7353.T

• Mission, Vision and Core Strategy

  • Mission: Innovate learning to unlock the infinite potential within every person, leveraging technology to revolutionize learning for individuals and organizations.
  • Vision: Become the world's most accessible, understandable, and sustainable learning solution provider.
  • Core long-term goal: Become Japan's top provider of individual learning support and corporate learning support, built on big learning data and AI-powered personalization.

• Corporate Growth Trajectory and Organizational Updates

  • The company has maintained consistent growth since founding: revenue has grown more than 3x since listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market in 2020, and 60x over 10 years since founding. The company shifted its focus from prioritizing revenue growth to balancing revenue expansion and profit growth under the current 2026 medium-term management plan.
  • Headcount grew from ~30 people at listing to 151 people as of 2025, all hires are mid-career experienced workers to date, with plans to gradually introduce new graduate hiring. Hires are concentrated in three functional areas: engineering/system development, content development, and marketing/sales/customer success.
  • TV advertising has had a secondary benefit of improving brand recognition for hiring, helping the company attract top engineering and marketing talent.

• Studying (Individual Career Support Business) Updates

  • Strategic focus remains on growing difficult qualification courses, which are currently performing very well. The company will expand single-year and quick-study courses to boost current-period revenue recognition, expand user base, and capture repeat demand after exams.
  • Cumulative total of 35,000 passed users have shared success stories, creating a positive growth cycle where more successful candidates drive higher brand trust and more new users.
  • Advertising efficiency has improved year-over-year, creating a more profitable operating structure. Core strategy focuses on becoming the top provider of successful qualification candidates, supported by AI-powered personalized learning, and gradually capturing the mainstream conservative user base.
  • Launched Studying Publishing in January 2026 to capture self-study users, who often test fit with a low-cost book before committing to a full-priced course. Currently offers 38 courses, with plans to gradually expand the course lineup based on user demand.
  • AI capabilities are a core competitive advantage: as an early AI adopter starting in 2017, the company offers AI features including personalized study plan creation, answer grading, skill level scoring, and spaced repetition reminders that no other competitor matches.
  • Studing Career, the company's job placement support service for passed candidates, is seeing steady growth in successful placement cases, with plans to accelerate growth going forward.

• AirCourse (Corporate Human Capital Business) Updates

  • AirCourse is an all-you-can-access e-learning service with over 1,200 pre-built courses, plus tools to easily build custom in-house courses, with strong cost-performance.
  • Maintains a very low quarterly churn rate of ~1%, with steady growth in contracted client numbers and accelerating growth driven by increasing large client acquisition.
  • Core strategy focuses on product enhancement via AI, strengthening the SaaS infrastructure and sales capabilities, and expanding into a full human capital utilization platform beyond core e-learning. Key competitive advantages include rich content, high cost-performance, easy learning for employees, and simple management for administrators, with added AI and knowledge management features.

• Overall Growth Strategy

  • The company pursues growth through two parallel tracks: organic growth of existing core business, and growth via M&A and strategic partnerships. M&A targets are focused on 1) strengthening existing core business (expanding course lineups, growing user base, expanding AirCourse's market presence), 2) expansion into adjacent areas such as career services (side work opportunities beyond job placement), 3) adding new business areas, and 4) potential expansion into blended hybrid learning combining digital and in-person learning.
  • Market potential is large: the domestic qualification acquisition market is just under 180 billion yen, corporate e-learning market is 130 billion yen, corporate in-person training market is 600 billion yen, and the rapidly growing generative AI market adds additional upside. The company sees room to grow to hundreds of billions of yen in revenue across its existing core business segments.

• For the 2026 December fiscal year (final year of the current medium-term management plan), the company guides total revenue of 5.8 billion yen, representing over 15% year-over-year growth, and operating profit of 0.4 billion yen, representing over 30% year-over-year growth.
  • Revenue is split into 4.8 billion yen for the Career Support Platform and 1 billion yen for the Human Capital Utilization Platform; surpassing the 1 billion yen revenue threshold for the corporate business is a key 2026 milestone.
  • Half-year guidance projects stronger growth in the second half than the first half, because difficult qualification exams are concentrated in the second half, driving higher re-enrollment and new student intake after exam season. An expected first-half operating loss is driven by large TV advertising investments made in January, with full-year operating profit guided to hit 0.4 billion yen in the second half.
  • The next medium-term management plan (2027-2029, 3-year term) is currently under development, and will include a more detailed M&A strategy when announced.
  • For the next medium-term plan, the company will maintain active investment to capture large market growth opportunities, while balancing investment with profit harvesting to grow corporate value and returns for investors. Over the long term, the company expects profit to grow 2x to 5x, driving corresponding growth in corporate value.

For the 2025 December fiscal year, the company achieved total revenue of 5 billion yen, surpassing the 5 billion yen threshold for the first time since founding, with operating profit of 0.3 billion yen, growing more than 40% year-over-year. 1. Career Support Platform (Studying business): Grew approximately 10% year-over-year, contributed 82.8% of total 2025 revenue, and is projected to reach 4.8 billion yen in revenue for the 2026 December fiscal year. 2. Human Capital Utilization Platform (Corporate education business): Grew approximately 30% year-over-year, contributed 17.2% of total 2025 revenue, is emerging as the company's second core business pillar, and is projected to reach 1 billion yen in revenue for the 2026 December fiscal year, surpassing the 1 billion yen threshold.

• The company's accounting structure creates a lopsided P&L profile: most expenses (especially advertising) are recognized in the current period, while revenue is recognized gradually over the course enrollment period, which makes near-term P&L results look weaker than the actual underlying cash flow performance of the business.
  • Cost of goods sold increased 3 percentage points year-over-year due to strong growth in the company's new printed study guide bundled courses; management expects this increase to moderate once the product rollout matures.
  • Dependence on subsidies for corporate education business: Management notes subsidy utilization is actually not high for the company's business; the service's strong cost-performance means it delivers value even without subsidies, so there is limited risk from subsidy cuts or expiration.
  • Labor force decline: Management believes labor force decline will actually accelerate demand for reskilling and productivity improvement, which is core to the company's business, and the company is still in a phase where new user acquisition growth far outweighs any negative impact from demographic decline.

Q: Is the company's TV advertising targeted at individual or corporate users? What is the concept of the current campaign?

A: TV advertising is for individual users, promoting the Studying qualification service, and is timed to January when user interest in new learning and qualification acquisition peaks at the start of the year. The 2026 campaign features actress Hana Sugisaki, with the concept of 'AI Qualification Partner' highlighting AI-supported learning that makes it easier for users to stick to their study goals.

Q: Are expenses also recognized proportionally over time similar to revenue recognition for course fees?

A: No, almost all expenses are recognized when incurred, for example, advertising is recognized when payment is made. Only a small portion of course development costs are amortized over time. This creates a P&L structure where expenses are recognized early and revenue is recognized later, which makes near-term results look weaker than actual cash flow performance.

Q: What are the company's M&A target areas?

A: Multiple options are currently under evaluation, and cannot be disclosed in detail at this stage. The main priority is strengthening existing core business, for example expanding Studying's course lineup, growing the user base, and expanding AirCourse's market reach. The second priority is expansion into adjacent areas such as additional career-related services beyond job placement. The company also considers adding entirely new business areas, and potential expansion into blended hybrid digital/in-person learning. The company will disclose more details gradually as plans progress.

Q: What is driving the strong growth of the corporate education business, and what is the risk of dependence on reskilling subsidies? What happens if subsidies are cut?

A: The company's utilization of subsidies is actually not high. AirCourse already has strong cost-performance that makes it an attractive investment for corporations even without subsidies. The core driver of growth is broad-based market demand for corporate e-learning: many large corporations have outdated legacy e-learning content and are looking to upgrade or expand their offerings. The company's product stands out because it offers high-quality, easy-to-use content including video, interactive practice, and activities, compared to the outdated low-engagement click-through slide format common in legacy products. AirCourse also offers an all-you-can-use model and tools to build custom in-house content, which gives it strong competitive advantage in the market.

Q: What is the balance of investment and harvesting in the next medium-term management plan, and what is the strategy for overseas expansion?

A: The next medium-term plan will be a phase of balancing investment and profit harvesting. There is still huge room to gain market share in the large domestic market for individual qualification and corporate learning, and capturing this share can grow the business to hundreds of billions of yen in revenue, so the company will continue to actively invest. At the same time, the business foundation is already mature enough to grow profit steadily, so the company will focus on growing profit to improve corporate value. For overseas expansion, the company is currently in early preparation: it is developing multi-language support for AirCourse, and already has existing usage from Japanese corporations with overseas subsidiaries. Full overseas expansion will only proceed once the domestic business is further developed and the company has surplus resources to allocate to international growth.

Q: Do you have cross-selling strategies for existing users after they complete their qualification?

A: Yes, it is very common for users who pass a qualification with Studying to purchase another qualification course from the company. The positive experience of passing a difficult qualification while working builds trust, so users often return to study for their next qualification. The company is currently building targeted marketing initiatives to support and encourage this behavior.

Q: What is the company's outlook 5 to 10 years from now amid declining labor force?

A: Declining labor force actually accelerates demand for productivity improvement and reskilling, which benefits the company. First, the company's current market share is still very small, so new user acquisition growth far outweighs any negative impact from demographic decline. Second, as career mobility (job changing, side work) becomes more common, the company's platform that connects individual skill development with corporate human capital management becomes even more valuable. Long term, the company aims to become the essential infrastructure for working adult learning in Japan, built on the largest working adult learning database.

Q: What is the seasonal sales trend for the business by quarter?

A: For Studying, which makes up most of revenue, sales are higher in Q3 and Q4, and lower in Q1 and Q2, because difficult qualification exams are concentrated in the second half of the year, so accrual-basis revenue from expiring course enrollment periods accumulates more in the second half. For the corporate business, which is mostly SaaS-based AirCourse, revenue is recognized evenly each period, so there is very little quarterly seasonality.

Q: Headcount has grown very quickly, average tenure is only 2.5 years, does this mean high turnover? What is your human resource strategy?

A: Headcount grew from 45 people at the end of 2021 to 151 people at the end of 2025, so most employees joined recently, which is why average tenure is short. This is not driven by high turnover. Employee engagement scores are currently high, and the company will continue to focus on attracting and retaining top talent to support business growth.