Following the announcement of a $420m investment earlier this year, project44 has announced its expansion into the Japanese market. project44 already has global insight, and expansion directly into Japan is expected to generate additional opportunities to serve Japanese brands, providing additional supply chain visibility.
“As we continue our international expansion, Japan was a priority,” said Jett McCandless, Founder and CEO of project44. “Japan is a crossroads for transcontinental trade. With our ocean insights, we already have insight into Japanese shipping operations, and it was only natural to expand our presence in the country.”
Project44 recently hired Yuji Kuwahara as the General Manager and Vice President, Sales, Japan. Kuwahara was previously a Vice President at Coupa Software and LLamasoft. He has also previously participated in the Japanese launch for foreign IT solutions start-up companies, where he led the sales teams, grew their local organizations, and established the companies’ brand in the Japanese market. He brings his strong track record of success expanding brands into the region to the role.
To build its presence in Japan, project44 will open a Tokyo office in February of 2022. The office will be located in the Hibiya area. The office sets the stage for continued expansion in the region. The company plans to triple the size of the Tokyo office in 2022, hiring more than a dozen employees this year.
Hiroshi Etani, Senior Managing Executive Officer, at Yamato Transport, commented: “We evaluated the business potential and future potential of project44 and decided to invest, in addition to becoming a customer. In the future, while using the services of project44, which will be further expanded, we will deepen our knowledge of supply chain visibility and provide further value to our customers with it.”
Koichiro Nakamura, Founder and General Partner at Sozo Ventures, added: “According to project44’s month-on-month shipment delay data, average delays from China to major Japanese ports increased by 105% to 3.7 days in January 2022 compared to 1.8 days in December 2021. With companies facing more operational challenges, and with project44’s ability to power the world’s supply chain with its global network, we believe project44’s expansion into Japan was a natural next step and are excited to see them grow their solutions in the market.”
project44 now generates more than $100m in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and tracks more than 1bn packages annually.
The recent $420m investment should help project44 accelerate its mission to help leading brands optimize the movement of products across supply chains, delivering better resiliency, sustainability and value for their customers.
Source: project44
