Tokyo-based Queue, the company behind online diamond jeweler that sells engagement and wedding rings, called Brilliance+, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese investment firm Global Brain.
Queue was founded in 2006, followed by the launch of a jewelry-focused e-commerce site called Brilliance+ in 2008. On Brilliance+, users can custom order an engagement ring from a selection of over 7,000 kinds of diamonds and 2,000 ring designs, enabling the creation of over three million ring combinations. Wedding rings can be customized in six crafting categories such as material, width, and ring texture.
While they have showrooms in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district and Yokohama to serve customers on a face-to-face basis, their system of cutting out inventory and optimizing distribution channels has allowed them to sell rings and jewelry at almost half of retail market prices.
Queue will use the funds to develop a mobile app and strengthen systems development in order to receive fully-customized orders online.
Blue Nile (NASDAQ:NILE) is the leading online jeweler in the US. Leveraging the e-commerce opportunity, they cut the cost of samples showcased at storefronts that conventional jewelers have been handling, and their revenue has exceeded that of the e-commerce sales of Tiffany (NASDAQ:TIF), one of the largest jewelers in the US.
Blue Nile has expanded to Japan, so they may be a rival to Billiance+. It will be interesting to see how Queue will be able to expand their e-commerce site on top of the business model derived from the US-based online jeweler giant.
See the original story in Japanese. Japanese people are likely to forget the preciousness of water resources. Thanks to geographical reasons and advanced infrastructure, it is very common for the Japanese to get drinkable water just by turning the faucet. However, because seawater accounts for almost all of water existing on our planet, only 3% of the fresh water can be turned into drinkable water, with the ratio being lowered to 1% if excluding water (or rather ice) existing in the polar regions. So there are many problems in obtaining water resources, such as allocation imbalances between countries, pollution, drought and sea level rises caused by climate changes, not to mention the increased water demand due to the world’s growing population. The SenSprout team is taking on such a huge global challenge. Leveraging the IoT (Internet of Things) expertise, they want to improve the water usage efficiency in agriculture, which accounts for 70% of the world’s entire water demand. SenSprout CEO Kazuhito Mine explained: Agricultural-use water accounts for 70% of our entire water demand. However, taking sprinkling water as an example, don’t you think there’s a more efficient way? On the other hand, we have been facing many issues such…
Japanese people are likely to forget the preciousness of water resources. Thanks to geographical reasons and advanced infrastructure, it is very common for the Japanese to get drinkable water just by turning the faucet.
However, because seawater accounts for almost all of water existing on our planet, only 3% of the fresh water can be turned into drinkable water, with the ratio being lowered to 1% if excluding water (or rather ice) existing in the polar regions. So there are many problems in obtaining water resources, such as allocation imbalances between countries, pollution, drought and sea level rises caused by climate changes, not to mention the increased water demand due to the world’s growing population.
The SenSprout team is taking on such a huge global challenge. Leveraging the IoT (Internet of Things) expertise, they want to improve the water usage efficiency in agriculture, which accounts for 70% of the world’s entire water demand.
SenSprout CEO Kazuhito Mine explained:
SenSprout CEO Kazuhito Mine
Agricultural-use water accounts for 70% of our entire water demand. However, taking sprinkling water as an example, don’t you think there’s a more efficient way? On the other hand, we have been facing many issues such as last year’s severe drought in California and farmland flooding caused by heavy precipitation in Europe.
Mine has been involved in many projects including business incubation and investment as well as systems development. He is currently working on a sensor device system for use in agriculture, called SenSprout, in association with Professor Yoshihiro Kawahara and project researcher Kazuhiro Nishioka of the University of Tokyo.
SenSprout is a leaf-shaped sensor measuring rainfall amount and soil moisture, allowing users to receive acquired metrics with their smartphone or other devices. Sensor systems for agriculture are not a new concept but hard for typical farmers to implement, because these require an average of over 10 million yen (about $85,000) investment and a network for data acquisition.
SenSprout is still in the testing phase but has solved these obstacles by combining several new technologies. They recently won a huge cash prize at a business competition hosted by Chivas Regal.
Mine continued:
We print a circuit on the leaf-shaped part of a sensor with conductive ink made from silver nanoparticles. Regarding power supply, we are considering several plans including wireless power transmission and solar photovoltaics.
Courtesy: SenSprout
The SenSprout sensor embedded in the ground can accumulate transitioning data of soil moisture and rainfall amount. Using the data acquired, farmers can create a heat map visualizing which part of their farming field is sufficiently supplied with water, which can help them eliminate wasting water and improve the efficiency in water feeding performance of sprinklers.
The sensor device transfers data to smartphones over BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) or ZigBee. According to Mine, his SenSprout team is experimenting to see how many sensor devices should be equipped in a certain width of a farming field, and plan to launch a full-scale business around this summer.
Courtesy: SenSprout
While planning to sell sensor devices for an affordable price ranging the tens of US dollars per unit, they want to create a primary revenue stream by introducing paying apps for measuring data. This kind of hardware startups usually faces problems upon mass production, but SenSprout will unlikely face such issues because CEO Mine has been involved in launching Cerevo, a noteworthy Japanese hardware startup.
While news media typically wants to deal with the IoT (Internet of Things) concept just as a buzzword, the key is how to transform existing industries like agriculture, fisheries and manufacturing into new businesses through improved productivity gained from leveraging innovative ideas and technologies.
In addition to optimizing water usage, the SenSprout device provides hints to solving major issues like pinpointing regional weather forecasts and ameliorating food supply situations. Information obtained from the device can be of great value, helping businesses grow further.
This tiny leaf may change the world.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by Masaru Ikeda and “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Safie introduced a smartphone-based home security system of the same name earlier this week. What’s most unique about it is affordable prices. Their connected camera is available for 19,800 yen (about $168), while video recording and alert features are provided for a monthly subscription fee of 980 yen (about $8.3). They are apparently cheaper than conventional service operators, providing professional service for 10% of the cost of other conventional services. Professional service for tenth those from rivals While security demands are growing at shopping complexes, public venues, and even at households, home security systems have not become so widespread because of cost; it requires over 50,000 yen (about $4,200) for installing closed-circuit television (CCTV) equipment as well as about 5,000 to 10,000 yen (about $42 to $85) for monthly subscription fee. However, videos are typically recorded in low resolution or in low frame rate on these systems, as well as stored into a local component which is obviously inaccessible over the internet. Safie can solve all these problems. With Safie, you can start recording HD quality video into the cloud platform as easily as by connecting a Safie camera costing around $200 to a…
Tokyo-based Safie introduced a smartphone-based home security system of the same name earlier this week. What’s most unique about it is affordable prices. Their connected camera is available for 19,800 yen (about $168), while video recording and alert features are provided for a monthly subscription fee of 980 yen (about $8.3). They are apparently cheaper than conventional service operators, providing professional service for 10% of the cost of other conventional services.
Professional service for tenth those from rivals
While security demands are growing at shopping complexes, public venues, and even at households, home security systems have not become so widespread because of cost; it requires over 50,000 yen (about $4,200) for installing closed-circuit television (CCTV) equipment as well as about 5,000 to 10,000 yen (about $42 to $85) for monthly subscription fee. However, videos are typically recorded in low resolution or in low frame rate on these systems, as well as stored into a local component which is obviously inaccessible over the internet.
Safie can solve all these problems. With Safie, you can start recording HD quality video into the cloud platform as easily as by connecting a Safie camera costing around $200 to a power source and wi-fi. With the current version, there is a three to four second delay when viewing live video but the company says it will be improved soon.
In addition to its affordable pricing, Safie gives you an advantage of cloud computing, giving the people you have chosen accessibility to recorded videos and live streams from your camera regardless of where they are. Both network path and storage for video streams are encrypted to prevent unauthorized access.
Since Safie has connectivity with various BLE(Bluetooth Low Energy)-enabled devices as well as cameras, we can expect a use case where you will be notified when your child having a BLE-enabled key holder comes home from kindergarten. You can confirm the status with live video, which is more likely to give you a sense of security.
What triggered them to launch the product?
L to R: Safie co-founders Hidenori Kondo, Ryuhei Sadoshima, and Kazuma Morimoto
Safie was founded by former employees at Motion Portrait, an image processing technology startup carved out from Sony. Leveraging the connection with the Japanese electronics giant, Safie has fundraised a total of about 100 million yen (about $846,000) from Sony’s internet service-focused subsidiary So-net and angel investors. Safie was invented based on image processing and face recognition technologies used for mobile apps such as ZombieBooth: 3D Zombifier and ChouChou: Virtual Hair Makeover.
Safie CEO Ryuhei Sadoshima’s experience made a huge impact on the concept of the service. He elaborated:
We had been at the onset exploring scalable business which leverages the image process technologies we had acquired through developing apps at Motion Portrait. During the time, I built my house and tried to subscribe to a home security service but found that it costs more than 500,000 yen (about $5,000) initially. Furthermore, installation and monthly subscription fee will be charged. Then I came up with an idea of a smart home security system which is more affordable for average households to implement.
We have seen U.S.-based Dropcam offering a similar service, which was acquired by Google’s subsidiary Nest for $555 million in June 2014. In contrast with Dropcam manufacturing hardware devices, Safie focuses on providing an cloud-based video recording platform supporting cameras developed by partnering manufacturers like Nagoya-based Elmo. Hence, Safie provides a freemium app for using their cloud service in a form of bundle to camera products from these manufacturers, while obtaining monthly subscription fee from users for the cloud service.
Selfie plans to aggressively expand its target from households beyond to small businesses. It is said that about 3.5 million CCTV cameras are in operation all across Japan, but 99% of them records video locally but don’t upload to any cloud service. On the other hand, the number of connected cameras in operation grows by 1 million or 20% an year. Safie is entering the market with its affordable but high quality video solutions.
Launching crowdfunding campaign
Upon announcing the launch of the home security system, Safie launched a crowdfunding campaign for it on Makuake, a Japanese crowdfunding site by internet service company Cyber Agent. If one completes a pre-order, one can obtain it a month earlier than ordinary users for a 40% discount price of 11,800 yen (about $100). Safie will start manufacturing and selling the product online from this April, followed by expanding sales channels to consumer electronics stores. They also see an option of marketing the product combining with internet service packages from their investor So-net.
Sadoshima added:
Safie offers professional home security service for one-tenth the pricing of conventional service operators. While our partnering manufacturers develop hardware devices, we are focused on developing a network and a platform required for the service. So we can create the best product through this combination. We target sales of 10,000 camera devices in the first year.
While more CCTV cameras have been recently installed at apartments in big cities, they are limited to places like entrances or inside elevators. Safie’s smart monitoring system will give consumers an option in installing additional cameras in worrisome locations. The device will also help monitor the behavior of the pet or child at home during one’s absence.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by Masaru Ikeda and “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Venture Business Creation Council, Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, The Tokyo New Business Conference (Connect!), and Japan New Business Conferences held the award-presenting ceremony for the 1st Nippon Venture Awards on Thursday in Tokyo, where Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, economy minister Yoichi Miyazawa, and six winners of the awards were invited. Prime minister’s award winner: Euglena Euglena researches, develops, produces and markets microalgae with a strong focus on euglena. It is expected to be used effectively in functional foods, cosmetics, and jet plane fuel. Euglena CEO Mitsuru Izumo revealed that they want to provide prime minister’s aircraft with fuels from Japan-made with euglena. Economy minister’s award winners (partnership of venture and established company): Cyberdyne and Daiwa House Industry Cyberdyne has developed robots for medical, welfare, nursing care, manufacturing, disaster rescue, entertainment industries leveraging Cybernics technologies. Daiwa House Industry invested in and partnered with Cyberdyne on robotics business in February of 2007. Since then, Daiwa has been entirely supporting Cyberdyne from launching a business to IPO. Economy minister’s award winner (female entrepreneur): Coiney Coiney provides a smartphone-based credit card payment solutions. It is served with a small, circular credit-card reading device that…
Venture Business Creation Council, Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, The Tokyo New Business Conference (Connect!), and Japan New Business Conferences held the award-presenting ceremony for the 1st Nippon Venture Awards on Thursday in Tokyo, where Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, economy minister Yoichi Miyazawa, and six winners of the awards were invited.
Prime minister’s award winner: Euglena
Euglena CEO Mitsuru Izumo receives the award from Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Euglena researches, develops, produces and markets microalgae with a strong focus on euglena. It is expected to be used effectively in functional foods, cosmetics, and jet plane fuel. Euglena CEO Mitsuru Izumo revealed that they want to provide prime minister’s aircraft with fuels from Japan-made with euglena.
Economy minister’s award winners (partnership of venture and established company): Cyberdyne and Daiwa House Industry
Cyberdyne has developed robots for medical, welfare, nursing care, manufacturing, disaster rescue, entertainment industries leveraging Cybernics technologies.
Daiwa House Industry invested in and partnered with Cyberdyne on robotics business in February of 2007. Since then, Daiwa has been entirely supporting Cyberdyne from launching a business to IPO.
Economy minister’s award winner (female entrepreneur): Coiney
Coiney provides a smartphone-based credit card payment solutions. It is served with a small, circular credit-card reading device that is attached to smartphones via the earphone jack.
Shuichi Matsuda, the awards’ chief juror and professor of Waseda University, said that 153 applications had been received from companies from all over Japan. While applying companies must be less than 10 years old, it turn 53% of these were less than five years old. Companies headed by female entrepreneurs accounted for 15% of all applicants this time, but the professor sees this ratio reaching 30% in the near future.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Hacosco, the company behind smartphone-based virtual reality (VR) solutions, has launched a panoramic movie sharing platform called Hacosco Store, using Kadinche’s PanoPlaza Movie as an engineering platform. Since its spun off in July 2014 from RIKEN, or Japan’s Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Hacosco has been developing a VR viewer app as well as a corrugated cardboard head-mounted display holder, aiming to create VR solutions purchasable for as low as $10. The company fundraised 30 million yen (about $254,000) from Japanese startup investment fund Anri in December, followed by securing partnership with Japanese ad agency Hakuhodo in order to develop marketing solutions using VR technologies. Meanwhile, Kandiche launched spherical panorama video-sharing platform PanoPlaza Movie in December. Users can upload panoramic videos to the platform and share them with other users through social network platforms. Hacosco wants to distribute more VR content to users through the Hacosco Store platform. In addition to expanding the sales of the product, the company plans to strengthen monetization by increasing content distribution channels and app channels, so this launch can be considered the first step of such an effort. Edited by “Tex Pomeroy”
Tokyo-based Hacosco, the company behind smartphone-based virtual reality (VR) solutions, has launched a panoramic movie sharing platform called Hacosco Store, using Kadinche’s PanoPlaza Movie as an engineering platform.
Since its spun off in July 2014 from RIKEN, or Japan’s Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Hacosco has been developing a VR viewer app as well as a corrugated cardboard head-mounted display holder, aiming to create VR solutions purchasable for as low as $10. The company fundraised 30 million yen (about $254,000) from Japanese startup investment fund Anri in December, followed by securing partnership with Japanese ad agency Hakuhodo in order to develop marketing solutions using VR technologies.
Meanwhile, Kandiche launched spherical panorama video-sharing platform PanoPlaza Movie in December. Users can upload panoramic videos to the platform and share them with other users through social network platforms.
Hacosco wants to distribute more VR content to users through the Hacosco Store platform. In addition to expanding the sales of the product, the company plans to strengthen monetization by increasing content distribution channels and app channels, so this launch can be considered the first step of such an effort.
See the original story in Japanese. SV Frontier, a Japanese fund based in Silicon Valley focused on startups, announced today that it has invested in Shakr Media, the Korean startup behind video ad production platform Shakr. While details of the investment have not been disclosed, Japan’s Nikkei Computer reported that the Korean company has secured funding up in the hundred thousand US dollars level. Shakr Media plans to establish an office in Japan in 2015 with assistance from SV Frontier and other companies. Shakr is an online video production platform which enables users to easily create promotional videos of people or merchandise using templates. The company has crowdsourced designers creating these video templates, and these designers will get paid on a revenue-share basis when their template is adopted by users. Users need only about ten minutes to create a video clip, but have to pay $50 for downloading it. Shakr Media participated in the pitch competition at Asia Beat 2014 in Taipei last December, where they unveiled the partnership with Taiwan’s electronics manufacturing company Foxconn to increase the variety of templates. Shakr Media appears to be planning an expansion in their sales channels by leveraging partnerships with big companies, especially those in Asia. Since its launch back in 2010, Shakr Media has attracted funds from 500 Startups (US), NHN Investment (Korea), Posco (Korea),…
SV Frontier, a Japanese fund based in Silicon Valley focused on startups, announced today that it has invested in Shakr Media, the Korean startup behind video ad production platform Shakr. While details of the investment have not been disclosed, Japan’s Nikkei Computer reported that the Korean company has secured funding up in the hundred thousand US dollars level. Shakr Media plans to establish an office in Japan in 2015 with assistance from SV Frontier and other companies.
Shakr is an online video production platform which enables users to easily create promotional videos of people or merchandise using templates. The company has crowdsourced designers creating these video templates, and these designers will get paid on a revenue-share basis when their template is adopted by users. Users need only about ten minutes to create a video clip, but have to pay $50 for downloading it.
Shakr Media participated in the pitch competition at Asia Beat 2014 in Taipei last December, where they unveiled the partnership with Taiwan’s electronics manufacturing company Foxconn to increase the variety of templates. Shakr Media appears to be planning an expansion in their sales channels by leveraging partnerships with big companies, especially those in Asia.
Since its launch back in 2010, Shakr Media has attracted funds from 500 Startups (US), NHN Investment (Korea), Posco (Korea), and the former president of Korean distillery Jinro. For Shakr Media, the funds this time includes the first cash inflow from a Japanese investment fund.
Yozo Suzuki, founder and CEO of SV Frontier, says he believes that through his investment in Aarki and Virool startups in the video ad space will emerge; he decided to invest in Shakr Media this time based on such a belief.
Shakr Media won the beLAUNCH 2013 competition in Seoul. CEO David Lee is in the middle of the front row.
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Yukari Mitsuhashi
