R to L: Yusuke Umeda (Uzabase Co-CEO), Norihiko Sasaki (Managing Director & NewsPicks Editor-in-Chief)
Tokyo-based Uzabase, the startup behind curated news app NewsPicks and company/industry database service Speeda, announced today hat its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved.
The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on 21 October with plans to offer 543,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 114,000 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 193,300 shares. It expects an initial market cap of 17.78 billion yen (about $177 million). The underwriting will be led by Mizuho Securities while Uzabase’s ticker code will be 3966.
Founded in 2008, Uzabase started offering the NewsPicks app back in September 2013. The company has differentiated NewsPicks from other similar apps by curating news topics by notable economics news outlets. Prior to today’s announcement, the company secured $4.5 million from several Japanese companies and VC firms in a series C round in August of 2014.
Led by the company’s Co-CEO and founder Yusuke Umeda (a 28.34% stake) and Co-CEO and founder Ryosuke Shino (a 28.34% stake), their major share holders include Global Capital Partners (11.43%), COO Yusuke Inagaki (9.91%), and Hong Kong-based financial information provider FISL (4.82%), according to the submission to the stock exchange.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based InstaVR, providing a VR (virtual reality) authoring tool capable of creation / distribution / analysis of 360-degree view content under the same name, this week announced that it has secured about 200 million yen (about $2 million) in the latest round. This round was led by Gree Ventures with participating from Colopl VR Fund, the investment arm of Japanese mobile gaming developer Colopl (TSE:3668) but details of the allotment ratio of shares or payment date have been undisclosed. The firm had been born from the first batch of Tokyo VR Startups, an acceleration program led by Japanese gaming developer Gumi (TSE:3903) and focused on nourishing VR / AR (augmented reality) startups. InstaVR is a web-based creation tool for 360-degree content. For example, it is available for virtual preliminary inspection of apartment rooms to be constructed, by combining image videos or 360-degree image materials. It enables setting of various call-to-action buttons to play YouTube videos when clicked or to link them to next scenes / places as if ‘warping’ and thereby allows more interactive materials to be created. The completed contents are outputted as apps playable on a unique player and are available for…
Tokyo-based InstaVR, providing a VR (virtual reality) authoring tool capable of creation / distribution / analysis of 360-degree view content under the same name, this week announced that it has secured about 200 million yen (about $2 million) in the latest round.
This round was led by Gree Ventures with participating from Colopl VR Fund, the investment arm of Japanese mobile gaming developer Colopl (TSE:3668) but details of the allotment ratio of shares or payment date have been undisclosed. The firm had been born from the first batch of Tokyo VR Startups, an acceleration program led by Japanese gaming developer Gumi (TSE:3903) and focused on nourishing VR / AR (augmented reality) startups.
InstaVR is a web-based creation tool for 360-degree content. For example, it is available for virtual preliminary inspection of apartment rooms to be constructed, by combining image videos or 360-degree image materials. It enables setting of various call-to-action buttons to play YouTube videos when clicked or to link them to next scenes / places as if ‘warping’ and thereby allows more interactive materials to be created.
The completed contents are outputted as apps playable on a unique player and are available for iOS, Android or GearVR. Also the contents can be embedded into webpages as in the following image (it can shift right and left by clicking).
As one of the InstaVR’s characteristic functions, it supports heat map analysis enabling optimization of click-link buttons arrangement or investigation for the next content through analysis of points ‘where users looked,’ which may be determined only with VR experience.
Until now, InstaVR has been used by 1,800 companies in 100 countries around the world since its launch in January of 2016, and been implemented in a wide range of business fields such as tourism industry including Smithsonian Museum, construction industry, content creation companies for marketing and advertising agencies.
The firm was established by CEO Hiroyuki Haga in 2015 December. The InstaVR tool is originated in a ‘free tool’ developed by him in 2014; he had formerly played important roles as an engineer at 3D authoring tool developer Autodesk and Gree (TSE:3632).
Haga commented:
As the free tool is downloaded, sometime I have been asked from users to help with creation of VR content due to its difficulty. The tool was for creating VR content just by using Excel, and I incorporated all of these know-how into InstaVR.
Authoring tool is one of the major fields in the VR / AR industry landscape.
There are various creation platforms, like high-end type providing high-performance camera / stitching (joining 360-degree contents together) / distribution as vertical integration service such as Jaunt or NextVR, or a type available for lots of 3D objects similar to Marxent, but there are no tools that equal InstaVR in enabling creation / distribution of lighter content on the web.
The monthly charge for the premium version of InstaVR is $199. The firm will continue with development using the secured funds and aims at implementation in 10,000 companies within this year.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
This is a guest post authored by Amanda Imasaka. Toronto, Canada based Shiny Barnacle, who specializes in on-demand marketplace products, officially launched the new online platform Conversate on August 1st of this year. The 5 co-founders Mike Lee, Alex Stiglick, Steve Stiglick, Adam Quast, and Greg Vorobyev in designing Conversate set out to build a full, integrated social network platform for education that gives power to the students while supporting a community of personable English tutors. Co-founder Mike Lee said in a statement exclusively for The Bridge. Learning and helping others learn by way of teaching is something we are very familiar with. With many of us having taught before, we know what the market is like, and every site out there is lacking in some way. We want to bring better experience and offer students and teachers alike a new way to teach and learn. To elaborate, let’s discuss what Conversate means for English teachers looking to take control of their own schedules, set their own pay, and essentially become their own boss. They simply register online, create their professional profile including where in Tokyo they are based, and record a one minute introductory message to sell their brand….
This is a guest post authored by Amanda Imasaka.
Toronto, Canada based Shiny Barnacle, who specializes in on-demand marketplace products, officially launched the new online platform Conversate on August 1st of this year. The 5 co-founders Mike Lee, Alex Stiglick, Steve Stiglick, Adam Quast, and Greg Vorobyev in designing Conversate set out to build a full, integrated social network platform for education that gives power to the students while supporting a community of personable English tutors.
Co-founder Mike Lee said in a statement exclusively for The Bridge.
Learning and helping others learn by way of teaching is something we are very familiar with. With many of us having taught before, we know what the market is like, and every site out there is lacking in some way. We want to bring better experience and offer students and teachers alike a new way to teach and learn.
To elaborate, let’s discuss what Conversate means for English teachers looking to take control of their own schedules, set their own pay, and essentially become their own boss. They simply register online, create their professional profile including where in Tokyo they are based, and record a one minute introductory message to sell their brand. The team has also built a teacher network with a social network feel that provides support through lesson planning, even offering crowdsourced discussions on lessons built onto the site.
Next we can examine it from the perspective of a student. After registering online, they can be paired with tutors through proximity-based matching with Google Maps. It is also possible to narrow the search by specifying a desired ethnicity (corresponding to accent), skill set (i.e. TOEIC, TOEFL, etc.), price range, overall feedback rating, and so on. Students can keep track of their progress with online feedback directly on the app from their tutor. Find a teacher you like and all you have to do is adjust your tutor frequency to see them more often, giving students the power to choose their teacher unlike in English conversations schools or traditional sites that operate on a “request and wait” model. In addition, the Conversate team created their system to encourage physical meetups (as opposed to say online video tutoring) between students and teachers as they believe it is essential to language acquisition in that it puts pressure on learners to speak naturally.
Perhaps what most sets this platform apart is the up and coming on-demand aspect, much like hiring through Uber, they plan to upgrade to a “true real-time availability system” in the near future. Also akin to Uber is their two-way review system, allowing Student-Tutor reflections as well as Tutor-Student ones. Again, like Uber, money exchanges between students and teachers are also unnecessary as Conversate relies on Stripe, a leading secure payment processing portal.
Conversate’s searchable map showing teachers in real time. Image credit: Shiny Barnacle
When asked about the goals for Conversate in the future Lee had this to say:
We want to help students with language learning, but at the same time combine that with presentation skills, and everything needed to truly interact in a business or real-world setting. On-demand, in-person, integrated lesson materials, we will bring the classroom directly to you.
With Conversate only recently launched, there is a need to focus on building up their client base and teacher pool. But have no fear, they’ve got it covered. Students who sign up now get a 4,000 yen (about $40) credit to use toward future lessons and for every new student they refer another 4,000 yen is credited to them. Additionally, teachers who help bring in new tutors receive a percentage of the services that the referees provide through the system.
Shiny Barnacle presents at the Tokyo Innovation Studio. Back row L to R: Ryunosuke Fujinomaki, Seiichi Shirane, Mike Lee and Steven Stiglick Front row L to R: Advisor to Shiny Barnacle John Kojiro Moriwaka, Ai Kusabee Image credit: Shiny Barnacle
The team from Conversate attended Tech in Asia Tokyo on the 6th and 7th of September, and were the guest speakers at Tokyo Innovation Studio’s International Startup Pitch & Meetup Tokyo vol. 8 in August of this year, as well as presented at Startup Dating (coincidentally same with The Bridge’s previous name before rebranding) co-hosted with Japan Venture Show. They are planning to expand into Seoul, South Korea and other Asian countries, with the long term goal of eventually supporting the educational marketplace for multiple languages.
With the Tokyo Olympics only a few years away and the demand for English educational platforms high, we look forward to seeing what momentum Conversate picks up.
This is a guest post authored by Bangkok-based Japanese entrepreneur Kazuki Kamiya. This article was first appeared in Japanese on Bsearch News but translated and edited by The Bridge for republication. Since 2014, he has been running a startup called HubAsia in Thailand for offering crowdsourced translation and interpretation services. In June of 2016 he released Thai-focused Japanese-language business portal site BSearch. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by photographer Fumi Tanaka aka Bunshow. On Friday, a group of Japanese and Thai startups responsible for generating new industries, along with their respective governments, established the Japan-Thailand Innovation Support Network (hereafter referred to as JTIS) in order to promote cooperation between startups and larger companies. 10 startups from each country participated along with more than twenty big names including Toyota Motor Thailand and Thailand’s largest supplier of raw materials, Siam Cement Group (SCG). The government of Thailand has been supporting startups as an essential means of economic growth by hosting events throughout the country and creating a fund of several billion baht (tens of millions US dollars). In order to reach the objectives for both countries, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) and the Japanese Embassy…
Kazuki Kamiya
This is a guest post authored by Bangkok-based Japanese entrepreneur Kazuki Kamiya. This article was first appeared in Japanese on Bsearch News but translated and edited by The Bridge for republication.
Since 2014, he has been running a startup called HubAsia in Thailand for offering crowdsourced translation and interpretation services. In June of 2016 he released Thai-focused Japanese-language business portal site BSearch.
Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by photographer Fumi Tanaka aka Bunshow.
On Friday, a group of Japanese and Thai startups responsible for generating new industries, along with their respective governments, established the Japan-Thailand Innovation Support Network (hereafter referred to as JTIS) in order to promote cooperation between startups and larger companies. 10 startups from each country participated along with more than twenty big names including Toyota Motor Thailand and Thailand’s largest supplier of raw materials, Siam Cement Group (SCG).
The government of Thailand has been supporting startups as an essential means of economic growth by hosting events throughout the country and creating a fund of several billion baht (tens of millions US dollars). In order to reach the objectives for both countries, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) and the Japanese Embassy in Thailand also recently held (August 31st) Embassy Pitch, a separate event that helps connect Thai startups with Japanese and Thai large corporations.
After attending Embassy Pitch, the Thai Minister of Science and Industry, Dr. Pichet Durongkaveroj shared his impressions on social media.
I’m with (Japanese) Ambassador Sadoshima in thinking that ‘innovation’ is what will drive the economic development of our country. We believe by connecting startups and big business Thailand will be able to continue its economic growth.
Dr. Durongkaveroj described the event as, “an event that should be admired” and reportedly rushed to be a part of the inaugural JTIS event on Friday.
JTIS is served by Omise’s CEO and founder Jun Hasegawa, who took the position of President, working on fostering an environment to aid the growth of Thai startups, and will continue to play a role in recommending the relaxation of regulations and the development of laws to the government.
On the same day, the Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Hiroshige Seko, Thailand’s Minister of Science and Industry Dr. Durongkaveroj, and Japanese Ambassador Sadoshima oversaw the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with Thailand Tech Startup Association (TTSA), as well as entered into cooperation.
In addition, prior to the signing ceremony Minister Seko had an opportunity to exchange opinions with Japanese entrepreneurs working in Thailand, with the entrepreneurs explaining the current state of the Thai startup scene to the minister. Participants were also able to make demands for deregulation and support measures.
The minister himself actively questioned the entrepreneurs, and conveyed that he recognizes it is in the national interest for the government to boost Japanese big business and startups abroad, encouraging them.
JTIS intends to prepare for the next Embassy Pitch event by strengthening their call for large companies and startups from both countries and recruiting broadly for interested parties.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Uncover Truth, the company offering a data analytics-based web and native app optimization service called Userdive, announced on Tuesday that it has secured around 400 million yen (about 4 million) in the latest round. This round was led by Draper Nexus Ventures with participation from Nippon Venture Capital, Cyper Agent, Accord Ventures, and Mizuho Capital. The company has not disclosed any financial details including shareholdings ratio and payment date upon fundraising. Userdive shows UI/UX (user interface and user experience) problems in a website for its owners by plotting them in a heat map. There are two services provided, Userdive for web apps (for desktop and mobile) and Userdive for native apps (for mobile). With these tools, as one example, it is possible to see where users mostly leave in an e-commerce site. In addition, the company consults businesses using these tools, offering support services starting from identifying challenges to solving them through a PDCA cycle. These businesses include over 300 big names, such as Fuji Film (TSE:4901), Benesse Corporation (TSE:9783), and Nifty. Uncover Truth plans to use the funds raised to advance their services by strengthening their consulting personnel, directors, and developers. To…
Tokyo-based Uncover Truth, the company offering a data analytics-based web and native app optimization service called Userdive, announced on Tuesday that it has secured around 400 million yen (about 4 million) in the latest round. This round was led by Draper Nexus Ventures with participation from Nippon Venture Capital, Cyper Agent, Accord Ventures, and Mizuho Capital. The company has not disclosed any financial details including shareholdings ratio and payment date upon fundraising.
Userdive shows UI/UX (user interface and user experience) problems in a website for its owners by plotting them in a heat map. There are two services provided, Userdive for web apps (for desktop and mobile) and Userdive for native apps (for mobile). With these tools, as one example, it is possible to see where users mostly leave in an e-commerce site.
In addition, the company consults businesses using these tools, offering support services starting from identifying challenges to solving them through a PDCA cycle. These businesses include over 300 big names, such as Fuji Film (TSE:4901), Benesse Corporation (TSE:9783), and Nifty.
Uncover Truth plans to use the funds raised to advance their services by strengthening their consulting personnel, directors, and developers. To this aim they plan to double their current number of 30 team members.
Beginning with Google Analytics, using analytics tools as a means to improve websites is only natural. On the other hand, we have merely heard of website managers making full use of these tools to improve the day to day usage of their website. Instead, in nearly all cases it seems customary to outsource to web production companies, ad agencies, or consulting firms for the optimization process.
According to Keizo Ishikawa, the CEO of Uncover Truth, the company has grown by offering customers with these analysis tools to visualize challenges and then providing consulting services.
Take IDOM (formerly Gulliver International) for example, a used car sales company that put effort into their digital marketing. Through website improvements and accompanying support from Userdive, they succeeded in improving their monthly gross profit by 10 million yen (nearly $100,000). Although, for this level of support the large numbers of analysts and directors necessary for consulting are not very scalable, which is unsuitable for internet business.
Uncover Truth CEO Keizo Ishikawa
Ishikawa also understands this drawback. He explained:
Our company so far is supporting everything from log analysis to the execution of plans A and B. The inability of companies to improve their websites is either due to the lack of skills or the lack of time. On the other hand, as you indicated, human consulting will not disappear, and so the automation of that will become our challenge to scale for the future.
Thus the team came up with a route to uncover problems in an efficient manner. According to Ishikawa, it usually takes an analyst anywhere from 20 to 50 hours to analyze one user flow of one website. If they can find a way to reduce this time even by a few seconds, it would lead to a considerable bump in efficiency.
From examples of past improvement cases, it has become possible for Userdive to some extent to grasp what kinds of data are produced and what kind of challenges websites face. Utilizing these types of data, they plan to use the funds to further develop a new system. In the event that this works well, they will be able to point out a website’s problems during the sign-up stage (before a full-scale detection of problems after the sign-up process), and possibly even more easily attract prospective users.
So to speak, they aim for early detection of website “cancer”, much in the same way a doctor recognizes it in his patients.
Their service is available for 700,000 yen (about $7,000) monthly, for companies looking to become a leading website and increase their monthly revenue on a million yen scale (around $10,000), as the aforementioned IDOM did.
Translated by Amanda Imakaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. In a crowdfunding campaign back in November, the MaBeee dry cell-shaped IoT (Internet of Things) gadget raised more than $60,000, over 12 times the initial target. Tokyo-based Novars, the hardware startup behind the gadget, announced on Tuesday that it raised 120 million yen (or about $1.2 million) from Nissay Capital and Mizuho Capital. For Novars, this follows their previous funding of an undisclosed sum from Inclusion Japan in a seed round. The company claims that it will use the latest funds to develop apps for and new models of the gadget as well as promoting their business by adding people for sales and marketing efforts. MaBeee is an AA battery-shaped IoT device. By installing it into a dry cell-powered item, users can take a full control of the item using mobile via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). An example of use case is that putting the gadget into a Mini 4WD miniature model, where users can run or stop the model car by shaking their smartphone. The gadget has been available at Amazon.co.jp and other e-commerce platforms as well as major electronics retailers across Japan since this August. Navars was founded back in April of…
In a crowdfunding campaign back in November, the MaBeee dry cell-shaped IoT (Internet of Things) gadget raised more than $60,000, over 12 times the initial target. Tokyo-based Novars, the hardware startup behind the gadget, announced on Tuesday that it raised 120 million yen (or about $1.2 million) from Nissay Capital and Mizuho Capital.
For Novars, this follows their previous funding of an undisclosed sum from Inclusion Japan in a seed round. The company claims that it will use the latest funds to develop apps for and new models of the gadget as well as promoting their business by adding people for sales and marketing efforts.
MaBeee is an AA battery-shaped IoT device. By installing it into a dry cell-powered item, users can take a full control of the item using mobile via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). An example of use case is that putting the gadget into a Mini 4WD miniature model, where users can run or stop the model car by shaking their smartphone. The gadget has been available at Amazon.co.jp and other e-commerce platforms as well as major electronics retailers across Japan since this August.
Navars was founded back in April of 2015 by CEO Akihiro Okabe. He was previously working at Seiko Instruments, a leading precision machinery maker in Japan, where he was involved in defining the communication standard of BT-Watch, a generic name of intelligent watches connecting via Bluetooth. Navars has been running a cross-company community for innovation called Yamiken (or 100-day lab), where the MaBeee device was born out of a participating engineer’s wish to play the “Plarail” toy train track system with his child by remotely controlling it.
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
The Bridge
Toronto, Canada based 
Beginning with Google Analytics, using analytics tools as a means to improve websites is only natural. On the other hand, we have merely heard of website managers making full use of these tools to improve the day to day usage of their website. Instead, in nearly all cases it seems customary to outsource to web production companies, ad agencies, or consulting firms for the optimization process.
