In March, after some delays, AnyMind Group finally completed its IPO and listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market.

It issued 885,300 shares with an additional overallotment option and associated offering of 403,400 shares with a secondary public offering of 1,804,200 shares at a price to the public of JPY1,000 (US$7.41) per share. The Singapore-born company intends to use the proceeds to invest in talent development and expand its footprint.

As with any Southeast Asian tech startups that have been publicly listed, we want to learn more about the journey of AnyMind Group–how they get here and where they are going. Most importantly, as expectations for tech startups to build a sustainable business heightened, we feel the urgency to learn from fellow startups on how they make their revenue and achieve success.

So we sit down with AnyMind Group Chief Commercial Officer and co-founder Otohiko Kozutsumi to understand more about the company’s business model. We uncover the important roles played by M&A, international expansion, and human resources in their journey.

A three-pronged business model

Founded in 2016, AnyMind Group builds a commerce infrastructure that includes everything from brand identity, manufacturing, communications, and even logistics, with a strong emphasis on cross-border businesses.

Currently run by a team of more than 1,300 staff, the company operates in 13 markets in Greater Southeast Asia, Japan, and even as far as India. These markets contribute to 53 per cent of its international revenue, with the company making a revenue of more than JPY24 billion (US$178 million), a 54 per cent revenue CAGR (from 2017 to 2022).

While the company’s biggest team is in Japan with 350 employees, Kozutsumi names Thailand as AnyMind Group’s biggest market with 275 employees.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: Startups share valuable 2022 lessons; AnyMind delays IPO

The company operates three business lines:

Marketing
Contributing 53 per cent of AnyMind Group’s revenue, this segment is represented by platforms AnyTag and AnyDigital.

D2C and e-commerce
Represented through platforms such as AnyFactory, AnyX, and AnyLogi, this segment contributes 12 per cent to AnyMind Group’s revenue.

Partner Growth

Despite being relatively new, this segment contributes 35 per cent of AnyMind Group’s revenue.

“We focused on the marketing side of the business since our founding in 2016, then we expand to e-commerce and D2C-related businesses,” Kozutsumi explains. He further elaborates how the D2C and e-commerce business line has grown “really dramatically” since it started two years ago, just like the Partner Growth business line that was started in 2018.

Also Read: Afternoon News Roundup: Singaporean tech entertainment firm AnyMind raises US$26.4M Series B

Human resource as keys to profitability

In FY2022, AnyMind Group recorded an operating profit of JPY30 million (US$223,000). During the interview, Kozutsumi explains all the factors that helped the company achieve this number, despite an operating loss of JPY213 million (US$1.5 million) in FY2021.

“As you can see, all of these business models are B2B in nature … It means we don’t need to invest a lot for the user acquisitions like B2C business. So, the important point is that we have a strict budget control system. We should achieve the target, but at the same time, costs should also be maintained in quite a good way,” he says.

Human resource plays a key role in the company’s performance. To help meet internal KPIs, AnyMind Group invests in training their employees, so that they can increase productivity effectively. According to Kozutsumi, cost efficiency and productivity are the reasons why the company is able to achieve profitability without any layoffs.

In addition to those two factors, in July 2022, AnyMind Group also raised US$29.4 million in Series D funding to support its business.

Bringing talent onboard

International expansion plays an important role in growing AnyMind Group’s business, and the company is able to achieve this by acquiring companies that already have a strong presence in the market they are aiming for. By far, they have acquired a total of seven companies.

Some examples of acquisitions that AnyMind Group has done in the past include MoIndy Digital in Thailand and POKKT in India.

By acquiring these companies, in addition to expanding its geographical reach, AnyMind Group also introduced its services into these markets.

Also Read: AnyMind Group closes Series B funding at a total of US$21M

“When we enter India, they were only doing digital marketing business, so we brought our influencer marketing platform to the market,” Kozutsumi says.

Once a company was acquired by AnyMind Group, its founders then entered the group’s management team and became country managers for the market it operates in. This is why M&A also plays an important role in the group’s human resource aspect.

“Through the M&A, we are able to invite very talented and committed founders to AnyMind. That way, we can build a very strong management team,” Kozutsumi says.

This is why, when considering an acquisition of a company, the founders are one of the first things that the group considers. “The culture match is … super important,” Kozutsumi stresses.

The CCO also mentions that the group is set to do more acquisitions in the future.

This year, after the IPO, AnyMind Group aims to focus on increasing its profit by growing its D2C and e-commerce business more aggressively.

“There is also the long-term possibility of expanding outside of Asia as well,” Kozutsumi closes.

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Image Credit: AnyMind Group

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