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Japan’s members-only discount site LUXA raises $5.32M

Rick Martin 2013.03.21

Tokyo-based e-commerce website LUXA has announced today that it has raised 500 million yen in series B funding from the JAFCO Super V3 Fund. For those outside Japan who might not be familiar with the site, LUXA is a sort of ‘outlet shopping’ site which offers products at discount prices for a limited time, with sales typically lasting for just 72 hours for its members. The site has over 350,000 members to date, mostly people in their 30s and 40s, with products recently showing a heavy slant towards cosmetics and appliances. The company’s founder and CEO Swimmy Minami explains more about the service: LUXA aims to provide a unique online shopping experience, similar to what is offered at real-life premium outlet malls. The buyers stakeholders of various categories in LUXA will continue to focus on curating the best premium products and luxury experiences for its membership and make LUXA into an essential online shopping destination full of new discoveries. The new funds will be used to help the service grow, specifically in terms of its sales staff as well as customer acquisition, particularly on mobile where the site has seen a six-fold increase in revenue over the course of 2012….

Tokyo-based e-commerce website LUXA has announced today that it has raised 500 million yen in series B funding from the JAFCO Super V3 Fund. For those outside Japan who might not be familiar with the site, LUXA is a sort of ‘outlet shopping’ site which offers products at discount prices for a limited time, with sales typically lasting for just 72 hours for its members.

The site has over 350,000 members to date, mostly people in their 30s and 40s, with products recently showing a heavy slant towards cosmetics and appliances. The company’s founder and CEO Swimmy Minami explains more about the service:

LUXA aims to provide a unique online shopping experience, similar to what is offered at real-life premium outlet malls. The buyers stakeholders of various categories in LUXA will continue to focus on curating the best premium products and luxury experiences for its membership and make LUXA into an essential online shopping destination full of new discoveries.

The new funds will be used to help the service grow, specifically in terms of its sales staff as well as customer acquisition, particularly on mobile where the site has seen a six-fold increase in revenue over the course of 2012.

In addition to Tokyo, the company also has offices in Osaka, Nagoya, and Fukuoka. This round of funding brings its total amount raised to 10 billion yen (or $10.6 million).

I was lucky enough to have a chance to meet with Swimmy just last week, and hear more about how Luxa has grown. He’s a bold entrepreneur, and it will be interesting to see where he steers Luxa in the future.

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2012 was Apple’s first year on top of Japan’s mobile market

Rick Martin 2013.03.21

IDC Japan has released its figures on the Japan mobile market for 2012, and it will likely come as no surprise that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) held the largest share of the smartphone market at 33.1%. Readers may recall that it was just a year ago that Apple topped the smartphone market for the first time in the country. But what I find interesting here is the less imposing figure for the mobile market overall, where Apple now leads with 23.3%. If we compare this with IDC figures from 2011 (see below), it shows just how much progress the Cupertino company has made in Japan, leapfrogging Sharp and Fujitsu [1] for its first year on top of the entire mobile market. Anyone remember that old Wired article from a few years back? Yeah, that doesn’t age so well. [IDC Japan] In IDC’s 2011 report it was ‘Fujitsu/Toshiba’, as it was prior to Fujitsu acquiring Toshiba’s stake in Fujitsu Mobile, which occurred in April 2012. ↩

IDC Japan has released its figures on the Japan mobile market for 2012, and it will likely come as no surprise that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) held the largest share of the smartphone market at 33.1%. Readers may recall that it was just a year ago that Apple topped the smartphone market for the first time in the country.

But what I find interesting here is the less imposing figure for the mobile market overall, where Apple now leads with 23.3%. If we compare this with IDC figures from 2011 (see below), it shows just how much progress the Cupertino company has made in Japan, leapfrogging Sharp and Fujitsu [1] for its first year on top of the entire mobile market. Anyone remember that old Wired article from a few years back? Yeah, that doesn’t age so well. [IDC Japan]

In IDC’s 2011 report it was ‘Fujitsu/Toshiba’, as it was prior to Fujitsu acquiring Toshiba’s stake in Fujitsu Mobile, which occurred in April 2012. ↩

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With 4 million downloads for iPhone, popular Japanese collage app hits Android [Video]

Rick Martin 2013.03.21

Japanese photo application Papelook has just announced that it has surpassed 4 million downloads on iOS. The application, which very much falls in the ‘kawaii’ apps category, is a very handy way to repurpose your photos in a stylish collage which can then be shared with friends. And for those of you not on iOS, the company has announced that an Android version is being released today as well. Check out our video demo above for a general idea of how the service works. Currently the majority of its users are young women (80%), and the feminine style of the photo decorations certainly reflects that. Nonetheless, I put together a collage of baby pictures just now, and I expect I’ll make a few more like this to share with family in the future. The application has been around for a long time (since mid 2011), but it wasn’t until its 2.0 release last May that it saw some real momentum. The company says that it has about 1.2 million active users currently, which is certainly an impressive total for an app in this genre. Papelook also publishes its pape.me girls fashion magazine app for iOS which itself has 250,000 downloads….

Japanese photo application Papelook has just announced that it has surpassed 4 million downloads on iOS. The application, which very much falls in the ‘kawaii’ apps category, is a very handy way to repurpose your photos in a stylish collage which can then be shared with friends. And for those of you not on iOS, the company has announced that an Android version is being released today as well. Check out our video demo above for a general idea of how the service works.

Currently the majority of its users are young women (80%), and the feminine style of the photo decorations certainly reflects that. Nonetheless, I put together a collage of baby pictures just now, and I expect I’ll make a few more like this to share with family in the future.

The application has been around for a long time (since mid 2011), but it wasn’t until its 2.0 release last May that it saw some real momentum. The company says that it has about 1.2 million active users currently, which is certainly an impressive total for an app in this genre. Papelook also publishes its pape.me girls fashion magazine app for iOS which itself has 250,000 downloads.

Geographically, 71.6% of its users come from its home market of Japan, with 10.7% and 6.5% from Thailand and Taiwan respectively.

As for its future business, Papelook may offer print services since many people make such collages for birthdays or weddings. And given the focused audience, advertising tie-ups are possible as well.

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Fabless printing startup Raksul partners with Stores.jp, fulfills printing needs for e-store owners

Junya Mori 2013.03.21

See the original story in Japanese. Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, announced today it has partnered with Stores.jp, the e-commerce platform that lets you set up a store online in minutes. Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,400 printing factories nationwide. Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the participating printers use their downtime to finish those orders. The partnership allows the owners of online stores using the Stores.jp platform to order free printing of their store’s promotional cards, providing an one-stop solution for e-commerce owners. This makes it easier to manage their stores, since they can also do other things like set up a promotional newsletter or apply for credit card payments all in one place. With the partnership, Raksul also lets the store owners pay more attention to printing materials as promotion tools. Both startups are also planning to introduce a new service together, although the details of this are not yet known. Earlier this month, Raksul announced it had partnered with Crowdworks, a startup that crowdsources engineering and design needs for business cards and hand-outs. Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total…

See the original story in Japanese.

Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, announced today it has partnered with Stores.jp, the e-commerce platform that lets you set up a store online in minutes.

Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,400 printing factories nationwide. Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the participating printers use their downtime to finish those orders.

The partnership allows the owners of online stores using the Stores.jp platform to order free printing of their store’s promotional cards, providing an one-stop solution for e-commerce owners. This makes it easier to manage their stores, since they can also do other things like set up a promotional newsletter or apply for credit card payments all in one place.

With the partnership, Raksul also lets the store owners pay more attention to printing materials as promotion tools. Both startups are also planning to introduce a new service together, although the details of this are not yet known.

Earlier this month, Raksul announced it had partnered with Crowdworks, a startup that crowdsources engineering and design needs for business cards and hand-outs.

Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total amount of 230 million yen ($2.4 million) during the last year from Nissay Capital, Yahoo Japan, and angel investor Anri Samata. Stores.jp was founded by Yusuke Mitsumoto who has developed a variety of web services.

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Awesome Japanese iPhone app serves up surprise centaur photobombs

Rick Martin 2013.03.20

Over the past month or so, I’ve been seeing this unusual photo app here and there on the Japanese interwebs. It’s called Kenstagram, and it claims to be ‘the number one centaur camera’ (that’s actually part of the app’s name) — although I expect that’s a pretty niche space. Like Instagram, Kenstagram has a number of filters, and after choosing one you can snap off your picture. Once you’re satisfied with how it looks, that’s when the centaur sweeps in from the edge of the screen, typically ruining your perfectly good photo. It’s really, really bizarre. So far Kenstagram hasn’t seen too much traction, although I expect if it can move up in the photo app rankings, then that could change. It’s totally a novelty app, and not something that you’re likely to use for a long time. But it’s still really fun, and that counts for a lot. Kenstagram was developed by Nanameue, a team that has done some photo apps for the likes of Line and WeChat. If you’d like to check it out, you can get it for free over on iTunes.

Over the past month or so, I’ve been seeing this unusual photo app here and there on the Japanese interwebs. It’s called Kenstagram, and it claims to be ‘the number one centaur camera’ (that’s actually part of the app’s name) — although I expect that’s a pretty niche space.

Like Instagram, Kenstagram has a number of filters, and after choosing one you can snap off your picture. Once you’re satisfied with how it looks, that’s when the centaur sweeps in from the edge of the screen, typically ruining your perfectly good photo.

It’s really, really bizarre.

So far Kenstagram hasn’t seen too much traction, although I expect if it can move up in the photo app rankings, then that could change. It’s totally a novelty app, and not something that you’re likely to use for a long time. But it’s still really fun, and that counts for a lot.

Kenstagram was developed by Nanameue, a team that has done some photo apps for the likes of Line and WeChat.

If you’d like to check it out, you can get it for free over on iTunes.

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