Arches
The Arches expert network started in 2019 by former consultants at Accenture and YCP Solidiance. It sprung out of the Japanese consumer research firm Needsarch.
The company offers four types of expert network services:
Phone consultations
Expert surveys
On-site consultations/ seminars
Short-term staffing
Arches is headquartered in Singapore with additional offices in Tokyo, Vietnam and Uzbekistan. The company focuses on recruiting experts across Southeast Asia, China, Japan and India. It partners with recruiting/head hunting firms to accelerate the search process.
Arches competes with other Singapore-based and Japanese expert networks ShareFair, Mimir Uzabase, Resory and Hudson Research, as well as regional players such as Nodes Global, Liahnson & Company and Nathan Research Group. Users of Inex One can access multiple Asian expert networks in one platform, pay-per-call.
Arches fundraising
In December 2021, Arches raised ¥ 230m ($1.6m) from Mimir Uzabase and a number of other corporate venture and angel investors. The funding announcement includes plans of combining Arches' database with that of Mimir Uzabase and its SPEEDA service. At the time, Arches had 50,000 database experts.
In June 2024, Arches raised $3m (¥ 410m) from multiple corporations, VCs and angels. At the time, Arches said they had 300 clients and 100,000 database experts. It intended to build both an expert call transcript library business, and one for HR/recruitment and "Other HR-related business"