unlisted stocks

Smart Round Securities strengthens management structure prior to launch

Norbert Gehrke

Norbert Gehrke

— 2 min read
Smart Round Securities strengthens management structure prior to launch

SmartRound, which in September 2024 formed a capital alliance with Mizuho Financial Group (Mizuho Trust & Banking), MUFJ Morgan Stanley Securities, and Nomura, with the aim of jointly building a platform to optimize secondary trading of stocks issued by unlisted startups, has decided to transition its subsidiary SmartRound Securities to a company with a board of directors and launch a new management structure.

The current company name is Smart Round Strategy Business Preparation Company, and the company plans to change its name after completing registration as a Type 1 Financial Instruments Business Operator (special brokerage business for unlisted securities, etc.) that will be established under the revised Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, which is scheduled to come into effect on May 1, 2025, with the aim of starting operations as soon as possible.

New President and Chief Executive Officer Takuya Kano graduated from the Faculty of Law at Hitotsubashi University, joined Simplex in 2009 and worked as an engineer on system implementations for major financial institutions. Since 2014, Kano has been involved in project promotion for ID and point business at Recruit. After planning and developing robo-advisors at FOLIO and new business development at Japan Digital Design of the MUFG Group, he joined Smart Round in 2022. After serving as product manager and secretary general of the Startup Association, he is now responsible for launching Smart Round Securities.

Smartround itself is a data creation and sharing platform to streamline interactions between startups and investors. For startups, it provides services to streamline shareholder meetings, capital policies, stock option management, etc., and for investors, it provides services to streamline fund-related tasks such as sourcing, investment management, performance analysis, and reporting. It is currently used by over 6,400 startups, and its paid services for investors and advisors are used by over 70 organizations.

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