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Docomo Ventures starts its third incubation batch of four startups in Tokyo

NTT Docomo Ventures

Masaru Ikeda 2014.07.23

docomo-demo-day-broaderview — From the Demo Day event for the previous batch

Docomo Ventures, the startup-focused investment arm of Japan’s leading telco, has just announced ~~three~~ four startups chosen for the third batch of its incubation program.

Chosen startups will be able to obtain grants of up to 5 million yen ($50,000) as well as rewards like a complimentary use of Docomo’s co-working space and mentoring/cooperation from the program’s partnering companies. Here’s a quick rundown on what they are working on.

Unlog (literally meaning ‘poo log’)
A free iOS app that lets you input details about each poop that you make. You can specify the size, shape, and color of your poops, as well as input how bad it smelled or whether or not you experienced any discomfort. Our readers may recall we have featured this app before.
Money Smart
A personal finance management platform comparable to an enhanced online account book. But details have not been disclosed.
Liquid
A payments and reward platform that uses your fingerprint as an authentication token, saving users from having to bring a real wallet or digital wallet when shopping.

Details of the forth startup have not been disclosed. These startups will take part in the incubation program starting tomorrow, and their progress during the program period will be showcased at Demo Day on November 6.

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Seedstars World to hold regional pitch competition event in Tokyo this Friday

SeedStars World

Masaru Ikeda 2014.07.22

See the original story in Japanese. Following its first edition last year, Seedstars World is on a global tour to organize a series of regional pitching competition events worldwide. At this event, winners from regional events will be invited to the global final in Geneva, Switzerland, to compete for the top prize, which includes a chance to fundraise up to $500,000 from partnering investors. Retail store analytics solution Locarise won at the regional event in Tokyo last year, and the global top prize went to Kenya-based physical address sharing solution startup OkHi. This year’s Tokyo event will be held this Friday, July 25th, at The Terminal, a co-working space in Harajuku, Tokyo. The event organizer is accepting last-minute applications for presenters and audience members. Seedstars World is hosted by Sandbox, the Europe-based organization comprised of over 800 young entrepreneurs from around the world. Sandbox holds more than 150 entrepreneurship events in 25 countries worldwide annually, with the aim to find prominent startups and to put them in the spotlight, especially through the Seedstars World events. The below video is an interview with last year’s Tokyo chapter winner Locarise. It will be exciting to see who will win the regional top…

See the original story in Japanese.

Following its first edition last year, Seedstars World is on a global tour to organize a series of regional pitching competition events worldwide. At this event, winners from regional events will be invited to the global final in Geneva, Switzerland, to compete for the top prize, which includes a chance to fundraise up to $500,000 from partnering investors.

Retail store analytics solution Locarise won at the regional event in Tokyo last year, and the global top prize went to Kenya-based physical address sharing solution startup OkHi.

ssw-final-onstage — Seedstars World 2013 global event (Geneva, Switzerland)

This year’s Tokyo event will be held this Friday, July 25th, at The Terminal, a co-working space in Harajuku, Tokyo. The event organizer is accepting last-minute applications for presenters and audience members.

Seedstars World is hosted by Sandbox, the Europe-based organization comprised of over 800 young entrepreneurs from around the world. Sandbox holds more than 150 entrepreneurship events in 25 countries worldwide annually, with the aim to find prominent startups and to put them in the spotlight, especially through the Seedstars World events.

The below video is an interview with last year’s Tokyo chapter winner Locarise. It will be exciting to see who will win the regional top award this year. The Bridge is proudly serving the event as a media partner, and we’ll let you know the competition results soon.

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Japan’s social network for teachers ‘Sensei Note’ launches iOS app

Sensei Note

Masaru Ikeda 2014.07.21

See the original story in Japanese. Today’s a national holiday in Japan, with nary a story to provide. But, here’s an Extra. Sensei Note, a social network service for teachers in Japan, launched an iOS app today. While their website is developed on a responsive design platform for mobile devices which can be adapted to tablets and PCs, Loupe – the startup behind the service – expects to accelerate user acquisition with the app, especially from mobile users. Its Android version is now being developed, targeting market entry in late July or early August. To grasp attention from teachers who are usually busy working during the week and even on weekends, the company announced the launch of its iOS app on a holiday; most Japanese schools are on summer breaks from this week as well. Since its web app’s official launch back in March, the company surpassed 60% in MAU (monthly active user) ratio which is extremely higher than that in the gaming and e-commerce spaces. According to the company, their eventual PC/mobile usage ratio is almost 50/50, so they expect to increase mobile users by giving them better accessibility with the new mobile app. For teachers who are busy…

See the original story in Japanese.

Today’s a national holiday in Japan, with nary a story to provide. But, here’s an Extra.

Sensei Note, a social network service for teachers in Japan, launched an iOS app today. While their website is developed on a responsive design platform for mobile devices which can be adapted to tablets and PCs, Loupe – the startup behind the service – expects to accelerate user acquisition with the app, especially from mobile users. Its Android version is now being developed, targeting market entry in late July or early August. To grasp attention from teachers who are usually busy working during the week and even on weekends, the company announced the launch of its iOS app on a holiday; most Japanese schools are on summer breaks from this week as well.

Since its web app’s official launch back in March, the company surpassed 60% in MAU (monthly active user) ratio which is extremely higher than that in the gaming and e-commerce spaces. According to the company, their eventual PC/mobile usage ratio is almost 50/50, so they expect to increase mobile users by giving them better accessibility with the new mobile app.

For teachers who are busy at school but cherish their personal time at home, they must make use of their commuting hours. Many teachers who live in rural areas use cars to commute and are unable to make use of the app while driving. However, the improvement in mobile accessibility is seen helping the company acquire more users.

Loupe won top at the Startup Weekend Tokyo event back in November 2012, as well as winning the 8th place at the former event’s global competition Global Startup Battle. The team fundraised over $30,000 through their campaign on Japanese crowdfunding site ReadyFor in 2013, and subsequently obtained government grants from Jump Start Nippon, the entrepreneurship encouragement program by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. If memory serves, they rented a house in Tokyo’s residential district which they share along with the commitment to develop the service under the same roof. They are still a bootstrapping startup, but I assume they will soon start exploring funding opportunities from investment companies using their high MAU ratio as a powerful persuasion tool.

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Japan’s Gree unveils $100M investment plan for non-game businesses

Takeshi Hirano 2014.07.18

See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2014. Japanese internet company Gree unveiled that it will invest about 10 billion yen ($98.7 million) in non-game businesses in the coming 12 months. This was disclosed by the company’s managing director Naoki Aoyagi at his speech at B Dash Camp Fukuoka today. In his presentation about Gree’s recent efforts in new businesses, he pointed out that they need to assess the feasibility of each business as frequently as every three months, similar to what US-based incubator Y Combinator does in terms of frequency of feasibility assessment. In view of the mature state of the Japanese startup ecosystem, he said Gree should not launch a business to compete with other startups: We have to do something different from what other companies are doing. We have enough money since we’ve been providing social games for a long time. We’ll keep primarily investing in the gaming business, but we secured a $100 million budget for investing in non-game businesses. According to Aoyagi, this concept is called “the incubation and acquisition strategy” at GREE and a business scheme different from the company’s investment initiative Gree…

See the original story in Japanese.

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2014.

Japanese internet company Gree unveiled that it will invest about 10 billion yen ($98.7 million) in non-game businesses in the coming 12 months. This was disclosed by the company’s managing director Naoki Aoyagi at his speech at B Dash Camp Fukuoka today.

In his presentation about Gree’s recent efforts in new businesses, he pointed out that they need to assess the feasibility of each business as frequently as every three months, similar to what US-based incubator Y Combinator does in terms of frequency of feasibility assessment.

In view of the mature state of the Japanese startup ecosystem, he said Gree should not launch a business to compete with other startups:

We have to do something different from what other companies are doing. We have enough money since we’ve been providing social games for a long time. We’ll keep primarily investing in the gaming business, but we secured a $100 million budget for investing in non-game businesses.

According to Aoyagi, this concept is called “the incubation and acquisition strategy” at GREE and a business scheme different from the company’s investment initiative Gree Ventures.

Aoyagi introduced HotelQuickly, the Thai startup that Gree recently invested in.

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Japan’s Samurai Incubate and Toyota to hold hackathon event in Israel in October

Masaru Ikeda 2014.07.18

Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate and Toyota InfoTechnology Center, the R&D arm of Japan’s No. 1 automaker, announced today that they will jointly hold a hackathon in Tel Aviv, Israel, 23–24 October. Samurai Incubate established a local subsidiary in Israel in April, with the aim to help more Japanese companies work with Israeli startups as well as find prominent startups to invest in the startup hub of the Middle East. Toyota InfoTechnology Center has been researching big data solutions leveraging metrics accumulated from more than 100,000 Toyota automobiles. Through the hackathon, the company aims to work with Israeli engineers to co-develop mobile apps using big data. Samurai Incubate founder and CEO Kentaro Sakakibara relocated to Tel Aviv earlier this year, where he recently set up a co-working space called Samurai House to invite startups and entrepreneurs from Japan, Israel, and the rest of world to gather. By lobbying the Israeli government, he wants to encourage their national airline to establish a direct flight connecting Tel Aviv and Tokyo to bridge local startup communities in the two countries. Event details, such as venue and agenda, have not been announced, so check visit their website for more information.

Samurai Incubate established a local subsidiary in Israel in April, with the aim to help more Japanese companies work with Israeli startups as well as find prominent startups to invest in the startup hub of the Middle East.

Toyota InfoTechnology Center has been researching big data solutions leveraging metrics accumulated from more than 100,000 Toyota automobiles. Through the hackathon, the company aims to work with Israeli engineers to co-develop mobile apps using big data.

samuraihouse-telaviv — Samurai House, Tel Aviv

Samurai Incubate founder and CEO Kentaro Sakakibara relocated to Tel Aviv earlier this year, where he recently set up a co-working space called Samurai House to invite startups and entrepreneurs from Japan, Israel, and the rest of world to gather. By lobbying the Israeli government, he wants to encourage their national airline to establish a direct flight connecting Tel Aviv and Tokyo to bridge local startup communities in the two countries.

Event details, such as venue and agenda, have not been announced, so check visit their website for more information.

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KDDI and Global Brain form $50M second fund, strengthening investments in US startups

Masaru Ikeda 2014.07.18

Japanese telco KDDI and investment firm Global Brain announced earlier this week that they have jointly formed KDDI Open Innovation Fund II, valued at 5 billion yen ($49.4 million). This follows their previous investment initiative KDDI Open Innovation Fund I which was valued at the same amount and formed back in February 2012. Our readers may recall the telecom company announced that it had partnered with 13 top Japanese companies in their incubation program to strengthen their support in nourishing tech startups and entrepreneurs. We understand that they will use the new fund to invest in prominent startups born out of the program. In addition, the both companies also announced that they have invested 800 million yen ($7.9 million) in four tech companies in the US: Edmondo (social network platform for the educational industry), Issuu (digital publishing and sharing service), Pogoseat (seat upgrade service for live events), and VentureBeat (tech news media). Global Brain recently set up an office in San Francisco and is now closely working with US-based incubators to strengthen their efforts in exploring high-profile startups that they can invest in.

Our readers may recall the telecom company announced that it had partnered with 13 top Japanese companies in their incubation program to strengthen their support in nourishing tech startups and entrepreneurs. We understand that they will use the new fund to invest in prominent startups born out of the program.

In addition, the both companies also announced that they have invested 800 million yen ($7.9 million) in four tech companies in the US: Edmondo (social network platform for the educational industry), Issuu (digital publishing and sharing service), Pogoseat (seat upgrade service for live events), and VentureBeat (tech news media). Global Brain recently set up an office in San Francisco and is now closely working with US-based incubators to strengthen their efforts in exploring high-profile startups that they can invest in.

Docomo Ventures starts its third incubation batch of four startups in Tokyo

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