CLAS Co., Ltd., operator of the circular platform “CLAS” for durable consumer goods such as furniture and home appliances, has announced a total fundraise of ¥1.38 billion through a third-party allotment to the Panasonic Kurashi Visionary Fund—a corporate venture capital fund (CVC) co-managed by Panasonic Corporation and SBI Investment Co., Ltd.—as well as loans from financial institutions including Shizuoka Bank, the Shoko Chukin Bank (a government-affiliated financial institution for small and medium-sized enterprises), and Yamanashi Chuo Bank. The raise brings the company’s cumulative funding, including debt financing, to ¥11.46 billion.
Since its founding in 2018, CLAS has grown from a subscription service for furniture and home appliances aimed at individual consumers into a broader business that also supports corporate clients with office fit-outs and property value enhancement. As of February 2026, the platform had surpassed 270,000 individual members and 3,500 corporate accounts, and as of April 2026 had delivered a cumulative total of 350,000 items through 330,000 circulation cycles.
From its earliest days, the company built in-house warehouse management and order management systems designed around a circular business model, enabling end-to-end data management covering procurement, delivery, post-return repair and cleaning, and re-lending. A proprietary database records repair histories at the component level for each product, allowing optimised maintenance that curbs disposal before the end of a product’s useful life; some items are circulated up to approximately ten times. Underpinned by this operational foundation, the company achieved a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue of 41.7% over the five fiscal years from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2026, a gross profit margin of 61.3% in fiscal year 2026, and has reached profitability at both the operating income and operating cash flow levels.
On the service side, CLAS operates the consumer e-commerce platform “CLAS,” the “CLAS Home Staging” service that helps property owners and developers achieve faster tenancies, and the “CLAS Biz furnished rental service” for medium- to long-term residents—together addressing the residential living environment—alongside the “CLAS Biz office service,” which supports companies pursuing an asset-light management approach in the workplace environment.
According to the company, while recycling—recovering raw materials from end-of-life products—is becoming established practice in Japan’s circular economy efforts, repair and reuse, which keep products in their original form for as long as possible, still have significant room to grow. With this fundraise as a catalyst, CLAS plans to strengthen the operational foundation needed to embed a circular economy for durable consumer goods into everyday society, leveraging its accumulated circulation data, repair history database, and logistics and refurbishment infrastructure in the Kanto and Kansai regions, while deepening collaboration with manufacturers including Panasonic and with national and local government bodies.
Panasonic has been advancing resource circulation through home-appliance recycling initiatives, including “Panasonic Factory Refresh,” a programme that inspects, refurbishes, and resells home appliances. CLAS aims to accelerate the realisation of a circular economy in the furniture and home appliance sector by combining its own circular infrastructure for durable consumer goods with the refurbishment and recycling expertise and assets that Panasonic has built up over the years.
Panasonic Factory Refresh launched in April 2024, initially covering ten product categories, and expanded to thirteen categories in February 2025. A buyer survey conducted by Panasonic between April and November 2024 found quality satisfaction at 91%, likelihood to recommend at 93%, and overall satisfaction at 97%.
The shift from owning to using furniture and home appliances is gaining traction beyond CLAS as well. Social Interior Co., Ltd., which operates the furniture subscription service “subsclife,” announced a capital and business alliance with Sumitomo Corporation in October 2024, becoming an equity-method affiliate of the trading house. The partnership draws on Sumitomo Corporation’s customer base and industry network built through its mail-order, e-commerce, and real estate businesses, and also involves sales collaboration and joint procurement with Sumisho Interior International Co., Ltd. (a Sumitomo Corporation Group company specialising in interior design and space design). Social Interior operates under the mission “Towards a society where good things circulate,” offering individual subscriptions alongside corporate office design support and digital transformation (DX) services for interior design and architecture firms.
【Press Release】Total fundraise of ¥1.38 billion from the Panasonic Kurashi Visionary Fund and others; cumulative funding reaches ¥11.46 billion
【Reference Article】Panasonic Factory Refresh—Panasonic’s inspected refurbished products (with warranty)—expands lineup to a total of 13 categories
【Reference Article】Capital and business alliance concluded with Social Interior, operator of a furniture ordering platform
【Related Article】Furniture subscription service CLAS achieves operating profit and strengthens growth platform, expanding durable goods circulation through hybrid fundraising
