KMG was built reforming the garage next to the Kyoto Central Wholesale Market and consists of four elements: “co-working space” usable as share office, “maker space” for manufacturing, “event space” and “gallery space”; in partnership with accelerators focusing on hardware startup outside Japan (such as Usine IO of Paris and Fab Foundry of New York), KMG plans to actively hold hackathon or meet-up events as a hub for entrepreneurs or creators from all over the world.
Daisaku Kadokawa, Mayor of Kyoto City, makes a speech at the opening party. Image credit: Makers Boot Camp
The maker space of KMG is equipped with fused deposition modeling-type 3D printer (additive manufacturing equipment), laser cutter and desktop CNC milling device. Users have to attend charged lecture in advance when using the equipment. KMG also provides service in English to support hardware startups and entrepreneurs from abroad.
The establishment of KMG was realized through the acceptance of DTL’s proposal by the municipal participation program for citizens, Machizukuri Otakara Bank, managed by Kyoto City. Access to KMG is 10 minutes on foot from Tanbaguchi Station of JR West San-in Main Line, or 5 minutes from Sichijo-senbon Bus Stop of Kyoto City Bus. It is open from 11 am to 6 pm on weekdays.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Infostellar, the Japanese startup developing and offering an antenna sharing platform for satellite operations, announced today that it has secured $7.3 million in a series A round. This round was led by Airbus Ventures with participation from Weru Investment, D4V plus Sony Innovation Fund as well as two existing investors, FreakOut Holdings and 500 Startups Japan. Following the latest fund inflow, Infostellar has appointed Dr. Lewis Pinault, Managing Investment Partner for Airbus Ventures in Japan, to their company board. Infostellar claims that it will use the funds to expand its network of partner antennas participating in the StellarStation antenna sharing platform and hire additional talented team members. For the company, the latest round follows their seed round raising 60 million yen (about $545,000) back in October of 2016 and securing a grant worth 51.24 million yen ($465,000) from ICT Innovation Creation Challenge Program run by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC). While the usage of commercial satellites has risen sharply, satellite owners are facing a problem that requires the building of several base stations on the ground to interact with a satellite because one base station can interact with a…
Tokyo-based Infostellar, the Japanese startup developing and offering an antenna sharing platform for satellite operations, announced today that it has secured $7.3 million in a series A round. This round was led by Airbus Ventures with participation from Weru Investment, D4V plus Sony Innovation Fund as well as two existing investors, FreakOut Holdings and 500 Startups Japan. Following the latest fund inflow, Infostellar has appointed Dr. Lewis Pinault, Managing Investment Partner for Airbus Ventures in Japan, to their company board.
Infostellar claims that it will use the funds to expand its network of partner antennas participating in the StellarStation antenna sharing platform and hire additional talented team members. For the company, the latest round follows their seed round raising 60 million yen (about $545,000) back in October of 2016 and securing a grant worth 51.24 million yen ($465,000) from ICT Innovation Creation Challenge Program run by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC).
While the usage of commercial satellites has risen sharply, satellite owners are facing a problem that requires the building of several base stations on the ground to interact with a satellite because one base station can interact with a low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites for only 40 minutes four times a day due to orbital motion. By partnering with multiple base station owners, Infostellar aims to build a sharing platform of base stations for satellite owners. For base station owners, during the time when they are not able to use their antennas to interact with their own satellite, they can rent out these antennas to other satellite operators through the platform.
How StellarStation works
Every satellite or station typically adopts their unique and different communication protocol, but Infostellar allows satellite owners to use third party base stations by standardizing the protocol through cloud- and hardware-based data format/signal conversion technologies. Since many of these LEO satellites are non-geostationary, the company can assign an available time slot and a base station to a satellite owner by calculating which satellite will be located within the coverage of which station. Base station owners will share user charges.
Infostellar completed a prototype back in January this year, subsequently partnering with base stations owned by universities in Ghana, Taiwan, Mongolia and Thailand in March with the aim of rolling out a full-scale service commercially by next spring.
See the original story in Japanese. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG, TSE:8316) earlier this month launched their first open-innovation base named Hoops Link Tokyo in central Shibuya, Tokyo. The group utilizes the venue to hold pitch events, meet-up, and seminars tying up with external organizations related to the startup ecosystem. At the beginning of the press conference held on the launch day, Jun Ota (Executive Vice President, SMFG) who presides over open-innovation activities of the group made an opening speech. Since established IT Innovation Department in SMFG two year ago, the group has been financially participating various new business where synergy effects with financial service can be expected, in order to activate the whole digital transformation within the group: SMBC GMO Payment (payments processing joint venture with GMO Payment Gateway), Brees (barcode-based payment service developing together with NEC), Polarify (biometric authentication system jointly developing with NTT Data and Daon), Financial Link (artificial intelligence- and robotic process automation- powered business process outsourcing service jointly developing with NEC, to be soon rebranded into NCore). The group has been mainly cooperating with large enterprises so far, but aims strengthening of coordination with startups on the occasion of the establishment of Hoops Link. Also,…
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG, TSE:8316) earlier this month launched their first open-innovation base named Hoops Link Tokyo in central Shibuya, Tokyo. The group utilizes the venue to hold pitch events, meet-up, and seminars tying up with external organizations related to the startup ecosystem.
Jun Ota (Executive VP / Chief Digital Innovation Officer, SMFG makes opening speech at the press conference
At the beginning of the press conference held on the launch day, Jun Ota (Executive Vice President, SMFG) who presides over open-innovation activities of the group made an opening speech. Since established IT Innovation Department in SMFG two year ago, the group has been financially participating various new business where synergy effects with financial service can be expected, in order to activate the whole digital transformation within the group: SMBC GMO Payment (payments processing joint venture with GMO Payment Gateway), Brees (barcode-based payment service developing together with NEC), Polarify (biometric authentication system jointly developing with NTT Data and Daon), Financial Link (artificial intelligence- and robotic process automation- powered business process outsourcing service jointly developing with NEC, to be soon rebranded into NCore). The group has been mainly cooperating with large enterprises so far, but aims strengthening of coordination with startups on the occasion of the establishment of Hoops Link.
Also, on the same day, SMFG announced the cooperation with Work-Bench running accelerator for enterprises in the US and StartX, the accelerator of Stanford University. SMFG also unveiled it will start a startup acceleration program in 2018. The detail of the program is still under consideration but is expected to partly adopt conventional activities including Mirai Hackathon or the Mirai incubation initiative which were presented by SMFG or Mitsui Sumitomo Bank.
As open-innovation venues run by major banks, there are some similar cases within Japan, such as The Garage by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG, TSE:8306) and Diagonal Run Tokyo by Fukuoka Financial Group (FFG, TSE:8354). In addition, open-innovation activities can be seen recently in the whole financial service industry; Mizuho Bank established a lab within Finolab partnering with NTT Data for its open-innovation support program, Credit Saison (TSE:8253) launched DG Lab jointly with Digital Garage (TSE:4819) and others, JCB started operation of an acceleration program JCB Payment Lab supported by Quantum.
Interview with SMFG’s Goya Furukawa, Manager of Hoops Link Tokyo
Please tell us the history about how SMFG came to start Hoops Link Tokyo:
Goya Furukawa (IT Innovation Dpt., SMFG)
I had been sent to Los Angeles to study abroad until last year. In that neighborhood, there is Silicon Beach known as casual business base including Snapchat but I had received few information that startup business has become active in the Japanese financial industry.
By contrast, I daily heard news about the startups leading fintech or the fintech buyout by banks, such as Venmo known for the P2P money transfer.
Having an awareness of the problem about the difference between Japan and the US, I was assigned to a department in charge of fintech. The Japanese banks are still exclusive and our information given from Otemachi (where Sumitomo Mitsui Banking headquarters and fintech hub exist) will not reach to rising startups which we really deliver it to. To be closer with these startups, I thought we should establish a base in Shibuya.
What will you do in Hoops Link Tokyo?
The pure investment work is not main mission in Hoops Link Tokyo. Its first aim is to broaden business range or to be a base to create new business. Although we have a system covering strategic investment, I think it is important whether a startup deserves collaboration with us. Anyway, since our possible partners have not recognized it yet, our immediate aim is to meet them and stay close with them.
We will support doing something together or matching with another. If we received requests to collaborate with bank or group companies, Hoops Link Tokyo works as the window, as one and more SMFG staffers always stay there. We are also considering Office Hour-like service (walk-in consultation in the business hour) inviting staffers from group companies.
Geodesic Capital (the fund known as being founded by ex-the US Ambassador to Japan John Roos) and ERA (Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator) are in cooperative relationship with us and will introduce us investment / support targets in the US. I want to realize cooperative activities centered on Hoops Link Tokyo; we have these funds to introduce startups having technologies / idea adoptable to our service or we can support these startups when they advance into the Japanese market.
Can you tell us the hours of operation and the frequency of events?
The hours of operation of Hoops Link Tokyo is from 9am to 9pm on weekdays. We plan to hold about three events in a week, mostly at night. Setting the third week of September as “executive week”, we will provide sessions over five consecutive nights having guests who performs as mentors in Hoops Link Tokyo (accepting reservation for participation on the website).
We have to take priority of holding events initially, but I want everyone to recognize where we are and which kind of network we have. I will be glad if they think that bank is an open environment than expected or are concerned about the possibility of collaboration.
Do you have KPI (key performance indicator)-like measure for Hoops Link Tokyo?
We did not set KPI for Hoops Link Tokyo. However, it would be meaningless if it does not achieve any long-term outcome. To stretch a point, the final KPI of Hoops Link Tokyo will be the exit how we succeeded in business creation.
Photos of Hoops Link Tokyo
You can mark Shibuya West Branch of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, next to Mega-Donki. Hoops Link Tokyo is on the 6th floor of the building.Exiting the elevator, you can see the entrance decorated with photographs in sepia tone, bringing back memories of old good days.Under the theme of challenges in difficult situations, Hoops Link Tokyo is designed in the motif of a bar in 1920s during prohibition. The bookshelf works as a hidden door.Each meeting room is named after cocktails such as Grasshopper or Bluesky.Kitchen will be useful in events, stocking a large amount of liquers.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Maipple, the Japanese startup developing and offering a fashion marketplace app for Taiwanese consumers under the same name, announced last week that it has an influencer marketing platform for Asia called Tag Asia. As th platform gets its start, Maipple will partner with Asobisystem, the Tokyo-based model agency best known for managing J-pop artist Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, with the agency handling the management contracts for influencers. In December of 2015, Maipple launched the influencer marketing-powered fashion marketplace app through its Taiwanese subsidiary Stylepick, subsequently switched gears to a luxury fashion marketplace. The company has formed a network of about 500 influencers in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong for the marketplace app, but extracted the marketing function from the app so that companies which are not even using Maipple can take advantage of it, and this is Tag Asia. Maipple’s founder and CEO Kotaro Nagamatsu shared the following. We were originally doing influencer marketing, but it was only introductory-based. The release of Tag Asia stems from the growth of our marketing needs due to the effectiveness of Maipple and other projects leveraging influencers. Meanwhile, for Asobisystem, whose models are a driving force behind Tokyo’s Harajuku…
Maipple, the Japanese startup developing and offering a fashion marketplace app for Taiwanese consumers under the same name, announced last week that it has an influencer marketing platform for Asia called Tag Asia. As th platform gets its start, Maipple will partner with Asobisystem, the Tokyo-based model agency best known for managing J-pop artist Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, with the agency handling the management contracts for influencers.
In December of 2015, Maipple launched the influencer marketing-powered fashion marketplace app through its Taiwanese subsidiary Stylepick, subsequently switched gears to a luxury fashion marketplace. The company has formed a network of about 500 influencers in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong for the marketplace app, but extracted the marketing function from the app so that companies which are not even using Maipple can take advantage of it, and this is Tag Asia.
Maipple’s founder and CEO Kotaro Nagamatsu shared the following.
We were originally doing influencer marketing, but it was only introductory-based. The release of Tag Asia stems from the growth of our marketing needs due to the effectiveness of Maipple and other projects leveraging influencers.
Active influencers from around Asia on Tag Asia Image credit: Maipple
Meanwhile, for Asobisystem, whose models are a driving force behind Tokyo’s Harajuku and “Kawaii Culture” and attend events worldwide, and their own Rina Tanaka being appointed a Taipei City Tourism Ambassador, the desire to appoint models and influencers from Japan with a focus on Taiwanese companies as a way to reach all of Asia is increasing. It is in the mutual interests of both companies, then, to use Maipple’s management contracts with influencers with Asobisystem’s models for influencer marketing.
In June 2016, Maipple revealed that the company had succeeded in raising seed funds from GX Incubate, which operates Gaiax’s Sharing Economy Fund, and three angel investors.
Asobisystem recently partnered with e-commerce platform Base and Candee’s “Live Shop!” in the field of live commerce where performers introduce products in a livestreamed video. For some time now the company has also been cooperating with C Channel, a Japanese video fashion media for women expanding into various Asian countries, and with the new partnership between Maipple and Asobisystem we can expect to see more advancement of their models throughout Asia.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tech Bureau, the Japanese startup offering cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, announced today that it has fundraissed 1.6 billion yen (about $14.7 million) from Tokyo-based enterprise software company Infoteria (TSE:3853) and investment firm Jafco (TSE:8595). According to the Nikkei, the funds will be used to enhance infrastructure and service development of Zaif, the company’s cryptocurrency exchange, also focusing on expanding Mijin and their other private blockchain-based products to the European and Asian markets. The company is about to launch a token sale on October 2nd for their COMSA platform for ICOs (initial coin offerings) while the Nikkei article says that the project has remarkably attracted over 120,000 registrants who manifest interest in the sale. The COMSA platform will raise funds through a token sale for improving the service environment of itself. So the funds in the latest announcement is cash injection into Tech Bureau rather than the COMSA platform, separately dealt with by the purpose of use. Speaking of the COMSA platform, Japanese financial information provider Fisco (TSE:3807), Nippon Technology Venture Partners (NTVP) and ABBALab have recently committed to investing in CMS (the platform’s token coin) and XEM (NEM cryptocurrency). Tech Bureau announced yesterday that…
Tech Bureau, the Japanese startup offering cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, announced today that it has fundraissed 1.6 billion yen (about $14.7 million) from Tokyo-based enterprise software company Infoteria (TSE:3853) and investment firm Jafco (TSE:8595). According to the Nikkei, the funds will be used to enhance infrastructure and service development of Zaif, the company’s cryptocurrency exchange, also focusing on expanding Mijin and their other private blockchain-based products to the European and Asian markets.
The company is about to launch a token sale on October 2nd for their COMSA platform for ICOs (initial coin offerings) while the Nikkei article says that the project has remarkably attracted over 120,000 registrants who manifest interest in the sale.
The COMSA platform will raise funds through a token sale for improving the service environment of itself. So the funds in the latest announcement is cash injection into Tech Bureau rather than the COMSA platform, separately dealt with by the purpose of use.
Speaking of the COMSA platform, Japanese financial information provider Fisco (TSE:3807), Nippon Technology Venture Partners (NTVP) and ABBALab have recently committed to investing in CMS (the platform’s token coin) and XEM (NEM cryptocurrency). Tech Bureau announced yesterday that Japanese angel investor Kotaro Chiba has invested bitcoins worth $1 million US in the COMSA platform in the pre-sale phase.
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based WAmazing, the Japanese startup offering free SIM cards and tourism services to foreign visitors to Japan, announced today that it has secured funding in the latest round. Participating investors in this round were SBI Investment, Mizuho Capital, Sony Innovation Fund, Beenos, Opt Ventures and Shizuoka Capital, as well as two angel investors, Naoki Aoyagi (former Gree CFO) and Nobuhiro Ariyasu (founder of Coach United / member of Tokyo Founders Fund). Coinciding with loans from government-backed Japan Finance Corporation along with Mizuho Bank and Shizuoka Bank, WAmazing secured a total of 1 billion yen (about $9.2 million) in funding and debt but the financial terms have not been disclosed. The company claims that the funds will be used to enhance service development and human resources. See also: This startup offers free SIM cards at airport to help foreign visitors get around Japan The service packages together a SIM card, a tour guide app and information on reservations by working with smartphones. In addition to an iOS app which has been available since the launch of the service, they released an Android app back in August and expanded the locations…
Foreign visitors picking up a free SIM card from a WAmazing vending machine at Chubu Centrair Airport Image credit: WAmazing
Tokyo-based WAmazing, the Japanese startup offering free SIM cards and tourism services to foreign visitors to Japan, announced today that it has secured funding in the latest round. Participating investors in this round were SBI Investment, Mizuho Capital, Sony Innovation Fund, Beenos, Opt Ventures and Shizuoka Capital, as well as two angel investors, Naoki Aoyagi (former Gree CFO) and Nobuhiro Ariyasu (founder of Coach United / member of Tokyo Founders Fund).
Coinciding with loans from government-backed Japan Finance Corporation along with Mizuho Bank and Shizuoka Bank, WAmazing secured a total of 1 billion yen (about $9.2 million) in funding and debt but the financial terms have not been disclosed. The company claims that the funds will be used to enhance service development and human resources.
The service packages together a SIM card, a tour guide app and information on reservations by working with smartphones. In addition to an iOS app which has been available since the launch of the service, they released an Android app back in August and expanded the locations of vending machines offering SIM cards from all three terminals at Narita Airport into Chubu Centrair Airport in central Japan, near Nagoya. The number of hotels that users can book through the app has reached 10,000 as of now.
In response to our question to Fumiko Kato, CEO of WAmazing, she told us the app had been installed 35,000 times and 12,000 SIM cards had been distributed as of the end of August. These stats are only for iOS app users and do not include that of Android users.
Kato shared their future outlook:
About 80% of visitors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, the demographics we are targeting, are using Android handsets. According to the survey we conducted among our 2,000 users, we found that about 70% of them had visited Japan at least once an year.
Since the interval between their visits to Japan is shorter than expected, we expect these repeat users to contribute more to our user growth. We aim to surpass 100,000 users by the end of next March.
The company recently added a payments function to its mobile app so that users can complete payments when booking a hotel online. Now they are planning to introduce a robot for distributing SIM cards to users at more locations, aiming to gain 80% of the market for foreign visitors using all airports across Japan within this year.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
