Knowledge Holdings Inc.: Combining Subsidies with "AXiY" Marketing Tool for Low-Cost In-House Store DX

From Rapid Growth in Telecommunications Sales to Tackling Store Marketing Challenges

Hello, everyone. My name is Tomokawa Uchi, President and CEO of Knowledge Holdings Inc. Thank you for having me today.

I was born in Yokohama in 1984 and am currently 40 years old. First, let me introduce myself and share the background behind starting this business.

After graduating from high school, I had a strong dream of becoming a business owner. After working various part-time jobs, I started working as a scout in Kabukicho to sharpen my sales skills. Armed with the interpersonal sales skills I developed there, I started my first business at the age of 19, selling telecommunications lines door-to-door. At the time, we rode the wave of the digital terrestrial television transition, rapidly expanding our door-to-door sales network nationwide. This allowed us to scale the business quickly and secure substantial capital.

Using that capital, I branched out into operating brick-and-mortar locations, including franchising welfare facilities, beauty salons, and restaurants. Today, these welfare facilities and stores have grown to over 50 locations nationwide.

However, while expanding under the goal of sustainable store management, we faced the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of customers visiting our physical stores plummeted, making it extremely difficult to keep them running. I realized then that we had to fundamentally change the way store marketing worked.

At the same time, because of my deep involvement in the welfare business, I was well-informed about government trends. I quickly learned that the government would allocate massive budgets for various subsidies and grants related to AI and DX (Digital Transformation). Instead of just selling expensive marketing tools, I decided to design and offer a practical store marketing solution that would eliminate initial investment barriers by utilizing these government subsidies and grants. This was the beginning of our company.

Moving Away from Siloed Marketing Vendors to Integrate SNS and MEO Analytics

Currently, the store marketing industry suffers from a severe "silo" problem.
Store owners are constantly approached by multiple vendors—such as Instagram management agencies, MEO (Google Maps optimization) specialists, LINE official account builders, and website production companies—and sign separate contracts with each.

Because these marketing efforts are fragmented, it is impossible to evaluate them holistically. Owners cannot measure which channel is actually contributing to customer acquisition, making it extremely difficult to run a proper PDCA cycle. As a result, many stores remain dependent on high-cost listing advertisements on major portal sites (like Hot Pepper) without knowing their true efficacy. Furthermore, even if they want to run campaigns internally, they lack the know-how, forcing them to outsource everything.

Our solution is to provide "AXiY," a proprietary DX tool series that integrates and tracks SNS, MEO, and Web media analytics, alongside "in-house support" to help stores manage their own marketing.

Our strength lies not only in providing tools, but also in our organizational capability—with in-house design and operations specialists—and our deep expertise in securing IT subsidies and grants for over 400 clients. By leveraging these subsidies, we eliminate the risk of initial investment losses, which store owners dislike most. This allows stores to build a sustainable, in-house marketing structure for SNS, MEO, and recruitment with minimal out-of-pocket costs.

This solution has already delivered significant results. For example, a small 12-seat restaurant in a highly competitive ramen district achieved 8 million yen in monthly sales after optimizing its SNS and MEO with AXiY. In Osaka, a beauty clinic established a system that automatically generates over 30 new LINE friend registrations (appointment bookings) every month within six months of launch. Our solution has been adopted by over 400 locations, primarily clinics, salons, and restaurants.

A Subscription-Based Advisory Model Driven by IT Subsidies to Lower Entry Barriers

Our immediate target is to achieve an IPO and 4.5 billion yen in revenue by 2030. Currently, our average contract value is approximately 3 million yen, including initial setup. However, our client retention rate for system usage (subscription) from the second year onward is exceptionally high—exceeding 80%—forming a very stable recurring revenue base.

Moving forward, we plan to expand beyond tool provision by launching a subscription-based "Subsidy and Grant Consulting" service that automatically crawls and proposes the most suitable government subsidies for each store. We are also test-marketing a money-back guarantee plan: "If we fail to secure the target amount of subsidies through our support over the year, we will fully refund the monthly advisory fees." This plan has received an incredibly positive response from small business owners with limited capital.

By using subsidies to help clients introduce our system at a low cost, and then transitioning them to the AXiY subscription or helper-guided in-house operations once they see results, we establish a model that minimizes the marketing cost burden for stores while maximizing their revenue.

Our objective for this round is to raise 40 million yen to recruit top-tier IT talent and strengthen our marketing activities. We are also seeking partnerships with VCs and corporate partners who can advise us on our capital policy and financial strategy for rapid growth.

For 20 years since starting my first business, I have chased ventures that I found exciting. Now, I want to use this business to make a meaningful social contribution by supporting the growth of small businesses and manufacturers nationwide, taking steady steps toward our IPO. Thank you for your support.

Q&A and Feedback

Mr. Suzuki (Commentator): Thank you very much, Mr. Uchi. Your personal entrepreneurial journey, combined with how you overcame the pandemic by leveraging government subsidy programs, was highly persuasive. Having your tools adopted by over 400 locations with a retention rate of over 80% after the first year is a remarkable achievement.

Mr. Uchi: Thank you. Because I operate physical stores myself, I deeply understand the pain of owners who "do not want to spend money on things with unclear results." I believe this success is a direct result of designing a system that eliminates financial risk by combining our tools with government subsidies.

Mr. Suzuki: It is indeed a unique approach. I am particularly interested in your concept of offering subsidy and grant consulting as a monthly subscription. What specific value and plans do you offer to stores?

Mr. Uchi: Yes. While we already support clients in applying for the government's "IT Introduction Subsidy" when they adopt our tools, we want to go a step further. We are planning a subscription service where we act as an ongoing "subsidy advisor" for stores. The national and local governments release numerous subsidies and grants every year, but store owners are usually too busy to search for them or are unaware they exist. We crawl and identify the best opportunities (such as manufacturing subsidies, business restructuring subsidies, or local municipal grants) tailored to each store's situation, propose them monthly, and support them from application to approval.

Mr. Suzuki: I see. But if their applications are not approved, wouldn't the store lose the subscription fees they paid?

Mr. Uchi: To eliminate that exact concern, we have designed a money-back guarantee package. For example, we might guarantee a minimum of 5 million yen in approved subsidies over the year, and if we do not reach that target, we fully refund the monthly advisory fees. We have already piloted this with several clinics, and it is showing great promise because clinics have a very high success rate in securing 5 to 10 million yen in subsidies.

Mr. Suzuki: A full refund guarantee! That is extremely attractive to stores since it poses zero financial risk. Given that clinics make significant capital investments in equipment, they seem to be a perfect match.

Mr. Uchi: Exactly. Clinics and salons invest heavily in equipment, and their application documents tend to be highly reliable, leading to high approval rates. By helping them secure funding to ease their cash flow, we build a win-win relationship where they continue to use our AXiY tools for their long-term in-house marketing.

Mr. Suzuki: It is a very solid business model that combines hands-on store management experience with government policies. We look forward to your organizational growth and future IPO. Thank you very much.

Mr. Uchi: Thank you.