Tokyo-headquartered startup incubator Samurai Incubate announced today that it has invested an undisclosed sum in Israeli startup incubator Startup East. Startup East was founded about 1.5 years ago, aiming to invite Asia startup to Israei as well as encourage Israeli startup to more penetrate in the Asian region. Especially for startups in Asia, the Israeli incubator appeals that it can provide a gateway to the global market leveraging a solid relationship between the local startup community and Silicon Valley.
Amos Avner, Founding partner of Startup East
According to Amos Avner, founder partner of Startup East, they can’t disclose details but are in talks to fundiraise from and partner with unnamed local incubators in Singapore and South Korea as well as one of the governments in the Asia region. On the other hand, Startup East has not received any financial support from the Israeli government because they are a totally private incubation initiative. They have a total of about 10 portfolio startups to date, and are focused on nourishing technology-oriented startups developing something like image processing and business intelligence.
In partnership with Startup East, Samurai Incubate wants to encourage startups in Japan and Israel to communicate each others and strengthen integrating the two ecosystems. As part of this effort, the two incubators will co-organize an event on 9 June having five Israeli companies: Startup East and its portfolio startups. This is part of Startup East’s roadshow tour visiting Japan, Korea, and Singapore, and participating startups will explore potential funding opportunities, acquiring clients, and making media exposures during the visit.
Since its expansion to Israel back in July 2014, Samurai Incubate set up anincubation office called Samurai House in Tel Aviv where they have been nourishing Japanese entrepreneur-led startups like Aniwo.
See the original story in Japanese. When I go to startup events both in Japan and overseas these days, I am usually faced with a panel discussion focusing on robotics where Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics comprise the topic that always comes up. But I think the laws should not be applied to robotics only. It is obvious that various products created by startups have to adopt them as well for the sake of people. Born out of the third batch of the Docomo Ventures incubation program last year, I see Oton Glass becoming one of the most helpful products globally. Keisuke Shimakage, CEO of Particular Design developing the smart glasses product, is attending the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS), a public university in the central Japanese city of Gifu, between Tokyo and Osaka. He started developing Oton Glass to support the daily life of his father who was dyslexic. Dyslexia is a kind of learning disorder where patients have no problem at all with their eyesight, intelligence or ability to comprehend words but suffer from significant difficulties in reading and writing words. In recent years, Hollywood celebrities like Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg admitted being dyslexic; the symptom occurs in 10% of the entire population in the US and Europe. Dyslexia inconveniences the patients only when reading…
When I go to startup events both in Japan and overseas these days, I am usually faced with a panel discussion focusing on robotics where Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics comprise the topic that always comes up. But I think the laws should not be applied to robotics only. It is obvious that various products created by startups have to adopt them as well for the sake of people.
Born out of the third batch of the Docomo Ventures incubation program last year, I see Oton Glass becoming one of the most helpful products globally. Keisuke Shimakage, CEO of Particular Design developing the smart glasses product, is attending the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS), a public university in the central Japanese city of Gifu, between Tokyo and Osaka. He started developing Oton Glass to support the daily life of his father who was dyslexic.
Dyslexia is a kind of learning disorder where patients have no problem at all with their eyesight, intelligence or ability to comprehend words but suffer from significant difficulties in reading and writing words. In recent years, Hollywood celebrities like Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg admitted being dyslexic; the symptom occurs in 10% of the entire population in the US and Europe.
Dyslexia inconveniences the patients only when reading and writing words, which leads to a lack of awareness among the general populace. However, it is obviously inconvenient as people use written words for daily communications.
L to R: Kosuke Yamagishi (software developer), Naoya Miyamoto (hardware developer), Keisuke Shimakage (CEO), Arata Shimizu (product designer) Photo courtesy of Docomo Ventures
Oton Glass was originally designed to integrate with a character recognition API (application program interface) provided by NTT Docomo, capturing images with a built-in camera, recognize them on the cloud, send synthesized voices back to the user. So the platform can support people with reading disabilities without human assistance, but Shimakage told us that their approach soon reached a technological limit.
We have learned many things through user testing. For example, when waiting for my turn in the hospital, I would want to know if my receipt number is displayed on the board. However, my behavior that tries to point my iPad camera to the target object so that the device can recognize characters in it would be annoying for people around me.
We have heard many voices saying that they don’t want to use it. We found that there was inconvenience that non-handicapped people couldn’t recognize.
When starting development of the product, the team devoted itself to increasing the accuracy of character recognition. However, regardless of how accurate the sensors they adopted for eye-tracking, it was difficult to point out the characters to increase the accuracy for recognition. Furthermore, recognizing characters takes time, so users need to wait for a speech response after gazing at the target object, which led to stressing out.
Under that situation, the team knew of Copenhagen-based BeMyEyes. The Danish startup provides a crowdsourcing platform where the visually impaired can share live video of what they are looking at via a connected camera with helpers online so that helpers will describe it over the voice chat.
While many of BeMyEyes users are based in Europe and the US, the Particular Design team thinks that they can cooperate with BeMyEyes in many aspects including encouraging Japanese-speaking helpers to join the platform as well as enhancing its use case beyond, to helping dyslexic patients.
Shimakage elaborates:
For example, we would like to further develop Oton Glass in collaboration with BeMyEyes’ existing community so that our hardware will be more optimized for their users.
When we recently exhibited our product at a conference focused on accessibility for the disabilities, we heard many voices from glaucoma patients that they want to use it.
“Oton Glass” Prototype 2013 (the initial prototype developed in 2013)
So will the Oton Glass platform pivot to a human-powered crowdsourcing from the character recognition-based technology? In response to this my question, the team’s hardware developer Naoya Miyamoto explained:
We will not give up on character recognition technology. Since technologies for eye-tracking and character recognition will further advance from now on, our solution will become a hybrid of both human-powered and machine-based character recognition.
In partnership with the researchers at Osaka Prefecture University who have joined the CREST project with their character recognition technology, the Particular Design team wants to further develop the product, closely working with dyslexic patients, experienced people from academic circles, and other startups.
While many hardware startups typically use Kickstarter or Indiegogo in their early stage as a marketing tool rather than for fundraising purposes, the Particular Design team wants to focus on solving the problems of dyslexic patients participating in user tests before putting funding, production system, and marketing expansion strategies into consideration.
Yusuke Asakura (Image: Stanford University)
In the Docomo incubation batch, former Mixi CEO Yusuke Asakura mentored the team and gave them a huge impact about where they can head to, so they expressed a huge appreciation to his effort.
We could get a supportive comment from him for the team’s future growth.
I participated in the last year’s batch (of the Docomo Ventures’ incubation program) from the screening process. I thought that Shimakage’s team deserved a nomination because I was so impressed with his passion that he wants to develop a product making his father’s life more comfortable. I think that the product born out of his real experience or motivation will be probably something gentler for people using it rather than if somebody else had done it.
I’m looking forward to the growth of the product so that it will improve the quality of lives of his father and other people suffering from the same syndrome.
Translated by Chieko Frost via Mother First Edited by Masaru Ikeda and “Tex” Pomeroy
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based User Local, the Japanese startup that provides big data analysis for website owners, announced today that it has fundraised 260 million yen ($2 million) from YJ Capital and East Ventures. YJ Capital is the investment arm of Yahoo Japan. Use Local will use the funds to enhance its backend infrastructure as well as develop new analysis tools targeting vertical markets, such as Media Insight, which is focused on media sites and was launched on 17 April. Since its launch in 2007 by former Rakuten engineer Masao Ito, User Local has developed a number of web analytics tools including Nakanohito, Ugokuhito, User Insight, and Social Insight. More than 700 companies in Japan have adopted their analytics tools, while freemium tools like Nakanohito and Ugokuhito have served more than 250,000 websites nationwide. As a result, company analyzes more than 7 billion page views every month. Ito said the company developed Media Insight because he has been receiving many requests from users, especially from the media industry, that they want to obtain not only traffic analysis for their websites but also involve social media and viral media traffic, with a statistical…
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.
Tokyo-based User Local, the Japanese startup that provides big data analysis for website owners, announced today that it has fundraised 260 million yen ($2 million) from YJ Capital and East Ventures. YJ Capital is the investment arm of Yahoo Japan. Use Local will use the funds to enhance its backend infrastructure as well as develop new analysis tools targeting vertical markets, such as Media Insight, which is focused on media sites and was launched on 17 April.
Since its launch in 2007 by former Rakuten engineer Masao Ito, User Local has developed a number of web analytics tools including Nakanohito, Ugokuhito, User Insight, and Social Insight. More than 700 companies in Japan have adopted their analytics tools, while freemium tools like Nakanohito and Ugokuhito have served more than 250,000 websites nationwide. As a result, company analyzes more than 7 billion page views every month.
Ito said the company developed Media Insight because he has been receiving many requests from users, especially from the media industry, that they want to obtain not only traffic analysis for their websites but also involve social media and viral media traffic, with a statistical comparison between their own websites and their competitors’ sites.
See the original story in Japanese. After meeting the funding target for their Danbokko Kitchen crowdfunding campaign on 26 March, Tokyo-based creative agency Kayac is moving forward with a new project called Hikaru Skirt, or “illuminating skirt.” This crowdfunding campaign for a skirt that lights up your Zettai Ryoiki [1] with colorful LED’s, started on 2 April with a funding goal of 3.9 million yen (approximately $32,000). The Hikaru Skirt is a personalizable fashion item with LED lights built into the skirt. Changing the LED’s color to match your outfit or your mood is easy using the skirt’s companion smartphone app. The skirt’s lights can be turned on or off with the touch of a button, and it can even sync to music at parties or clubs. The previous model of Hikaru Skirt was featured in a video by idol group Moso Calibration and their new song Mahou no Juice (see the video in the bottom). While it is uncommon for Kayac to promote a product that has a single creator, the skirt has been getting considerable social media attention leading to the decision to branch out into the manufactured goods market. Kayac Creative Director Kiyoyuki Amano is taking the leadership…
After meeting the funding target for their Danbokko Kitchen crowdfunding campaign on 26 March, Tokyo-based creative agency Kayac is moving forward with a new project called Hikaru Skirt, or “illuminating skirt.” This crowdfunding campaign for a skirt that lights up your Zettai Ryoiki [1] with colorful LED’s, started on 2 April with a funding goal of 3.9 million yen (approximately $32,000).
The Hikaru Skirt is a personalizable fashion item with LED lights built into the skirt. Changing the LED’s color to match your outfit or your mood is easy using the skirt’s companion smartphone app. The skirt’s lights can be turned on or off with the touch of a button, and it can even sync to music at parties or clubs. The previous model of Hikaru Skirt was featured in a video by idol group Moso Calibration and their new song Mahou no Juice (see the video in the bottom).
Lighting under the skirt can be controlled by a dimmer in a mobile app.
While it is uncommon for Kayac to promote a product that has a single creator, the skirt has been getting considerable social media attention leading to the decision to branch out into the manufactured goods market. Kayac Creative Director Kiyoyuki Amano is taking the leadership role in the Hikaru Skirt project.
Along with the cosplay boom, an increasing interest in science fiction and anime fashion is emerging. Is it possible to create something that bridges the gap between cosplay and everyday fashion, takes advantage of technology and looks good, too? This was the question that gave way to the Hikaru Skirt.
Amano explained:
The technology wasn’t the basis for the skirt; it was more the question of how can we make personal style more enjoyable? That lead to its development. In designing the skirt it was really important to me that it look cute whether lit up or not. You can wear it to go with a one-piece or as a skirt; it’s fashion that fits into everyday style.
Supporting the campaign at the 16,000-yen level gets you one medium Hikaru Skirt – delivery set for this October. Supporting projects like these that have single creators reinforces the creative spirit of Kayac’s employees. We look forward to seeing more unique products from Kayac.
Translated by Connor Kirk Edited by Masaru Ikeda and Kurt Hanson
Zettai Ryoiki is originally a term from Japanese anime series Evangelion, “Absolute territory” in English, has come to refer to the section of skin exposed between the hem of a miniskirt and the top of knee high socks. ↩
See the original story in Japanese. Exemplifying “the Science City in Japan” is Keihanna in the west and Tsukuba in the east. At Keihanna, ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International) has its base laboratory which is known for Otonaroid or Kodomoroid. Meanwhile clustered at Tsukuba are numerous robotics ventures including Cyberdyne and startups; moreover, Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City, founded as a center development by Mitsui Fudosan (TSE:8801) for the next-generation urban region, is located right in-between Tsukuba and Tokyo. Fresh in mind also may be a demonstration run of SmartDrive provided by a startup of the same name. Adoption of the smart driving system, here near Tokyo, is on the drawing board. The Asian Entrepreneurship Award (AEA) has been held every year in KOIL (Kashiwa-no-ha Open Innovation Lab), near the Tsukuba Express (TX) railway station located in the center of Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City. See also: Singapore’s wearable vest startup T.Ware wins top Asian Entrepreneurship Award 2014 Those who read the article about this event last year know that AEA differs a bit from other typical conferences for startups in Japan. The candidates of AEA not only focus on IT but also include those covering sectors such as basic technologies or products…
Project manager Ken Matsui (right) and Assistant section chief Kei Kato (left), Mitsui Fudosan Venture Co-Creation Project, a.k.a. 31 Ventures.
Exemplifying “the Science City in Japan” is Keihanna in the west and Tsukuba in the east. At Keihanna, ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International) has its base laboratory which is known for Otonaroid or Kodomoroid. Meanwhile clustered at Tsukuba are numerous robotics ventures including Cyberdyne and startups; moreover, Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City, founded as a center development by Mitsui Fudosan (TSE:8801) for the next-generation urban region, is located right in-between Tsukuba and Tokyo. Fresh in mind also may be a demonstration run of SmartDrive provided by a startup of the same name. Adoption of the smart driving system, here near Tokyo, is on the drawing board.
Those who read the article about this event last year know that AEA differs a bit from other typical conferences for startups in Japan. The candidates of AEA not only focus on IT but also include those covering sectors such as basic technologies or products for heavy industry.
AEA this year will be held from May 24th to 26th. In advance of the event, we interviewed Ken Matsui, Manager of Venture Co-creation Project at Mitsui Fudosan, about the purposes and history of AEA.
How AEA was Born
In 2005, the TX railway line was opened to link Akihabara in Tokyo and Tsukuba Science City. Since then, many technological ventures have been attracted to the area along this line. Mitsui Fudosan had been supporting venture activities since around 2010 due to relations with real estate development around the Kashiwa-no-ha area. Meanwhile, Matsui and his staff are convinced that something needs to be done.
Matsui explained:
We had established a venture support organization, for many technologies were available along the TX railway line. However, these ventures seemed to me that they were only looking to the domestic market, without vision of a larger business expansion and moreover, they were lacking ambition.
While thinking about methods which makes ventures move on to the next stage, Matsui met a person with a similar view. Prof. Shigeo Kagami, of the University of Tokyo, had been looking to bring the passion found in other Asian countries to the Japanese venture community. Kagami and Matsui got together to start preparations over a year, then began AEA by bringing to Kashiwa a dozen or so Asian ventures in the early spring of 2011.
Qualifications to participate in AEA, marking its 4th anniversary this year, are being ventures that deal in industrial engineering or technologies, while being unlisted ventures within five years from establishment.
Although Japanese ventures are strong in the technological sector, unfortunately they are not supported well. AEA hopes to assist in that point.
Matsui continued:
It is not uncommon that ventures in Japan have been sluggish for 7 to 8 years since establishment, while it would already result in success or failure in Asia excluding Japan. I wanted to bring a sense of speed to Japan. Therefore, the entire event is conducted in English, with no simultaneous translation being available even for presentations.
30 ventures from 12 Asian countries and regions which passed preliminaries or were recommended by startup supporters at universities or research institutes in their countries will participate in AEA, competing with their technologies or business model aiming for a higher ranking.
Human network is the biggest treasure
The T.Ware team from Singapore wins AEA 2014.
The 30 teams of the participant ventures will spend almost the same time period in the same building altogether for 4 days from the eve until the final presentation. Not a few teams find great values in the human networks built here, looking ahead to business expansion in the future.
Matsui elaborated:
The prize money of 2 million yen (about $16,500) for the top winner is not a small one. Also the team in 1st to 3rd place are awarded the right to free use of KOIL for two years. However, the human network built here will be the biggest treasure for them.
The biggest motivation of applicant ventures is to try their strength. They want to know their ranking, at what level their technologies or business are located at. Secondly, they are motivated by business expansion to the Japanese market.
The cost for invitation of ventures is covered by money paid by sponsors, so not sure how long wecan continue it, but I talk with Komiyama (supreme advisor of Future Design Center hosting AEA, and board chairman of Mitsubishi Research Institute) that we want to hold it at least until 10th somehow.
Looking at details of prized ventures after AEA, we can get a glance of good influence of this event on startup ecosystems in Asia. Neugent Technoloies (dealing a record technology of security cameras) from Philippine finished second in AEA 2012. David Cruz who is co-founder of this company gained self-confidence by experiences at AEA, has further started other ventures and is now managing them.
The participant teams are supported by the Global Partner Program, a mentor organization of TEP (TX Entrepreneur Partners) based upon KOIL and TX, so that they can be taught about introduction or methodology for market entry into Asian countries including Japan.
Behind the venture investment
Clip Nihonbashi, a co-working space by Mitsui Fudosan (photo courtesy of Mitsui Fudosan)
Last April, Mitsui Fudosan upgraded the office of Venture Co-creation to the department operating investment for ventures or startups, and fully started a project named ‘31 Ventures’. The name of 31 originated in Japanese pronunciation ‘Mitsui’, also this project aims to build 31 offices for venture supporting in the Tokyo Metropolitan area including Nihonbashi or Kasumigaseki.
As reasons behind venture supporting by real estate developer, the demand for their offices is expected when they succeed, also it seems to be a challenge to contribute business creation leveraging real estate. Since no companies do not have their office, every company including large enterprises to SMEs is connected with real estate companies, so the wideness of their network is inestimable. In Hong Kong, a real estate conglomerate Swire Properties acts as an incubator itself, similar movements can be expected in Japan.
The Bridge will report the detail of AEA held next week from the spot. Check it out please.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Viibar, the Japanese startup focused on a crowdsourced video production service, announced on Monday that it has fundraised from 700 million yen (about $5.8 million) from Yahoo Japan, Globis Capital Partners (GCP), and Gree Ventures. GCP and Gree Ventures also participated in the previous funding round. In tandem with the funding, Viibar partnered with Yahoo Japan and invited Osamu Aranami, Corporate Officer and President of Yahoo Japan’s marketing solution company, to its board of management, aiming to develop new services/video advertising businesses by offering video production resources to the top-tier Japanese internet portal. See also: Japanese crowdsourcing platform for video production raises $3M Viibar wins OnLab demo day with crowdsourced video production solution Viibar has acquired over 2,000 crowdsourced video creators to date. According to the company’s CEO Yuta Kamisaka, the main purpose of the funding at this time is to strengthen human resources, planning to enhance their 40-person team to 100 people including contract-based workers. In addition to human resources with prowess in crowdsourced video production services, the company will more focus on hiring data analysts, adtech engineers and other experts who will work on joint efforts with Yahoo Japan. What’s extremely interesting about this funding is that Yahoo Japan didn’t take a large…
Tokyo-based Viibar, the Japanese startup focused on a crowdsourced video production service, announced on Monday that it has fundraised from 700 million yen (about $5.8 million) from Yahoo Japan, Globis Capital Partners (GCP), and Gree Ventures. GCP and Gree Ventures also participated in the previous funding round.
In tandem with the funding, Viibar partnered with Yahoo Japan and invited Osamu Aranami, Corporate Officer and President of Yahoo Japan’s marketing solution company, to its board of management, aiming to develop new services/video advertising businesses by offering video production resources to the top-tier Japanese internet portal.
Viibar has acquired over 2,000 crowdsourced video creators to date. According to the company’s CEO Yuta Kamisaka, the main purpose of the funding at this time is to strengthen human resources, planning to enhance their 40-person team to 100 people including contract-based workers. In addition to human resources with prowess in crowdsourced video production services, the company will more focus on hiring data analysts, adtech engineers and other experts who will work on joint efforts with Yahoo Japan.
From the right: Viibar CEO Yuta Kamisaka and CTO Takeshi Matsuoka. Matsuoka is former CTO of Japanese internet giant Mixi.
What’s extremely interesting about this funding is that Yahoo Japan didn’t take a large stake in Viibar, despite that fact that this kind of minority investment is usually made by YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan, rather than Yahoo Japan itself. Kamisaka said he couldn’t yet disclose details about what the two companies are planning to do but they will hold a press briefing to unveil it in the near future.
However, I would like to make a few predictions concerning what will happen to Viibar, based on our interviews with Kamisaka. His phrase “data-driven video production” provided a clue. He explained:
Since our business has become profitable, we will use up the funds in a relatively short-term – maybe in two years – to establish a structure for an IPO. Details will be announced at a press briefing later on, but we plan to aggregate data from Yahoo Japan and other partners, associating them with video creatives via online dashboard so that advertisers can improve on performance for online promotion campaigns.
Upon hearing of combined data analytics and video, if you come up with the concept of distributed content model, you should be proud to count yourself among the media geeks. Under this concept, content publishers don’t intend to invite readers to their sites but rather measure its influence by consolidating engagements through such leading social media as Facebook and Twitter.
As a result, news media sites focused on the distributed content model are now forced to explore more efficient means of posting a content item instead of a website containing it. They will need to take more care about when to publish a content item, how to write a catchy headline, and how to replace it, such as with a new, more suitable types of content that match each of the multiple social media platforms.
In view of the process exploring the most efficient types of content to attract viewers, I think they need to adopt a similar approach to what typical adtech solution providers have been offering. Like A/B testing in developing an attractive banner ad, the distributed type content sites will need to produce many types of content and test them out.
In addition to crowdsourced video production platforms if Viibar had provided an automated marketing solution that allows media sites to see which social media platforms, when and what visual content should be distributed to attract viewers the most, it would be useful to propose efficient video ads for clients.
If my predictions come true, Yahoo’s intense interest in and high valuation for Viibar now makes good sense. In a recent interview, Kamisaka didn’t explicitly tell us anything about this but provided the following comment:
Until now, video production have been an all-or-nothing bet for companies in terms of what taste attracts users. However, Viibar will open up the world of video productions to the bottom-up approach from the creator side. So our platform will enable companies to implement a rapid PDCA (plan-do-check-action) cycle upon online video campaigning.
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Yukari Mitsuhashi
