Tokyo-based startup Vasily, which runs online fashion coordination service iQON, announced on Thursday that it has been acquired by Start Today (TSE:3092), the company behind Japan’s leading fashion commerce site Zozotown. Details on financial terms have not been disclosed.
Vasily was founded back in 2008 and subsequently launched fashion coordination service iQON back in April of 2018. Using the mobile app or desktop, the service allows one to combine clothing and accessories online while sharing fashion coordination ideas with other users. Each item has a direct link to fashion e-commerce sites where purchases are made, and the startup will generate revenue from partner sites using an affiliate model. Their mobile app is highly evaluated and has been selected as the best apps several times on the Apple iTunes Appstore and Google Play.
Meanwhile, Start Today, the company behind Zozotown, launched a fashion coordination app called Wear back in 2013, having since acquired 9 million downloads and 6 million coordination pattern posts. According to the financial report of Start Today, the company has annually transacted 212 billion yen (about $1.9 billion US) as of March this year on the Zozotown marketplace.
The content of the partnership between the two companies has not been disclosed. However, it is expected that Start Today and Vasily will jointly conduct a measure to encourage sales leveraging items and user preference data collected by both companies respectively.
Yuki Kanayama, CEO and founder of Vasily, declined our request to disclose the details but he says,
We can’t yet disclose the details about for how much we have been acquired or what we will jointly work with Start Today on. However, all I can sa is that the key will be data. We believe that we can do more business than ever by combining existing and future data held by Start Today and our own Vasily technology.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Truss, providing a building material comparison web service under the same name, earlier this month announced that it had raised 100 million yen (about $890,000) in its latest funding round. The investors of this round include DBJ Capital, Innovation and Future Creation, GMO Venture Partners, SMBC Venture Capital, Minoru Moriya (former Vice President of Japanese fabless printing startup Raksul), Hidetoshi Takano (CEO of Key Players) and Hideto Fujino (CEO of Rheos Capital Works). In addition to the participation for the investment, Moriya joined the management advisory board. Truss was founded by Shuji Kubota, Tetsuya Okimura and Kouki Hirakawa in February of 2014. Since the three are all graduates of Tokyo Institute of Technology (TokyoTech), the firm had acquired designation as a TokyoTech-originated venture. The firm had been managed in bootstrapping mode, securing money by loan or grant of Japan Finance Corporation, so that it is the first equity financing from external organizations for the firm. The Truss platform covers information related to building material products handled by various manufacturers. Generally, information about building materials is provided to builders in the form of heavy catalogues via trading companies, but it is not easy to…
L to R: Founders of Truss – Tetsuya Okimura, Shuji Kubota, Koki Hirakawa
Tokyo-based Truss, providing a building material comparison web service under the same name, earlier this month announced that it had raised 100 million yen (about $890,000) in its latest funding round. The investors of this round include DBJ Capital, Innovation and Future Creation, GMO Venture Partners, SMBC Venture Capital, Minoru Moriya (former Vice President of Japanese fabless printing startup Raksul), Hidetoshi Takano (CEO of Key Players) and Hideto Fujino (CEO of Rheos Capital Works). In addition to the participation for the investment, Moriya joined the management advisory board.
Truss was founded by Shuji Kubota, Tetsuya Okimura and Kouki Hirakawa in February of 2014. Since the three are all graduates of Tokyo Institute of Technology (TokyoTech), the firm had acquired designation as a TokyoTech-originated venture. The firm had been managed in bootstrapping mode, securing money by loan or grant of Japan Finance Corporation, so that it is the first equity financing from external organizations for the firm.
The Truss platform covers information related to building material products handled by various manufacturers. Generally, information about building materials is provided to builders in the form of heavy catalogues via trading companies, but it is not easy to compare these information across different manufacturers because the content is not unified with a single standard. Thereby, building materials are often chosen based on builders’ experience or custom, and the choice tends to depend on a supply chain of a specific manufacturer.
Truss makes all these information about building materials into a database and provides it as a web service. Currently, it mainly covers building exterior, and will add information about facilities, external structure and interior in the future. These information is shown alongside basic information such as fire-resistance capacity in line with government regulations or wholesale price as reference information.
Interestingly, information about building materials cannot be managed as database not only by trading companies but also by manufacturers, and all of it depends on paper catalogue. Truss acquires catalogue-based information from manufacturers and takes on database construction almost manually. The web service is initially positioned as a portal for manufacturers to promote their products to constructors but is desired to be used even by manufacturers or trading companies, yet they are the information source due to usability convenience upon handling product information as a database.
By the way, looking at the history of the Internet, most of the product comparison websites tend to gradually change into marketplaces where a certain amount of profit can be expected. So I asked Kubota about this possibility and he answered that it will be far into the future for Truss to become a marketplace due to several problems.
In the building industry, all payment related to materials is done when transferring the building to the owner after completion. Between material manufacturers and constructors, trading companies mediate and approve deferred payment from the constructors. If the firm aims to establish a marketplace, new business practice is needed to make manufacturers accept deferred payment or constructors, advance payment.
Furthermore, unlike MonotaRO (TSE:3064) which is ahead of other competitors as a market dealing materials or parts or Misumi Group (TSE:9962) which is said to handle 80 sextillion parts (one billion times 80 trillion), logistics capable of delivering comparatively big products to construction sites according to schedule are needed. Currently, only trading companies have the ability to achieve this operation.
The digital transformation of building industry seems to take a long time due to its conservative nature, but Kubota told us that the horizontal service permeation will be possible if it is understood by a portion of the manufacturers, because the Japanese building industry shows more concentration and is in an oligopolistic state compared to those in Western countries. The firm is going to use the acquired money to secure corporate sales staffers who have experience in building design or can enter the building material manufacturing industry.
According to Kubota, Moriya who participated as an angel investor and also became Management Adviser of Truss had once hit upon an idea of marketplace for the materials industry. He gave it up then because he did not know how to do that, so he may entrust his past dream to the firm through his participation.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Neurospace, the Japanese startup developing a program to improve sleep quality for large companies, revealed that it has raised 100 million yen (about $890,000 ) from Real Tech Fund, the investment fund by Euglena, SMBC Nikko, and Leave a Nest Capital. For Neurospace, it follows funds raised from Slogan Coent and individual investors in July 2015 and from Glocalink in December 2016 (both the funding rounds and amounts are undisclosed). In addition to this funding, Neurospace also revealed that it was adopted as a R&D venture support project of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). Since its launch back in in December of 2013, the company has developed a sleep improvement program called Sommnie for corporate health management. Currently the company focuses on what is called a “Sleep Analysis Platform” utilizing AI (artificial intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) technology, and the beta version launched October 11th. With this platform, the company will measure individual sleep data with high precision, provide individualized sleep analysis results, and then offer the optimum solution and improvement data derived from independent analytical technology using AI. The platform makes it possible for companies that intend…
Tokyo-based Neurospace, the Japanese startup developing a program to improve sleep quality for large companies, revealed that it has raised 100 million yen (about $890,000 ) from Real Tech Fund, the investment fund by Euglena, SMBC Nikko, and Leave a Nest Capital. For Neurospace, it follows funds raised from Slogan Coent and individual investors in July 2015 and from Glocalink in December 2016 (both the funding rounds and amounts are undisclosed). In addition to this funding, Neurospace also revealed that it was adopted as a R&D venture support project of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
Since its launch back in in December of 2013, the company has developed a sleep improvement program called Sommnie for corporate health management. Currently the company focuses on what is called a “Sleep Analysis Platform” utilizing AI (artificial intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) technology, and the beta version launched October 11th.
With this platform, the company will measure individual sleep data with high precision, provide individualized sleep analysis results, and then offer the optimum solution and improvement data derived from independent analytical technology using AI. The platform makes it possible for companies that intend to promote the health and productivity of employees and companies that are considering entering into the sleep business to incorporate into the improvement of management with the company services and IoT products through API (application programming interface).
As a PoC (proof of concept) test of the “Sleep Analysis Platform”, the company distributed a device to measure sleep and an app that presents a sleeping solution from the measured data to shift workers at Yoshinoya, a major Japanese beef bowl restaurant chain. It plans to demonstrate and brush up the effectiveness of the platform after conducting one month of sleep measurements and recommending measure for improvement and shift adjustment.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. San Francisco-based Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics enterprise SEO (search engine optimization) platform, announced today that it will fully acquire Withfluence, the Tokyo- and Bangkok-based startup offering an influencer marketing management platform under the same name. Both parties will work together to offer web marketing solutions more comprehensively for enterprise users. Withfluence was founded in May of 2016 by Hiroyuki Okamoto (CEO), who was previously running media and ad companies in Vietnam, along with Keiichi Honma (CTO) having developed web services and a translation app for foreign visitors to Japan. Before Withfluence, Okamoto and Honma developed a Thailand-based instant e-commerce platform described as an “Asian version” of Shopify, but after attending the 12th batch of Open Network Lab’s Accelerator Program shifted their attention to the launch of Withfluence. The company participated in several pitch events in Bangkok supported by the Japanese Embassy to Thailand as well as JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), followed by securing partnership with Thailand’s second-largest telco True back in April this year. Meanwhile, Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics platform, was founded in May of 2010 by Ray Grieselhuber and other serial entrepreneurs. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company…
San Francisco-based Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics enterprise SEO (search engine optimization) platform, announced today that it will fully acquire Withfluence, the Tokyo- and Bangkok-based startup offering an influencer marketing management platform under the same name. Both parties will work together to offer web marketing solutions more comprehensively for enterprise users.
Meanwhile, Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics platform, was founded in May of 2010 by Ray Grieselhuber and other serial entrepreneurs. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has now become a global solution provider with offices in Columbus (Ohio, US) and Tokyo (Japan) as well as operations in Warsaw (Poland), Lahore (Pakistan) and Toronto (Canada).
L to R: Ginzamarkets CEO Ray Grieselhuber, Withfluence CEO Hiro Okamoto
Grieselhuber and Okamoto first met each other ten years ago. Followed by working for the Japanese subsidiary of Mezi Media (subsequently acquired by Value Click Brands), Okamoto was involved in managing overseas operations at Japanese digital agency Irep (TSE:2132). Though the Japanese adtech industry was still in an early stage at that time, Okamoto had been promoting business partnerships with foreign adtech companies and digital agencies.
When Okamoto first met Grieselhuber, the latter was running a digtal agency called Firewatching Media. Grieselhuber subsequently launched Ginzamarkets and participated in the Y Combinator program. Despite being asked by Grieselhuber to join the Ginzamarkets team, Okamoto declined the request to carry out his original intention to launch his own startup. Okamoto told The Bridge that Grieselhuber is the former’s senior in the SaaS (software as a service) startup sector.
In terms of the business perspective, GinzaMetrics and Withfluence are complementing each other. GinzaMetrics had been finding a way to give their global brand clients a better access to influencer marketing opportunities while Withfluence had been exploring a good partner that can offer comprehensive online marketing solutions together.
With the acquisition at this time, Withfluence plans to launch a total roll-out of their managed influencer marketing service, strengthen system integration with the GinzaMetrics platform, as well as expanding into Japan, Hong Kong and Mainland China beyond their current coverage of the Southeast Asia market.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Beer and Tech, the Japanese startup behind a houseplants delivery flower delivery service called HitoHana announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised 100 million yen (about $890K US) in the latest fundraising round. This round was led by Global Brain with participation from Anri. Technically it was the series B round, but due to Beer and Tech pivotting the direction of the business since the latest funding is actually equivalent to a series A round. In the previous rounds Beer and Tech raised funds from Anri, Primal Capital, and East Ventures. Norihisa Morita, who previously worked for an internet ad agency, and his team founded Beer and Tech in August of 2014. In October of the same year the company announced its Smart Reservation service at Incubate Camp 7th, the bootcamp program by Tokyo-based VC firm Incubate Fund. The company continued the service for almost one year, but decided there was a limited scale, and Morita, who comes from a family of orchid farmers, has since pivoted to focus on problems that crop up in the flower and plant industry by starting HitoHana in 2015. Honing in on consumers’ demand for interior decoration…
At HitoHana’s fulfillment center in Saitama Beer and Tech CEO Norihisa Morita (right) and CTO Yoshiaki Ito (left) Image credit: Beer and Tech
Tokyo-based Beer and Tech, the Japanese startup behind a houseplants delivery flower delivery service called HitoHana announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised 100 million yen (about $890K US) in the latest fundraising round. This round was led by Global Brain with participation from Anri. Technically it was the series B round, but due to Beer and Tech pivotting the direction of the business since the latest funding is actually equivalent to a series A round. In the previous rounds Beer and Tech raised funds from Anri, Primal Capital, and East Ventures.
Norihisa Morita, who previously worked for an internet ad agency, and his team founded Beer and Tech in August of 2014. In October of the same year the company announced its Smart Reservation service at Incubate Camp 7th, the bootcamp program by Tokyo-based VC firm Incubate Fund. The company continued the service for almost one year, but decided there was a limited scale, and Morita, who comes from a family of orchid farmers, has since pivoted to focus on problems that crop up in the flower and plant industry by starting HitoHana in 2015.
Honing in on consumers’ demand for interior decoration
HitoHana Image credit: Beer and Tech
As a variety of products are being sold online, the flower and plant industry is one area where digitization has not advanced. In fact, many of current flower and plant e-commerce site basically offer the same potted plants and bouquets which can be bought in offline stores; so, the realization of the long tail for products, which is one of the big advantages of e-commerce, is by and far not being accomplished.
site for businesses, but then judged that it is impossible to make the service stand out because the orders stemming from corporate demands concentrate on obtaining adequate products, cheap and fast. He decided to specialize in the demand for individual’s interior decoration in accordance with the texture of the room and furniture which is paid for by themselves.
In physical flower shops in town, there are limitations on the variations of products, so consumers are limited when choosing products that suit their tastes. HitoHana has established a fulfillment center that can freely combine plants, vases, bowls and the like to create innumerable variations of products. Based on a multitude of order information, the company built a system to accurately discover the hit products and predict future big sellers in order to replenish stock.
When we think about potential competing companies in the Japanese flower and plant industry, online and offline, we come up with names like Hibiya-Kadan Floral, Aoyama Flower Market, Hana Cupid, E-flora, etc. Unfortunately, statistics relating to the number of orders and e-commerce sales are not disclosed anywhere, but based on the premise that the number of website accesses converts at a certain ratio, the ranking of the number of accesses should generally reflect the permutation of their online sales. HitoHana, with less than two years since the start of the service, has surpassed veteran businesses and ranks in the top five, largely thanks to the success of its product variations and SEO (search engine optimization) measures. Currently HitoHana deals strictly in potted plants, but even so, it is just a matter of time before they reach the top in this field.
Leveraging fine-tuned logistics for consignment business
HitoHana Image credit: Beer and Tech
Although there are exceptions, it is generally difficult to send plants such as potted plants by ordinary courier service. Considering constraints in packing, attending to those plants that require temperature control and delivering tall or irregularly-sized plants, in the end, it seems that it is more efficient for the company to create its own logistics network.
When ordering a plant with HitoHana, your item will be delivered using the company’s own logistics network if your address is within the Tokyo metropolitan area. However, Beer and Tech also conducts consignment sales at storefronts of retailers throughout the city by delivering products making the use of vacancy in the logistics. For example, consumers can purchase furniture and potted plants together in these stores while coordinating their interiors. Morita related confidently that here, as with e-commerce, the company uses its own logistics to efficiently deliver goods and replace products in addition to applying a data-driven approach, so depending on store campaigns and consumer needs it is easy upgrade the product lineup.
One example of placing the burden of the logistics of physical stores onto e-commerce businesses, and taking efforts to optimize over-the-counter product lineups, can be seen in the recent tie-up of Japanese major sports retailer chain Alpen and a big name in shoe-centric e-commerce site Locondo. As major chains with physical stores shift to SPA (Specialty retailer of Private Apparel) in order to reduce costs and gain profits, they learn more about the D2C (Direct to Consumer) model, so we can expect to see more linking up of e-commerce companies, with their ability to offer variety and efficient fulfillment and logistics, with physical stores in the future.
Currently, HitoHana operates in the Tokyo metropolitan area under its own logistics, and for other areas the company users regular delivery services to convey orders from interior coordinators and renovation companies, meaning there is no need for stock replacement.
Based on the funds raised this time, the company will open fulfillment centers in Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka and other areas and wants to expand its own logistics network so that services equivalent to those in the Tokyo metropolitan area can be offered nationwide. The company deals only with potted plants for now, but plans to adopt flower experts like florists to handle cut flowers, etc.
In this same field, Bloom & Wild, which was founded in the UK in 2013, has raised about 6.25 million pounds (about 930 million yen) while US benchmarks include 1-800-Flowers (NASDAQ:FLWS) and The Bouqs Company established in 2012 (which has raised $43.1M US so far).
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. MagicPrice and Hotel Banzuke are both AI-powered pricing strategy support platforms for hotels, helping find them the optimal price, i.e. not too expensive but also not too cheap for lodgings. Tokyo-based Sora, the Japanese startup behind these platforms, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised 80 million yen (about $710K US) in funding from 500 Startups Japan, Daiwa Corporate Investment, several angel investors, and loans from the Japan Finance Corporation. The funding round is unknown. Sora was founded in 2015 by Daiki Matsumura, who previously worked in ad-tech at Yahoo Japan. In March of 2016 the company won the Colopl Prize at Tech Lab Paak’s 3rd batch Demo Day, and in July 2016 the team participated in Incubate Camp 9th, followed in August 2016 when it was adopted as a participating team in the 500 Kobe Pre-accelerator. Due to its participation in these three events, in July 2016 Sora secured 20 million yen (about $178K US) in a seed round from 500 Startups Japan, Incubate Fund, and Kotaro Chiba (the judge in charge of awarding the Colopl Award at Tech Lab Paak’s 3rd batch Demo Day). MagicPrice, which launched as a beta version in…
The Sora management team along with some of their investors Image credit: Sora
MagicPrice and Hotel Banzuke are both AI-powered pricing strategy support platforms for hotels, helping find them the optimal price, i.e. not too expensive but also not too cheap for lodgings. Tokyo-based Sora, the Japanese startup behind these platforms, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised 80 million yen (about $710K US) in funding from 500 Startups Japan, Daiwa Corporate Investment, several angel investors, and loans from the Japan Finance Corporation. The funding round is unknown.
Sora was founded in 2015 by Daiki Matsumura, who previously worked in ad-tech at Yahoo Japan. In March of 2016 the company won the Colopl Prize at Tech Lab Paak’s 3rd batch Demo Day, and in July 2016 the team participated in Incubate Camp 9th, followed in August 2016 when it was adopted as a participating team in the 500 Kobe Pre-accelerator. Due to its participation in these three events, in July 2016 Sora secured 20 million yen (about $178K US) in a seed round from 500 Startups Japan, Incubate Fund, and Kotaro Chiba (the judge in charge of awarding the Colopl Award at Tech Lab Paak’s 3rd batch Demo Day).
A screenshot of MagicPrice Image credit: Sora
MagicPrice, which launched as a beta version in July 2016, allows hotels to calculate optimal prices based on machine learning using imported their reservation history data and curated pricing data of their neighboring competitor hotels. The prices will be reflected on companies’ website or ticket reservation / OTA (online travel agent) website via ‘site controller’ systems. As hotel back offices are usually busy, the service operates without functions that require literacy, and seeks to automate operations as fully as possible. It can be labeled an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) for hotels. In March of this year, Sora partnered with Dynatec, a Yahoo Japan subsidiary and a leading system integrator for the hotel industry.
A screenshot of Hotel Banzuke Image credit: Sora
Meanwhile, the Hotel Banzuke platform was started in late August and allows hotel owners to view how much the competing hotels in their vicinity were reserved for and how many sales they had compared with the users’ own on any particular day. According to calculations using the room price and the number of available rooms open to the public on websites, more than 10,000 cases of hotel data can be calculated automatically every day. Hotel Banzuke is provided completely free, and is assumed to be an introductory promotion for MagicPrice.
Sora has not released the current number of MagicPrice users, but for the time being it is aiming to acquire 5,000 users, which is about 10% of Japanese hotels and ryokan. With regards to Hotel Banzuke, the company has revealed that more than 500 individuals in the hotel sector have completed user registration since its launch about a month ago.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Masaru Ikeda
