Investment in Cierpa & Company, provider of SmartESG, a cloud service that supports ESG disclosure
Genesia Ventures, Inc. has announced its follow-on investment in Cierpa & Company from Genesia Venture Fund No. 2 (GV-2). Cierpa & Company develops and provides SmartESG, a cloud-based service supporting ESG disclosure.
About SmartESG
SmartESG is a cloud service that centralizes internal ESG data and enables companies to analyze and improve their sustainability activities. SmartESG Workflow streamlines the process of responding to information disclosure requests and questionnaires from external evaluation organizations and business partners, and consolidates ESG data scattered throughout the company in the SmartESG Database. Its SmartESG Matrix maps the aggregated ESG data to each of the key ESG items required by evaluation organization and disclosure standard, clarifies the degree of commonality and importance, and the SmartESG Scoring system will identify benchmark companies and their scoring and disclosure best practices. This scoring system will also encourage companies to improve their ESG ratings in the market.
Background of Funding
Since launching SmartESG in May 2022 and raising JPY 60 million in a Seed round, Cierpa & Company has become a frontrunner in offering cloud-based ESG disclosure support in Japan and expanding its business. Since the release of the official version in November of the same year, the total market capitalization of companies that have adopted the service has exceeded JPY 15 trillion, and the business continues to grow rapidly.
In order to meet the market needs and take on new challenges, the company raised a total of JPY 260 million in this round of financing, which will be used mainly for:
- Recruiting executives, managers, salespeople, and engineers: The company looks to strengthen its workforce to more than 20 people by the end of 2023, especially in the areas of sales and customer success.
- Investing in technology for functions that enable more advanced ESG data collection and aggregation, and for analyzing ESG information: The funds will be used to strengthen the development team to develop functions such as segmented ESG data (e.g. HR-related data) which has been difficult to collect in the past, and dashboards that enable analysis of ESG information. The aim is to make the system available not only to sustainability divisions of listed companies but also to the entire company, as well as to overseas branches and local subsidiaries of Japanese corporations.
- Launch of ESG AI Labo: As part of the mid- to long-term R&D enhancement, the company will launch SmartESG AI Labo. At AI Labo, AI engineers and ESG consultants will gather to develop more advanced technologies using AI and machine learning and provide ESG insights gained through the development of these technologies.
About the Investment
Masafumi Kawai, Partner/Chief Sustainability Officer, Genesia Ventures Inc.
ESG management has become indispensable for companies, and is increasingly demanded not only by capital markets, but also by trading and labor markets. In order to meet such demands, it is essential to have a system to accurately and comprehensively collect and disclose non-financial information accumulated inside and outside the organization, and to analyze and improve such information. SmartESG has evolved into a platform that is equipped with database functions for information collection and disclosure and an AI benchmark function that analyzes and suggests best practices, supporting ESG management.
Company Profile
Company Name : Cierpa ＆ Company, Inc.
CEO : Jun Sugimoto
Establishment : September 2019
Headquarters : Tokyo Neon Building 2F, 6-4-22 Minami-Oi, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
