Japanese startup 30min (pronounced as ‘san zero minutes’), the company behind a gourmet mobile app, announced today that it will hand the business to Tokyo-based Iid, one of Japan’s largest online media conglomerate outlets. 30min said that the gourmet site has more than 12 million monthly page views from over 3.7 million monthly unique users, but the transfer cost for the asset purchase has not been disclosed.
Since its launch in 2008, the company has been leading in the location-based restaurant finder app space. While the business became profitable last year, they decided they needed more time to exit via IPO so they will hand the gourmet app business to Iid.
30min co-founder and CEO Motoaki Tanigo will step down from the management board but will manage other 30min businesses, including a bargain-priced apartment finder app. He is preparing to launch a new startup, and will serve as an advisor to other Japanese startups like TravelBook and Handshare.
By adding the 30min gourmet-focused media to its line-up, Iid now has more than 40 media outlets across various vertical fields such as autos, e-commerce, education, fashion, finance, hobby, IT, medical business, and sports.
Tokyo-based Quan, the Japanese startup behind mobile apps like MyStickerShop and Lounge, announced today that it has fundraised from Daiwa Corporate Investment, East Ventures, Dentsu Digital Holdings, IMJ Investment partners, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital, and Senshu Ikeda Capital. Funding details have not been disclosed but it’s likely worth around several million US dollars. Daiwa Corporate Investment and East Ventures have participated in the past rounds. Quan will use the money to strengthen business operations in Southeast Asia. See also: How a small Japanese startup is helping Thailand’s biggest telco win new 3G subscribers WeChat turns to Japanese startup Quan for mobile sticker content Since its launch in 2011, Quan has launched smartphone app MyStickerShop in partnership with Thailand’s leading telco AIS, as well as developed the Japanese versions of popular mobile games from Thai developers such as Kiragames, PocketPlayLab, and PromptNow. The company fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese e-commerce giant Netprice.com and investment company East Ventures in 2012. In August this year, Quan invested in Bangkok-based game startup Magic Box Asia.
Since its launch in 2011, Quan has launched smartphone app MyStickerShop in partnership with Thailand’s leading telco AIS, as well as developed the Japanese versions of popular mobile games from Thai developers such as Kiragames, PocketPlayLab, and PromptNow. The company fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese e-commerce giant Netprice.com and investment company East Ventures in 2012. In August this year, Quan invested in Bangkok-based game startup Magic Box Asia.
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Ietty is a Japanese startup that provides an alternative to conventional house hunting. The startup announced today that it has fundraised about 200 million yen ($1.86 million) from YJ Capital and Incubate Fund. Coinciding with this, YJ Capital CEO Takao Ozawa and Incubate Fund partner Keisuke Wada will join the management board of the company. See also: Ietty fundraises $500,000, aiming to disrupt Japanese home rental industry When a user submits criteria for a home and a preferred date to visit candidates on the platform, they will receive a selection of property options from real-estate agencies. A user who then visits a property will receive a reward of 1,000 yen ($9.30) from the platform. Ietty was launched in July 2013, and subsequently raised about 50 million yen ($500,000) from I Mercury Capital, the investment arm of Japanese Internet company Mixi, in October of the same year. This June they launched a new service for corporate welfare called Ietty Biz. Ietty CEO Taikhei Ogawa explained recent developments: About 1,000 people use our service every month, and 20% to 30% of them visit property agencies. We ask users who have submitted…
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.
Ietty is a Japanese startup that provides an alternative to conventional house hunting. The startup announced today that it has fundraised about 200 million yen ($1.86 million) from YJ Capital and Incubate Fund. Coinciding with this, YJ Capital CEO Takao Ozawa and Incubate Fund partner Keisuke Wada will join the management board of the company.
When a user submits criteria for a home and a preferred date to visit candidates on the platform, they will receive a selection of property options from real-estate agencies. A user who then visits a property will receive a reward of 1,000 yen ($9.30) from the platform.
Ietty was launched in July 2013, and subsequently raised about 50 million yen ($500,000) from I Mercury Capital, the investment arm of Japanese Internet company Mixi, in October of the same year. This June they launched a new service for corporate welfare called Ietty Biz.
Ietty CEO Taikhei Ogawa explained recent developments:
About 1,000 people use our service every month, and 20% to 30% of them visit property agencies. We ask users who have submitted strict criteria in finding a home to loosen their requirements so that they will be more likely to find good candidates. We are monitoring these tendencies with the aim to automate the process.
On the corporate service, Ietty Biz has acquired about 40 clients, including listed IT companies, for as short as four months since the launch, which is more than expected, Ogawa says.
Some users (employees working in a corporate client) have decided their relocation using Ietty Biz. When a corporate client opts for a new home through our service, word spreads in the company and more users use our service. New companies, where employees are typically young and are likely to relocate many times, have an affinity for our service. However, we want to reach out to more established companies.
The company will use the funds to hire staff and strengthen sales, especially for supporting property agencies that use the platform.
See the original story in Japanese. Many startups offer platforms that allow users to develop outputs without the need for special skills, such as Monaca (developing mobile apps only with web app development skills) and Prott (prototyping mobile apps only with design skills). Zugyuuun, which was showcased at the recent Samurai Venture Summit event, gives users the tools to develop connected hardware devices that only require HTML and JavaScript coding skills. A new API called Milkcocoa eliminates back-end environment management operations for web developers. From an engineering perspective, the expansion of cloud services has reduced the need to visit data centers to set up or tune-up servers. But many back-end operations remain, such as maintaining server instances, so that front-end apps can keep properly serving users. An engineer may have to handle both front-end and back-end environments at several small startups. An engineer that is focused on the front-end of developing services may get into trouble to adjust the back-end environment. A small company may not be able to afford to hire someone to handle this task. Milkcocoa is the answer for such a situation. When developing a web app having a feature like login or a user-to-user messaging system,…
From the left: Technical Rockstars CEO Shuhei Hiya, and CMO Yohei Kawano
Many startups offer platforms that allow users to develop outputs without the need for special skills, such as Monaca (developing mobile apps only with web app development skills) and Prott (prototyping mobile apps only with design skills). Zugyuuun, which was showcased at the recent Samurai Venture Summit event, gives users the tools to develop connected hardware devices that only require HTML and JavaScript coding skills.
A new API called Milkcocoa eliminates back-end environment management operations for web developers. From an engineering perspective, the expansion of cloud services has reduced the need to visit data centers to set up or tune-up servers. But many back-end operations remain, such as maintaining server instances, so that front-end apps can keep properly serving users.
An engineer may have to handle both front-end and back-end environments at several small startups. An engineer that is focused on the front-end of developing services may get into trouble to adjust the back-end environment. A small company may not be able to afford to hire someone to handle this task. Milkcocoa is the answer for such a situation.
When developing a web app having a feature like login or a user-to-user messaging system, data sets (e.g., user ID or password) are usually stored in a database like MySQL or PostgreSQL in the open source environment. Special skills are needed to manage a database so that a web app and database can exchange data. But Milkcocoa allows a user to forget about processes around a database because these functions become possible by simply coding JavaScript functions. The Milkcocoa platform has a web-based dashboard that allows the maintenance of sets of login IDs and passwords in order to control user access to an app, which will enable the development of a simple app without a database environment, but only with web server components like Apache.
The platform was developed by Japanese startup Technical Rockstars, led by Shuhei Hiya. He was qualified in a Mitou Youth project and officially approved as a “super creator” in 2010 by Japanese governmental IT promotion agency IPA. Technical Rockstars was previously based in Fukuoka because many team members are graduates of Kyushu University, where they created app development tools for non-programmers, such as diagram-based coding environment Clooca (somewhat like Yahoo Pipes?) and Dataflow programming language FLOWer. Upon the beta launch of the Milkcocoa platform in August, they relocated to Shibuya, Tokyo, to explore funding opportunities and partnerships with other startups.
Hiya outlined their plans:
We only have a freemium version, but we are planning to launch a premium version in January or February next year. The premium version will give users an option of auto-scale out, which adds a number of virtual nodes automatically in accordance with a traffic balance to your app. Furthermore, it will also enable user authentication using Facebook, Twitter, or Google accounts by merely inserting a line of JavaScript code to your app.
Milkcocoa uses AWS (Amazon Web Services) as their back-end environment. To provide users with the auto-scale out function, Milkcocoa will have to pay more to AWS for adding active instances. To cover this expense, Milkcocoa will need to raise money from investors.
CMO Yohei Kawano elaborated:
Our corporate philosophy is to make app creation easy. We want more startups to use Milkcocoa. That’s why we expect to attract investors with a vast network of startups rather than money.
There is great demand for this type of service in the global market. Y Combinator-backed Firebase and Facebook-acquired Parse might be competitors for the Technical Rockstars team, but these US-based platforms are primarily targeting the US market. So the Japanese startup aims to expand to Asia after launching the premium version. Their website, tutorials, and technical documents are available in English in preparation for the upcoming global expansion.
CEO Hiya will pitch at HTML5Minutes, a startup showcase event in Harumi, Tokyo, on Monday evening.
Japan’s Nikkei reported earlier this morning that Japanese telco KDDI will partner with 11 internet companies to provide the former company’s subscribers with an integrated portal menu. By integrating a user base of 40 million monthly visitors in total using services provided by these companies, KDDI wants to compete against Yahoo Japan which has one of the largest user bases in the Japanese internet industry. The article says that partnering companies include Weathernews, iStyle (a company behind cosmetics buzz site @Cosme), and Navitime Japan (transit navigation and updates), AppBroadcast (a company behind game media site GameGift, Natasha (a company behind j-pop culture site Natalie, acquired by KDDI in August), Hatena (social bookmark service), and Luxa (funraised from KDDI in October last year). These companies will share an integrated common menu and user profiles, where one can hop around web services by these companies without entering personal information even when required. Integrated services will be provided for KDDI subscribers in addition to smartphone users subscribing to other companies like NTT Docomo and Softbank. Through this integration and partnership, for instance, once a business trip using a calendar app is arranged, it will provide seamless access for finding the best transit route…
Japan’s Nikkei reported earlier this morning that Japanese telco KDDI will partner with 11 internet companies to provide the former company’s subscribers with an integrated portal menu. By integrating a user base of 40 million monthly visitors in total using services provided by these companies, KDDI wants to compete against Yahoo Japan which has one of the largest user bases in the Japanese internet industry.
These companies will share an integrated common menu and user profiles, where one can hop around web services by these companies without entering personal information even when required. Integrated services will be provided for KDDI subscribers in addition to smartphone users subscribing to other companies like NTT Docomo and Softbank.
Through this integration and partnership, for instance, once a business trip using a calendar app is arranged, it will provide seamless access for finding the best transit route or checking weather update for the destination using third-party services, similarly to what Google makes possible alone in a seamless single interface.
In a series of these partnering efforts, KDDI also announced that it has acquired Nanapi (lifehack site operator, we learned that it has been acquired for about $72.6 million through our recent interview.) and BitSeller (mobile app developer). Furthermore, KDDI said it has invested in internet startups like Jorte (calendar app developer) and Vasily (a company behind fashion coordination app iQON)The total amount of these investments is worth 12 billion yen (about $113 million).
See the original story in Japanese. Space Market lists unused or idle venues and allows users to pick one to rent on demand for business needs such as corporate meetings, shareholder meetings, training courses or other events. They won the top prize at Rising Expo 2014, an annual startup showcase event held by CyberAgent Ventures this August. The company announced today that it has fundraised 100 million yen (or $936,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and Mizuho Capital. According to Space Market’s CEO Daisuke Shigematsu, they will use the funds to strengthen engineering as well as sales forces, including developing apps and acquiring more venues, in addition to providing a concierge service. Furthermore, they plan to promote partnering with in-company training providers, event planners, ad agencies plus catering service providers. They have listed more than 775 venues to date, including sailing vessel Miraie, Excel Air Service‘s heliport, Tokyo Bay’s uninhabited island Sarushima, and old Japanese-style houses in the historic village of Shirakawa-go. They have partnered with established companies like Sumitomo Fudosan, Tokyu Land, and Culture Convenience Club. It will be interesting to see how they will proceed towards their vision where they want to create a new value by giving users access to any venue in the world.
Space Market lists unused or idle venues and allows users to pick one to rent on demand for business needs such as corporate meetings, shareholder meetings, training courses or other events. They won the top prize at Rising Expo 2014, an annual startup showcase event held by CyberAgent Ventures this August.
The company announced today that it has fundraised 100 million yen (or $936,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and Mizuho Capital. According to Space Market’s CEO Daisuke Shigematsu, they will use the funds to strengthen engineering as well as sales forces, including developing apps and acquiring more venues, in addition to providing a concierge service.
Furthermore, they plan to promote partnering with in-company training providers, event planners, ad agencies plus catering service providers. They have listed more than 775 venues to date, including sailing vessel Miraie, Excel Air Service‘s heliport, Tokyo Bay’s uninhabited island Sarushima, and old Japanese-style houses in the historic village of Shirakawa-go.
They have partnered with established companies like Sumitomo Fudosan, Tokyu Land, and Culture Convenience Club. It will be interesting to see how they will proceed towards their vision where they want to create a new value by giving users access to any venue in the world.
An old Japanese-style house in the historic village of Shirakawa-go.
Masaru Ikeda
Junya Mori
Yukari Mitsuhashi
