DNX

“Think big” — that has been UPSIDER’s unwavering belief since the day we were founded. To build a financial infrastructure that supports every company willing to challenge.To create a world where businesses can thrive without relying on accounting or finance specialists. To lower the barriers around money and empower new challengers. As of 2026, UPSIDER serves 100,000 companies — and our mission is to reach every one of the more than 2 million small and medium-sized businesses across Japan. Our strategic integration with Mizuho Financial Group in 2025 is one bold step toward that greater challenge. Our relationship with DNX began in 2018. We showed up without a single slide, pitching entirely by word of mouth — an almost unreasonably unprepared visit. Yet Kurabayashi-san listened with full sincerity, as if the failure to understand was somehow his own. That impression never left us, and we came back at Series A. Then in 2021, with cash running dangerously low amid rapid growth, DNX made an instant commitment to lead the round — before due diligence had even begun. From there, DNX’s support only deepened: a board seat taken on by Kitamura-san, hands-on involvement in our M&A process, and so many team members engaged that we came to know them all by name. Multiple lines of communication formed between our two teams, and it was that mutual understanding of each other’s character and culture that made it possible to navigate the biggest decisions in UPSIDER’s history.