Shota Ishigaki

Supporting small and medium-sized businesses with Docupaca!, an AI document management app

DX is advancing in business and across many areas of society. Many companies agree on its importance, but the reality is that progress is slow because of limits on staff and budgets. Alpaca Inc. (Alpaca) is breaking through with Docupaca!, an AI document management app. We spoke with Shota Ishigaki, the company’s CEO.

Digitizing every kind of document and sorting and managing it instantly

Alpaca develops and sells business apps. Since our founding in March 2021, we have built more than 200 apps. That we have developed so many is also the result of pursuing services that “reach exactly where it itches” for our customers.

For example, we developed apps such as a “lunch box ordering app” and a “meeting room booking app,” the kind of apps you feel “would be handy to have” in daily work. An “internal-only social network” for photographing points of concern in factory equipment or products, uploading them to a server, and sharing them within the company is another example. We made these apps easier to use by linking them with core business systems.

Streamlining work by advancing DX is a major concern for companies of every size. But small and medium-sized companies often find it hard to assign dedicated staff, so DX does not progress as they would like. We step in as a supporter and help streamline their work by introducing various apps. We help replace information managed on paper, such as invoices and drawings, with data management, and replace complex Excel files that only certain people can handle with apps anyone can use.

Launched in beta in November 2024, Docupaca! could be called an app that brings together our experience and technology. Docupaca! is an app that digitizes and manages all kinds of documents.

The key point is that it is not a dedicated app for a particular kind of document but an “all-document” app that handles invoices, drawings, business cards, and everything else. Users just photograph the documents they want to manage with a smartphone or read them with a scanner. The built-in AI automatically determines the type of document and sorts it into folders for invoices, drawings, business cards, and so on.

Because the information read is turned into data, the app supports searching by date, amount, and business partner, as required by the Electronic Books Maintenance Act, as well as fuzzy free-word searches. Like our earlier apps, it is easy to use because it links with core systems.

About 10 companies have introduced Docupaca! so far. At every company, the people in charge handle a wide range of documents in accounting, general affairs, production management, and more. That is why they appreciate the convenience of having “AI read all kinds of documents, from business cards to invoices and drawings, and turn them into data.”

A big mistake in “paper-buried” work later led me to start a business

I used to work at a parts processing manufacturer with about 70 employees, in charge of production management. The work was “buried in paper”: purchase orders, delivery slips, drawings, invoices, and more, all processed by hand.

Then one day, I made a big processing mistake that caused the company a loss. That was when I resolved, “This can’t go on. Let’s find a way to make this more efficient.” I could not even touch-type at the time, but I taught myself and stepped up from Excel macros to Access and RPA, building systems for efficiency that became very popular within the company.

Then I thought, “There must be many small and medium-sized companies with the same problem. I’ll go independent and start a company that develops business automation.”

In fact, I had long been interested in going independent and starting a company. Even inside a company, I was the type who liked to understand the whole picture rather than dig deep into one job. And management is exactly the work of thinking about the whole company.

I am very curious and find it fun to learn things I do not know. To grow Docupaca! big, we need to push forward on development, sales, fundraising, and more at the same time. These are areas I have never experienced and are very hard, but it is also true that I find them interesting.

If I had to name one thing I keep in mind as an entrepreneur, it is always having people to consult. Worries never end: money, service content, the organization, and “Am I heading in the right direction as a business owner?” I place great value on connections with experts in each field and with senior entrepreneurs a little further along than me, whom I can consult about these worries and get advice from at any time.

Building a society where Docupaca! becomes an excellent “employee”

We think of Docupaca!, which sorts documents properly and finds them quickly, as an “AI agent.” An AI agent is, so to speak, an extremely capable employee.

“Docupaca!, tell me what we ordered last year.”
“Docupaca!, gather the drawings for similar projects.”
The future we envision is one where it quickly gathers and provides the information you want when you ask it something like this.

If every company introduces a Docupaca!, such a society can surely be realized. In particular, we want to help businesses grow by having Docupaca! introduced at small and medium-sized companies, which have no end of worries about DX.

How We Used OIH

Just as I was hitting a wall as a business owner while trying to grow the business, I joined the “SIO Acceleration Program.” Experienced business owners served as mentors and gave me all kinds of advice. Not only learning about business, but getting mentoring once a week, and for free, is truly amazing.

I entered “Mirainno Pitch 2024” because our company is also in the ICT and IoT field, so I decided to take on OIH’s contest. Receiving thorough feedback on my presentation, which led to new ideas, was also a great asset.

Through OIH, I have met many entrepreneurs. With advice from people who share the same worries and are further ahead, I can always ask myself, “Am I doing the right thing?” and “What should I do now?”