The Fast Route to PRO Market: A Founder on Listing Four and a Half Years In

I am Imamura, representative of NowVillage, which supports companies in digital marketing.

We were founded in October 2020 and, four and a half years later, listed on TOKYO PRO Market, the professional equity market operated by the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

This article sets out how we think about listing and what we expect of TOKYO PRO Market..

Who this is for
Anyone about to found a company who is also considering a listing
Anyone running a business today with an interest in TOKYO PRO Market
(There is little here for anyone already listed on a general market.)

1. About the company

What we do
Digital marketing support

Companies supported to date
500+ (as of October 2026)

Customers
Staffing and recruitment, IT, consulting, retail, healthcare, real estate, trading, transport, education and services

Services
　Advertising management
　Support for adopting marketing automation, sales and CRM through HubSpot
　Site production
　SEO support

What we are aiming at
We are aiming to be a global digital marketing company. Our vision is a world in which anyone can use the most advanced marketing, and we pursue how to put marketing techniques, originating largely in the United States, into words and into a system that many people can use.

History
2020 – founded
2021 – Imamura, our representative, appointed a part-time lecturer on the digital marketing course at Institute of Science Tokyo (formerly Tokyo Medical and Dental University)
2025 – listed on TOKYO PRO Market, Tokyo Stock Exchange

2. Why list?

Growth of the business and a healthy organisation were the two aims.

2.1 Accelerating growth

One reason we went ahead was to turn the credibility that comes with being a listed company into an advantage in marketing, selling and recruiting.

We provide marketing support, an industry with a very wide range of competitors, from large agencies through small specialist teams to freelancers. Among them, being a listed company raises how we are seen and sets us clearly apart.

In fact, though it is still early days,

more enquiries
a higher rate of orders from meetings
more job applications

are positive changes we already feel.

◆Listing clears the barrier of trust

Marketing is a business rather like contract development in the IT industry. We work mainly on defining requirements and supporting operations, and the quality of what we provide depends heavily on the knowledge, experience and integrity of the person doing it.

Customers have to judge before signing whether we can provide that service properly. In doing so, besides the proposal itself, being a listed company, our past record and how complete our website is all become important.
It was precisely as that kind of mark in our favour that we wanted to raise the flag of a listing.

In the early days around 60% of revenue came from work based on my own contacts and the trust placed in me; today

enquiries through the website
approaches from seminars
referrals from existing customers

account for almost all of it.

That also means we have built a way of selling and of generating leads that does not depend on the representative or the directors.

The effect on recruitment

In graduate recruitment especially, being a listed company is a powerful help. Most job sites include listing status among their search filters, which shows how much students and their families value reassurance.

Even at a growing start-up like ours, we are already beginning to feel that, for a student weighing offers on otherwise equal terms, being listed raises the chance of being chosen.

Strengthening the company’s credibility and raising the chance of being chosen at every point of contact with customers, partners and candidates: that is why we see a listing as the starting point of growth.

2.2 A healthy organisation

The requirements you must meet to list improve the organisation.
Passing the scrutiny of auditors, an audit firm, a securities house (a J-Adviser, on TOKYO PRO Market), lawyers and labour consultants turns a company into a proper one. For us there are two sides: towards customers and towards staff.
Because shareholders are limited on TOKYO PRO Market, we leave the shareholder side aside.

Towards customers

Category	Benefit to the customer	Explanation
Greater credibility	Working with a company you can trust	Listing involves strict scrutiny of finances and governance, so customers can work with you confident you are trustworthy
Transparent finances	Finances made visible	On TOKYO PRO Market results are disclosed every half year, so customers too can see the health of the company
Assurance that the business continues	A long-term relationship is possible	The foundations are stable and the risk of sudden failure is low
Stronger services	Better service through investment	Higher profits from growth after listing make it likely that product development and support will be strengthened
A stronger brand	It affects the customer’s own standing	Working with a listed company reflects well on the customer too, as a sign of good business relationships
Faster progress with partners	Benefits from working with other companies	Listing makes partnerships with large companies and new ventures easier, and new services may follow for customers
Easier expansion abroad	The possibility of working internationally, to international standards	A listed company finds it easier to expand abroad, and can work to global standards for its customers

Towards staff

Category	Benefit to staff	Explanation
Credibility and standing	The standing that comes with working for a listed company	Social standing and how a CV is read both improve, which helps a career in future. Loan rates also tend to be better
Transparency	Stronger governance makes the company a better place to work	Compliance and appraisal systems are put in place, and the workplace is likely to become fairer and healthier. Stricter rules on working hours also make it a place where people can work with confidence
Career prospects within the company	Chances of responsibility as the company grows	As the organisation and the business expand, there are more positions and more career paths
Training and arrangements put in place	Investment in people and fuller training	After listing a company moves to secure good people, and as a result budget goes into training and benefits
Stability and continuity	Confidence in the finances and the future	Listing makes raising money easier and employment more stable (on TOKYO PRO Market this is mainly debt rather than equity)
Morale within the company	Pride in having been part of a listing	Experiencing a milestone as your own raises loyalty to the organisation

Those are the benefits of listing.
A listing on a general market adds raising capital to the above, but even without that there are benefits enough.

Against that background, we judged that the right place to reinvest the operating profit the company generates was not new hires or advertising but the cost of the brand and of a healthy organisation: preparing for and maintaining a listing..

3. Why TOKYO PRO Market?

There were two reasons for choosing TOKYO PRO Market and aiming to list in the relatively short span of four and a half years.

1. Reaching the revenue and profit levels a general market requires was not realistic
2. Meeting the responsibility for growth and the responsibility for governance at the same time is difficult

3.1 Reaching the revenue and profit levels a general market requires was not realistic

As a practical matter of management, we concluded that listing on and remaining on a general market is currently difficult for us.

As you will know, the Tokyo Stock Exchange has set out that, as a condition of remaining listed, companies should aim at a market capitalisation of ten billion yen within five years. Even assuming our business were valued favourably at a price-earnings ratio of 20, that would require 500 million yen of net profit after tax..

But given our current stage of growth, the market and our own resources,

our honest view is that, managing as we are now, we cannot picture reaching that even in twenty years.

That is not to undervalue ourselves; it is simply a cool reading drawn from the figures and the timescale.

If we treat 500 million yen of profit as a future target, then as a realistic step towards it listing on TOKYO PRO Market first is the more rational and achievable route, as we see it.

On TOKYO PRO Market the listing criteria are relatively flexible, while the governance and disclosure obligations of a listed company still apply. That makes it extremely useful as a place to prepare and to train the organisation for an eventual move to a general market.

To raise the value of the company over the medium to long term and to seize the chances for growth, taking sure steps from the market where success is most achievable is, we believe, the best option open to us now.

3.2 Meeting the responsibility for growth and the responsibility for governance at the same time is difficult

In listing you must meet two things at once: the responsibility for growth and the responsibility for governance, and doing both is by no means easy.

What a company must get right in listing divides broadly into two.

The responsibility for growth (maximising shareholder value)
　Having taken money from shareholders, you are responsible for recovering and increasing the capital invested. Sustained growth in revenue and profit is expected, under a severe gaze.

The responsibility for governance (meeting the criteria for listing)
　On TOKYO PRO Market in particular, you must have internal controls, auditing and disclosure in place to meet the listing criteria. Not a formality, but governance that is genuinely trusted.

Many company leaders pursue both at once while aiming to list. In practice the balance is hard to strike, and listings are not infrequently postponed for one reason or another.

For example, questions such as
how will you recover now that revenue has fallen short of plan?
and can you not tidy up the unprofitable businesses and subsidiaries?

always arise during the review.

A listed company is of course founded on the separation of ownership and management, and on a healthy relationship with shareholders. At the same time, in the founding phase it is also rational to put the speed of management first and prepare for a listing while keeping dealings with shareholders to a minimum..

On TOKYO PRO Market in particular, getting governance to full marks is the first hurdle.
We treat the market as the gateway to a general market, and first put the administrative and auditing foundations in place. That, we judged, was the shortest route to listing.

3.3 What TOKYO PRO Market is like

Below is a comparison of TOKYO PRO Market and the Growth Market.

Finally, the number of companies listed on TOKYO PRO Market over time.

Our own directors went through the table above in 2023, and the conversation went like this.

What TOKYO PRO Market asks for is, precisely because we are immature as a stage of growth, easier for us to aim at.

On TOKYO PRO Market the responsibility for governance as a listed company is examined strictly, while the quantitative criteria such as revenue and market capitalisation are relatively flexible.
In that sense, a stage like ours now, where

there are no subsidiaries
the business is single and clear
staff retention is high and the people risk is low

and the structure of the company is very simple, is the most efficient point at which to build and run governance, and an opportunity to keep the cost to a minimum.

As a company grows, management becomes more complex: diversification, expansion abroad, acquisitions, more subsidiaries. In preparing to list, such changes greatly increase the effort and cost of internal control, auditing and disclosure.

That is exactly why we judged now to be the right time.

Raising capital is certainly one of the great attractions of listing, but at this point we cannot see a clear and effective use for the money.

We are a company whose core is marketing support; we do not own a product of our own. Nor are we a staffing-style business that grows by taking on people in volume.

So at this stage there is no clear need of the kind where a given sum could be put straight into a growth initiative, and the weight of the responsibility, the pressure to grow, could outweigh the benefit of the support that outside capital brings.

Raising money also means promising shareholders a return to match. Taking on outside shareholders without a clear use for the money therefore risks reducing our freedom to manage over the medium to long term.

That is precisely why we now treat the freedom not to raise money as a strategy in itself.
First scale the business and the organisation reliably, and only once the moment when money is genuinely needed becomes visible should the capital plan be redesigned.

4. What to watch about TOKYO PRO Market from here

With the criteria for remaining on the Growth Market being raised, that is, the target of a market capitalisation of ten billion yen within five years, we expect more companies to include TOKYO PRO Market among their options.

For companies preparing to list on the Growth Market and now in the pre-listing stages, the market is increasingly seen as a realistic and strategic staging post.

TOKYO PRO Market has no lead underwriter as such; instead it uses the J-Adviser system, which acts as the bridge to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The institutions licensed as J-Advisers are few, a very small number even among securities houses.

So if the number of companies wanting to list rises sharply, requests will concentrate on those few firms, and the following risks may become real:

delays in review from a shortage of resource
a structure in which companies that already have the required management arrangements in place are given priority

And while the absence of a revenue requirement appears to lower the bar, as the number of listed companies grows and the market itself is reorganised,

a narrowing to growth stocks that professional investors rate

and a tightening of review and maintenance criteria cannot be ruled out.
That would be of a piece with the policy, in reorganising the Growth Market, of limiting it to companies expected to grow profits sustainably.

Because TOKYO PRO Market is attracting attention precisely as a staging post, competition may intensify, and we are entering a phase where plans should be made carefully, with the risk of future changes to the rules in mind.

Between 2025 and 2027 especially,

a sharp rise in companies wanting to list
a shortage of J-Advisers, underwriters, audit firms and other practical support
and stricter selection as the rules are reviewed

are compound risks to expect, so preparing early, putting the arrangements in place and building a relationship with a J-Adviser are the keys.

5. An aside: the tools we used in preparing to list

Here are three tools we used.

1. HubSpot
2. GMO TRUST LOGIN
3. FinanScope

5.1 HubSpot

In preparing to list, using HubSpot was a great help in strengthening governance and internal control and in explaining our growth strategy. For a marketing company like ours in particular, it is very useful in making the business transparent and discharging our duty to explain things to the J-Adviser and the audit firm.

Below we set out how we used HubSpot in preparing to list. (Related article: Why HubSpot works as a management tool for IPO preparation and audits）

1. Managing revenue and KPIs
2. Making processes visible
3. Governance and internal control
4. Monitoring the business

1. Managing revenue and KPIs

How we used it	Summary
Analysing revenue by sector and industry	Tagging customers by sector and classifying their contribution to revenue. Used in explaining the portfolio and the areas of growth.
Analysing close rates and contribution by channel	Making conversion rates and contribution visible by source, web, referral, seminar. It also informs decisions on marketing spend.
Plan against actual	Comparing targets and actuals monthly for meetings, orders and leads, which demonstrates the standard of management. On TOKYO PRO Market you must come within 10% on revenue and 30% on profit, and this helps make that visible.
Lifetime value and retention analysis	Calculating the value and length of each customer relationship, used as evidence of stability and retention.

2. Making processes visible

How we used it	Summary
Lead time from lead to order	Calculating the average days from winning a lead to the order for each deal, used in explaining the budget.
Tracking progress by deal stage	Managing progress by stage, which standardises and makes visible the sales process. Used in explaining variances from plan at board meetings.
Making each person’s work and results visible	Holding in one place the number of deals, their progress, the results and the reasons for losses, by person. It removes dependence on individuals and helps allocate work properly.

3. Governance and internal control

How we used it	Summary
Keeping an audit trail (history, files, tasks)	Exchanges with customers, attachments and the history of work are recorded automatically, leaving a trail that satisfies an audit.
Managing user permissions and activity logs	Permissions and edit histories allow access control, protection against tampering, and audit readiness.

4. Monitoring the business

How we used it	Summary
Watching KPIs in real time on a dashboard	Meetings, conversion rates, close rates and reasons for losses can all be monitored in real time.
Producing reports for meetings	Monthly reports, comparisons by department and charts greatly reduce the work of preparing papers for regular meetings.
Drafting material for outside stakeholders	It is easily reused for KPI material for the J-Adviser and the audit firm, and raises the quality of investor relations.

Related article:
What is HubSpot? What it does, what it costs, and how it differs from other tools
What is HubSpot Smart CRM? What it does, what it costs, and how to use the free version [2026]
What the free version of HubSpot can do: how it differs from the paid versions, and what to watch [2026]

5.2 GMO TRUST LOGIN

What the audit firm and the securities house asked us repeatedly during preparation was
whether the company knows and controls who can access which services, and when.

A company like ours, providing marketing support, uses a great many services, several outside platforms for each kind of work.
The risk of information leaking, and the sheer awkwardness of managing accounts, were therefore a considerable concern.

GMO TRUST LOGIN resolved all of that at once, as a simple and powerful basis for authentication.

The benefits are as follows.

Benefits	Summary
1. Managing service accounts in one place	Google, Slack, HubSpot, Notion and many other services managed under a single identity. Leavers and transfers are easy to handle.
2. Secure authentication through single sign-on	Staff can be set to log in only through TrustLogin, which greatly reduces the risk of credentials leaking.
3. Access logs and audit readiness	A log remains of who accessed which system and when, usable in audits and in internal control documentation.
4. Granting and removing permissions consistently	The services used by each department and role can be made into templates, giving consistent permission management.
5. A security foundation that keeps working after listing	A lasting basis for IT governance that also serves the internal control reporting required after a general market listing.

5.3 FinanScope

Preparing to list produces tasks across many fields: finance, legal, employment, internal control. Managing them in spreadsheets and email scatters the information and makes progress hard to see, which causes mistakes and omissions.

FinanScope holds the tasks required in one place in the cloud, and made sharing information and tracking progress among everyone involved far more efficient.

The benefits are as follows.

Benefits	Summary
1. Tasks held in one place and made visible	The tasks required are held in one place in the cloud, and progress can be seen in real time.
2. Progress tracked on a Gantt chart	Task schedules are managed visually on a Gantt chart, so the whole project’s progress can be seen at a glance.
3. Sharing information among everyone involved	The audit firm, the securities house and people inside the company all share information on one platform, which makes communication more efficient.
4. Support from specialists	You can proceed with practical support from specialists such as certified public accountants.
5. A platform that remains useful after listing	It has features for internal control and disclosure after listing, so it can keep being used.

Those three are the tools we used in preparing to list, and still use now.

6. In closing

In short, we recommend listing on TOKYO PRO Market.

It is true that the chance to raise capital is more limited than on a general market.
But that was more than made up for by what proved a valuable experience: building the foundations of a listed company, the culture, the growth of the organisation, the governance in place.

And what mattered most of all was
「the sense that took root in every member of staff that we are part of a listed company..
As a result, in the daily work people stand a little straighter, and an attitude of working more honestly, and in a way we can be proud of before society, has taken root.

Behind that change was, beyond mere compliance,
「our own resolve to run the company transparently and with discipline, as an institution answerable to society, our own resolve to run the company transparently and with discipline, as an institution answerable to society,
and the building of the arrangements that support it.

For the great support they gave us in this listing,
we thank Phillip Securities (our J-Adviser) and Cosmos Audit Corporation once again.
Thanks to them we listed smoothly, without a single delay.

To company leaders interested in listing on TOKYO PRO Market
If you would like to hear the real experience, what preparation was actually needed, whether it really works,
do get in touch.
We also welcome requests for interviews with web media and appearances on YouTube and elsewhere.

We look forward very much to talking with anyone who wants a listing to be not a staging post but the starting point of changing their company.