KIYO Learning (TYO: 7353, KIYOラーニング) sells online courses that prepare you for Japanese professional exams under the Studying.jp brand (スタディング). Bookkeeping, real estate broker, labour consultant, tax accountant. The sort of thing an office worker studies on the train because it gets him a promotion. The whole company is worth 3.8 billion yen and no analyst covers it.
Two things make it interesting. It holds more cash than it is worth. And the accumulated deficit that has kept its dividend line blank since 2010 is finally gone.
This is the third in a series. The first two were Korean. I-Scream Media (KOSDAQ: 461300) sells lesson software to 93 percent of Korean primary school teachers. IB Kimyoung (KOSDAQ: 339950) earns a 150 percent return on capital and yields 15 percent. Both are small, both are ignored, and both sell something unglamorous to people who need a qualification. This one is Japanese and quieter than either.
What KIYO Learning sells
Japan takes professional licences seriously. About 550,000 people sit the bookkeeping exams each year. In 2025, 245,000 sat the real estate broker exam and 18.7 percent passed. Another 43,421 sat the labour consultant exam and only 2,376 got through. These exams gate careers, and people pay for them out of their own pocket.