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Japanese accounting startup Freee raises $2.7 million from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM

Masaru Ikeda 2013.07.24

Tokyo-based cloud startup Freee announced today that it has raised 270 million yen (approximately $2.7 million) in a series A funding from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM. This follows the previous seed round where the company secured seed funding of 50 million yen (about $523,000) from DCM back in December. Coinciding with this new funding, the startup rebranded its company name to Freee from CFO K.K., coinciding with the name of its accounting service.

At the time of its launch back in March, CEO Daisuke Sasaki stated his goal of acquiring at least 10,000 users in its first year. Surprisingly it is way ahead of that pace, acquiring 6,500 users in the last four and half months, 1.7 times faster than expected. The startup originally planned series A funding for the end of this year but moved up its timeline to accelerate service expansion and user growth.

With these new funds, the startup is expecting to hire additional staff and intensify its system development. According to Mr. Sasaki, their users have given them a lot of feedback, and they have been adding features and refining user interface based on those responses. He believes these efforts have helped them acquire many new users, and now his first priority is to form a responsive team.

The company has three key topics that it will focus on moving forward: opening up to third-party services, easing collaborative work, and providing a better user experience. They plan to introduce an API that encourages third-party developers to connect with its platform, which should help the platform in terms of its collaborative capabilities. To improve user experience, they are expecting to introduce a native app for tablet devices to allow users to record and sort out their revenue and expenses regardless of where they are.

Some of our readers may recall that the company previously won the top prize at the Infinity Ventures Summit back in May, a conference hosted by Japan’s Infinity Ventures Partners. We’ve seen more than a few outstanding financial apps in the Japanese startup scene, and Freee can be considered to be among the best of them.

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Japanese web platform lets fans send gifts to college sports teams

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.07.24

Photo via Sashiire Sports fans usually show support for a team simply by cheering. But here in Japan, there is a mechanism that lets enthusiastic fans to do something more. Sashiire is a platform that allows fans and supporters to give sports-related gifts to college sport teams. This act is called ‘sashiire’, and the platform was first launched back in October of 2010. To date 180 teams from 48 universities have joined up, including one of the most prestigious universities in Japan, Waseda university, which leverages the platform for all of its 44 sports teams. On Sashiire, fans can start by choosing their favorite team, and then choose the item they want to send. There are over 60 items available on site including protein, supplements, healthy snacks, and even sportswear, and payment can be made either by bank transfer or credit card. The gift will be sent directly to the sport team with a message of support from that fan. Many users on Sashiire are alumni from those same teams. The platform was launched by Daigaku Sports Channel to create a better overall environment for college sports teams, lending them a helping hand. Funding or support provided from universities can sometimes…

Photo via Sashiire

Sports fans usually show support for a team simply by cheering. But here in Japan, there is a mechanism that lets enthusiastic fans to do something more. Sashiire is a platform that allows fans and supporters to give sports-related gifts to college sport teams. This act is called ‘sashiire’, and the platform was first launched back in October of 2010. To date 180 teams from 48 universities have joined up, including one of the most prestigious universities in Japan, Waseda university, which leverages the platform for all of its 44 sports teams.

On Sashiire, fans can start by choosing their favorite team, and then choose the item they want to send. There are over 60 items available on site including protein, supplements, healthy snacks, and even sportswear, and payment can be made either by bank transfer or credit card. The gift will be sent directly to the sport team with a message of support from that fan. Many users on Sashiire are alumni from those same teams.

The platform was launched by Daigaku Sports Channel to create a better overall environment for college sports teams, lending them a helping hand. Funding or support provided from universities can sometimes be scarce, and many students juggle their sport and a part-time job in order to purchase their equipment. Compared to professional sports, there is a definite lack of support for college sports and games in Japan, and many competitions are played in front of little to no spectators. Sashiire was built as a solution to these problems.

We had a chance to speak briefly with Takuya Kato, the CEO of the company. He explains:

By showing support in ways other than just cheering, by actually giving to players, it not only helps teams financially but it will likely motivate players as well. So instead of building a platform to collect funds, we made Sashiire so that actual items that can be delivered right to the players.

The company plans to add sashiire for businesses, where (for example) an energy drink company could support college teams by sending its products.

With a platform like this one, college sports become a more engaging form of entertainment people, especially for local residents who may live near a particular school.

You can see more about how the Sashiire platform works in the video below.

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Japanese flea market app Mercari raises $500,000 from East Ventures

Takeshi Hirano 2013.07.24

See the original story in Japanese. Mercari, a flea market app launched by Japanese serial entrepreneur Shintaro Yamada, has been showing good numbers of late. Since the release of its Android app back on July 2nd, more than 50,000 users have put over 10,000 items up for sale using the marketplace. Kouzoh, the startup behind the app, introduced the iOS version of its app today, and also announced that it has fundraised 50 million yen (approximately $500,000) from East Ventures. Several hundred items submitted every day According to Yamada, they are struggling to acquire users but have started seeing good result in user activity. He explained: So far things are as we expected. In terms of user submissions, we saw lots of ladies clothes being posted, but we’ve seen also home appliances sold on the marketplace — so item posted vary. Several hundred items are submitted every day and the market is still small, but we’re seeing sound growth in deals between buyers and sellers on the platform. The startup itself might be best known for having a very high-profile management board. In addition to having ex-Zynga Japan GM Yamada as CEO, Hiroshi Tomishima (the founder at Bank of Innovation)…

See the original story in Japanese.

Mercari, a flea market app launched by Japanese serial entrepreneur Shintaro Yamada, has been showing good numbers of late. Since the release of its Android app back on July 2nd, more than 50,000 users have put over 10,000 items up for sale using the marketplace.

Kouzoh, the startup behind the app, introduced the iOS version of its app today, and also announced that it has fundraised 50 million yen (approximately $500,000) from East Ventures.

Several hundred items submitted every day

According to Yamada, they are struggling to acquire users but have started seeing good result in user activity. He explained:

So far things are as we expected. In terms of user submissions, we saw lots of ladies clothes being posted, but we’ve seen also home appliances sold on the marketplace — so item posted vary. Several hundred items are submitted every day and the market is still small, but we’re seeing sound growth in deals between buyers and sellers on the platform.

The startup itself might be best known for having a very high-profile management board. In addition to having ex-Zynga Japan GM Yamada as CEO, Hiroshi Tomishima (the founder at Bank of Innovation) and Ryo Ishizuka (COO at Rock You Asia) are serving as the heads of engineering. They are a small team but their prominent skills and experience have contributed to the services solid operations to date.

Increased competition

When I spoke with Yamada, I found it interesting that he spoke about resources that we thought were lacking on our planet. He noted:

Any kind of resource is limited. You will need energy to create something new. If you have a PSP but don’t want to keep it, you will probably not be interested in selling it for a high price. But instead you likely need way to easily hand it over to someone else. We call it a sort of frictionless society. That’s what we want to help to make.

His concept is very similar to Craiglist in a way. There will be a way to share resources easily, rather than the complicated schemes often used on auction sites.

From my perspective, a flea market app is a form of C2C that everyday people — even less tech-savvy ones — can use without hesitation.

Yamada has previously involved in launching the Rakuten auction site. Based on the history of Japanese auction sites, he is predicting a high rise in flea market apps on smartphones.

It will be interesting to see if Mercari can get to the top of this increasingly competitive arena.

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Unstoppable: Popular mobile chat app Line surpasses 200M users

Rick Martin 2013.07.23

Line Corporation has announced today that its popular mobile chat application has surpassed the 200 million registered user milestone. This comes not too long after it passed 150 million back on April 30th. For the mathematically impaired, that means an additional 50 million users in the 11 weeks since that time – a few weeks quicker than its previous 50 million. The Android version of the chat app also reached the 100 million downloads milestone on July 18th, no doubt driven by increased adoption around the Asia region. Line began its campaign for the Indian market earlier this month, the first of the major Asian chat apps to do so. The company has yet to really make a serious push for the US market, but we expect to see that sometime this year. For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

line_users — Line’s journey to 200 million

For the mathematically impaired, that means an additional 50 million users in the 11 weeks since that time – a few weeks quicker than its previous 50 million.

The Android version of the chat app also reached the 100 million downloads milestone on July 18th, no doubt driven by increased adoption around the Asia region. Line began its campaign for the Indian market earlier this month, the first of the major Asian chat apps to do so.

The company has yet to really make a serious push for the US market, but we expect to see that sometime this year.

For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

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New Japanese collage app off to a hot start, passes 500K downloads in its first month

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.07.23

Back in June, yet another cute Japanese photo app, Cameran Collage, joined an already crowded market. And now it has just been announced that the app has reached 500,000 downloads not yet a month after its initial release. Cameran Collage is seeing users not only here in Japan, but from other Asian countries like Taiwan and Hong Kong. Nowadays collage-making is sort of a default feature in many photo apps, even on ‘purikura’ machines or physical photo booths. What differentiates Cameran Collage from other apps is that its decorative items are created in collaboration with popular fashion brands or magazines — its most recent collaboration is in partnership with Anteprima. The app also allows users to easily share photos on Line, Twitter, and Facebook. Even if you’ve never made a collage before, the app provides handy templates to make any collage look cute. The total number of decorative items exceeds 300, and there are over 44 fonts and 26 clipping patterns available too. This seems like an overwhelming number of items to choose from, but according to the app’s art director, Miki Kitazawa, there is no such thing as ‘too much’ when it comes to ways of making something more…

Nowadays collage-making is sort of a default feature in many photo apps, even on ‘purikura’ machines or physical photo booths. What differentiates Cameran Collage from other apps is that its decorative items are created in collaboration with popular fashion brands or magazines — its most recent collaboration is in partnership with Anteprima. The app also allows users to easily share photos on Line, Twitter, and Facebook.

Even if you’ve never made a collage before, the app provides handy templates to make any collage look cute. The total number of decorative items exceeds 300, and there are over 44 fonts and 26 clipping patterns available too. This seems like an overwhelming number of items to choose from, but according to the app’s art director, Miki Kitazawa, there is no such thing as ‘too much’ when it comes to ways of making something more ‘kawaii’. She explains:

Girls use different apps for different purposes, adding filters with Instagram, clipping with Papelook, and using Decopic for stamps. For these girls, there is no such thing as too much effort in making something kawaii. Cameran Collage has every feature they need all in one app.

The process of ‘app stacking’ is a pretty common phenomenon for smartphone photographers, and applications like this Cameran Collage that put everything in one place will likely continue to be well received as long as they save users time and trouble.

The company behind this popular collage app is Media Technology Lab, an experimental laboratory operated under Recruit. Media Technology Lab has released a series of apps in the past, which you can check out over on its official website.

Cameran Collage is available for download on the app store, and an Android version is expected to be released soon. You can check out how the app works in the video below.

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Designing for Women: 10 of the Cutest Color Palettes from Japan

Rick Martin 2013.07.22

Over the past few months, we have written about what we see as a trend coming from Japanese mobile developers: The country is exceptionally good at creating cute web services and apps that appeal to women [1]. On a visual level, a lot of these cute Japanese services possess many of the same qualities. And when it comes to choosing color schemes, that means lots of pinks, pastels, and other soft tones. I thought it would be good to collect some color palettes from Japanese services that are popular with women. For designers out there who are creating web services or apps for ladies, especially ones in Japan, do take note of the choices here when deciding your own color schemes [2]. Here they are, in no particular order: 1. Fril ¶ Fril is a flea market app for female students in high school or college. It encourages users to sell their unwanted clothes online. It was created by Fablic Inc. More on Fril in our database. Color Sample Color Code #ff899a #ffd2d2 #fef6e4 #e9f7f5 #695d53 2. iQon ¶ iQon is an online fashion coordination service. It allows users to create their favorite looks using photos of accessories and dresses…

I thought it would be good to collect some color palettes from Japanese services that are popular with women. For designers out there who are creating web services or apps for ladies, especially ones in Japan, do take note of the choices here when deciding your own color schemes [2].

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Fril ¶

Fril is a flea market app for female students in high school or college. It encourages users to sell their unwanted clothes online. It was created by Fablic Inc.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#ff899a
	#ffd2d2
	#fef6e4
	#e9f7f5
	#695d53

2. iQon ¶

iQon is an online fashion coordination service. It allows users to create their favorite looks using photos of accessories and dresses available on the website.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#fa3599
	#fff0f4
	#f4f4f4
	#fdfdfd
	#c2b8bb

3. Papelook ¶

Papelook is a mobile photo app that allows users to create their own collages. Users can easily cut out objects by tracing it with their finger, and then rearrange it with other snippets into elaborate photo collages.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#adde6b
	#ee99aa
	#f3ede8
	#49bbcc
	#d7ccb9

4. CocoPPa ¶

CocoPPa is a cute mobile app that lets you collaboratively create cute iPhone homescreens. It offers a platform where users around the world can share and collaborate on these kind of designs.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#642E16
	#FFA7BF
	#F6EBD9
	#C79968
	#FFE8EB

5. Snapeee ¶

Snapeee is a photo decorating and sharing app for iOS and Android. It allows users to alter and decorate their pictures using over 4000 decoration themes.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#aea08d
	#d2c4b0
	#9FE0E6
	#fdd1c9
	#d9d3c9

6. @Cosme ¶

@Cosme (pronounced ‘At Cosme’) is a cosmetics and beauty products internet portal, founded back in 1999. Users can check product reviews and rankings, ask questions about skincare and makeup, and even find out where products are available offline.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#068681
	#775555
	#e8e5e0
	#f9f7f1
	#e88d9c

7. Luna Luna ¶

Luna Luna is a tool that helps women be more aware of their menstrual cycles. By recording your menstrual period and body temperature, it predicts suitable timings for pregnancy, or help with contraconception. The service was originally provided on featured phones, but now there are dedicated applications.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#ffbecc
	#C4E0EE
	#fdf4f5
	#181F55
	#FFFAF6

7. Decopic ¶

Decopic is a photo application that allows users to decorate their photos with cute stamps, frames, and filters.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#723A0E
	#FAA69C
	#6B5954
	#EEF2F0
	#B29F6C

8. Nikkei Woman ¶

Nikkei Woman Online is the internet version of a Japanese lifestyle and entertainment magazine for women in their 20s and 30s.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#cd4a81
	#C97F89
	#A7A098
	#FBFBFB
	#CED7E8

9. Benesse Women’s Park ¶

Women’s Park is a review portal for mothers that launched back in 2000. The public company behind the site is Benesse, whose primary business is education.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#E85369
	#FF7B7B
	#FFFFE8
	#FFECEC
	#016DBF

10. Nailbook ¶

Nailbook is Japanese photo sharing service for nail art. User can save photos by pushing “Kawaii” button.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#F7342E
	#FFC4D0
	#FFD674
	#F7F7F7
	#FEE5EB

Big thanks to Yukari Mitsuhashi who has written about the vast majority of all these services almost single-handedly. ↩
Another big thanks to Ricky Elrod for his clever little Color Palette Generator Ruby script which I used as a starting point for creating the color palette tables above. ↩

Japanese accounting startup Freee raises $2.7 million from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM

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