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HENNGE Invests in kickflow, Inc., a Cloud-based Ringi and Workflow System Provider2022.03.08

HENNGE K.K. (headquarters: Shibuya, Tokyo, Representative Director, Chief Executive Officer: Kazuhiro Ogura, "HENNGE") is pleased to announce its investment in kickflow, Inc. (headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Chief Executive Officer: Taito Shigematsu), which is a provider of a cloud-based ringi and workflow system. (Ringi is a traditional decision-making process in Japanese companies, circulating papers to multiple divisions and obtaining approvals of parties concerned.)

HENNGE has been investing in BtoB SaaS companies with whom it has high business synergy effects and has been growing together with such companies. As for the “kickflow”, which is kickflow, Inc.’s cloud-based ringi and workflow, HENNGE decided to invest in it under the belief that both companies can generate business synergy effects together as they both provide services targeted to information system departments of enterprise companies.
By its investment in kickflow, HENNGE will leverage its know-how as a company which develops and sells enterprise SaaS to support kickflow’s sales, business, and technical activities. Also, the two companies will work together to maximize the values they provide to their customers by sharing the customer base and supporting each other’s sales activities.

Comments from Mr. Taito Shigematsu, CEO of kickflow, Inc.
Prior to this investment, HENNGE had already deployed kickflow, and HENNGE highly appreciated our product. Thus the investment was realized. HENNGE and kickflow provide different solutions but the scale of our partner enterprises and our target customer organizations (information system departments) are the same. HENNGE is substantially ahead of us in resolving enterprise companies’ challenges, and kickflow will be able to grow even faster as we learn a lot from HENNGE.

■ ”kickflow”, the Next Generation Cloud-based Workflow for Enterprises
Workflow products in general, have substantially changed company’s decision-making processes, improving the efficiency of paper-based applications for ringi applications. However, while there were a lot of workflow products for small to medium-sized companies, there was no cloud-based workflow which supports medium to large-scale enterprises with hundreds of thousands of employees, with demands to simplify personal job reassignments across many different divisions, and comprehensive coverage over the group companies and holding companies, and the demand for such workflow was increasing. Kickflow provides the next-generation cloud-based workflow for enterprises, which had been waited for by medium to large-scale companies.
URL：https://kickflow.com/

■ About kickflow, Inc.
Kickflow was established as a group company of SmartHR in February 2020 and executed an MBO (management buyout) in 2021. Kickflow saw it as an opportunity when the company recognized that there had been very few choices for cloud-based ringi and workflow systems and it released the next-generation cloud-based workflow “kickflow”, which holds the benefits of both “on-premise” and “cloud-based” solutions. With its remarkable usability and manageability, kickflow accelerates companies’ decision-making processes and deployment of digital strategies, thus enhancing their work efficiency.

Company name: kickflow, Inc.
Address: Risona Kudan Bldg., 5F KS Floor, 1-5-6, Kudan Minami, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Representative: Taito Shigematsu, CEO
URL：https://kickflow.com/

■ About HENNGE K.K.
HENNGE K.K. was established in November 1996. It is a SaaS company, guided by the philosophy of "liberation of technology to change the world" and it develops and sells unique services that bridge the gap between technology and reality. HENNGE provides "HENNGE One", a one-stop cloud security service enabling consolidated IDs and passwords management of multiple cloud services, "Customers Mail Cloud" which is a cloud email distribution service, and "SumaMachi", which is an interactive communication service between local government bodies and their residents. HENNGE has been listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Mothers since October 2019.
The company name "HENNGE" originated from the Japanese character for transformation, 'HENNKA' and 'CHALLENGE', which represents its commitment to keep challenging against every change we encounter.

Company name: HENNGE K.K. (securities code: 4475)
Address: Daiwa Shibuya Square, 16-28 Nanpeidaicho, Shibuya City, Tokyo
Representative: Kazuhiro Ogura (Representative Director, Chief Executive Officer)
URL: https://hennge.com/

■ Contact information for inquiries regarding this press
HENNGE K.K.
Corporate Communication Division
Email: info@hennge.com
TEL: 03-6415-3660
Person in charge: Yano

*The names of companies, products and services mentioned in this press are trademarks or registered trademarks of HENNGE.K.K. or other related organizations.