Similar to Singapore that has won a place as a startup hub in the entire Southeast Asian region, we recently reported in a coverage of Transform Africa Summit that Rwanda wants to become one in the Sub-Saharan African region. And now, there’s one young Japanese who has moved here to start fostering local startups. He is Takuma Terakubo who previously worked for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate.
Terakubo revealed this time around that he has founded Leapfrog Ventures, a joint venture with Samurai Incubate, to invest in seed-stage startups of Eastern Africa, centered on Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. The fund is worth 500 million yen (approximately $4.5 million), with planned investment up to $50,000 in each of about 80 startups. The company’s name is derived from Leapfrogging, which is often seen in the Next Billion market these days.
Terakubo joined Q&A session at the Face the Gorillas reality show at Transform Africa Summit in May. Image credit: Kozue Ishii
The fund’s targeted verticals include logistics, finance, healthcare, agriculture and energy-related businesses. Terakubo is serving JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) in Rwanda as an ICT incubator for the organization’s innovation ecosystem strengthening project, in addition to having built solid relationships with Rwandan governmental agencies and VC firms/accelerators in neighboring countries. He intends to deal with prominent local startups to invest in leveraging these vast networks. He is expected to be based at kLab, a renowned co-working space in the Rwandan capital, plus at other locations.
In addition to making massive investments in local startups, Leapfrog Ventures wants to foster entrepreneurs by leveraging the region’s unique demographics that the younger generation accounts for the vast majority. By forming Tech SandBox in cooperation with the Rwandan Government, the company wants to create open innovation opportunities between Japan and Rwanda so that Japanese companies can easily conduct PoC (proof-of-concept) tests without concern about regulations.
Partnerships with VCs/accelerators in Africa Image credit: Leapfrog Ventures
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Micin, the Japanese startup offering the Curon mobile telemedicine app and a medical data business for corporations, announced earlier this month that it has fundraised a total of 1.1 billion yen (around $9.9M US) by the end of April this year in a series A round. Mitsubishi Corporation, along with three other unnamed Japanese companies, participated this round. Micin was founded in November of 2015 by Seigo Hara (current CEO), Yusuke Sugomori (current CTO), and Ryoichi Kusama (current COO). Hara previously worked as a clinician and was involved in consulting for the medical industry, pharmaceutical industry, and for hospitals at McKinsey. Sugomori is a founding member of Japanese curated news app Gunosy and crowdfunding site Readyfor, and previously worked for Google’s New York office. Kusama, like Hara, hails from McKinsey where he was involved in many patient engagement projects. Curon is a platform which includes SaaS (software as a service) to reduce the amount of work for physicians who input information during medical consultations, which then improves work efficiency. For patients, Curon provides a mobile app with consultation, prescription, and payment functions, as well as continuous medication support. In the two years since…
L to R: Micin CEO Seigo Hara, CTO Yusuke Sugomori, COO Ryoichi Kusama Image credit: Micin
Tokyo-based Micin, the Japanese startup offering the Curon mobile telemedicine app and a medical data business for corporations, announced earlier this month that it has fundraised a total of 1.1 billion yen (around $9.9M US) by the end of April this year in a series A round. Mitsubishi Corporation, along with three other unnamed Japanese companies, participated this round.
Micin was founded in November of 2015 by Seigo Hara (current CEO), Yusuke Sugomori (current CTO), and Ryoichi Kusama (current COO). Hara previously worked as a clinician and was involved in consulting for the medical industry, pharmaceutical industry, and for hospitals at McKinsey. Sugomori is a founding member of Japanese curated news app Gunosy and crowdfunding site Readyfor, and previously worked for Google’s New York office. Kusama, like Hara, hails from McKinsey where he was involved in many patient engagement projects.
Curon is a platform which includes SaaS (software as a service) to reduce the amount of work for physicians who input information during medical consultations, which then improves work efficiency. For patients, Curon provides a mobile app with consultation, prescription, and payment functions, as well as continuous medication support. In the two years since the service launched approximately 500 medical institutions have introduced it. Meanwhile, in the field of medical data where previously it was only possible to obtain public information, the company uses AI to comprehend the knowledge of stakeholders in the medical field and of medical systems and policies. It also combines networks to provide medical data and analysis results in a form that is easy for companies to utilize.
Curon Image credit: Micin
Mitsubishi Corporation has a number of subsidiaries with sales channels in medical institutions including MC Healthcare, MC Medical, and Japan Medicalnext. Micin hopes to use the funds strategically procured this time around to expand its user base through the Mitsubishi Corporation subsidiaries. Additionally, it will use the funds to strengthen its human resources including data scientists and business developers, with special attention to the data business.
With regards to Micin’s future goals, Hara had this to say during an interview with The Bridge:
By providing data in a form that makes it easy to use, we will be able to further predict the condition of the human body, the condition of an illness, etc. By having (AI) learn the what skilled doctors know (the unformatted knowledge), many doctors will be able to use it, which will also spur on preventative medicine.
Hara expects that Micin’s efforts can also contribute to the scalability of the medical market. A doctor’s skill is often passed down tacitly, for example, how to become good at performing surgeries, and it tends to be dependent upon individual expertise. Until now it has only been possible to scale the medical industry based on medical devices or medicines, but Micin has imagined a system that can distribute the medical knowledge that is the core of the medical industry.
Micin’s competitors in the field of healthcare include online businesses Medley, Integrity Healthcare, and MRT; and LPixel’s System Integrator is one example of a competitor dealing in medical data. Micin is forming cooperative relationships with the big players in the healthcare industry, including the undisclosed investors from this round, which is expected to further accelerate its growth.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup BitStar, the company behind influencer support platform under the same name and YouTuber production E-DGE, announced earlier this month that it has partnered with Fun Japan Communications (Fun! Japan for short) to start offering promotion services targeting the Greater China and Southeast Asian markets. Fun! Japan is an online community for “Japan freaks” consisting of 4.4 million followers and 760,000 members living in the Asian market. It aims to help Japanese companies expand into Asia or invite more visitors from the region by developing touchpoints with consumers, measuring the performance of online promotional activities,or building up a long-term relationship with locals. The partnership with Fun! Japan will allow BitStar to offer their clients looking into these markets by helping them launch their campaigns with performance measurement. Some of our readers may recall that we covered BitStar (known as Bizcast at that time) in September of 2015 for the first time. But it seems like there have been many changes in the influencer marketing industry since then, gradually but drastically. TV broadcasters initially tended to rival online video services like YouTube due to fears that the latter may take disposable time from consumers…
BitStar CEO Taku Watanabe Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Tokyo-based startup BitStar, the company behind influencer support platform under the same name and YouTuber production E-DGE, announced earlier this month that it has partnered with Fun Japan Communications (Fun! Japan for short) to start offering promotion services targeting the Greater China and Southeast Asian markets.
Fun! Japan is an online community for “Japan freaks” consisting of 4.4 million followers and 760,000 members living in the Asian market. It aims to help Japanese companies expand into Asia or invite more visitors from the region by developing touchpoints with consumers, measuring the performance of online promotional activities,or building up a long-term relationship with locals. The partnership with Fun! Japan will allow BitStar to offer their clients looking into these markets by helping them launch their campaigns with performance measurement.
Some of our readers may recall that we covered BitStar (known as Bizcast at that time) in September of 2015 for the first time. But it seems like there have been many changes in the influencer marketing industry since then, gradually but drastically.
TV broadcasters initially tended to rival online video services like YouTube due to fears that the latter may take disposable time from consumers (for enjoying watching TV shows). But since data covering consumer reactions is not enough with conventional media companies, there’s an increasing number of them partnering or integrating with emerging services including influencer marketing. Taku Watanabe, CEO and Founder of BitStar, thinks a service provider offering three functions at a time: media creation, production and ad agency — all of which used to be separately operated but vertically integrated in the past — can eventually win the game.
Because of such reasons, it seems like BitStar is diversifying its business lines. In addition to online fan club service Costar, quantitative analysis platform Influencer Power Ranking (IPR) and multichannel network for virtual YouTubers, the company is now planning to produce new products in partnership with brand communities, fan communities and TV broadcasters. Although online video media has been getting extremely popular in recent years, if a media company is accepted by an audience in design or format, they are likely to be imitated later on. This is why BitStar thinks it’s very important to have more companies work together.
Comprising of 75 employees as of March of 2018, BitStar raised an undisclosed sum of seed round funding from East Ventures back in 2014, estimated several million US dollars in a series A round from Colopl back in August of 2016, and about $2.7 million in a series B round from Global Brain back in July of 2017, in addition to an undisclosed sum from TBS Innovation Partners and ABC Dream Ventures — investment arms of leading Japanese broadcasters respectively — back in October of 2017.
See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Ubie, providing AI (Artificial Intelligence)-driven medical services such as AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie, announced this month that it had raised funds from Kanden Venture Management (KVM) which is a corporate venture capital of The Kansai Electric Power Company headquartered in Osaka. The amount raised and the investment round have not been disclosed but are estimated to be about 300 million yen (about $2.7 million) in its series A round judging from the disclosed information and the previous round, the 60 million yen (about $550,000)-fundraising from D4V in its seed round conducted last September. The Japan version of KISS…Keep-It-Simple-Security method in vogue among overseas startups today… is said to have been utilized. Ubie was founded in May of 2015 by Dr. Yoshinori Abe, a medical practitioner who formerly worked at The University of Tokyo Hospital, and engineer Kouta Kubo formerly serving at the Japanese medical information service major M3. So far, Ubie has launched two products: AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie. AI Monshin Ubie is the AI-driven medical inquiry SaaS (Software as a Service) targeting users at medical institutions, in order to support document creation of clinical records under supervision from…
Yoshinori Abe (center right), Kouta Kubo (center left) and the team member of Ubie. Image credit: Ubie
Japan’s Ubie, providing AI (Artificial Intelligence)-driven medical services such as AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie, announced this month that it had raised funds from Kanden Venture Management (KVM) which is a corporate venture capital of The Kansai Electric Power Company headquartered in Osaka. The amount raised and the investment round have not been disclosed but are estimated to be about 300 million yen (about $2.7 million) in its series A round judging from the disclosed information and the previous round, the 60 million yen (about $550,000)-fundraising from D4V in its seed round conducted last September. The Japan version of KISS…Keep-It-Simple-Security method in vogue among overseas startups today… is said to have been utilized.
Ubie was founded in May of 2015 by Dr. Yoshinori Abe, a medical practitioner who formerly worked at The University of Tokyo Hospital, and engineer Kouta Kubo formerly serving at the Japanese medical information service major M3. So far, Ubie has launched two products: AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie.
AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie
AI Monshin Ubie is the AI-driven medical inquiry SaaS (Software as a Service) targeting users at medical institutions, in order to support document creation of clinical records under supervision from specialists. The firm launched the beta version last year and has been providing the product version to 50 institutions as of last December. Using natural language processing and question-setting algorithm, it automatically creates clinical document templates using AI-driven inquiry according to each patient’s answer type. It will contribute to time reduction in doctors’ desk work and patients’ wait time. From this month, it starts up operation at Hitachi General Hospital, and also planned for joint multi-center research with Miyazaki University commencing this summer.
Dr. Ubie is a disease prediction app for general users. This app was developed based on AI technology to detect future risk for diseases. It leverages Abe’s experience in latest medical treatment technology as well as knowledge of medical care for the elderly; it also adopted the disease name prediction algorithm based on probability / statistical model and machine learning technology.
Ubie was born out of the life science accelerator program Zentech Dojo Nihonbashi 4th batch, managed by the hardcore startup accelerator Indee Japan. With this fundraising, Ubie announced that it will enhance the function of AI Monshin Ubie for business expansion while carrying out overseas market development for Dr. Ubie.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Photosynth, developing and offering smart lock Akerun as well as SaaS to manage entrances and exits, announced earlier this month that it raised funds from Globis Capital Partners, Daiwa Corporate Investment, and YJ Capital. The funds raised this time around total about 1 billion yen (about $9.1M US) when added to loans procured from the Japan Finance Corporation and Orix, and brings the cumulative amount of funding to 1.5 billion yen (roughly $13.7M US). Details such as the payment date, investment round, and share ratios were not disclosed, and Globis Capital Partners’ Emre Hidekazu Yuasa was appointed as Outside Director. In addition, the company also revealed that Akerun Pro, a smart lock for businesses, has been introduced by 2,500 companies since its launch in July 2016. In particular, industries which handle personal information such as recruiting, finance, and social work, in addition to companies with multiple offices, and coworking spaces have adopted it. The company will use the funds raised to double the current team of 50 members (this number is based on full-time employees) within two years. Specifically, it plans to strengthen its sales and support systems in order to respond…
Tokyo-based startup Photosynth, developing and offering smart lock Akerun as well as SaaS to manage entrances and exits, announced earlier this month that it raised funds from Globis Capital Partners, Daiwa Corporate Investment, and YJ Capital. The funds raised this time around total about 1 billion yen (about $9.1M US) when added to loans procured from the Japan Finance Corporation and Orix, and brings the cumulative amount of funding to 1.5 billion yen (roughly $13.7M US).
Details such as the payment date, investment round, and share ratios were not disclosed, and Globis Capital Partners’ Emre Hidekazu Yuasa was appointed as Outside Director.
In addition, the company also revealed that Akerun Pro, a smart lock for businesses, has been introduced by 2,500 companies since its launch in July 2016. In particular, industries which handle personal information such as recruiting, finance, and social work, in addition to companies with multiple offices, and coworking spaces have adopted it.
The company will use the funds raised to double the current team of 50 members (this number is based on full-time employees) within two years. Specifically, it plans to strengthen its sales and support systems in order to respond to the increase in inquiries, and its goal is to be introduced in 10,000 companies by 2020.
Amendments to the Personal Information Protection Law Prove Helpful
Demo of the door installation (Akerun Pro)
Since its inception in September of 2014, Photosynth, which has often been featured on The Bridge, succeeded in raising a large-scale sum. By attaching Akerun Pro to a door handle, it is possible to lock or unlock the door using a smartphone or IC card. It is also linked to the cloud and can issue keys and manage a log of who enters and leaves through the door. There are no introductory costs as the company uses a monthly subscription model for renting the equipment and using web services. It is set at 15,000 yen (around $137 US) per month.
If we take a rough look at the domestic market for this smart lock, there are many uncertainties due to regulations with regards to Airbnb and the like, which the business model favors, and we get the impression that the company is working towards more reliable business development, evident in its partnerships with real estate and other companies.
As mentioned above, Photosynth is using a monthly subscription model, as opposed to selling the product until there is no more. On the business side, if the company does not have a revenue model that can anticipate new business, as the vacation rentals business does, it would definitely run into the problem of the product selling out.
However, right now, the business couldn’t be better. When I asked the company’s CEO Kodai Kawase the reason, it seems that the revision last year of the Personal Information Protection Law had a surprising effect.
According to the amendment of the Personal Information Protection Law in May 2017, roughly speaking, those who do business through memberships are supposed to take entrance and exit logs, but the introduction costs of existing entry and exit systems cost around 1 million yen (about $9.1KUS), including security services.
There are a multitude of small and medium sized businesses that take the personal information of their members. According to Kawase, it is necessary that the companies maintain “entrance/exit logs”, and with the advantage of no introductory cost, inquiries into Akerun keep coming one after another.
Users can get a key by registering through the smartphone app or with an IC card, like those used for public transit.
And there’s more.
Because of the entrance/exit log, it is possible to keep track of who is entering and exiting, so who is working or not working. Yes, that is one way to respond to the problem of overwork. Solutions for overwork, which has become a social problem in recent years, have garnered much attention, and there are many requests for ways to link them to attendance.
Naturally, if such solutions become a part of the service, the argument for monthly subscriptions is strengthened.
On the day of the interview, Kawase gave a demo of how to attach Akerun to a door, but it was easy to complete from installation to registering the key by smartphone in a few minutes. It may take time to set up the cloud service and various onboarding, but this hurdle is low compared to services that require actual alterations to a door.
I feel that Photosynth’s transformation from selling smart locks to taking on the challenge of the “entrance/exit log” is the reason behind its large-scale fundraising.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Osaka-based Miraie, which develops and provides the low carb delivery food service Nosh, revealed last week that it successfully raised around 300 million yen (about $2.7M US) from Nissay Capital and its own founding members in the seed round. The company simultaneously officially launched Nosh’s service. Miraie was founded by Japanese serial entrepreneur Tomoya Tanaka back in 2016. He previously founded Uniquest Online, offering the optimal service for finding a funeral home. After concentrating on businesses that solve social problems that cause information irregularities this time around Tanaka chose the big themes of “Health” and “Food”. We have been hearing of carbohydrate diets for awhile now, but whether at home or eating outside, it is difficult to actually avoid carbs when choosing foods. If you choose foods low in calories, you end up with the majority of foods containing a lot of carbs. A diet that consists of excessive carbohydrates not only leads to an increase in triglycerides, but can also lead an increased likelihood of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Miraie developed its own lunch plates, risotto, and snack menu which are offered at low prices despite being low…
Osaka-based Miraie, which develops and provides the low carb delivery food service Nosh, revealed last week that it successfully raised around 300 million yen (about $2.7M US) from Nissay Capital and its own founding members in the seed round. The company simultaneously officially launched Nosh’s service.
Miraie was founded by Japanese serial entrepreneur Tomoya Tanaka back in 2016. He previously founded Uniquest Online, offering the optimal service for finding a funeral home. After concentrating on businesses that solve social problems that cause information irregularities this time around Tanaka chose the big themes of “Health” and “Food”.
We have been hearing of carbohydrate diets for awhile now, but whether at home or eating outside, it is difficult to actually avoid carbs when choosing foods. If you choose foods low in calories, you end up with the majority of foods containing a lot of carbs. A diet that consists of excessive carbohydrates not only leads to an increase in triglycerides, but can also lead an increased likelihood of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
Miraie developed its own lunch plates, risotto, and snack menu which are offered at low prices despite being low carb, high protein, and low salt. Users can order online or offline and have the food delivered to their house or office via a refrigerated courier. It is easy to prepare the delicious and well balanced meals by simply heating them in a microwave or in boiling water.
Frozen Nosh food plates as they are delivered Image credit: Miraie
Since the preliminary launch last October, Nosh has continued beta testing as a subscription service that allows users to select from set menus which arrive all together, but there were a surprising amount of user requests with regards to their food likes and dislikes, such as “I want to avoid dishes with fish”. As a result, the company recently renewed the service to offer a menu that allows users to choose freely. In April the company acquired a food factory that can produce many dishes in small amounts, and in preparation for full-scale operation of the service it established a system that can produce up to 200,000 meals per month with four chefs and a few dozen part-timers.
Miraie has joined with a number of big name gyms and fitness clubs throughout Japan, making it simple for members to receive the food delivery at home. Developing a sales channel among people who are well-informed about their health appears to be effective. One example of this approach from food to health and diet that readers may remember is the partnership of Office De Yasai with leading fitness gym chain Rizap.
While lifestyle diseases are said to account for about 60% of deaths and about 30% of medical expenses, becoming healthy through a change in eating habits also leads to a reduction in the financial pressures of the country and health associations. By conducting business in this field, the company can probably expect not only the interest of private companies and individuals, but also backing from public organizations.
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
Takeshi Hirano
