Japan-based Earlyworks Co., Ltd. debuted on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “ELWS” on Tuesday, July 25, 2023.
The Japanese blockchain developer raised $6 million by offering 1.2 million American Depositary Shares (“ADSs”) at a price $5.00 per ADS. The offering is expected to close on July 27, 2023, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
Founded in May 2018 in Japan, Earlyworks operates its proprietary private blockchain technology, Grid Ledger System (“GLS”), to leverage blockchain technology in various applications in wide range of industries.
In Japan, there have been several incidents of information leakage from the databases of various companies. For example, personal information of over 2 million Aflac life insurance and Zurich auto insurance policyholders in Japan was leaked online in a third-party data breach in January this year. Despite the demand in Japan for stronger information security, the country is unfortunately lagging behind the international progress of blockchain system development. Under this circumstance, Earlyworks aims to leverage its proprietary private blockchain technology, GLS, to address these challenges.
GLS is a hybrid blockchain that combines the technical advantages of blockchain and database technology. GLS features high-speed processing, which reaches 0.016 seconds/one transaction, tamper-resistance, security, and reliability capacities, with multiple verified applicable domains including real estate, advertisement, telecommunication, metaverse, and financial services.
The company is also collaborating and adopted by many giant Japanese national companies, and also selected by “Microsoft for startups” which is listed on Azure’s market place.
According to the Company’s SEC filing, Earlyworks primarily generate revenue from its software and system development services and consulting and solution services. The net revenue increased by approximately JPY247.5 million, or 114.5%, from JPY216.2 million for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2021 to JPY463.7 million (US$3.1 million) for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2022.
For the same fiscal periods, revenue generated from its software and system development services accounted for approximately 50.6% and 44.1% of its total revenue, respectively, and revenue generated from its consulting and solution services accounted for approximately 49.4% and 55.9% of its total revenue, respectively.
According to the SEC filing, the net proceeds from the offering proceeds from the Offering will be used for investment in the research and development of GLS and GLS-System Development Kit (“SDK”), the recruitment of global talents, the strengthening of internal corporate governance systems and the investment in businesses engaged in the development of blockchain-based products and services.
The Company aims to increase the number of use cases of GLS, and offer a general-purpose SDK for external engineers to improve GLS, and eventually make it an infrastructure in the coming Web3/metaverse-like data society.
According to the company, the SDK package will not only have all the strength of company’s technologies, but also enables various industries to install their blockchain with lower cost, easy to maintain, and blockchain specialized engineers are not needed in each company.
The company is aiming to become the infrastructure of the data society in the future.
