MPower Partners Fund II ("MPower"), a Japan-based global venture capital fund, has invested in Fact Base, Inc., the developer of ZUMEN, a drawing management software system for small and mid-sized manufacturers. The round is led by Insight Partners, with MPower participating alongside Artemis Ventures.

Manufacturing is Japan's largest industry, accounting for roughly 20% of its GDP. SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) make up more than 99% of the country's factories, and yet software integration has largely passed them by. Conventional enterprise systems were designed around mass-scale production and start with minimum-volume orders. The work smaller manufacturers actually run on happens earlier: a drawing comes in, a quote goes out, and the job is won or lost. None of that was covered. As a result, the drawing, which is the most valuable information these businesses hold, has been kept on file servers and in the memories of individual craftsmen.

ZUMEN is filling this gap. It holds drawings in one place and connects search and sharing all through to quoting. The pricing also matters as much as the product itself. Fact Base set it at a level a factory with a dozen or so employees can approve on its own, cutting the cost of digitization by an order of magnitude and opening up a segment software companies had passed over as too small to serve.

The company has expanded into 14 countries in the four years since its founding, and international revenue continues to grow as a share of the business. Receiving a drawing and producing a quote works much the same way anywhere in the world. The core value proposition of ZUMEN carries across borders, which lets Fact Base enter new markets without rebuilding it each time.

Fact Base plans to broaden its product line using the data that builds up around drawings, and to keep accelerating its expansion overseas.

This investment is part of MPower Partners Fund II. What Fact Base built for Japan's small manufacturers is now being used, largely as is, in factories overseas. Japanese software rarely travels this way, and it puts the company in a position few of its peers have reached. Their international success is thanks to their team with local know-how and connections, with a third of Fact Base’s employee base from outside Japan. Reaching the least-served part of an industry that has carried the Japanese economy for decades, and then taking that solution out to the world, is what MPower had in mind when it set out its Japan Dynamism theme.

Comment from Masataka Takeuchi, CEO, Fact Base

"We are delighted to welcome MPower Partners as a new shareholder in Fact Base. Since our founding we have stayed close to the factory floor, and ZUMEN, a product born in Japan, is now used in 14 countries. From here we will raise our pace further, and commit ourselves fully to building a global software company out of Japan.

To expand globally, we need more than a stronger product and sales organization. We have to build local organizations, hire, put governance in place, and establish a management foundation that can sustain growth, all at the same time. MPower Partners brings a global network and real experience in the organizational and governance work that long-term growth requires, and that is exactly what Fact Base needs at this stage. Combined with our own understanding of the factory floor and our ability to stand a business up quickly and take it overseas, we believe this partnership will let us grow considerably further.

We want to take software born on Japan's factory floors out into the world and become indispensable to manufacturers everywhere, and to prove that a software company from Japan can reach that kind of scale. Having MPower Partners alongside us as we work toward that gives us a great deal of confidence."

Comment from Masatoshi Fukasawa, Partner, and Kazuhiro Hosaka, Vice President, MPower Partners

"Fact Base is reaching a segment the software industry had written off as too small to serve, at a price the shop floor can approve on its own. What convinced us was the go-to-market. The understanding this team built by visiting thousands of factories in person, and the discipline to turn that into a measured, teachable system rather than leave it with individuals, is where the company's strength comes from. Founder-market fit of this depth is rare; a team that converts it into repeatable execution is rarer. The same playbook now runs in Japan and overseas, and that is what has carried them into 14 countries in four years. We believe Fact Base can define this category globally, and we look forward to supporting them as they broaden the product line and scale internationally."

About Fact Base

• CEO: Masataka Takeuchi

• Established: 2022

• Location: Tokyo, Japan

• Corporate URL: https://fact-base.com/en

• Press release by company: https://fact-base.com/newslist/PEyE2t4t

About MPower Partners

MPower Partners is a Japan-based venture capital fund with a mission to empower visionary gamechangers and unlock transformative growth. With our diverse investment team and deep global networks, we identify and support high-potential ventures both in Japan and internationally. We go beyond capital investments by helping drive true and sustainable growth among our portfolio startups via our proprietary ESG framework. On a broader level, as bridge-builders and ecosystem shapers, we hope to leave the Japanese venture capital ecosystem better than we found it, one with more diversity and scale.

Fund website: https://www.mpower-partners.com

For inquiries, please contact: info@mpower-partners.com

This press release has been prepared for the purpose of providing information to qualified institutional investors and potential portfolio companies of the Fund, and is not a disclosure document pursuant to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, and does not constitute a solicitation or recommendation to purchase the Fund.