Hiway Raises 300 Million JPY in Series A Funding to Enhance AI-Powered Channel Sales

Hiway (Headquarters: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Fumitaka Kubo) has announced the completion of a Series A funding round totaling approximately 300 million JPY. This round was led by existing investor DNX Ventures, bringing the company's total cumulative funding to 465 million JPY.

Hiway will leverage this capital to accelerate the development of an AI agent designed to autonomously execute tasks such as inquiry management and quote generation by utilizing product master data, price lists, customer history, and corporate knowledge.

By streamlining the manual, email, and phone-heavy processes currently used to support dealer sales representatives, Hiway aims to create an environment where both manufacturers and retailers can dedicate more time to relationship building and revenue growth.

To meet growing customer demand, the company will also strengthen its external system integration capabilities and system implementation support while scaling its engineering and business operations teams.

Challenges in Indirect Sales and Background of Funding

In Japan's B2B landscape, many enterprises adopt indirect sales models through dealers and distributors. However, most sales activities remain dependent on manual operations via email and phone, with information scattered across Excel, PDF, CRM, and core business systems.

Dealers often inundate representatives with requests for specifications, pricing inquiries, quote requests, and delivery confirmations. Representatives must manually track down information, craft answers, and log the interactions in a CRM. Despite the frequency of these tasks, they often rely on individual expertise and ad-hoc management.

Traditional CRM and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) products have focused on partner portals and case registration but have failed to support the actual practical work of handling inquiries and quotes. Hiway challenges this by reinventing CRM not as a record-keeping system, but as a revenue engine that autonomously supports sales activities.

Product Enhancement Highlights

Hiway is developing features to streamline product spec verification, quoting, and delivery scheduling. By integrating data back into corporate CRMs, Hiway promotes the digitization of sales activities for both manufacturers and dealers.

Specific AI agent functionalities, currently in PoC with selected users, include: - Processing inquiries/quote requests from email, phone, and forms to structure product information, quantities, and delivery conditions. - Generating draft answers and quotes by referencing product masters, pricing, history, and knowledge bases. - Allowing human oversight for complex deals, special pricing, and exceptions.

Future Vision

Hiway aims to transform existing CRM into a revenue engine, evolving into an AI operational base that advances practical sales tasks. The company is committed to organizational expansion, specifically in engineering and product development.

CEO Fumitaka Kubo stated, "We are reinventing CRM as an autonomous sales assistant." Investors from DNX Ventures added, "We are confident that Hiway's challenge will become the new infrastructure for the underserved B2B indirect sales space in Japan."