is a

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

-based software company that provides web-based groupware services including Cybozu Office and kintone. In addition to the main office in Tokyo, Cybozu also has offices in

Matsuyama file:Matsuyama city office Ehime prefecture Japan.jpg, 270px, Matsuyama City Hall file:Ehimekencho-20040417.JPG, 270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan ...

and

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

, as well as several overseas subsidiaries in countries including

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The U.S.-based subsidiary, kintone Corporation, is located in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

Background

In 1997,

Toru Takasuka is a Japanese software entrepreneur. Takasuka founded Cybozu, one of Japan's first Web-based groupware products. In 1997 with a $200,000 loan and two partners, Takasuka left his position as Vice President of Matsushita Electric Works V-Interne ...

resigned as the Vice President/Director of Matsushita Electric Works V-Internet Operations, an in-house venture company he helped to create. Along with partners Yoshihisa Aono and Shinya Hata, he started the software company in

Matsuyama, Ehime 270px, Matsuyama City Hall 270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan and also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243541 househo ...

with a $200,000 loan from family and friends. The company aimed to produce Japan’s first web-based groupware products. Cybozu, Japanese for “cyber-kid”, rapidly gained market share in the Japanese market. Within three years the company went public – at that time the fastest company rise to

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

in the history of Japan’s 2nd section of the

Tokyo Stock Exchange The , abbreviated as Tosho () or TSE/TYO, is a stock exchange located in Tokyo, Japan. It is the third largest stock exchange in the world by aggregate market capitalization of its listed companies, and the largest in Asia. It had 2,292 listed co ...

. Today Cybozu is the number one groupware producer in Japan. They are currently listed on the 1st section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Cybozu prides itself on having a corporate culture that enables its employees to have a healthy work-life balance. In 2017, Cybozu was listed by Great Place to Work as the number one mid-sized Japanese company for women. Released in 2011, Cybozu's low code/no code platform known as kintone was recognized by the

Gartner Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its clients ...

Magic Quadrant Magic Quadrant (MQ) is a series of market research reports published by IT consulting firm Gartner that rely on proprietary qualitative data analysis methods to demonstrate market trends, such as direction, maturity and participants. Their anal ...

for Enterprise Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS) in both 2016 and 2017. It was also listed by CIO Applications as one of the 25 Workflow Solutions Transforming Businesses in 2016. In November 2013, Cybozu along with Zendesk launched their joint marketing efforts at the cybozu.com conference on cloud computing in Tokyo.

References

{{Authority control Software companies of Japan Groupware Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Software companies based in Tokyo