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Japan’s SmartDrive unveils vehicle analytics solution, poised for operational testing

SmartDrive

Takeshi Hirano 2014.07.15

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.

Our readers may recall that we recently reported on Japanese stealth startup SmartDrive. The startup has been developing vehicle tracking and bigdata analytics solutions, and fundraised tens of millions yen (or a few hundreds thousands dollars) from Japanese startup investment fund Anri back in February.

The company unveiled the details of their service and announced today that it will launch a test operation by nstalling their device in test vehicles next month. The test will be conducted for one month in Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City, a new city in suburban Tokyo.

SmartDrive will distribute their device to about 20 testers in the area and ask them to track the condition of their cars and driving data, which will be used to improve the product.

Health tracking app for your car

Their solution is comprised of a small accessory and a smartphone app. By connecting the accessory to an OBD (on-board diagnostics) interface to a car, it will be synced via BlueTooth with the app on a smartphone. Various metrics, like fuel efficiency or engine stats, will then be transferred to your smartphone. This process is similar to health tracking apps that obtain data via body sensors.

We’ve seen several startups like Y Combinator-backed Automatic (launched in 2013) and New York-based Dash Labs (launched back in June 2013) as well as several Kickstarter campaigns like this and that providing similar tracking solutions using the OBD interface.

Bigdata solution on top of people’s driving records

SmartDrive does not have a clear business model, but CEO Retsu Kitagawa aims to monetize it via B2B2C.

For example, if an auto insurer, or a car dealer uses the SmartDrive solution and lets customers use it, they will be able to get details from customers’ vehicles and provide a cheaper insurance package or better follow-up services. US auto insurer Progressive provides an OBD device called SnapShot to better serve customers. The more types of cars these companies can acquire data from, the more fields the solution can be applied to.

SmartDrive is repeating stress tests to prepare for the operational test. We will feature them as soon as more details become available.

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Line reported to submit IPO application to Tokyo Stock Exchange

Line
Naver

Masaru Ikeda 2014.07.15

According to several news sources, Line, the Japanese messaging app company and a subsidiary of Korea internet company Naver (TSE:035420), was reported today that it has submitted an IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company and its potential underwriter Nomura Securities have not approved the report. Bloomberg reported last month that Line has been in talk with Morgan Stanley and Nomura Securities to explore possibilities to go IPOs at Tokyo Stock Exchange as well as New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ simultaneously.

Bloomberg reported last month that Line has been in talk with Morgan Stanley and Nomura Securities to explore possibilities to go IPOs at Tokyo Stock Exchange as well as New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ simultaneously.

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This mobile app from Japan’s Muji helps you relax and sleep wherever

Masaru Ikeda 2014.07.15

Ryohin Keikaku, the Japanese company best known for its consumer goods-focused retail chain Muji, recently introduced a sleep-inducing app called ‘Muji to Sleep‘. It is available in several different languages for Android and iOS. The company introduced a series of neck cushion products last year, which have been getting a good reputation, especially from frequent travelers who take long-haul flights. The mobile app was recently introduced as a sister product of the cushion products. Muji to Sleep offers six different relaxing natural sounds recorded around Japan using the binaural recording method, where the audio frequency gap between left-ear and right-ear channels syncs with the brainwave cycle and induces a sound sleep.

The company introduced a series of neck cushion products last year, which have been getting a good reputation, especially from frequent travelers who take long-haul flights. The mobile app was recently introduced as a sister product of the cushion products.

Muji to Sleep offers six different relaxing natural sounds recorded around Japan using the binaural recording method, where the audio frequency gap between left-ear and right-ear channels syncs with the brainwave cycle and induces a sound sleep.

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P2P-based content distribution network MistCDN wins at KDDI incubator’s Demo Day

KDDI Mugen Labo

Masaru Ikeda 2014.07.14

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based KDDI Mugen Labo, the tech incubator of Japan’s second largest telco, hosted a demo day event today, where five startups that graduated from the fifth batch of the incubator’s program showcased their achievements over the last several months. MistCDN, a P2P-based content distribution network leveraging the WebRTC technology, won the top prize at the event. Here’s a quick rundown on what the five teams have been working on. MistCDN by Mist Technologies (The best prize and the ‘best engineer’ prize winner) MistCDN is a content distribution network designed to distribute rich content. Unlike conventional CDN services, it obtains content from another user nearby in the network topology browsing the same content that you want to browse, so it requires no edge server or network. The company launched a live streaming service using the MistCDN technology today. Filme by Coto-Coto (The ‘Family Ties’ prize and the ‘Audience’ prize winner) Mothers like to videotape their children, but many complain that they have no time to edit and share the videos. To address this issue, Filme edits your video clips, creates a DVD, and delivers it to you or other family members periodically. All you have…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based KDDI Mugen Labo, the tech incubator of Japan’s second largest telco, hosted a demo day event today, where five startups that graduated from the fifth batch of the incubator’s program showcased their achievements over the last several months.

MistCDN, a P2P-based content distribution network leveraging the WebRTC technology, won the top prize at the event. Here’s a quick rundown on what the five teams have been working on.

MistCDN by Mist Technologies (The best prize and the ‘best engineer’ prize winner)

kddi-mugen-labo-6th-demoday-mistcdn — Shintaro Tanaka

MistCDN is a content distribution network designed to distribute rich content. Unlike conventional CDN services, it obtains content from another user nearby in the network topology browsing the same content that you want to browse, so it requires no edge server or network. The company launched a live streaming service using the MistCDN technology today.

Filme by Coto-Coto (The ‘Family Ties’ prize and the ‘Audience’ prize winner)

kddi-mugen-labo-6th-demoday-filme — Shingo Kadomatsu

Mothers like to videotape their children, but many complain that they have no time to edit and share the videos. To address this issue, Filme edits your video clips, creates a DVD, and delivers it to you or other family members periodically. All you have to do is videotape a 30-second clip every day and upload it to the Filme website. We consider this a version of the Kiddy family photo delivery service.

QuaQua by Ducklings (The ‘New Workstyle’ prize winner)

kddi-mugen-labo-6th-demoday-quaqua — Norikazu Takagi

QuaQua is a marketplace for handmade jewelry. Users post a photo of their designs before manufacturing it. Once a design earns enough votes to make a profit, a user can start making, thus reducing the loss risk. While QuaQua initially aimed to establish a marketplace for general handmade crafts, they pivoted to jewelry because of potential competition.

Macaron by SPWTECH (The ‘Key of Beauty’ prize winner)

kddi-mugen-labo-6th-demoday-macaron — Keita Yoshida

Macaron is a fashion and beauty information-focused curation app for young females. Curated by 12 female university students, the app provides useful tips for women on how to be more fashionable and attractive. Its iOS app will be released soon, and its Android app will be out by year-end.

Repro (The ‘Global Create’ prize)

kddi-mugen-labo-6th-demoday-repro — Yusuke Hirata

Repro is an analytics solution that allows game developers to improve their apps to increase user retention rates. By integrating the Repro SDK, developers can see how users play their app as well as how they look during game play. Twelve developers have adopted Repro’s analytics solution for 16 apps.

Along with this event, KDDI Mugen Labo announced it now accepting applications for the 7th batch of its incubation program. The deadline is August 15th. Apply here.

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KDDI joining forces with 13 top Japanese companies to launch incubation initiative

KDDI

Masaru Ikeda 2014.07.12

Japan’s Nikkei reported today that Japan’s second largest telco KDDI will join forces with 13 Japanese established companies to launch a startup incubation initiative. The initiative will choose five candidates for the next batch of KDDI’s entrepreneurship program Mugen Labo. Participating companies include Seven & i Holding (parent company of Seven Eleven convenience store chain and Ito Yokado supermarkets), Mitsui & Co. (trading), Kokuyo (stationery manufacturing), Dai Nippon Printing, Bandai Namco Holdings (game), Tokyu Corporation (railway), Mitsui Fudosan (real estate), Plus (stationery manufacturing), Kintetsu International (travel agency), Softfront, Parco (department store), TV Asahi, and Toppan Printing. They will give qualified startups not only funds but also intangible resources through the program, such as sales marketing data (Seven & i) or design knowledge to develop products (Kokuyo). Because this is in addition to Open Innovation Fund, the company plans to form a new fund to invest in high-profile startups born out of the new initiative.

Participating companies include Seven & i Holding (parent company of Seven Eleven convenience store chain and Ito Yokado supermarkets), Mitsui & Co. (trading), Kokuyo (stationery manufacturing), Dai Nippon Printing, Bandai Namco Holdings (game), Tokyu Corporation (railway), Mitsui Fudosan (real estate), Plus (stationery manufacturing), Kintetsu International (travel agency), Softfront, Parco (department store), TV Asahi, and Toppan Printing. They will give qualified startups not only funds but also intangible resources through the program, such as sales marketing data (Seven & i) or design knowledge to develop products (Kokuyo).

Because this is in addition to Open Innovation Fund, the company plans to form a new fund to invest in high-profile startups born out of the new initiative.

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Japan’s education and human resources companies launch edtech acceleration program

Junya Mori 2014.07.12

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Viling Venture Partners, the investment arm of Japanese educational business company Viling Holdings, and human resource company Slogan jointly launched startup acceleration program ‘Slogan Viling Ventures‘ on Friday. The first batch of the program will start at the end of this month. Qualified startups or entrepreneurs can participate in the program for three months, and their demo day will take place in late October. Villing Holding CEO Shuhei Morofuji explained why they launched the program: The education industry has big room to improve with information technology. As we understand, education is to encourage people to keep living actively together with our society. However, many public and private education initiatives are making efforts toward an unintended direction. We are developing several approaches to make the Japanese educational system much better, including launching our own kindergartens or schools and developing educational products. Through this development process, we learned many players want to disrupt this industry using information technology. By supporting them, we will have a greater impact on the market. That’s why we launched Viling Venture Partners. Participants can obtain the following benefits by participating in the acceleration program: Up to…

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.

Viling Venture Partners, the investment arm of Japanese educational business company Viling Holdings, and human resource company Slogan jointly launched startup acceleration program ‘Slogan Viling Ventures‘ on Friday.

The first batch of the program will start at the end of this month. Qualified startups or entrepreneurs can participate in the program for three months, and their demo day will take place in late October.

Villing Holding CEO Shuhei Morofuji explained why they launched the program:

The education industry has big room to improve with information technology. As we understand, education is to encourage people to keep living actively together with our society. However, many public and private education initiatives are making efforts toward an unintended direction.

We are developing several approaches to make the Japanese educational system much better, including launching our own kindergartens or schools and developing educational products. Through this development process, we learned many players want to disrupt this industry using information technology. By supporting them, we will have a greater impact on the market. That’s why we launched Viling Venture Partners.

Participants can obtain the following benefits by participating in the acceleration program:

Up to 200,000 yen ($2,000) grants
Complimentary usage of a co-working space
Support for hiring new people
Access to advisors, mentors, and other talented people
Experience and knowledge for scale-up your business from scratch
Polishing up an educational business plan, introducing potential partners
Advice for global business expansion

They will take a hands-on approach rather than funding in helping startups and entrepreneurs, but we understand that Slogan Viling Ventures may invest in high-profile startups at the time of the demo day opportunity.

This acceleration program is intended for Japanese startups and entrepreneurs who are developing services for the Japanese market. The application deadline for the first batch is July 25, 2014.

Japan’s SmartDrive unveils vehicle analytics solution, poised for operational testing

Health tracking app for your car

Bigdata solution on top of people’s driving records

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Line reported to submit IPO application to Tokyo Stock Exchange

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Filme by Coto-Coto (The ‘Family Ties’ prize and the ‘Audience’ prize winner)

QuaQua by Ducklings (The ‘New Workstyle’ prize winner)

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Macaron by SPWTECH (The ‘Key of Beauty’ prize winner)

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