Japanese internet messaging company Line announced today that it has founded a new fund focused on investing in e-commerce, payments solutions, O2O (online-to-offline), media, and entertainment sectors, called Line Life Global Gateway.
This is part of the efforts which was announced at the company’s annual showcasing event last October, aiming to diversify its revenue stream beyond messaging related services.
The fund is planned to be worth around 5 billion yen (about $42.1 million) and operated for ten years since 4th February under the responsibility of Line’s CSMO (chief strategic marketing officer) Jun Masuda.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based IoT (Internet of Things) startup Vinclu announced today that it has fundraised 20 million yen (about $168,000) from new investment fund Primal Capital. Using the funds, the company plans to enter the new field of digital communication robot development. According to Vinclu CEO Minori Takechi, the new field is part of the up-and-coming IoT solutions, and means interface and big data related services in categories such as smart houses and robotics. Vinclu was launched back in February 2014, followed by securing a seed funding round from IoT-focused incubation initiative ABBALab in April. They are currently based out of DMM.make Akiba, a hardware lab in the Japanese startup hub of Akihabara. The company has developed an appcessory product called Ayatori, which plugs into a smartphone earphone jack to enable users to enjoy communicating with others by changing illumination patterns using the mobile app. See also: Japanese internet giant DMM launches spectacular hardware lab for startups in Akihabara Japan’s Vinclu launches Indiegogo campaign for light communication appcessory Writing this article is a challenge because we have few details on their plans as they are in stealth mode, but I will do my best by leveraging the power of the imagination….
L to R: ABBALab CEO Osamu Ogasahara, Vinclu CEO Minori Takechi, Primal Capital General Partner Hiroshi Sasaki
Tokyo-based IoT (Internet of Things) startup Vinclu announced today that it has fundraised 20 million yen (about $168,000) from new investment fund Primal Capital. Using the funds, the company plans to enter the new field of digital communication robot development. According to Vinclu CEO Minori Takechi, the new field is part of the up-and-coming IoT solutions, and means interface and big data related services in categories such as smart houses and robotics.
Vinclu was launched back in February 2014, followed by securing a seed funding round from IoT-focused incubation initiative ABBALab in April. They are currently based out of DMM.make Akiba, a hardware lab in the Japanese startup hub of Akihabara.
The company has developed an appcessory product called Ayatori, which plugs into a smartphone earphone jack to enable users to enjoy communicating with others by changing illumination patterns using the mobile app.
Writing this article is a challenge because we have few details on their plans as they are in stealth mode, but I will do my best by leveraging the power of the imagination.
Vinclu CEO Minori Takechi raised the name of Magic Leap as a hint, which raised $542 million in series B round last October from Google, KPCB, Andreesen Horowitz, and other prominent investors, being told that their valuation has exceeded $1 billion.
Apparently, what the Vinclu team is trying to do is a space close to augmented reality or holograms. But if they develop it, what will that mean? We can find another hint in what Takechi developed at a hackathon event last year.
At a hackathon sponsored by TBS (a Tokyo-based private broadcaster), I developed a smart remote controller that allows users to control their TV via speech recognition. My product won the top prize.
The product was a stuffed toy-shaped device called Tereboo (see video below) – but let’s think about a product enabling these similar features using augmented reality or hologram technologies.
The smart-home market can be roughly divided into two categories; single-purpose products like Nest and platform-based solutions like SmartThings. The latter can control various home appliances and acquire information on users’ daily lives, generating a huge opportunity in the big data business. That’s where Softbank is targeting with their robotics business around Pepper.
If a hologram-based solution that the Vinclu team will develop is a new interface to control home appliances, that future will definitely be enjoyable. Toggles or button switches will be changed to a human-friendly operational system.
But these ideas are just my imagination. In view of business cases in the global market, big opportunities in the IoT business exist in an accumulation of data and logs that we have been able to collect. It is no wonder that Vinclu’s Takechi and Hiroshi Sasaki, General Partner of Primal Capital, are keeping their eyes on such a lofty future.
See the original story in Japanese. Japanese luxury inn and hotel booking site Relux was launched in February 2013 in beta followed by a switch to an official edition in April of the same year. Members had to obtain qualification by Relux to start booking inns using the site, but the regulation was subsequently abolished in late 2013. Loco Partners, the company behind the service, announced on Friday that it has surpassed 100,000 registered members since its launch almost two years ago. See also: Japan’s Relux raises $3.1 million, enhances hotel booking site to meet foreigner needs What’s unique about Relux is that their screening committee chose Japanese hotels or inns from all across the country, aiming to give users a satisfaction-guaranteed staying experience. In addition to listing high-end Japanese inns, Relux provides member-only limited packages in association with participating hotels and inns. As their user base grew, booking inquiries from outside Japan have also increased. While many people from Hong Kong, China, and Singapore now use Relux for booking their stays, some of them pay even millions yen a night for a luxury accommodation package. Based on these responses from users, Relux has enhanced and improved their services to…
Japanese luxury inn and hotel booking site Relux was launched in February 2013 in beta followed by a switch to an official edition in April of the same year. Members had to obtain qualification by Relux to start booking inns using the site, but the regulation was subsequently abolished in late 2013. Loco Partners, the company behind the service, announced on Friday that it has surpassed 100,000 registered members since its launch almost two years ago.
What’s unique about Relux is that their screening committee chose Japanese hotels or inns from all across the country, aiming to give users a satisfaction-guaranteed staying experience. In addition to listing high-end Japanese inns, Relux provides member-only limited packages in association with participating hotels and inns.
As their user base grew, booking inquiries from outside Japan have also increased. While many people from Hong Kong, China, and Singapore now use Relux for booking their stays, some of them pay even millions yen a night for a luxury accommodation package. Based on these responses from users, Relux has enhanced and improved their services to better fit foreign visitors to Japan. As part of these efforts, they launched the global edition of its booking site last September, followed by launching a multilingual concierge service and an English version of their Facebook fan page.
Since Loco Partners has been receiving many inquiries, in particular from China, they are planning to launch a local office in China in March to explore local partners, aimed atxbetter serving Chinese user needs. Towards the Chinese new year holiday later this month, the company started a time-limited promotional campaign on Friday, offering a complimentary travel voucher worth 10,000 yen to foreigners who sign up fully for a Relux membership, until 11:59pm of 18th February (Thursday), Japan Time.
The Japan National Tourism Organization announced that more than 13.41 million foreign visitors have visited Japan through last year, which was a 29.4% increase from the previous year, the highest ever figure. Since typical foreign visitors to Japan must rely on conventional online booking sites like TripAdvisor or Hotels.com due to language barrier, it is only natural that Relux is so attractive for them because of its highly-selected curation of Japanese hotels and inns.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Leading Mark, the company behind an online platform that aims to create a more efficient recruitment process, announced today that it has raised from 171 million yen (about $1.46 million) from Nippon Venture Capital, Mizuho Capital, Link and Motivation, SMBC Venture Capital, East Ventures, and several individual investors. Combined with previous funding from CyberAgent Ventures back in November 2013, Leading Mark has fundraised a total of 221 million ($1.88 million) from investors to date. See also: Leading Mark raises 50 million yen, launches online platform for recruiting Coinciding with the announcement of the funding, the company launched a mobile app for job-seeking students, called Recme, showing users a set of aggregated job listings which may be matched based on 85 patterns of a user’s interest tags. Available for iOS 7 and above on the iTunes Appstore as well as for Android on Google Play. Since its foundation back in 2008, Leading Mark has established a primary business from recruiting consulting for established companies and built up a pipeline for job-seeking students. The firm has acquired about 200 companies as clients to date. Leading Mark CEO Yuki Iida told us how they have been growing: When launching our company, we had been…
Tokyo-based startup Leading Mark, the company behind an online platform that aims to create a more efficient recruitment process, announced today that it has raised from 171 million yen (about $1.46 million) from Nippon Venture Capital, Mizuho Capital, Link and Motivation, SMBC Venture Capital, East Ventures, and several individual investors. Combined with previous funding from CyberAgent Ventures back in November 2013, Leading Mark has fundraised a total of 221 million ($1.88 million) from investors to date.
Coinciding with the announcement of the funding, the company launched a mobile app for job-seeking students, called Recme, showing users a set of aggregated job listings which may be matched based on 85 patterns of a user’s interest tags. Available for iOS 7 and above on the iTunes Appstore as well as for Android on Google Play.
Since its foundation back in 2008, Leading Mark has established a primary business from recruiting consulting for established companies and built up a pipeline for job-seeking students. The firm has acquired about 200 companies as clients to date.
Leading Mark CEO Yuki Iida told us how they have been growing:
When launching our company, we had been telemarketing potential clients and asking them to “let us help your hiring campaign.” A certain major client participated in our event for job seekers, and we helped them make a good result. They have kept placing orders to us since then.
A good reputation helped them grow further. However, the 2008 global financial crisis and the Tohoku earthquake in 2011 hit the Japanese economy, causing many businesses to start shrinking their hiring budget.
Iida continued:
Our team turned out to be only me along with some part-time workers in 2011. I wondered if we had to shut down the business. However, although society is filled with materialistic items, I had wondered if people were really happy…working in jobs that really satisfy them.
Leading Mark CEO Yuji Iida
Through the experience in recruiting business over several years, he has learned well about how he can make his business profitable. But he thought the job-seeking process for fresh graduates is not streamlined. While leading job board sites have to post many job entries, employment agencies typically charge a high commission. Exploring a new alternative to conventional ways, Iida and his team invented Recme, a platform for matchmaking companies and job seekers by leveraging videos.
Since its launch a year ago, Leading Mark has achieved their first target of 10,000 job-seeking users on the Recme platform. While companies using the platform successfully reduced their workload for hiring ranging from 15% to 70%, the amount of job listings that Recme can provide is far beyond that of major job board sites. That’s why Leading Mark developed a mobile app.
Iida elaborated:
We have been curating job listings from many websites. Users can receive relevant information for available positions and job fairs by only selecting interesting tags.
To prevent a possible violation of copyright issues by reproducing content, the app curates job listings from companies except other job sites or recruiting companies. By choosing a job posting on the app, users will be navigated to an application form that enables them to post an appealing video on Recme, or otherwise to a website of the company that provides the position.
It will be possible on Recme to link up with the applicant entry form for those firms already using the platform. In addition, applications are directed to the main employment information page of such firms’ websites.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Tokyo-based mobile game developer MyNet announced today that it has raised 730 million yen ($6.2 million) from B Dash Ventures, Shinsei Corporate Investment, and SMBC Venture Capital, including loans from Sumitomo Mitsui Bank. From its start in July 2006, MyNet had been providing social news service Newsing (to be terminated in March), as well as customer relationship management solutions to restaurants and retailers. However, they sold their CRM solutions to Yahoo Japan and changed their focus to social games development in 2012. In May 2014, MyNet launched outsourced growth services for mobile games to help app developers boost user numbers and revenue. They plan to use the funds to hire new people for this growth business and acquire new game titles from other developers. Via: TechCrunch Japan Edit by Kurt Hanson
From its start in July 2006, MyNet had been providing social news service Newsing (to be terminated in March), as well as customer relationship management solutions to restaurants and retailers. However, they sold their CRM solutions to Yahoo Japan and changed their focus to social games development in 2012.
In May 2014, MyNet launched outsourced growth services for mobile games to help app developers boost user numbers and revenue. They plan to use the funds to hire new people for this growth business and acquire new game titles from other developers.
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based Wizpra, the company that provides customer experience management (CEM) platform under the same name, announced last week that it has fundraised 230 million yen ($2 million) from Gree Ventures, Mobile Internet Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and Mizuho Capital. Coinciding with this, Gree Ventures’ partner Tatsuki Tsutsumi and Waseda University’s business school professor Hironori Higashide has joined the board of management. Founded in March 2013, Wizpra has been providing a user experience management platform called Wizpra NPS and an employee experience management (EEM) platform called Wizpra Card. Since its launch in August 2014, Wizpra NPS has been adopted by more than 1,000 retailers in Japan, such as restaurants and fitness gyms. While the monthly fee for Wizpra NPS varies by number of users ranging from 100,000 yen ($850) to 350,000 yen ($3000), Wizpra Card will charge 400 yen per user to subscribing companies. Net Promotor Score, NPS for short [1], is one of the indicators to measure customer loyalty by asking customers one simple question — How likely is it that you would recommend [your company] to a friend or colleague? They respond on a 0 to 10 rating…
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.
Founded in March 2013, Wizpra has been providing a user experience management platform called Wizpra NPS and an employee experience management (EEM) platform called Wizpra Card. Since its launch in August 2014, Wizpra NPS has been adopted by more than 1,000 retailers in Japan, such as restaurants and fitness gyms.
While the monthly fee for Wizpra NPS varies by number of users ranging from 100,000 yen ($850) to 350,000 yen ($3000), Wizpra Card will charge 400 yen per user to subscribing companies.
Net Promotor Score, NPS for short [1], is one of the indicators to measure customer loyalty by asking customers one simple question — How likely is it that you would recommend [your company] to a friend or colleague? They respond on a 0 to 10 rating scale and are categorized as follows:
Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.
It is reportedly easier for both sides of businesses and their customers to conduct and answer questionnaires thanks to the simple scoring system.
Based on this scoring system, Wizpra NPS provides an easy-to-answer questionnaire form optimized for smartphone users, as well as a dashboard for businesses showing them a real-time analysis of collected answers. Answers will be classified into three categories of promoters, passives, and detractors, improving the visibility of the analysis leveraging keywords extracted from collected responses.
Wizpra’s dashboard
Wizpra CEO Yoshimitsu Imanishi explained:
As we’ve seen that Apple has adopted Medallia, many companies are using NPS as the most important KPI (key performance index) in the US.
Imanishi has experience as in employee management and customer management in his career, starting as an account executive at Hitachi, followed by a stint as a Uniqlo store manager.
Imanishi continued:
What’s good about NPS is that it’s directly linked with a sales performance. We have received feedback of retailers using our service, noting that it can visualize their customer’s voice and help them consider how they should deal with customers upon their next visit to storefronts according to how high or low their loyalty is.
In this way, their user base has quickly grown to 1,000 retailers in just six months since the launch. They said that business categories of their users are also being diversified.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by Masaru Ikeda and Kurt Hanson Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy
Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. ↩
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Yukari Mitsuhashi
