Palo Alto-based IDEO, one of the world’s most influential design firms, and Tokyo-based startup-focused VC firm Genuine Startups, announced today they will jointly launch a new venture capital called D4V. Based in Tokyo, the new firm’s founding partners are Tom Kelley (Partner of IDEO), Kenichi Nonomura (Director of IDEO Tokyo) as well as Makoto Takano, Kengo Ito and Mamoru Taniya from Genuine Startups while executive advisors are Nobuyuki Idei (former president of Sony) and Hollywood actor and angel investor Masi Oka, best known as the breakout star of TV show Heroes.
Regarding the investment ratio, IDEO Tokyo holds 40% in the new firm while Genuine Startups has the remainder. With investments in more than 50 startups through the first fund, Genuine Startups has looked to form its own second fund since last year but it will be substantially merged into the D4V fund being formed. While the size of the fund is not fixed yet, Takano told us that they aim to raise up to around 5 billion yen (approximately $50 million) by next March with an eye to possible future funding from investors in the US.
The new fund is derived from “Design for Ventures”; for investees, IDEO will provide expertise about design thinking and venture design. Genuine Startups is mainly responsible for deal-sourcing and also offering networking opportunities and business management know-how. However, the two companies claim that they neither intend to pour design elements into startups nor focus on investing in design-oriented startups. According to Takano, they will choose which companies to invest in based on a mission-oriented concept which is “let ‘non-growing’ companies go out of the market and help new companies enter the global business arena.”
IDEO partner Tom Kelley, also best known as his bestselling book Creativity Confidence, made a comment in the press briefing:
Steve Jobs met up with Steve Wozniak, and then they founded Apple. Prior to Apple, Wozniak was previously working at Hewlett Packard but he was digged up by Jobs. In Japan, I think many people like Wozniak are living and working in obscurity. I want to dig them up and nourish them.
As IDEO’s startup collaboration effort, Kelley shared some examples including PillPack, a startup making it easy for patients on multiple medications to take the right pills at the right time, born out of a program called Startup In Residence where entrepreneurs can work side by side with IDEO employees. While D4V is neither an accelerator nor an incubator, in the future invested startups can expect to receive hands-on support leveraging both tangible and intangible assets that IDEO possess.
The fund will be mainly focused on investing in early-stage startups from Japan. However, it can also help them expand globally and get follow-on funding from investors outside Japan by leveraging the vast global network of the fund’s four founding partners and two executive advisors.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Toreta, the company offering a reservation and customer management platform for restaurants under the same name, announced on Friday that it has secured 1.2 billion yen (about $12 million) in the latest round. This round was led by Eight Roads Ventures Japan with participation from NTT Docomo Ventures and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital as well as four existing shareholders: Femto Growth Capital, WiL (World Innovation Lab), iStyle Capital (now known as iSGS Investment Works), and Salesforce Ventures. Details of the shareholding ratios and payment date have not been disclosed. In accordance with this, David Milstein, Head of Eight Roads Ventures Japan, will join the board as an external director. Since launching the service in December of 2013, Toreta has seen a steady increase in the number of acquired restaurants, and as of September 2016 it has been introduced in some 7000 stores. Additionally, it is possible for participating businesses to access services from detailed table and seat management to online reservations for their restaurants. Merely by accumulating more users, Toreta has found additional business potential. The company aims to use the funds secured this round to enhance their development system and to…
Tokyo-based Toreta, the company offering a reservation and customer management platform for restaurants under the same name, announced on Friday that it has secured 1.2 billion yen (about $12 million) in the latest round. This round was led by Eight Roads Ventures Japan with participation from NTT Docomo Ventures and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital as well as four existing shareholders: Femto Growth Capital, WiL (World Innovation Lab), iStyle Capital (now known as iSGS Investment Works), and Salesforce Ventures. Details of the shareholding ratios and payment date have not been disclosed.
In accordance with this, David Milstein, Head of Eight Roads Ventures Japan, will join the board as an external director.
Since launching the service in December of 2013, Toreta has seen a steady increase in the number of acquired restaurants, and as of September 2016 it has been introduced in some 7000 stores. Additionally, it is possible for participating businesses to access services from detailed table and seat management to online reservations for their restaurants. Merely by accumulating more users, Toreta has found additional business potential.
The company aims to use the funds secured this round to enhance their development system and to strengthen their sales and support marketing system.
To get down to it, from their founding period (no, even before that) I’ve kept an eye on Toreta as a favored reservation and customer database management service and now they have managed to fundraise over 1 billion yen ($10 million) in funding. With rumors floating about of an IPO within the next few years, perhaps their next large funding will come with the announcement of this.
Disclosure: A member of the author’s family has in the past had a contractual business relationship with Toreta.
While they continue to steadily acquire new stores, I was curious about their growth strategy for the future. With that in mind, I approached the company’s CEO Hitoshi Nakamura with a few key points.
First, what measures do they have to expand sales? With regards to the introduction speed of reservation and customer database management services Nakamura mentioned it’s proportional to sales force. Aside from this, they can increase numbers by offering additional services with the goal being to upsell. This is straightforward.
But what about the online reservation feature? One of the strong points of Toreta’s model is when restaurants receive a reservation (having until now used a paper ledger to record it) they are now able to to manage the status of their seating digitally. Consequently, it becomes possible to efficiently provide tables and seats to customers, ultimately contributing to the sales of these restaurants.
Recently, Nakamura said close to 20 percent of stores using their service support online reservations, and confided that this is also a growing trend.
We originally developed our service to solve the problem of managing numerous reservations for extremely busy restaurants, and we’ve acquired many contracts with ‘thriving businesses’ concentrating on reservations.
Usability, functionality, support, in every aspect our service have been optimized for these ‘thriving businesses.’ These businesses use Toreta with remarkable results, and from there news of us spreads by word of mouth. I believe our current expansion is a result of this.
On the other hand, restaurants typically require to use Gurunavi, Tabelog, Retty and other online restaurant review sites as a gateway to bring customers to their online reservation. Toreta is the only “reception” system connected to the restaurant side of seat inventory management, and for restaurants to accept customers it is essential to make use of such media sites.
With that, a question: I tried asking about the possibility of Toreta acquiring these types of media sites. First and foremost, Toreta can be thought of as a platform to assist restaurants from attracting customers to improving management. Regardless of the gourmet media sites, there exists a wide variety of service providers in the food-related IT industry, and acquisition can definitely be considered a stepping stone for private companies.
Nakamura added:
As a means for the expansion of our business, certainly I think acquisition is one of the choices. Not only reservations, but other business areas as well; not only Japan, but abroad as well. If there are partners that can share in our ideals from a variety of angles, we’d like to aggressively continue to increase such relationships.
He chose his words carefully while answering, but through Nakamura’s expressions I could feel just a hint of satisfaction.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
The content of this article first appeared on Disrupting Japan. It has been reproduced by The Bridge with the approval of Disrupting Japan and the article’s author Tim Romero. Tim is a Tokyo-based entrepreneur, podcaster and author who has started four companies and led Japan market entry for others since coming to Japan more than 20 years ago. Tim hosts the Disrupting Japan podcast and is deeply involved in Japan’s startup community as an investor, founder and mentor. Yuka Fujii considers Famarry to be the happiest company in the world, and looking at who her customers are, I think she just might be right. But behind this happy company is an aggressive plan to disrupt a cartel of photo studios that have dominated the Japanese market for decades. Changes in technology and demographics have opened up a small crack in this wall, and Famarry plans on using it to gain a foothold and then to change the entire industry for the better. Tim: Can you explain a what Famarry does? It’s basically crowd-sourcing of photographers, and we’ve started with pre-wedding photography. About 70,000 couples get married in Japan every year, and about half of them do pre-wedding photography. That’s the…
The content of this article first appeared on Disrupting Japan. It has been reproduced by The Bridge with the approval of Disrupting Japan and the article’s author Tim Romero.
Tim is a Tokyo-based entrepreneur, podcaster and author who has started four companies and led Japan market entry for others since coming to Japan more than 20 years ago. Tim hosts the Disrupting Japan podcast and is deeply involved in Japan’s startup community as an investor, founder and mentor.
Yuka Fujii considers Famarry to be the happiest company in the world, and looking at who her customers are, I think she just might be right.
But behind this happy company is an aggressive plan to disrupt a cartel of photo studios that have dominated the Japanese market for decades. Changes in technology and demographics have opened up a small crack in this wall, and Famarry plans on using it to gain a foothold and then to change the entire industry for the better.
Tim: Can you explain a what Famarry does?
It’s basically crowd-sourcing of photographers, and we’ve started with pre-wedding photography. About 70,000 couples get married in Japan every year, and about half of them do pre-wedding photography. That’s the initial market we are focusing on.
Tim: So they go to a romantic spot with a beautiful back drop and take pictures?
Exactly. The wedding photographer is usually arranged by the venue, so the couple has no choice, but people find pre-wedding photographers by word of mouth or by searching online.
Tim: How have you marketed to this audience?
We’ve had great success using Instagram. It’s nearly a perfect fit for us since it’s all about sharing photos. We run promotions, of course, but most of our customers want to share their own photos, so it’s a more modern version of word-of-mouth. It makes it easy for people to hear about us and to find a photographer they really like.
Tim: On thing that worries me about this business is that you will have very few repeat customers. Since most people only get married once, you would always need to be recruiting new customers.
We plan to build on that. A wedding is the start of a family, so naturally our customers will soon want baby pictures and then family pictures. In the future we’ll be offering these other kinds of photography services so we can grow with our clients.
Tim: You mentioned before that the photography business is changing in Japan?
The industry is becoming more accessible. Quality camera equipment used to be very expensive, but that’s not the case any more. There are many more skilled photographers with high-quality equipment than their used to be. Also, until recently, the studios controlled just about everything. They had a set of standard backdrops and poses and the customer mostly did what they were told to do. People are now starting to see photography differently. More and more people want something that suits their own character and tastes.
Tim: So there is more independence in the industry now?
There will be. It’s much easier for a photographer to be independent these days, and we try to match those photographers up with clients who suit their style. In the future, it will be very hard for the photography studios to stay in business using their current business model. Independent photographers can deliver higher quality at a lower cost and with a style customized to the customers’ personal tastes.
Tim: What made you target the wedding market? With Japan’s aging population, it does not seem particularly attractive.
The overall market may be shrinking from year to year in Japan, but it’s still a huge market. Not much has changed recently, so it’s a market that’s ready for disruption. As you said, the market is not growing, and many Japanese companies are trying to grow business overseas rather than innovate at home, which makes it easer for us.
Tim: Do you think being a women entrepreneur has made things easier or harder for you?
A bit of both, I suppose. Being different makes it easier to get press attention, but it can make it harder to do certain deals. With a startup you have to just deal with whatever advantages or disadvantages you have. I don’t think too much about it. In our case, however, most of our customers are women, so perhaps I can relate to them better.
Tim: I thought they were couples.
They are, but the woman generally take control of the wedding, and they are the ones who make the decisions about things like pre-wedding photography.
Tim: That makes sense. And even when it comes time for baby pictures or family portraits, it will be the wives driving the process.
Exactly.
Tim: What surprised you most about running your own business?
Both how hard it was and how fun it was. I knew it was going to be hard, but I guess you don’t really understand something until you go through it. I’m not complaining. It was just harder than I expected it would be. But I was also surprised ho much I enjoy interacting with both our staff and our customers. It’s a very happy business. To hear the voices of our customers every day and how happy they are with our service is a very encouraging thing.
Tim: I had not thought of that, but actually you are working with people at some of the happiest times of their lives. I can see how interacting with these people every day would be wonderful, and put you and your staff in a good mood as well.
Yes. that’s true. It’s also a pleasure working with the photographers. They are artists who are happy to be chosen to work with couples who like their style. Everyone is really nice, and I really want to help them. I think that we are doing a very good thing here.
I love the fact that Fujii-san considers Famarry to be the happiest business in the world, and she just might right about that.
Famarry, however, also represents a text book example of a beneficial disruptive businesses. The fundamental structure of Famarry results in their costs being much lower and their flexibility being much higher than traditional photography studios. The studios will be forced to either change the way to do business or go out of business.
Hopefully, Famarry will remain a happy business as they continue to grow.
The content of this article first appeared on Disrupting Japan. It has been reproduced by The Bridge with the approval of Disrupting Japan and the article’s author Tim Romero. Tim is a Tokyo-based entrepreneur, podcaster and author who has started four companies and led Japan market entry for others since coming to Japan more than 20 years ago. Tim hosts the Disrupting Japan podcast and is deeply involved in Japan’s startup community as an investor, founder and mentor. There is a bit of a podcast renaissance going on in Japan. The quality varies, of course, so I put together this list of the very best podcasts being made about Japan today. All of the podcasts listed below publish regularly, have solid production values, are genuinely interesting, and have something worthwhile to say about living and doing business in Japan. Please give them a listen, and be sure to let me know if there are any high-quality Japan-focused podcasts that you think should be included. Japanese Lifestyle Podcasts Just Japan Kevin O’Shea podcasts from Kobe, and talks about anything in Japan he finds interesting, which turns out to be a very broad range of topics. The weekly show that includes guests…
The content of this article first appeared on Disrupting Japan. It has been reproduced by The Bridge with the approval of Disrupting Japan and the article’s author Tim Romero.
Tim is a Tokyo-based entrepreneur, podcaster and author who has started four companies and led Japan market entry for others since coming to Japan more than 20 years ago. Tim hosts the Disrupting Japan podcast and is deeply involved in Japan’s startup community as an investor, founder and mentor.
There is a bit of a podcast renaissance going on in Japan. The quality varies, of course, so I put together this list of the very best podcasts being made about Japan today. All of the podcasts listed below publish regularly, have solid production values, are genuinely interesting, and have something worthwhile to say about living and doing business in Japan.
Please give them a listen, and be sure to let me know if there are any high-quality Japan-focused podcasts that you think should be included.
Kevin O’Shea podcasts from Kobe, and talks about anything in Japan he finds interesting, which turns out to be a very broad range of topics. The weekly show that includes guests from all over the country as well as Kevin’s own musings about what life is like for a foreigner living in Japan.
Everyone loves Japanese food, but if you really want to understand it you should listen to Japan Eats. Each week, New York-based food-writer Akiko Katayama and her guests dive in depth into a specific Japanese dish, drink or aspect of Japanese food culture.
A wonderful slice-of-Japan podcast. Each week, Anthony Joh talks with people ranging from English teachers to crime-reporters to professional wrestlers to capture the incredible diversity that is Tokyo. Sadly, Anthony has put this project aside, but the back-episodes are well worth listening to.
An fantastic source of information on startups, venture capital, and innovation in Japan. Each week, Tim Romero sits down over beers with founders and CEOs to talk about fundraising, selling to Japanese enterprises, and the social pressures of starting your own company in Japan.
If you are a Japanese policy wonk, you need to be listening to Tokyo on Fire. In short, weekly videos, Tim Langley and Michael Cucek tear apart a current event and explain what they think the Japanese press is overlooking.
Even though I don’t listen to this much any more, I feel obliged to include it for the sake of completeness. It’s the news. In English. Read to you by NHK. It is always exactly what you expect it to be.
Despite the title, this is not really a news podcast. Each weak, Michael & Mami read a few current event stories in both Japanese and English and then chat about them while bouncing back and fourth between the two languages. It’s perfect for making sure you can talk current events with your Japanese colleagues.
You have to buy a separate subscription if you want access to the full library of Japanese lessons and learning tools, but their free podcast and video lessons are well worth your time. A few times a week, Japanese Pod puts out lessons ranging from very beginner to intermediate levels.
If you are a Japanese history buff, you probably already listen to this podcast. Even if you are not, however, you might want to give it a listen. History scholar Isaac Meyer tells stories of significant Japanese historical events and lets each tale unfold over several months.
This is the official podcast of the Samurai Archives History Forum. The emphasis here is less on historical storytelling and more on detailed analysis of specific events in Japanese history. The hosts also discuss how historical events still influence Japanese society today.
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. From September 13 through 16, San Francisco’s Fort Mason provided the venue for SOCAP (Social Capital Markets) meeting which is held here on an annual basis. Their motto is “where the global community using business as a force for social change gathers to listen to each other, and to learn, and to get things done!” and has been ongoing since 2008 when 600 people took part; this year more than 2,500 participants attended. There were several Japanese entities visiting San Francisco this year. Social Good LLC, which is closely involved with Impact Hub Tokyo, was represented at SOCAP 2016 by Mr. Yutaka (“Charlie”) Iimori. Social Good’s most recent “business” concept is the application of Internet of Things (IoT) technology for the improvement of safety in forested regions. Indonesia is one of the area targeted by them to set up an IoT network based on sensor-laden bird nest boxes. Indonesia not only needs monitoring of the fauna to promote biodiversity but to maintain tropical timber trade conditions as well. By coincidence, the forest fire detection network would also be of use…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
From September 13 through 16, San Francisco’s Fort Mason provided the venue for SOCAP (Social Capital Markets) meeting which is held here on an annual basis. Their motto is “where the global community using business as a force for social change gathers to listen to each other, and to learn, and to get things done!” and has been ongoing since 2008 when 600 people took part; this year more than 2,500 participants attended.
There were several Japanese entities visiting San Francisco this year. Social Good LLC, which is closely involved with Impact Hub Tokyo, was represented at SOCAP 2016 by Mr. Yutaka (“Charlie”) Iimori. Social Good’s most recent “business” concept is the application of Internet of Things (IoT) technology for the improvement of safety in forested regions. Indonesia is one of the area targeted by them to set up an IoT network based on sensor-laden bird nest boxes.
Indonesia not only needs monitoring of the fauna to promote biodiversity but to maintain tropical timber trade conditions as well. By coincidence, the forest fire detection network would also be of use in California, which in recent years has seen many forest fires devastating it. As an aside, it should be noted that Social Good is looking to link startups and non-profits in order to promote community disaster-mitigation activities too.
It is understood that several Japanese tradinghouse-related people were also taking part, since impact investing and “meaning” are “central to such organizations” according to Mr. Yasu Yonemitsu, a consultant who wrote a report for the EU about Sogo Shosha (major Japanese trading companies) and was formerly with Mitsui & Co. He says,
In particular SOCAP focuses on clean energy and sustainable foods/agriculture, so these are areas that keenly interest such Shosha groups.
The first day of SOCAP 2016 centered on neighborhood economics, on the assumption that cities are centers for change. In particular for the San Francisco Bay Area, cities therein have been hotbeds for “open innovation” and “inclusive entrepreneurship” as can be witnessed by the continued growth seen in Silicon Valley and San Francisco’s SOMA (South of Market) district, not to mention areas in the East Bay as exemplified by Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland.
Renewal and resilience were the main themes upon considering neighborhood economics, in addition to the strength of community in fostering a better society. Referring back to the forest fire issue in light of these, there are several novel solutions being mulled in Silicon Valley which calls upon renewal of disaster countermeasures and promotion of resilience as based upon new technologies such as alert-providing drones and mitigation-oriented mobile systems.
Interestingly, SOCAP 2016 overlapped somewhat with TechCrunch Disrupt SF which started on September 12 (unfortunately located this year at Pier48 across town, unlike the nearby venue last year), and one Japanese startup also attempted to disseminate information on their earthquake sensor alarm network as a “pro-community system” at Fort Mason, on the premise that San Francisco and California should become readied for a major earthquake.
This is a guest post by Chi Chia Huang, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka. With the good weather and a couple of nice beers in MTRL Kyoto on September 12th, we kicked off the meetup with a presentation from Naonobu Yamamoto, who is the CEO of Kpnetworks. Following the second presentation by Daigo Sakaida, an open innovation initiative senior principal at Accenture, anchoring the meetup, John Kat, a technology specialist from the British government in the Department of International Trade, shared his insights about what a government can do to support startups and the ecosystem. We were also glad to have our last speaker Keiji Tokuda, the founder and CEO of Keigan, with Keigan’s establish day on this day. Yamamoto presented on the business model of Kpnetworks, and talked about the importance of accelerator program in the startup ecosystem. He also shared his experience with several accelerators. Sakaida discussed the difference between accelerators and incubators. With his clear explanation, we could understand the concept of these two different…
This is a guest post by Chi Chia Huang, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.
Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka.
With the good weather and a couple of nice beers in MTRL Kyoto on September 12th, we kicked off the meetup with a presentation from Naonobu Yamamoto, who is the CEO of Kpnetworks. Following the second presentation by Daigo Sakaida, an open innovation initiative senior principal at Accenture, anchoring the meetup, John Kat, a technology specialist from the British government in the Department of International Trade, shared his insights about what a government can do to support startups and the ecosystem. We were also glad to have our last speaker Keiji Tokuda, the founder and CEO of Keigan, with Keigan’s establish day on this day.
Yamamoto presented on the business model of Kpnetworks, and talked about the importance of accelerator program in the startup ecosystem. He also shared his experience with several accelerators.
Sakaida discussed the difference between accelerators and incubators. With his clear explanation, we could understand the concept of these two different programs. Accelerators are usually a short term program for several months; in contrast, Incubators are mostly long term programs from one to three years. He suggested startups still in seed stage to join incubator programs, and startups in early stage to consider joining accelerator programs. Also he brought up to date numbers showing the startup ecosystem in Japan, pointing out there is still an opportunity for growth.
Kat shared his tips and tricks to overcome the common challenges of startups including networking, funding, management, and marketing. He also emphasized that British government has developed great program to connect researchers from academic world with industrial experts to assist startups and innovation.
Tokuda gave several advice to startups from his business experience and suggested to seek opportunity of collaboration with government.
During the panel discussion, presenters had different insights about how to manage the fund they raised and about how to convince investors to invest them.
Kat gave an interesting comment:
After meeting several venture capitalists, talking with potential investors but you got turned down by all of them…instead of keep trying more to convince the sharks, you should find out the reasons why you got rejected. That is to say, your business model is not completed yet. Try to figure out the bugs and revise them, then seek for the investors again.
Special thanks to Makers Boot Camp and Kyoto city government for holding the amazing meetup. I can’t wait for the next Monozukuri meetup on 12th October, to discuss the major failure for hardware startups: “Design for Manufacture.”