News

JIC Venture Growth Investments (VGI) has acquired shares in BALLAS Inc. (BALLAS), through its JIC Venture Growth Fund 2.

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With the mission of "Optimizing the construction industry for happiness," BALLAS operates a procurement platform for construction materials that integrates design and purchasing.

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In Japan, construction demand is growing, driven by the government's national resilience initiatives and investment in advanced infrastructure such as data centers and semiconductor plants. At the same time, the number of factories that manufacture construction materials continues to decline due to an aging workforce and a lack of successors. Beyond the widening gap between supply and demand, the skills and know-how built up in design and manufacturing are at risk of being lost. Securing a stable supply of construction materials has become a structural challenge for the industry.

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Against this backdrop, BALLAS has been using data and technology to rebuild the process for custom construction materials across design, manufacturing, procurement and field work. Traditionally, this work has been handled case by case and has depended on the experience of individual staff. By structuring data from 3D models and modularizing materials, BALLAS turns this know-how into reusable data assets, creating a system that becomes more optimized with every project. Working with more than 150 partner factories across Japan, the company has also shortened lead times and optimized quality and cost at every stage from design to delivery.

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With the funds raised in this round, BALLAS will expand its team, with a focus on AI development. By standardizing its accumulated data into modules that AI agents can work with, the company will strengthen its AI-Native supply chain, automating the entire process end to end, from initial project discussions through delivery.

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This investment supports BALLAS's efforts to convert tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and to automate operations with AI. These efforts help pass on skills and know-how while expanding supply capacity with limited people and factories. Through this investment, VGI aims to help secure a stable supply of construction materials and strengthen the industrial competitiveness of Japan's construction and manufacturing sectors.

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_{The information contained in this notice is current as of the date of publication and is subject to change without notice.}