Seed Funding Round Complete! KabuK Style collectively procures JPY1 billion in funding
In one year since the birth of its subscription coliving service HafH, KabuK Style Inc. has procured a total of 1 billion yen from top-tier investors like JR WEST INNOVATIONS CO.,LTD., and NEC Capital Solutions, etc.
A key milestone for our company, we’ve raised a total of 1 billion yen from our seed funding round! As we begin our second year of operation, we intend to accelerate the development of our web service, our global network, and MaaS (Mobility as a Service).
KabuK Style Inc. has just received an investment from JR West Innovations Co., Ltd. Adding this to the financing we’ve already received for our subscription coliving service HafH from funds and venture capitals run by NEC Capital Solutions, TATERU Inc., and Dogan, Inc., we’ve completed our seed funding round by reaching a total of JPY1 billion.
■Background: Building the infrastructure for a society that accepts diversity for what it is
We, at KabuK Style, operate a monthly subscription coliving service called HafH, and our global network currently has accommodation facilities in 158 cities (104 in Japan) in 18 countries and regions around the world. HafH was launched in April 2019, and through continuously expanding the range of our network and the number of facilities, we have developed a service that allows members to live/stay where they want, when they want.
One year has passed since HafH was launched, and during this time we have already seen an increase in the introduction of and permission for side work/second jobs and remote work in mainstream society, as well as diversification in the number of work hours and in office environments. There also appears to be an increase, at least in Japanese society, of those turning to sole-proprietorship, or a combination of both working for a company and having one’s own business. We’re finally entering an age where one can choose and create their own diverse work environment.
That is our mission: to provide the infrastructure that will allow our society to become a place where diversity is not just tolerated, but accepted for what it is.
HafH is a combination of three daily life elements: living space, workplace, and travel. We define using facilities in the HafH Network has “living” at HafH.
In the current way of things, moving house costs a lot of time and money, not to mention the traveling back and forth in between.
We have our own directly run facilities at HafH, and have also created a network that consists of many forms of accommodation, from hotels to ryokan (Japanese style inns), whose philosophies and ideas are in line with ours. HafH is attempting to make it so that one can have a place to come home to anywhere in the world.
In addition, we are also working to establish a system whereby we can optimize the cost of travel, making it possible to stabilize both revenue for transport operators, and costs for users. By adding transportation means to allow us to connect points in our network, we are developing a greater lifestyle infrastructure service.
■Aim: Develop MaaS (Mobility as a Service) to connect living space, workplace and travel
In addition to creating bases all around the world from which one can live comfortably and carefree, our plan is to develop HafH to be a service that stabilizes living costs, including that of transportation. We’ve partnered with other companies so that we can develop our platform to allow users to safely and conveniently use a range of services wherever they go.
HafH’s web app currently functions as a reservation system to allow users to choose where to live. However, it is our plan to develop this further to include a MaaS (Mobility as a Service) aspect.
With the funds we’ve raised, we aim to create an even more convenient web service for users to live where they want, when they want, anywhere in the world. We have also made it our goal to have a HafH facility located in 500 cities around the world by the end of March 2021.
■ Words from KabuK Style CEO KJ Sunada: One year since the launch of HafH
We are approaching one whole year of operation since we first launched our subscription coliving service HafH in April 2019. HafH, an acronym for Home away from Home, provides users with a places to reside all across the world, which helps to broaden their lifestyle choices. Within the space of a year, we’ve established partnerships with facilities whose values match our own, and now offer a worldwide network of 236 coliving / coworking / accommodation facilities in 158 cities across 18 countries and regions.
In this last year, I feel that “coliving” and “workation,” words that were relatively unknown, have gradually become more commonplace. While we expected certain people with certain job descriptions to be likely users of our service, we’ve had Neighbors (the term for HafH members) join whose job descriptions don’t fall into any of the anticipated categories. This has helped to open even our own eyes as to the many possible ways HafH can be used. We’ve honestly had a great and diverse response to HafH.
For HafH’s second year of operation, we hope to offer a glimpse of an accommodation reservation service that’s evolving into a platform, which can be regarded as a single household, that simply allows you to live anywhere you want. Building a platform that allows you to live anywhere across the globe is not something that can be done in a day. We want to steadily build our lifestyle enriching service one step at a time.
What is HafH:
HafH is a monthly subscription coliving service aiming to be a platform for global living, with utilities, Wi-Fi, security deposits, furniture, etc., all included.
Read more on our website：https://hafh.com/
Company Outline
Company Name: KabuK Style Inc.
Co-CEOs: KJ Sunada & Ryo Osera
Date Established: February 5, 2018
Capital: JPY598 million
(Capital and capital reserve as of March 2020)
Business Description: Operation and management of subscription
coliving service “HafH”, accommodation and rental service, travel agency
▼HafH can be found in the following regions as of March 25, 2020
DOMESTIC: All 47 Prefectures of JAPAN
OVERSEAS: Australia・Indonesia・Thailand・Taiwan・Malaysia・
Vietnam・the Philippines・Myanmar・Kenya・Tanzania・
Greece・Peru・Guatemala・Mexico・Georgia・Cambodia・
USA
For enquiries regarding the above article, please contact us on the details below:
KabuK Style Inc.
Spokesperson（Tokyo Office）：Ms Mishima
Phone：03-5413-3398
Email：pr@kabuk.com
●We ask that you please make your enquiries via email
