As reported earlier by e27, Japanese venture capitalist Koichi Saito founded KK Fund in February, focused on investing in online marketplaces and fintech startups in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, in addition to Taiwan. This fund is largely backed by Japan’s Incubate Fund, which appointed the latter’s founding partner Masahiko Honma as KK advisor.
Malaysia-based Digital News Asia recently reported last week that KK Fund has invested in Malaysia’s SMS-based on-demand delivery service called Be Malas. This round was led by KK Fund with participation from other unnamed investors, raising a total of $500,000.
Be Malas allows users to text for anything ranging from picking up a lunch box to paying taxes as long as it is legal, for delivery to the doorstep. Using the service, one is to pay delivery costs and Be Malas’ commission not to mention the actual expenses for an item purchased.
Saito told Digital News Media about what led him to invest at this time:
KK Fund’s Koichi Saito (photo courtesy: e27)
I’d been looking for a mobile messaging service that acts as a commerce platform in Southeast Asia as well as East Asia.
This type of business has low barriers of entry, so it really depends on how fast the team moves, expands and executes; the founding trio’s previous experience with Groupon Asia has been reflected.
The founders emulated Groupon by focusing on speed and know-how as to regional expansion. I spotted their strengths during my first meeting with them in Kuala Lumpur.
Saito decided to invest in Be Malas within two days since he first met up with the company’s three founders, namely Adlin Yusman, Suthenesh Sugumaran and Puvanendren M. Maniam. They raised their seed round within a month from their first order of brace wax.
Prior to Be Malas, KK Fund has invested $530,000 in Malaysia’s home renovation marketplace Kaodim just three months since its launch with participation from 500 Startups and East Ventures, following investment in an unnamed logistics startup in Malaysia.
In view of the recent trends for this sector, US-based Magic, often cited as a messaging-based on-demand delivery service, fundraised $12 million from Sequoia Capital in March. Slightly different from Be Malas, India’s Lookup, a messaging-based concierge service that lets one shoot off a message to local businesses, fundraised $116,000 from Japanese angel investor Teruhide Sato and gaming company DeNA (TSE:2432) in January.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by Masaru Ikeda
Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Japanese startup Travee, the company that provides a travel activity matching platform under the same name, announced earlier this week that it has secured an undisclosed sum from CyberAgent Ventures (CAV) and Will Group Incubate Fund in a seed round. CAV put their money from their Seed Generator Fund. Will Group Incubate Fund is funded by Japanese leading staffing company Will Group (TSE:6089) and operated by Future Venture Capital (TSE:8462). Travee is a marketplace for individual travelers visiting Southeast Asia, providing activity plans arranged by local hosts with the aim to encourage more foreign visitor interactions with locals. The platform has acquired about 100 plans, primarily excursions around Bangkok, Thailand. Users have to pay fee in advance to attend any of these plans, and the platform will take 10% from the user and 20% from the host as commission when a deal is made. Travee co-founder and CEO Kenichi Ikeda told The Bridge about what has triggered them to launch the service: When attending university, I was majoring in tourism and visited Bangkok many times as a tour conductor side side. Because of connections since then, I’ve been serving a non-profit organization called the Association of Mutual Support in ASEAN as director. Thanks to increased penetration of the internet, budget airlines and vacation rentals…
Japanese startup Travee, the company that provides a travel activity matching platform under the same name, announced earlier this week that it has secured an undisclosed sum from CyberAgent Ventures (CAV) and Will Group Incubate Fund in a seed round. CAV put their money from their Seed Generator Fund. Will Group Incubate Fund is funded by Japanese leading staffing company Will Group (TSE:6089) and operated by Future Venture Capital (TSE:8462).
Travee is a marketplace for individual travelers visiting Southeast Asia, providing activity plans arranged by local hosts with the aim to encourage more foreign visitor interactions with locals. The platform has acquired about 100 plans, primarily excursions around Bangkok, Thailand. Users have to pay fee in advance to attend any of these plans, and the platform will take 10% from the user and 20% from the host as commission when a deal is made.
Travee co-founder and CEO Kenichi Ikeda (right), co-founder and CPO Yuzuru Ishii (left)
Travee co-founder and CEO Kenichi Ikeda told The Bridge about what has triggered them to launch the service:
When attending university, I was majoring in tourism and visited Bangkok many times as a tour conductor side side. Because of connections since then, I’ve been serving a non-profit organization called the Association of Mutual Support in ASEAN as director.
Thanks to increased penetration of the internet, budget airlines and vacation rentals like Airbnb, drastic changes in prices for and methods of travel have occurred. However, the travel purposes are not changed from what they used to be. There are ways to enjoy trips that only a handful of individual travelers know. Based on the concept considering not only beautiful scenery and majestic nature but also the local people as most precious tourism resources, we developed a matching platform for travel activities focused on interaction with locals at various destinations.
According to Ikeda, about 15 million foreigners visit Bangkok each year, 80% of them being tourists. Compared to about 13 million people visiting all destinations in Japan nationwide, not just in Tokyo, it is obvious how popular Bangkok is among international travelers.
If one developed a service intended only for Japanese tourists, its potential user base would be relatively small (only about 2 million Japanese visit Bangkok in a year) and limit acquisition of local hosts for the activity plans in foreign languages. That’s why the team decided to develop the platform in English and serve tourists from Western countries. CEO Ikeda and his right arm Yuzuru Ishii, co-founder and Chief Project Officer (CPO) who completed a prototype of the platform last fall, have spent many days in November and December in Bangkok for engineering improvement as well as marketing and networking efforts with the local community.
Ikeda elaborated:
Since the launch of the Travee platform, we have seen organic growth in users from Western countries. For locals who want to list their activity plans on the platform, deals can provide them with a high income considering the wage level in the region, meaning that it will make it easier to acquire local hosts when we expand to other cities or countries beyond Bangkok.
We will definitely become number one in Southeast Asia; we plan on expanding into East Asia such as China and Korea afterwards.
In this space, we’ve seen several competitors like Meetrip which was acquired by Donuts Bangkok in November 2013. Since 1997, Viator has been offering activity plans arranged by businesses rather than individual hosts and was acquired by TripAdvisor last year. US-based Peek is not showing any interest in expanding into the Asian market so far. Taking all these into consideration, these platforms are thought to successfully share markets to some extent with each others.
In addition to the organic growth, Travee is exploring affiliate relationships with flight and hotel booking sites to accelerate user acquisition.
Tokyo-based PrimeAgain, the startup best known for ephemeral video sharing app Winker and photo collage app DecoAlbum, announced on June 11 (Wednesday) that it has fundraised about 100 million yen or US$809,000 from East Ventures, Japanese ad network company i-Mobile and Gumi Ventures, in addition to unnamed angel investors. They will use the new capital mostly to extend their app development resources. This company had been based at East Venture’s co-working space in Roppongi for several years since launch in Waseda, Tokyo, but it was also announced that its own office in Shibuya was opened due to increase in employees. According to PrimeAgain co-founder and CEO Nobuhiro Abe, about 800 million photos are uploaded to Snapchat everyday, twice as many as that of Facebook, acquiring about 400 million photos on a daily basis (statistics vary according to sources). Since the user base of the Snapchat app is primarily located in North America because of user’s preference about the app’s interface, he believes that there’s an opportunity for an ephemeral video and photo sharing app that is tailored for Japan and other Asian countries. Abe elaborated: Since the launch of the Winker app last year, we have made a tremendous number of improvements, repeating efforts such as collecting user feedback, rolling out new functions and approaching many clubs at universities to expand a user…
The PrimeAgain team: CEO Nobuhiro Abe is second from left, CFO/COO Maiko Kojima is on right.
Tokyo-based PrimeAgain, the startup best known for ephemeral video sharing app Winker and photo collage app DecoAlbum, announced on June 11 (Wednesday) that it has fundraised about 100 million yen or US$809,000 from East Ventures, Japanese ad network company i-Mobile and Gumi Ventures, in addition to unnamed angel investors. They will use the new capital mostly to extend their app development resources. This company had been based at East Venture’s co-working space in Roppongi for several years since launch in Waseda, Tokyo, but it was also announced that its own office in Shibuya was opened due to increase in employees.
According to PrimeAgain co-founder and CEO Nobuhiro Abe, about 800 million photos are uploaded to Snapchat everyday, twice as many as that of Facebook, acquiring about 400 million photos on a daily basis (statistics vary according to sources). Since the user base of the Snapchat app is primarily located in North America because of user’s preference about the app’s interface, he believes that there’s an opportunity for an ephemeral video and photo sharing app that is tailored for Japan and other Asian countries.
Abe elaborated:
Since the launch of the Winker app last year, we have made a tremendous number of improvements, repeating efforts such as collecting user feedback, rolling out new functions and approaching many clubs at universities to expand a user base. While ephemeral sharing is still booking in North America, I think that it has not yet arrived in Japan.
Seeing the trend of sharing apps like Snapchat and Path Talk, I believe that social network platforms will become more natural, people enjoying more casual interactions, resulting in being used more actively. Going forward, we also want to optimize the app for smart watches.
In a month from now, the company plans to roll out a new interface and design in the Winker app so that it will be tailored to the preference of users in Asia.
Our readers may recall that Korea’s internet giant Daum Kakao recently acquired the Path messaging app in order to obtain a huge user base in Indonesia. Despite the fact that Facebook has become an infrastructure for people to share daily updates, there are still many opportunities in the space for new ways of communication.
Also, in the space of smart watches where people have operational constraints in inputting characters, another ecosystem of social network platforms will be formed in the future, represented by Nain.
Tokyo-based Zawatt, the company behind an online auction site for branded items called Smaoku, announced today that it has fundraised 250 million yen ($2 million) from IMJ Investment Partners (IMJ-IP), China’s SIG Asia Investments, and its intimately partnering VC firm MS Capital in Japan. Upon the funding, Zawatt will expand their second-hand transaction business for the Japanese market in partnership with T-Media Holdings, the parent company of IMJ-IP. Meanwhile, the startup will focus more on international transactions exporting second-hand items to Asian countries (including mainland China), in partnership with SIG Asia Investments and MS Capital. See also: Japan’s Culture Convenience Club selects 7 finalists for its first incubation program CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Mobile C2C flea market apps – Fril and Mercari Since its launch in May 2011, Zawatt has released several web services including WishScope (social list bulletin board) and Ohako (karaoke companion finder). The company launched Smaoku in October 2013 and won KDDI Mugen Labo’s 5th batch demo day with the “real-time auction” concept that makes users feel as if they were in a real auction site when buying items online. There are many rival C2C (consumer-to-consumer) apps in Japan such as Mercari and Minne, not to…
From the left: Zawatt CEO Daisaku Harada, CTO Nobuaki Suzuki
Tokyo-based Zawatt, the company behind an online auction site for branded items called Smaoku, announced today that it has fundraised 250 million yen ($2 million) from IMJ Investment Partners (IMJ-IP), China’s SIG Asia Investments, and its intimately partnering VC firm MS Capital in Japan. Upon the funding, Zawatt will expand their second-hand transaction business for the Japanese market in partnership with T-Media Holdings, the parent company of IMJ-IP. Meanwhile, the startup will focus more on international transactions exporting second-hand items to Asian countries (including mainland China), in partnership with SIG Asia Investments and MS Capital.
Since its launch in May 2011, Zawatt has released several web services including WishScope (social list bulletin board) and Ohako (karaoke companion finder). The company launched Smaoku in October 2013 and won KDDI Mugen Labo’s 5th batch demo day with the “real-time auction” concept that makes users feel as if they were in a real auction site when buying items online.
There are many rival C2C (consumer-to-consumer) apps in Japan such as Mercari and Minne, not to mention Yahoo Auction. Furthermore big companies like Rakuten and Zozotown have recently launched flea market apps, triggering a fierce competition in this space. But Zawatt found an interesting insight from a survey that they conducted on buyers using the Smaoku app.
Zawatt CEO Daisaku Harada explained:
Our survey found that many foreigners have purchased items using our platform dozens of times. When you go to a real auction site, you will see a number of buyers from China, Taiwan, Thailand, India, and other Asian countries, where they typically fetch items for a very high price that average Japanese people can’t pay at all. There’s a need of appraised Japanese second-hand products rather than Made in Japan products.
That’s why we decided to make the platform more focused on delivering second-hand items from selling users in Japan to buying users in the overseas, enabling sellers to sell at a higher price but buyers to obtain rare items with ease. However, many Japanese users can’t speak English so we provide users with back-end support in logistics and communication with their counterpart.
There are a number of barriers in language, payment solutions, and logistics in transacting with unfamiliar and different markets, so new businesses have come up to help people overcome these obstacles. Seeing how much wealth trading merchants in the world have successfully made through their business, it is obvious that moving intelligence or products to a different market in higher need can create a great value.
For Japanese users who want to sell their items overseas, we have seen more than a few platforms including eBay and Taobao as well as FlutterScape that Japanese startup Monoco had been running before their pivot. However, what is different from the past is that C2C services have penetrated the general consumer market globally. Leveraging the high advantage of the Japan brand, the interface entertaining users with the realistic feeling of auction sites as well as lowering the stakes of international transactions, it will be interesting to see how the Smaoku app attracts consumers in Asia.
Prior to this funding, Zawatt fundraised about 10 million yen from unnamed angel investors and CyberAgent Ventures (CAV) in a seed round in 2011 and about 40 million yen from Mizuho Capital and SMBC Venture Capital in 2012, followed by securing about 50 million yen from CAV and Adways in a series A round in 2013.
See the original story in Japanese. LCO-Creation Singapore (LCO for short), the Japanese startup behind mobile app Travel Door, announced today that it has secured an undisclosed sum from Tokyo-based Internet company Digital Garage (TSE:4819). Since its launch in August 2012, LCO has been funded by Singapore’s technology incubator TechCube8 as well as National Research Foundation, the technology incubation scheme by the government of Singapore. The company is based in Blk71, a startup hub in Singapore, expanding their business into the Asian market, primarily focused on its home turf of Japan. Travel Door is a mobile app serving local travel information, maps, and a route planning function for 55 cities from 31 countries worldwide. Travelers can use it offline so that no international data roaming charge is required while being away from their home country. In partnership with local travel agents and other companies, the app offers coupons, tour packages, rewards services at travel destinations, travel search functions, and other campaigns allowing users to earn airline mileage points. In this way, the company explores O2O (online-to-offline) business models focused on the overseas travel sector. With the partnership with Digital Garage, LCO will focus ways to better serve tourists to Japan,…
LCO-Creation Singapore (LCO for short), the Japanese startup behind mobile app Travel Door, announced today that it has secured an undisclosed sum from Tokyo-based Internet company Digital Garage (TSE:4819).
Since its launch in August 2012, LCO has been funded by Singapore’s technology incubator TechCube8 as well as National Research Foundation, the technology incubation scheme by the government of Singapore. The company is based in Blk71, a startup hub in Singapore, expanding their business into the Asian market, primarily focused on its home turf of Japan.
Travel Door is a mobile app serving local travel information, maps, and a route planning function for 55 cities from 31 countries worldwide. Travelers can use it offline so that no international data roaming charge is required while being away from their home country. In partnership with local travel agents and other companies, the app offers coupons, tour packages, rewards services at travel destinations, travel search functions, and other campaigns allowing users to earn airline mileage points. In this way, the company explores O2O (online-to-offline) business models focused on the overseas travel sector.
With the partnership with Digital Garage, LCO will focus ways to better serve tourists to Japan, aiming to build a new business model using sightseeing content provided by local governments in Japan.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Anicall recently developed a wearable device for pets called Shiraseru Am (literally meaning notifier) and started receiving pre-orders on the Makuake crowdfunding platform. See also: 3 cool devices showcased at 1st Wearable Expo in Tokyo Shiraseru Am informs users of the behavior, feelings, and health status of pets. Integrated with a smartphone app, it will keep pet owners updated on how a pet spends its day at home while the owner is away. The device stores a pet’s behavioral data in the cloud and lets an owner understand its behavioral patterns via artificial intelligence-based technology. Prior to shipping, Anicall’s team members have been studying cats and dogs to verify behavioral data, while the company’s neuroethologic scientists are conducting behavioral analyses. We have seen many wearable devices for pets – but Anicall is outstanding because it allows the acquiring of data and verifying of behavioral patterns as a one-stop solution consisting of a mobile app and a wearable device. Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by Kurt Hanson Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy
Shiraseru Am informs users of the behavior, feelings, and health status of pets. Integrated with a smartphone app, it will keep pet owners updated on how a pet spends its day at home while the owner is away.
The device stores a pet’s behavioral data in the cloud and lets an owner understand its behavioral patterns via artificial intelligence-based technology. Prior to shipping, Anicall’s team members have been studying cats and dogs to verify behavioral data, while the company’s neuroethologic scientists are conducting behavioral analyses.
We have seen many wearable devices for pets – but Anicall is outstanding because it allows the acquiring of data and verifying of behavioral patterns as a one-stop solution consisting of a mobile app and a wearable device.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by Kurt Hanson Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy
Masaru Ikeda
Takuya Tsuchiya
Shintaro Eguchi
Junya Mori
