Tokyo-based Creww, the Japanese startup behind a community platform offering open innovation opportunities to startups, announced today that it has launched the Panasonic Accelerator 2016 program in partnership with the consumer electronics giant and started accepting applications from startups. The program has three categories for entries – “home appliances and living” and “work,” plus “Advanced Technologies” – where Panasonic will offer their intellectual assets or human resources accordingly, such as their menu and recipe-suggestion websites, 250,000 employees around the world, offices and factories… in addition to bioelectronic sensing, spoken-language analysis as well as image diagnosis support technologies.
Applications for the program are being accepted from July 13th to 28th. Following the screening of documents and presentations, selected applicants will participate in the program with a team from Panasonic, which is scheduled to start on September 2nd. Submitted ideas will be implemented in a closed environment controlled by Creww and Panasonic so that applicants will not need to worry about possible leaks of their ideas to third parties regardless of whether or not they can pass the screening process.
Creww has partnered with over 50 Japanese corporations to date and helped them work with startups in so-called open innovation efforts. As of this month, the company has received more than 1,600 business proposals from startups in total while over 200 ideas out of these have been adopted by partnered corporations. While Panasonic had been collaborating with startups by individual product or technology where necessary, the company made some of its IoT (Internet of Things) patents available for royalty-free use last year, followed by launch of facilities like Panasonic Laboratory Tokyo and Wonder LAB Osaka as hubs for open innovation activities focused on artificial intelligence, IoT, robotics and sensing technologies this spring.
Other examples of accelerators by renowned consumer electronics giants around the world include Siemens Accelerator (in Germany), Samsung Accelerator (in New York City and San Francisco), StarRocket by Foxconn (in Taipei), not to mention Seed Accelerator Program (SAP) by Sony in Tokyo.
See the original story in Japanese. Singapore-based vKirirom, the startup developing and operating a resort as well as a boarding-style university on a Cambodian plateau, announced on Saturday that it has fundraised $2.9 million from 15 angel investors in Japan and Singapore. Names of the investors participating in this angel round have not been disclosed. vKirirom is a social entrepreneurship startup founded in February of 2014 by Japanese serial entrepreneur Takeshi Izuka. After selling his startup Digital Forest, the company behind web access analysis platform Visionalist, to NTT Communications in 2009, he moved to Cambodia with his family in January of 2014 after spending four years in Singapore. He has leased land in the Kirirom National Park from the Cambodian government, which is located near the country’s capital of Phnom Penh, to develop a resort city along with a boarding-style university. Of particular interest regarding this project is Kirirom Institute of Technology (KIT), a boarding-style university located within the resort premises, where local students can learn programming and English while receiving scholarship provided by sponsoring companies. It aims to nurture engineers and business leaders for the information industry which is likely to be considered promising in terms of securing income…
Students at Kirirom Institute of Technology with Takeshi Izuka (standing on the right) Image credit: vKirirom
Singapore-based vKirirom, the startup developing and operating a resort as well as a boarding-style university on a Cambodian plateau, announced on Saturday that it has fundraised $2.9 million from 15 angel investors in Japan and Singapore. Names of the investors participating in this angel round have not been disclosed.
vKirirom is a social entrepreneurship startup founded in February of 2014 by Japanese serial entrepreneur Takeshi Izuka. After selling his startup Digital Forest, the company behind web access analysis platform Visionalist, to NTT Communications in 2009, he moved to Cambodia with his family in January of 2014 after spending four years in Singapore. He has leased land in the Kirirom National Park from the Cambodian government, which is located near the country’s capital of Phnom Penh, to develop a resort city along with a boarding-style university.
Of particular interest regarding this project is Kirirom Institute of Technology (KIT), a
boarding-style university located within the resort premises, where local students can learn programming and English while receiving scholarship provided by sponsoring companies. It aims to nurture engineers and business leaders for the information industry which is likely to be considered promising in terms of securing income and careerbuilding, then contributing to heightened educational and living standards for this country. Since the university is still new, it wil take a little time until the results are out; however, some of their graduates may establish a potential unicorn startup in Silicon Valley or on their home turf of Cambodia in the near future.
(I assume that one of the primary motivations of companies sponsoring the university in providing scholarship may be similar to the cases where Chinese IT giants establish or sponsor their university for securing future human resources.)
We were told that Izuka has made great efforts to launch vKirirom Pine Resort and KIT, such as constructing a branch road from the main highway to the premise, setting up power generators and securing broadband internet connectivity by radio waves from the nearest town, so he himself has been bringing in much equipment from Cambodia to facilitate the environment-building. Based on the initiative by the university, he wants to further develop resort facilities to serve the needs of tourists, company outings and vacation homes. To secure funds for these, he intends to explore the possibilities of investment-type crowdfunding as well as a series A round funding this year.
Bungalows in vKirirom Pine Resort (image credit: vKirirom)
Tokyo-based SmartNews, the startup offering curated news apps both in Japan and the US, announced today that it has fundraised 3.8 billion yen (about $37.8 million) in the latest round, meaning the total of their previous funds has reached over 9.1 billion yen (equaling to about 80 million to 90 million in US dollars but depends upon the exchange rate when each funding round was secured). This round was led by the Development Bank of Japan with participation from other investors including SMBC Venture Capital and Japan Co-invest Limited Partnership in addition to Kotaro Chiba, a notable angel investor and co-founder of Japanese mobile game company Colopl (TSE:3668). The company isn’t disclosing its valuation but TechCrunch reports that it is between $500 million and $600 million, in post money. The company issued a statement saying that the funds will be used to strengthen human resources, product development and marketing efforts in Japan as well as the rest of the world. They also announced that the news app has surpassed 18 million downloads globally. See also: CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Mobile news services Gunosy and Smartnews Japan’s SmartNews invites former WSJ Online executive on board, poised for US expansion Japan’s…
Tokyo-based SmartNews, the startup offering curated news apps both in Japan and the US, announced today that it has fundraised 3.8 billion yen (about $37.8 million) in the latest round, meaning the total of their previous funds has reached over 9.1 billion yen (equaling to about 80 million to 90 million in US dollars but depends upon the exchange rate when each funding round was secured).
This round was led by the Development Bank of Japan with participation from other investors including SMBC Venture Capital and Japan Co-invest Limited Partnership in addition to Kotaro Chiba, a notable angel investor and co-founder of Japanese mobile game company Colopl (TSE:3668).
The company isn’t disclosing its valuation but TechCrunch reports that it is between $500 million and $600 million, in post money.
The company issued a statement saying that the funds will be used to strengthen human resources, product development and marketing efforts in Japan as well as the rest of the world. They also announced that the news app has surpassed 18 million downloads globally.
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. Several weeks ago I summarized my first impressions of Japan’s burgeoning Fintech sector. Now that I’ve had an opportunity to meet more of the key actors, I’m relatively bullish on this market for both innovation and venture investment. Perhaps reinforcing my appetite, this recent piece in TechCrunch offers a worthwhile primer on the Fintech world beyond Silicon Valley and Europe but ostensibly neglects to mention Japan. The Japanese government’s support of innovation in Fintech, such as by way of its modernizing of financial regulations and offering business incentives to firms that encourage the creation of startup incubators — is one contributing factor. Another is the average Japanese consumer’s substantial investable asset base, especially after the mid-life step function I explained earlier. Although I would not quite characterize the Japanese consumer of holding the same degree…
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.
Several weeks ago I summarized my first impressions of Japan’s burgeoning Fintech sector. Now that I’ve had an opportunity to meet more of the key actors, I’m relatively bullish on this market for both innovation and venture investment.
Perhaps reinforcing my appetite, this recent piece in TechCrunch offers a worthwhile primer on the Fintech world beyond Silicon Valley and Europe but ostensibly neglects to mention Japan.
The Japanese government’s support of innovation in Fintech, such as by way of its modernizing of financial regulations and offering business incentives to firms that encourage the creation of startup incubators — is one contributing factor. Another is the average Japanese consumer’s substantial investable asset base, especially after the mid-life step function I explained earlier. Although I would not quite characterize the Japanese consumer of holding the same degree of mistrust for banks the way we do in the West, investing experience of the average household is relatively more limited in Japan than say in the U.S. In fact, I observe a more kindred mindset of conservatism (or prudence) with European households.
That is not to suggest that Japanese consumers are close-minded to creative financial products. On the contrary, some very promising young firms are tapping into a consumer appetite for solutions ranging from robo-advisory (Money Design) to peer-to-peer small business lending (Crowdcredit). The recent Microsoft Innovation Day featured some other compelling entrepreneurs with global ambitions.
Financial institutions in Japan are determined to not just remain bystanders. To their credit, many acknowledge that innovation can take place outside their corporate walls… and sometimes even outside the country’s borders.
Increasingly, these established corporations are taking small stakes in Fintech startups. A new draft measure in Japan’s parliament will ease the restrictions on banks’ ability to invest in operating companies.
Many are also setting up dedicated venture capital units. Although historically corporate venture capital funds underperform independent VC firms on a purely financial return basis, a corporation’s objectives also encompass strategic considerations, so making direct investments in startups can make sense.
By last tally, I’ve counted over 20 corporate venture capital funds in Japan who make Fintech investments. This list is by no means exhaustive, but includes (listed alphabetically):
Adways Ventures
Credit Saison Ventures
DBJ Capital
Dentsu
GCI Capital
GMO Venture Partners
Gree Ventures
Intel Capital
Itochu Corporation
Mitsubishi UFJ Capital
Mitsui Fudosan
Mizuho Venture Capital
Monex Ventures
Opt Ventures
Rakuten Ventures
Recruit Strategic Partners
Salesforce
SBI Holdings
Shinsei
SMBC Venture Capital
YJ Capital
Although I haven’t met all of them yet, the relatively few of this group with whom I’ve coinvested have behaved much like a purely financial VC would expect of them. By this I mean that these funds have issued relatively market-standard term sheets, have not demanded any special privileges, and have at least in my experience properly balanced the financial objectives of the investment with their own strategic agenda. Far from viewing them as competitors, I welcome the opportunity to coinvest with CVCs because of their complementarity with independent, financially-driven VCs.
In addition to open innovation initiatives or establishing in house CVC units, I submit that another option exists which merits serious consideration for Japanese corporations and financial institutions. More on that soon…
See the original story in Japanese. I have come to Nikkei FinTech Conference 2016 where various financial entities, business operators and FinTech startups from within and outside of Japan gathered together to explore recent trends. During the latter part of the conference, seven next-generation financial tech startups which are likely to dominate the Japanese FinTech market gave pitches to showcase their services. Eventually, Agribuddy, which supports financial management of farmers in Cambodia, was most highly evaluated by the jurors. Agribuddy: financial management support app for farmers in Cambodia Most of farmers in emerging countries have trouble in accessing financial services or their finance management capacity. If they borrow funds from the bank on the security of the farm, they easily spend the money for living expenses before harvest due to poor management capacity. Therefore, they dabble in consumer loan services and that results in a flame-out. Agribuddy creates credit scoring of farmers according to who grows what kind of crops and provides them to the bank as credit information. Based on the information, the bank loans funds within the credit limit to farmers’ smartphones. The farmers can purchase agricutural articles such as fertilizers from cooperating retailers. eNFC: next-gen NFC utilizing the human body eNFC realizes a solution…
I have come to Nikkei FinTech Conference 2016 where various financial entities, business operators and FinTech startups from within and outside of Japan gathered together to explore recent trends.
During the latter part of the conference, seven next-generation financial tech startups which are likely to dominate the Japanese FinTech market gave pitches to showcase their services. Eventually, Agribuddy, which supports financial management of farmers in Cambodia, was most highly evaluated by the jurors.
Agribuddy: financial management support app for farmers in Cambodia
Most of farmers in emerging countries have trouble in accessing financial services or their finance management capacity. If they borrow funds from the bank on the security of the farm, they easily spend the money for living expenses before harvest due to poor management capacity. Therefore, they dabble in consumer loan services and that results in a flame-out.
Agribuddy creates credit scoring of farmers according to who grows what kind of crops and provides them to the bank as credit information. Based on the information, the bank loans funds within the credit limit to farmers’ smartphones. The farmers can purchase agricutural articles such as fertilizers from cooperating retailers.
eNFC: next-gen NFC utilizing the human body
eNFC realizes a solution capable of new Near Field Communication (NFC), which are used for the electronic money card Suica, by replacing NFC antenna with the human body. For example, wearing the provided wearable devices (as a smart device or placed into the human body), users are able to pass ticket checkers in stations only by using his / her finger.
When passengers walk through the NFC device embedded underground, their bodies work as antennae and they can pass the checker just by touching the checking machine with a finger.
deBit: debit card for bitcoin
Bitcoin is available only in 1,500 stores domestically. Contrary to its distribution amount, it has not been in use in the real economy. To solve this problem, deBit adopted the debit card method which is available in stores displaying the VISA mark.
Bitcoin credit card issuers in the world
Although other companies overseas such as Shift are ahead in this field, the deBit team highlighted its advantage in that it grasps the highest and the lowest prices of bitcoin through real-time data collection from exchanges around the world, so that it is able to propose users the best condition for transaction.
The deBit team at Slush Asia 2016 (Image credit: deBit)
Since they have already constructed a business model in which the firm gains profits corresponding to the transaction amount of virtual currency, the service does not require any handling charges on the card. Only an increase of use of virtual currency (via its infrastructure) will produce profit for the company. The service has already been judged lawful in Japan through a legal check.
Quoine: aiming to be bitcoin exchange of exchanges
The bitcoin exchange Quoine, which had recently announced the fundraising totaling $16 million from Jafco and others, came on stage. The trading amount of bitcoin at Quione is ranked 7th among the bitcoin exchanges around the world, as assessed by real-time market portal for virtual currency Coinhills (at pitch time, it was ranked 4th).
Quoine CEO Kariya Kayamori
Contrary to other exchanges which provide services focusing on consumers, Quoine adopts a B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer)-like model. It provides back-end service for exchanges by operating like an OEM (original equipment manufacturer), and can even act as an agent for the entire operation of exchanges.
Quoine CEO Kariya Kayamori mentioned that the transaction volume of foreign exchange (FX) in Japan has reached 5 quadrillion yen (about $48.6 trillion), and said that 10% of that may be replaced to virtual currency in the future. Current daily trading volume of bitcoin at Quoine accounts is only 1 billion yen (about $48.6 million) approximately, but Kayamori expects that it can be increased byup to 100 times.
Guracone: enlightens about bitcoin donation
Gracone CEO Mai Fujimoto
The team thought of constructing a donation system for mothers, but sending money overseas requires high handling charges. For example, sending 100,000 yen (about $973) requires thousands of yen (tens of dollars). However, it costs only tens of yen via bitcoin. Gracone promotes active donation through enlightening about remittance utilizing bitcoin.
Lognote: marketing support through e-receipt
Lognote is an e-receipt platform supporting e-receipt issuance work for smart devices, for infrastructure construction and for user retailer marketing. It allows user retailers to contact consumers by issuing point sales system (POS)-linked e-receipt. The firm fundraised 10 million yen (about $83,000 at the exchange rate then) from Japan’s leading online marketing company Adways (TSE:2489) in May of last year.
Nowcast: informs economic trend leveraging big data
Nowcast established in 2015 originated from the University of Tokyo, and has been working on visualization of economic activities under the theme of ‘to know about the latest economy.’ Its service CPI Now is capable of calculation of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) only within two days, although the national statistics require about six weeks. Since its launch about half a year ago, the service has been utilized by about 180 financial entities.
Nowcast CEO & CTO Satoshi Imai
Although the previous version had handled the national index, the current version has made available the index for each local area. That enables the setting of prices in specific areas and to set the optimal interest by area or industry.
From the viewpoint of regional revitalization, it provides decision-making data possible by comparing governmental statistics, such as what kind of results had been obtained from measures implemented by financial entities or what was generated at that time.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Triple W Japan, developer of wearable bowel movement predictor DFree, recently announced that they have fundraised 400 million yen ($3.9 million) from 2020, iSGS Investment Works, Daiwa Corporate Investment, Mizuho Capital, SBI Investment and Revamp in a series A round, in addition to 100 million yen (about $980,000) in loans from Mizuho Bank and Japan Finance Corporation. 2020 is the investment arm in Japan of Taiwan-based hardware manufacturing giant Foxconn. This funding round follows their previous undisclosed amount of funding from Nissay Capital and iStyle Capital (now known as iSGS Investment Works) back in April last year as well as up to 120 million yen (about $1 million at the exchange rate then) funding from the Japanese governmental business promotion agency NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) and Osaka-based Hack Ventures. Triple W Japan was launched back in February of 2015 (US operations started in June of 2014) by UC Berkeley graduate Atsushi Nakanishi. He had unexpected incontinence when moving to a new home in Berkeley, which triggered him to launch the business to solve humanity’s universal problem – excretion. DFree uses ultrasonic waves to measures the size of excreta in the…
Triple W Japan was launched back in February of 2015 (US operations started in June of 2014) by UC Berkeley graduate Atsushi Nakanishi. He had unexpected incontinence when moving to a new home in Berkeley, which triggered him to launch the business to solve humanity’s universal problem – excretion.
DFree uses ultrasonic waves to measures the size of excreta in the intestine; it then estimates when the sacrum will be stimulated and when the user will begin to feel the urge to go to toilet. A user will then have sufficient time to find a toilet and be relieved from the stress of bowel incontinence. Parkinson’s disease sufferers, the physically handicapped, or the elderly who have difficulty to go to toilet will no longer need to use diapers, thus helping people regain their dignity.
In a crowdfunding campaign for the DFree device last year, the company succeeded in raising over 12 million yen (more than $100,000). During the first batch of Heart Catch, the two-month mentoring program for startups to brush up products, they revealed that they were exploring better design and marketing strategies.
Based on the capital partnerships with the aforementioned investors, Triple W Japan expects to provide comprehensive support in the following areas respectively.
2020 – Engineering and business expansion to Asia through its parent company Foxconn
iSGS – Expansion to health and beauty verticals through iStyle, the leading investor of the VC firm and the owner of Japan’s top beauty products portal @Cosme.
SBI Investment – Expecting support in the healthcare, biomedical and ICT fields, the bailiwick of the VC firm’s investment manager Yukiko Kato who won the top in the Japanese version of Midas List issued by Forbes Japan last year.
Revamp – Offering testing opportunities and building sales channels to nursing facilities
Upon funding this time, the company also announced addition of new people to the team. In June, Yuichiro Kuzuryu, who was previously working at iPad music keyboard developer Miselu, was named CTO while mechatronics authority Akihiro Kawata joined the team as Executive Engineer to facilitate product development and manufacturing of the DFree device.
CEO Nakanishi delivered his pitch at Heart Catch 2015.
According to Nakanishi, DFree is currently under clinical testing at four nursing facilities in Japan, expecting to increase up to 20 facilities by September. They are planning to move from a testing phase to launch phase this fall, followed by commencing a B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) service through nursing homes next year.
Since excretion is becoming a common problem for aging societies in developed countries, the company has been garnering attention from outside Japan as well. Korea’s Seoul Broadcasting System features on its news site what had triggered founder Nakanishi to start developing the DFree device. Furthermore, they have been receiving inquiries from Australia, China, Taiwan, France and others. Because of tangible needs out there, their global expansion can be smoothly implemented as long as they can find relevant local partners in each respective country.
Triple W Japan consists of seven employees and three interns now. By hiring more engineers, the company wants to contribute to society by helping hardware engineers get out from big corporates into startups taking advantage of Japan’s strong manufacturing base.
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
Takeshi Hirano
