ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it has signed a capital and business alliance agreement with Redish Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Takeshi Matsukuma, Representative Director; hereinafter “Redish”), a company that provides management support services to small- and medium-sized companies including freelancers and sole proprietors (hereinafter “Freelancers and Sole Proprietors”) with a focus on services related to accounting and tax matters.

According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the added value of small- and medium-sized companies including Freelancers and Sole Proprietors exceeds 100 trillion yen and is expected to continue rising going forward, supported by Work Style Reform and the lifting of bans on employees holding second jobs.^*1 Having said that, as Freelancers and Sole Proprietors are forced to handle complicated accounting and tax matters with limited funds and human resources, Freelancers and Sole Proprietors face a number of issues, like inaccessibility of appropriate financial services, in addition to consume time to address accounting which prevents them from focusing on their main businesses.

Redish is a provider of the Cross Point service that significantly reduces the time that Freelancers and Sole Proprietors spend on accounting and tax matters fully leveraging digital tools such as cloud-based accounting software, chat tools, etc. Thanks to a price which is less than 50% of the average cost of ordinary accounting and tax services and the strength of digitally assisted services, Redish achieved an approximately 300% year-on-year growth in the number of contracted customers as of December 2022 and it aims to continue to grow going forward.^*2 In addition, it provides a wide range of management support services such as cost-reducing or marketing support proposals leveraging data from accounting and tax services.

Through this capital and business alliance, ITOCHU will support Redish in its expansion of new customers leveraging ITOCHU’s wide range of networks. Also, it will seek to provide a variety of financial and insurance services to Freelancers and Sole Proprietors in collaboration with Redish, including the development of new credit assessment models. Aa a first step, Itochu will provide its original financial services such as factoring service to small restaurants, which have difficulties in raising funds under the current circumstances, by MONEY COMMUNICATIONS INC., a wholly owned subsidiary of ITOCHU or other subsidiaries.

ITOCHU transforms business by shifting to a market-oriented perspective, which is a basic policy included its medium-term management plan, and this strategic investment in Redish is in line with this policy. Through this capital and business alliance with Redish, it will provide solutions to issues that Freelancers and Sole Proprietors are facing and help domestic companies grow while simultaneously facilitating the creation of new services.

Redish provides accounting, tax and management support services optimized for each industry.
In its accounting, tax and management support service, Redish provides its original Cross Point management support application in which users understand daily sales, the cost of sales and monthly profits or losses at a glance
(Example) Accounting and tax service for the food service industry
URL for the Cross Point service for restaurants:https://redish.jp/service/02-crosspoint/ (Japanese)