Cluster, the Japanese startup behind a virtual reality(VR)-based event and environment platform under the same name, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised 50 million yen (about US$460,000) from Skyland Ventures, East Ventures and several angel investors.
Upon obtaining this funding, the company was rebranded from its previous name Fictbox. Skyland Ventures participated in the previous funding round in January.
The firm apparently is targeting relative small event organizers that cannot afford to commit much money or withstand losses. The Cluster platform allows event organizers to hold meet-ups, events, and other gathering opportunities using VR without fear of booking a venue or paying a high rent. For participants, they can virtually participate in an event by wearing a headgear and communicate with each others, even from home.
Thanks to recent advances in server integration technologies and a protocol optimized for Internet of Things (IoT), even if more than 1,000 connections are established simultaneously, users are unlikely to feel a heavy load on the system.
This article is a contribution from New York-based journalist / translator Kasumi Abe. The Bridge reformatted and reproduced the article submitted to Nulab Blog, by courtesy of both Nulab and Abe. On 11 April, an event called If Conference (‘If Con’ for short) was held in New York City, aimed at connecting the tech scenes of Japan and the US. The venue was filled with some 250 visitors. The event got particularly lively in which many questions were thrown among the participants. Keynote 1: Pathway to Success in America for Japanese Companies If Con started from 12:30pm on 11 April, at Microsoft Technology Center in Times Square. First of all, William Lohse, who is founder / general partner of Social Starts and founder / CEO of Pivot Conference in addition to also being an investor, gave the keynote speech about tips for Japanese startups upon developing in the US and gaining success there. Lohse garnered much attention due to his familiarity with tech trends in both Japan and the US. Although it was a weekday and on a Monday afternoon to boot, the venue was filled to capacity from the onset! As he frequently flies back and forth between the…
This article is a contribution from New York-based journalist / translator Kasumi Abe. The Bridge reformatted and reproduced the article submitted to Nulab Blog, by courtesy of both Nulab and Abe.
On 11 April, an event called If Conference (‘If Con’ for short) was held in New York City, aimed at connecting the tech scenes of Japan and the US. The venue was filled with some 250 visitors. The event got particularly lively in which many questions were thrown among the participants.
Keynote 1: Pathway to Success in America for Japanese Companies
First of all, William Lohse, who is founder / general partner of Social Starts and founder / CEO of Pivot Conference in addition to also being an investor, gave the keynote speech about tips for Japanese startups upon developing in the US and gaining success there.
Lohse garnered much attention due to his familiarity with tech trends in both Japan and the US. Although it was a weekday and on a Monday afternoon to boot, the venue was filled to capacity from the onset!
As he frequently flies back and forth between the two countries as well as is renowned for being knowledgable about Japan’s tech scene, questions for the keynoter from the audience centered on Japanese entrepreneurs or Japan’s tech community within the US.
Nulab CEO Hashimoto presents “The Tech City Fukuoka”
From 2pm, Nulab CEO Masanori Hashimoto took to the stage and introduced Japan’s Startup Visa system which has been newly implemented for issuance of visa for foreign entrepreneurs coming to the City of Fukuoka as the initial case for Japan, or the collaborative event between ‘tech’ and ‘creative’ called Myojo Waraku organized by Hashimoto and others.
His speech peppered with jokes sometimes drew laughter from the audience, with active discussions taking place during Q&A afterwards. He appeared to be very nervous, but the staff was relieved that he was able to contribute to the promotion of Nulab and the City of Fukuoka.
The Nulab CEO answered a question as to whether Myojowaraku will be held also in New York City or not:
The reason why we could carry out the event in Taiwan and London other than in Fukuoka was the support provided by the respective city. If New York City will support us, then I would like to hold it as well.
In retrospect, he noted:
I was very nervous because it was my first speech in New York City, but receiving good responses to a story about Ramen noodle as an introduction of the City of Fukuoka allowed me to speak as usual after that.
Meanwhile, other sessions regarding ‘Tips to Work with International Startups in New York’ was held in another place within Microsoft Technology Center, and that enlivened the venue as well.
Panel Discussion: Global Macro Trends / Launching Products in Japan
From 3pm to 5pm, two large panel discussions were held. One was on the theme of ‘global macro trends’ as mulled by CEOs of New York-based Japanese / US startups or analysts. The other was about perspectives on business development into Japan, by CEOs of startups which had actually developed their business into Japan.
Moderated by Ash Ryan (Developer Evangelist, Adobe), joining this panel were Ada Gries (CEO, OKPanda), Yoki Gibo (Director, Noom), and Odile Baneiflah (Head of International Operations, Meetup.com).
In another hall, several sessions having ‘Mental Game for Innovation’, ‘Structuring Your Startup for Success’ or ‘Trends in Japanese / US Startups’ as themes were held.
Keynote 2: How to Disrupt Personal Mobility Industry
As a finale to the event, CEO of Silicon Valley-based Whill Satoshi Sugie gave an evening keynote speech about development and future of next-generation powered wheelchairs. This session was also very well attended, with standing audiences!
Sugie shared the corporate philosophy of Whill which had just started in 2012 and episodes from the development of the Whill wheelchair. He concluded that what he wants to create is not just a powered wheelchair, but a personal mobility in a new category, which makes everyone want to ride it.
After 6pm, a networking event was held with light meals and drinks, where participants were asking speakers many questions, or discussing ideas among themselves.
The visitors were mainly entrepreneurs or students, and the ratio of men to women looked nearly equal.
I obtained the impression of the event from one of the If Con organizers, Masato Okunishi, after this.
He said:
The event was successful thanks to a lot of participants, more than we had imagined. Through this event, we could sense afresh the necessity or importance of the need for such events or communities, even in New York City.
We had received many testimonials like “It was worthwhile to come here today.” From US tech-related people, it was highly evaluated with comments like ‘I could come in contact with Japanese things for the first time’ including Japan-originated or Japanese startups through this event.
From Japanese or Japan-related people living in the US, we heard their impressions that it was nice to attend such a local event in New York. The common point in both feedbacks was that it was a new type of event that was not to be found before.
As an ambition for the future, we want to have more New Yorkers know about Japanese / US startups, and also have the Japanese become familiar with the tech situation in New York. We are happy if the community of If Con or our regular meet-up event Japan NYC Startups will enhance the circumstances for Japanese / US startups in New York.
It is expected that the relationship on the tech side between Japan and New York, or the US overall will be strengthened further in the future.
Photos taken at If Conference 2016
Light exercise during the intermission to become refreshed, with a cooldown to followThe participants are treated to various drinks and snacks from sponsoring companies, such as green tea by Ito-en, draft beer by Sapporo and baumkuchen by Baum’s Sho.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy and Masaru Ikeda
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. The Asahi Shimbun, a leading national newspaper publisher in Japan, announced on Thursday that it will acquire the entire stake in Somewrite, a Japanese content marketing and “owned media” production startup. The purchase will be completed in late April when all the shares from Somewrite founder and Chairman Yasunari Shibata, COO Satoru Ikedo, Soraseed Startups and Gree Ventures are transferred to the Asahi side. Soraseed Startups is an investment fund owned by Shibata. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed but it is estimated to be around several million US dollars, comparing to the amount of the previous funding back in October of 2014. Soraseed is also an investor along with Gree Ventures, Incubate Fund and B Dash Ventures in Spika, a startup behind nail art photo app Nailbook. Since September 2013, Somewrite has been offering outsourced ‘owned media’ content production services for about 100 major companies in total, ranging from HR firm Adecco to beermaker Sapporo Breweries. Somewrite Ad, the company’s native advertising network platform, picks up advertorial articles from owned media sites and distributes them to other partnering news media sites as a native ad…
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.
The Asahi Shimbun, a leading national newspaper publisher in Japan, announced on Thursday that it will acquire the entire stake in Somewrite, a Japanese content marketing and “owned media” production startup. The purchase will be completed in late April when all the shares from Somewrite founder and Chairman Yasunari Shibata, COO Satoru Ikedo, Soraseed Startups and Gree Ventures are transferred to the Asahi side. Soraseed Startups is an investment fund owned by Shibata.
Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed but it is estimated to be around several million US dollars, comparing to the amount of the previous funding back in October of 2014. Soraseed is also an investor along with Gree Ventures, Incubate Fund and B Dash Ventures in Spika, a startup behind nail art photo app Nailbook.
Since September 2013, Somewrite has been offering outsourced ‘owned media’ content production services for about 100 major companies in total, ranging from HR firm Adecco to beermaker Sapporo Breweries.
Somewrite Ad, the company’s native advertising network platform, picks up advertorial articles from owned media sites and distributes them to other partnering news media sites as a native ad so that these articles match the form with other regular articles in which they are placed. The platform has a tracking engine which learns the preference of users in real time.
After the acquisition, Somewrite Chairman Shibata and COO Ikedo will remain on the board of directors and continue managing the company while Asahi Shimbun will dispatch a director from their side.
According to Ikki Yamakawa, senior administrator of Asahi’s Media Lab startup collaboration initiative, the media giant will restructure their Advertisement Department in May to form a Media Business Department where they will start offering owned media marketing services to clients alongside with existing ad products, with the support from the Somewrite team.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
From the left: Somewrite Chairman Yasunari Shibata and COO Satoru Ikedo
This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. Four years ago almost exactly to the day, I mused about this period of disruption and renewal signified by sakura (cherry blossoms). The blooming of the sakura in Japan marks the arrival of spring, representing not only a renewal of the seasons but also a rebirth of many facets of life: the start of a new school year, a recalibration of personal goals, and a reassessment of business objectives. Now, like then, we are also witnessing companies experiencing disruption in many forms, be it via innovation from new business models (transportation), new technologies (cable TV), or even new regulations (financial trading). Last time, I wrote about the disruption and renewal manifesting itself in the mobile gaming sector. We are facing now a new instance of disruption in this sector in Japan that seems to be…
This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.
Four years ago almost exactly to the day, I mused about this period of disruption and renewal signified by sakura (cherry blossoms). The blooming of the sakura in Japan marks the arrival of spring, representing not only a renewal of the seasons but also a rebirth of many facets of life: the start of a new school year, a recalibration of personal goals, and a reassessment of business objectives.
Now, like then, we are also witnessing companies experiencing disruption in many forms, be it via innovation from new business models (transportation), new technologies (cable TV), or even new regulations (financial trading).
Last time, I wrote about the disruption and renewal manifesting itself in the mobile gaming sector. We are facing now a new instance of disruption in this sector in Japan that seems to be receiving little attention in the markets: newly self-imposed regulation by the Japan Online Game Association came into effect at the start of this month.
Gotcha, gacha!
The new rules govern the gacha mechanic in mobile games. Gacha is a monetization technique prevalent in Japan whilst remaining relatively unheard of until recently in the West.
The gacha mechanic derived from the original gashapon (ガシャポン) popular in Japan, in which vending machines would dispense capsule toys at random. The randomness of the distribution adds an element of chance which draws the obvious comparison of gacha to gambling. In mobile games, the gacha prize could be a special character, weapon, power, event-driven offer, or other rare item.
As I once discovered during a conversation with games expert Dr. Serkan Toto, game designers employ several different incarnations of gacha techniques, though all stem from the same lottery-like principles (see a more thorough explanation of the various gacha mechanisms from Serkan).
Whales make the business model
With gacha techniques, mobile game makers target big-spending “whales.” The dependency of certain mobile games’ business model on whales cannot be understated. According to a new analysis conducted by marketing firm Swrve, the top 10% of players contribute to nearly half of all mobile game revenues, and 48% of revenues come from a mere 0.19% of all players.
On December 31st, a Japanese “whale” spent over $6,000 during a single evening in an effort to obtain a rare character on Cygames-produced Granblue Fantasy offered through a gacha technique.
A few European game studios have begun deploying gacha mechanics in their games, though the technique remains somewhat limited in Europe even today. Part of the explanation I believe comes from the slightly different process of mobile game development between Europe and Japan (see graphic in the bottom).
Anyway, undoubtedly in an effort to stave off more draconian government measures, the Japan Online Game Association imposed a new regulation that establishes two significant constraints on mobile games: a minimum 1% payout ratio, and a maximum 50,000 JPY billed per player. Technically, these industry “guidelines” are not law; however, game companies have understood that failing to adhere to them may trigger stricter government intervention.
Has the stock market accounted for this yet?
I have a policy of not making stock recommendations so I will not name names, but if you take a look at the stock prices of many of the listed mobile gaming companies in Japan, there is a fairly consistent rise since the correction in mid-February. That’s when Cygames began voluntarily issuing refunds to players of Granblue Fantasy. The new self-imposed regulation dictated by the Japan Online Game Association came into effect on April 1, and hadn’t even been finalized until March.
Whatever your moral views are on the gacha mechanic, I suspect that these new self-imposed constraints — imposing a significant minimum gacha payout ratio and capping the pricing — will take its toll on the earnings this quarter. And I cannot figure out why the stock market has not adjusted further for this.
See the original story in Japanese. Silicon Valley-headquartered VC firm 500 Startups and the City of Kobe, Japan today announced the establishment of a collaborative pre-accelerator program. It will be run at the Kobe Institute of Computing located near Kobe-Sannomiya station from 1 August to 9 September. On the last day of the program, a Demo Day will be held for participant teams to show the result of the program, to which partners of 500 Startups will be invited, namely, Dave McClure, Christine Tsai, Zafer Younis, Marvin Liao and Mat Johnson. The City of Kobe and 500 Startups just started today accepting applications from participant startups via the program’s website. Eventually 15 to 20 teams will be selected from among them, and allowed to join the pre-accelerator program over a one month period. Applicants are limited to startups at seed stage inside / outside Japan, and covering fields including BI (business intelligence) tool, commerce, FinTech, EduTech, healthcare, IoT (Internet of Things), SaaS (Software as a Service) and so on. In particular, for cases on themes which focus on regional challenges in the Kobe area, the teams will be allowed to enter into partnership with sponsoring big companies (as part of Open…
500 Startups founding partner Dave McClure at the Kobe city office. (Photo from his Instagram timeline)
Silicon Valley-headquartered VC firm 500 Startups and the City of Kobe, Japan today announced the establishment of a collaborative pre-accelerator program. It will be run at the Kobe Institute of Computing located near Kobe-Sannomiya station from 1 August to 9 September. On the last day of the program, a Demo Day will be held for participant teams to show the result of the program, to which partners of 500 Startups will be invited, namely, Dave McClure, Christine Tsai, Zafer Younis, Marvin Liao and Mat Johnson.
The City of Kobe and 500 Startups just started today accepting applications from participant startups via the program’s website. Eventually 15 to 20 teams will be selected from among them, and allowed to join the pre-accelerator program over a one month period. Applicants are limited to startups at seed stage inside / outside Japan, and covering fields including BI (business intelligence) tool, commerce, FinTech, EduTech, healthcare, IoT (Internet of Things), SaaS (Software as a Service) and so on. In particular, for cases on themes which focus on regional challenges in the Kobe area, the teams will be allowed to enter into partnership with sponsoring big companies (as part of Open Innovation support).
As in a former case where 500 startups had engaged in incubation by tying up with local government, one may be reminded of the joint activities with the City of Osaka in 2013. Taking this as an opportunity, currently various events or programs related to startup acceleration have been carried out in the Osaka area, such as an annual startup conference every February like the collaboration HackOsaka, a 4.8 billion yen (about $44 million)-fund Hack Ventures backed by Osaka City / Osaka-based companies, incubation efforts conducted mainly at OIH (Osaka Innovation Hub) / GVH (Global Venture Habitat) in front of Osaka station, or a startups dispatch program to Silicon Valley.
On the other hand, the City of Kobe has been running startup competition Kobe Global Startup Gateway or a startup support business called Kobe Startup Office which gathers promising startups from within or outside Japan from last year. Looking at startup support activities by local government in Japan other than Tokyo, they are in fierce competition with each others in trying to differentiate their own support plans or to capture startups. For example, Fukuoka City aims at globalization of the community by inviting startups from Taiwan, which is rather close geographically.
It is likely that Kobe decided to rely upon 500 Startups for ‘globalization’; the word also can be seen in the name of the startup competition KOBE Global Startup Gateway which was started as of last year. We hope the startups from Kobe will enhance their presence in global startup hubs including Silicon Valley, triggered by the establishment of this pre-accelerator program.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. FINOLAB, the FinTech center of Tokyo, on 12 April held its first growth hack seminar catering toward FinTech and other startups. The facilities, which earlier in the year was venue to FIBC 2016, opened this February in the Otemachi/Marunouchi area (central business district) of Tokyo with backing from Mitsubishi Estate (TSE:8802) as well as the Dentsu group, comprising Dentsu (TSE:4324) and ISID (Information Services International-Dentsu, TSE:4812), in addition to support from FINOVATORS, an association for “financial innovation” established in Japan. FINOLAB has already held other get-togethers so far, such as the first Techmeetup on 30 March, where for example Capy gave a presentation on use of the Google Cloud Platform for FinTech services. However, the seminar this time centered on the growth hack concept born in Silicon Valley, which combined with FinTech promises some interesting results for the future. The two speakers, producer Tomohiro Katayama and designer Daisuke Asano from Dentsu’s Business Creation Center, explained the basic concept behind growth hack for their audience. Entitled “Fintech Marketing Strategy as Seen from Business Schemes” the seminar attracted many FinTech businesses looking…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
Image Credit: ISID
FINOLAB, the FinTech center of Tokyo, on 12 April held its first growth hack seminar catering toward FinTech and other startups. The facilities, which earlier in the year was venue to FIBC 2016, opened this February in the Otemachi/Marunouchi area (central business district) of Tokyo with backing from Mitsubishi Estate (TSE:8802) as well as the Dentsu group, comprising Dentsu (TSE:4324) and ISID (Information Services International-Dentsu, TSE:4812), in addition to support from FINOVATORS, an association for “financial innovation” established in Japan.
FINOLAB has already held other get-togethers so far, such as the first Techmeetup on 30 March, where for example Capy gave a presentation on use of the Google Cloud Platform for FinTech services. However, the seminar this time centered on the growth hack concept born in Silicon Valley, which combined with FinTech promises some interesting results for the future. The two speakers, producer Tomohiro Katayama and designer Daisuke Asano from Dentsu’s Business Creation Center, explained the basic concept behind growth hack for their audience.
Dentsu’s Tomohiro Katayama (right) and designer Daisuke Asano (left) gave a lecture to the audience.
Entitled “Fintech Marketing Strategy as Seen from Business Schemes” the seminar attracted many FinTech businesses looking to expand their markets. In a nutshell the two speakers noted effective projection of user experience (UX) beyond user interface (UI) through application of the PDCA (plan-do-check-act) cycle. They also emphasized the fact that KGIs (key growth indicators) and KPIs (key performance indicators) should be considered with “Indexing” in mind… in other words, prioritization. Thus they noted that, whether for ToB (businesses) or ToC (consumers), communicating with the users and the market behooves a good Check effort reflected upon Action.
Katayama focused on the overall “key to success” in utilizing growth hack as a thorough understanding of similar fields, an example being the overlaps seen in the consumer products – like for detergents and foodstuff, having differing targets but overlapping user segments – and leveraging past records such as highlighting having been lauded for previous efforts. Asano provided more interface-level explanations of designing UX without reliance on words, focusing on use of UI color and images to “draw in” the users. They both agreed that “at first glance” impressions are clinchers in setting up growth hack strategies.
Those attending, such as Yosuke Shibuya of Smilable and Yasunori Sugii of CurrencyPort (one of the first tenants of FINOLAB) were very satisfied with the seminar and the venue… though Sugii did note that if more shops around FINOLAB would come to stay open later he would be able to attract more engineers. Toshiaki Hasumura, Planning Manager charged with FINOLAB activities, added that the plan was turn FINOLAB into a cornerstone for a global financial center in the near future and hopefully enhance business activities nearby. Regarding the growth hack seminar series, he said that there will be several more events upcoming later in the year.
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
Takeshi Hirano
