounting app” that allows automatic household accounting through the use of cashless payments. Recently, the company has expanded the functionality of the “B/43” app, including the implementation of credit card and bank account linking functions and AI receipt reading functions, so that expenses other than prepaid cards can also be managed with just one app, supporting the visualization and soundness of household finances.
In recent years, rising prices have led to an increased desire to save money, and with the increase in dual-income households finding it difficult to find time to manage household finances, as well as the spread of cashless payments, B/43 has captured the market need for a hassle-free way to visualize household finances, and the total number of downloads of the app has exceeded one million in the three years since the service began.
Going forward, SmartBank aim to go beyond the area of streamlining household management and develop and provide a household improvement service that is committed to creating surplus funds. Specifically, from next spring onwards, it has plan to provide an AI assistant service that uses generative AI to accompany users in improving their household finances according to their goals and daily spending situation.
About SmartBank
SmartBank was founded by Shota Horii, along with his twin brother Yuta Horii and Jun Taketani in 2019.
