Our readers may recall that we covered a cloud-based web vulnerability scanning tool called VAddy in February. Tokyo-based Bitforest, the company behind the tool, officially launched its global edition today.
Integrated with continuous integration (CI) tools such as Jenkins, TravisCI and CircleCI, VAddy helps developers scan vulnerabilities in code under development. Followed by the launch of the Japanese version of Vaddy back last October, the newly-introduced global freemium version provides app developers around the world with an optimized security solution for their integration efforts.
With agile software development utilizing CI tools getting more common in the app development industry, especially in the U.S., various testing processes are now automated. However, there are few substantial tools automating vulnerability testing process in the CI cycle, so more than a few developers do not carry out the necessary tests. The Bitforst team claims that VAddy helps developers conduct their vulnerability tests, contributing to the rapid release of secure apps.
The company has set up a blog in English and Japanese to tell their vision to potential users. Yasushi Ichikawa, a project leader of the VAddy development team, recently posted an interesting article on the blog, where he said that every technology-focused startup has to make their stance clear and keep sharpening their “edge”. So it tells something about what kind of values the Bitforest team wants to bring through VAddy by declaring what they will not do.
Bitforest is now planning to launch the premium version of VAddy this summer.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Pioneers Festival is a startup conference held annually in Vienna, Austria. The festival started in 2011, and the fifth edition will be held 28-29 May. A qualifier was held in Tokyo last weekend to select the Japanese delegation for the conference, where D Free, the team developing a bowel movement tracking device under the same name, won the top award. Let’s have a quick rundown on startups that had good results in the competition. Judges for the competition were: Nikola Pavesic, CEO of Justa.io Vickie Paradise Green, Founder of Paradigm / Chairman of the board at Run for the Cure® foundation Tadaaki Kimura, CEO of Addlight Shingo Potier de la Morandière, co-founder of Impact HUB Tokyo Tim Romero, former representative director of Engine Yard, K.K., Host of Disrupting Japan podcast Impact Hub Community Award winner: D Free D Free is a wearable device that predicts the timing of bowel movements. Using ultrasonic waves it predicts how much time a person has until the feces will stimulate the sacral bone, which triggers the urge to defecate. In this way, users will not have to rush to the bathroom as it will free them from worries…
The D Free team wins Impact Hub Community Award. Japan Airlines gives them complimentary mileages for covering their trip from Tokyo to Vienna.
Pioneers Festival is a startup conference held annually in Vienna, Austria. The festival started in 2011, and the fifth edition will be held 28-29 May.
A qualifier was held in Tokyo last weekend to select the Japanese delegation for the conference, where D Free, the team developing a bowel movement tracking device under the same name, won the top award.
Let’s have a quick rundown on startups that had good results in the competition.
D Free is a wearable device that predicts the timing of bowel movements. Using ultrasonic waves it predicts how much time a person has until the feces will stimulate the sacral bone, which triggers the urge to defecate. In this way, users will not have to rush to the bathroom as it will free them from worries about the risk of fecal incontinence. It will help non-handicapped persons, as well as Parkinson’s disease patients, the physically challenged, and the elderly, who might be hard to make it to the bath room and forced to wear a diaper, helping them get back their human dignity.
The device’s learning feature complements individual differences and improves accuracy. They will start marketing to self operators in early 2016, followed by nursing care homes and hospitals in third quarter 2016.
2nd place award winner: Mister Suite
Mister Suite is an outsourcing service for small inn owners and hosts of short-term lodging facilities such as AirBnB. Instead of these hosts and owners, Mister Suite provides a variety of services such as guest relations, handing keys to guests, and room cleaning. In the year of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, while 20 million foreign visitors are expected to come to Tokyo, available hotel rooms are increasing at a pace of 1,800 rooms every year so lodging facilities for 3.7 million visitors will be lacking annually. On the other hand, the vacancy rate of residences in Tokyo is as high as 17%, so the Mister Suite team wants to these vacant rooms to be used as lodging facilities.
Their online booking system integrates with a dispatching system of room cleaners, and it will show when a room is available for a new guest after a guest leaves. The company wants to expand to small hotels, Japanese inns, hot spring inns, and other sharing economy businesses.
3rd place award winner: Wovn.io
Wovn.io instantly turns a website into a multilingual environment only by adding a single Javascript code to the website source. There are three billion internet users in the world, but 70% are non-English speakers. So Wovn.io helps websites reach out to these non-English speaking users.
Since its launch nine months ago, the service has translated 120,000 web pages for users. Website owners can choose from machine translation and human translation, and the former uses Google Translate while the latter relies on crowdsourced translation service Gengo. They are working on the next update that will allow users to easily integrate into major content management systems such as WordPress and Drupal.
The following startups did not win but gave interesting pitches.
Tamecco
Tamecco is a platform that applies Amazon.com’s recommendation user experience to the face-to-face shopping scene. Using an artificial intelligence-based mobile app to collect consumer behavior data, the platform allows store owners to recommend items at storefronts and distribute rewards, such as discount coupons, to potential customers on what they like or where they are.
Tamecco targets franchises of beauty salons, massage shops, ramen restaurants, and other retail businesses. The platform has been installed at selected outlets of Yoshinoya restaurants, a standing sushi bar chain, and Re.Ra.Ku massage places. Unlike typical iBeacon-based technologies that cannot serve Android users, Tamecco perfectly captures iPhone users as well as Android users. It is easy to use so that even the elderly, who are less familiar with mobile apps, can take advantage of it.
Jandi is a cloud-based communication platform for enterprise use. Slack is popular in this space, but the Jandi team claims that Slack does not always meet the demand from business in Asia as it was developed in Western countries. With offices in Tokyo, Taipei, and Seoul, the Jandi team wants to differentiate itself from other communication platforms.
In November, the company fundraised $2 million from Softbank Ventures Korea, China’s Cherubic Ventures, and Korea’s Ticket Monster CEO Hyun-sung Shin.
Paygate
Paygate has developed a credit card payment system. Using a strategy that differentiates itself from similar payments platforms like Square or Coiney, Paygate targets the payment needs of big retail companies, which tend to require higher system reliability and security, providing devices accepting IC chip-embedded credit cards. The company provides payment SDKs (software development kits) in compliance with the PCI-DSS certification, which allows developers to easily develop apps with payments functions without applying for certification.
Typical NFC-based authentication systems or payments systems require users to have a smartphone with a higher operation system version and a mobile app for each of the systems. FlashTouch uses a mobile web browser and delivers a user’s authenticity via light flashing patterns from his or her mobile screen to a light-signal receiving device, which are typically located at storefronts so that it enables mobile payments, identification, smart key authentication, and other purposes. Based on the patent-approved technology, the company provides the solution for $20 per ID (required on every receiving device) every month.
Odigo
Odigo is a trip planning and experience sharing platform for foreign visitors to Japan, where local photographers and authors introduce hidden attractions, destinations, and sightseeing spots. The company plans to monetize receiving budget from local governments for their tourism promotion.
Zest
Zest has developed an auto dispatch and scheduling system for staffers in various industries, and is currently validating its usability in the building inspection industry. The service is available for one-tenth the cost of similar products, and users only have to pay $100,000 for installation and $2,000 for monthly usage. Zest plans to set up an office in Singapore to expand into the Asian market.
Swingnow
Swingnow is a platform that aims to streamline messaging, calendar management, and contact management. It consists of three mobile apps – Swingmail, Swingcal, and Swingbooks – all available on the iTunes AppStore in English-speaking and Nordic countries, but only Swingmail has been launched in Japan.
A presenter doing Q&As with judgesPioneers Festival founder Andreas Tschas (right), Pioneers Tokyo qualifier organizer Andre Casaclang (left)
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Polyglots, a Japanese startup that developed an English newsreader app under the same name, has secured funding from East Ventures in a seed round. Funding details have not been disclosed but it’s likely worth around 35 million yen or $292,000. The mobile app is available for iOS and Android, allowing Japanese users to learn English while reading news updates with many useful features such as managing unfamiliar English words in the app. Polyglots’ adaptive learning engine enables the app to offer optimized content for each user according to his or her learning progress. Since its launch eight months ago, the app has attracted over 140,000 users through viral marketing. The company plans to use the funds to strengthen their business foundation and increase the variety of content. Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by Kurt Hanson Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy
Tokyo-based Polyglots, a Japanese startup that developed an English newsreader app under the same name, has secured funding from East Ventures in a seed round. Funding details have not been disclosed but it’s likely worth around 35 million yen or $292,000.
The mobile app is available for iOS and Android, allowing Japanese users to learn English while reading news updates with many useful features such as managing unfamiliar English words in the app.
Polyglots’ adaptive learning engine enables the app to offer optimized content for each user according to his or her learning progress. Since its launch eight months ago, the app has attracted over 140,000 users through viral marketing. The company plans to use the funds to strengthen their business foundation and increase the variety of content.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson
Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Duriana Internet, a Malaysia- and the Philippines-based startup that provides mobile flea market app Duriana, has secured $2.5 million from Japanese internet company Beenos (TSE:3328) and existing investors, as well as Austria-/Singapore-based VC firm Alps Ventures. Beenos takes an over 10% stake in Duriana upon this round. In view of Beenos’ investment in this sector, the company invested in Fablic, the Japanese startup behind flea market app Fril, back in August of 2012. Duriana has listed over 600,000 items to date, providing an escrow system called Duriana Safe Payments, which assures safety for peer-to-peer transactions between users. Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Duriana Internet, a Malaysia- and the Philippines-based startup that provides mobile flea market app Duriana, has secured $2.5 million from Japanese internet company Beenos (TSE:3328) and existing investors, as well as Austria-/Singapore-based VC firm Alps Ventures.
Beenos takes an over 10% stake in Duriana upon this round. In view of Beenos’ investment in this sector, the company invested in Fablic, the Japanese startup behind flea market app Fril, back in August of 2012.
Duriana has listed over 600,000 items to date, providing an escrow system called Duriana Safe Payments, which assures safety for peer-to-peer transactions between users.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Led by AirCloset where professional stylists select what to wear for users and the Laxus rental service specifically for luxury handbags, fashion rental service is now a hot market. The newest launch in March for this area is Sustina being offered by Omnis. Sustina’s mobile app is already available for iOS on iTune AppStore and for Android on Google Play. Reusing clothing in the closet that never get worn again Where Sustina differentiates itself from other services is that it offers a ‘wear-sharing’ service that handles used clothings and bags coming direct from users, at a monthly price of 5,800 yen (about $49). Just like XZ (pronounced ‘closet’), an online fashion community, it aims to reuse clothes that have been languishing in the back of user closets. It is most similar to being a monthly-subscription version of pre-pivoted Material Wrld, the New York-based luxury fashion trade-in company. Omnis COO Takashi Saito explained: I’ve came up with Sustina as a solution to the current state of many clothes, bags and accessories stored well-nigh unused as a consequence of mass-production and mass-consumption started in the late 20th century. Renting up to five items at once, for “Mix & Match” wearing Renting and…
Led by AirCloset where professional stylists select what to wear for users and the Laxus rental service specifically for luxury handbags, fashion rental service is now a hot market. The newest launch in March for this area is Sustina being offered by Omnis. Sustina’s mobile app is already available for iOS on iTune AppStore and for Android on Google Play.
Reusing clothing in the closet that never get worn again
Where Sustina differentiates itself from other services is that it offers a ‘wear-sharing’ service that handles used clothings and bags coming direct from users, at a monthly price of 5,800 yen (about $49). Just like XZ (pronounced ‘closet’), an online fashion community, it aims to reuse clothes that have been languishing in the back of user closets. It is most similar to being a monthly-subscription version of pre-pivoted Material Wrld, the New York-based luxury fashion trade-in company.
Omnis COO Takashi Saito explained:
I’ve came up with Sustina as a solution to the current state of many clothes, bags and accessories stored well-nigh unused as a consequence of mass-production and mass-consumption started in the late 20th century.
Renting up to five items at once, for “Mix & Match” wearing
Renting and purchasing can all be done within the app. It allows one to choose up to 5 items to rent, with no shipping fee or dues, and provides an option enabling purchase of the items as well. Further 5 items can only be rented or purchased after one returns or purchases the previous 5.
Also, if one sells unwanted clothing items, one can exchange it into Sustina’s original vouchers. It could be used for purchasing clothes and might possibly be used for monthly rental fees. Exchanging clothes with vouchers will add 10% more monetary value than paying with other monetary instruments.
Currently Sustina offers more than 40 brands of female clothing such as Aquagirl, Snidel, Rose ud, See by Chloe, Stunning Lure, and Estnation.
“Mixed-culture” team takes on challenges
Omnis, the company behind Sustina, was founded by four members with different backgrounds like apparel jobs, IT engineers, video and music directors. This diversified team, each member being strong in different areas, is keen to expand Sustina and its opportunities in store.
The planned app release at the end of March will be preceded by a trial run, exclusive to a small community of test users. Ominis wishes to brush up its services based on the needs of users and utilization methods.
Translated by Sumi Yo via Mother First Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Proofread by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Uluru is best known for its cloudsourced platform using housewives called Shufti. The company launched a tablet-based member registration system called Kamimage, focused on helping retailers let their customers sign up for their loyalty program without paper. Uluru recently launched ‘Kamimage for Fashion‘, the member registration system specifically designed for fashion retailers. See also: Japan’s crowdsourcing plaform Shufti raises $5.8 million Recognizing high demand in fashion retailing industry Kamimage was developed with the aim to supplant papers used for surveys and membership registrations with handwriting at stores. It only takes an hour minimum to digitalize the stylus-written information, like name and home address, on customized forms. Receiving many feedbacks on digitalizing surveys and member-registration forms for Uluru’s outsourced business, the company developed the app to cut printing cost and time needed to digitalize customer information. It was first intended for events, show house exhibitions and in-home care scenes, but through its operation, they realized that a huge demand can be found in the apparel industry. In the past, apparel stores had to ask their customers to scan URL or QR codes on shop cards to access shop web pages in order to…
Tokyo-based startup Uluru is best known for its cloudsourced platform using housewives called Shufti. The company launched a tablet-based member registration system called Kamimage, focused on helping retailers let their customers sign up for their loyalty program without paper. Uluru recently launched ‘Kamimage for Fashion‘, the member registration system specifically designed for fashion retailers.
Recognizing high demand in fashion retailing industry
Kamimage was developed with the aim to supplant papers used for surveys and membership registrations with handwriting at stores. It only takes an hour minimum to digitalize the stylus-written information, like name and home address, on customized forms.
Receiving many feedbacks on digitalizing surveys and member-registration forms for Uluru’s outsourced business, the company developed the app to cut printing cost and time needed to digitalize customer information. It was first intended for events, show house exhibitions and in-home care scenes, but through its operation, they realized that a huge demand can be found in the apparel industry.
In the past, apparel stores had to ask their customers to scan URL or QR codes on shop cards to access shop web pages in order to register themselves. However, since the appearance of iPhone, Android and such, the process has become more complex – frequently resulted in warding off the customers without their ever reaching the registration process. Furthermore, it is not efficient to digitalize the paper documents even during free time, to say the least. So the newly-introduced platform be the solution for existing issues like these.
Corralling customers through use of hand-input at storefronts
With the ‘Kamiage for Fashion’ platform, the information handwritten on tablets can be digitalized in about an hour. It doesn’t only cut various costs like printing, space for storing paper forms, time and human resources for data input, but the data can also be used for immediate customer relationship management (CRM) analyses.
Additionally, it may utilize the camera on the tablet to link customer information with images of purchased items and receipts, while also linking and sharing customer information with the store’s e-commerce site or CRM system using the Uluru API (application program interface). While there are conventional services using OCR, Uluru leverages crowdsourced workforce from the Shufti platform to let the Kamimage service provide more accurate data input to differentiate from any “pursuing” rivals.
Retailers can start using ‘Kamimage for Fashion’ fairly easily. After registering e-mail address, password and other necessary information, just pay for monthly plans ranging from 5,000 to 30,000 yen ($42 to $252) with credit card and one’s ready to go. If no tablet device is yet available, an iPad rental for the stores from 2,500 yen per month is available.
Uluru’s first-year sales goal is 70 million yen (about 588,000). The company is also looking to develop a customer and transaction management system for storefronts, helping retailers integrate their customer information with direct-marketing systems and other services.
Translated by Sumi Yo via Mother First Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Proofread by Masaru Ikeda
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Masaru Ikeda
Junya Mori
