TRANBI Co., Ltd., which operates the business succession and M&A matching platform “TRANBI”, has entered into a business partnership on June 12, 2025 for “Smout”, a platform for connecting with local communities operated by Kayac Inc.
This partnership will strengthen the matching between local small and medium-sized businesses and stores looking for successors and people who want to move to the area and work and live there. Based on the concept of “emotional business succession,” in which companies and stores that have been in the area for a long time are passed on to people from outside the area and their feelings are carefully passed on, we propose a new way of interacting with the local community through business succession and aim to solve the local issue of the risk of business closure due to a lack of successors.
By 2025, one in five people in Japan will be over 75 years old, which is known as the “2025 problem.” There are concerns about the impact this will have on business succession nationwide.
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According to a report by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the problem is particularly severe in “regions” (meaning prefectures excluding Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Aichi, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hyogo), where small and medium-sized enterprises account for approximately 99% of companies. While they support local employment and livelihoods, as of 2023, approximately half of small and medium-sized enterprises will have no successors. Looking to the future, the search for successors has become an issue that is directly linked to the sustainability of the local economy.
Furthermore, in recent years, an increasing number of companies have been forced to close down despite being in the black because they are unable to find a successor. In 2024, 69,019 companies nationwide were closed, closed down, or dissolved, a significant increase of approximately 10,000 (16.8%) from the previous year. Of these, 65.1% were “asset-excess” companies, meaning that their assets exceed their liabilities, and 51.1% were companies that were in the black in the previous period. Companies that were in the black and had assets in excess of their liabilities when they went out of business accounted for 16.2% of the total.
“TRANBI” was launched in 2011 as Japan’s first M&A matching platform, and has now grown to over 200,000 members. It has helped to smoothly match business sellers and buyers, helping to alleviate the shortage of successors.
Meanwhile, Smout, operated by Kayac, has been operating as a platform that connects people who want to get involved in the local community with local governments and local businesses since it began its service in 2018. In addition to relocation, the service supports various ways to get involved with the local community, such as working in the local community through employment at local companies, side jobs, multiple jobs, and business succession, as well as living and experiencing the local community through dual residence, multi-base living, farm stays, and local volunteering.
Through this partnership, the two companies will combine their strengths in a “community x business succession” approach, repositioning business succession as “one of the opportunities to get involved with the community,” and further expand the scope of information provided and matching regarding relocation and business succession.
Furthermore, we will not only take over the business, but also realize “emotional” business succession that inherits the entrepreneur’s passion and attachment to the local community, thereby contributing to the formation of a sustainable local economy.
SOURCE: PRTimes
