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Japan’s Gitai, developing robots replacing astronauts, secures $4.1M series A round

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Gitai, the Japanese telexistance robotics startup for the space industry, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $4.1 million US in a series A round. The round is led by Spiral Ventures Japan with participation from DBJ Capital (the investment arm of the Japanese government-backed Development Bank of Japan), Japanese electric power development company J-Power, 500 Startups Japan (now known as Coral Capital). Among these investors, 500 Startups Japan follows their previous investment in the latter’s seed round (securing $1.25 million US) back in 2017. This brings the startup’s total funding to date up to over 600 million yen (over $5.6 million US) but it may reach up to 1 billion yen (about $9.4 million) by additional funding within this year since the current round is not yet closed. Gitai plans to use the funding to develop autonomous space robots which may replace astronauts in their missions as well as launching a vehicle carrying robots to the International Space Station which is scheduled in late 2020. Gitai was initially focused on the telexistence technology which connects an operator and a robot in two different locations, but later shifted its primary business to serving…

gitai-robot-6th-prototype
6th prototype robot
Image credit: Gitai

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Gitai, the Japanese telexistance robotics startup for the space industry, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $4.1 million US in a series A round. The round is led by Spiral Ventures Japan with participation from DBJ Capital (the investment arm of the Japanese government-backed Development Bank of Japan), Japanese electric power development company J-Power, 500 Startups Japan (now known as Coral Capital).

Among these investors, 500 Startups Japan follows their previous investment in the latter’s seed round (securing $1.25 million US) back in 2017. This brings the startup’s total funding to date up to over 600 million yen (over $5.6 million US) but it may reach up to 1 billion yen (about $9.4 million) by additional funding within this year since the current round is not yet closed.

Gitai plans to use the funding to develop autonomous space robots which may replace astronauts in their missions as well as launching a vehicle carrying robots to the International Space Station which is scheduled in late 2020.

Gitai was initially focused on the telexistence technology which connects an operator and a robot in two different locations, but later shifted its primary business to serving the space industry back in 2017. Earlier this year, the company announced it has appointed Yuto Nakanishi as COO. Nakanishi is a humanoid scientist/engineer and former CEO of Schaft, the Japanese robotics startup acquired by Google.

Japanese business chat tool developer Chatwork files for IPO

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Kobe-headquartered Chatwork, the startup behind a cloud-based business chat tool under the same name, announced on Thursday that its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on 24 September with plans to offer 600,000 shares for public subscription and to sell up to 1,270,500 shares in over-allotment options, for a total of 7.9 million shares. Daiwa Securities will lead the underwriting. Its share price range will be released on 29 August with bookbuilding scheduled to start on 2 September and pricing on 6 September. According to the consolidated statement as of December 2018, they posted revenue of 1.31 billion yen (about $12.3 million) with an ordinary loss of 186 million yen ($1.75 million) and a net loss of 110 million yen ($1.04 million). Chatwork, the company’s flagship service, is now being served to 2,747,000 users while 364,000 paying users among them are subscribing to its premium service (as of June this year). In addition, the company also sells antivirus products of Slovakian IT security company ESET. Founded in July of 2000 as EC Studio, the company raised 300 million yen (about $2.5 million) from GMO Venture…

chatwork_screenshots
Image credit: Chatwork

Kobe-headquartered Chatwork, the startup behind a cloud-based business chat tool under the same name, announced on Thursday that its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on 24 September with plans to offer 600,000 shares for public subscription and to sell up to 1,270,500 shares in over-allotment options, for a total of 7.9 million shares. Daiwa Securities will lead the underwriting.

Its share price range will be released on 29 August with bookbuilding scheduled to start on 2 September and pricing on 6 September. According to the consolidated statement as of December 2018, they posted revenue of 1.31 billion yen (about $12.3 million) with an ordinary loss of 186 million yen ($1.75 million) and a net loss of 110 million yen ($1.04 million).

chatwork-office
Image credit: Chatwork

Chatwork, the company’s flagship service, is now being served to 2,747,000 users while 364,000 paying users among them are subscribing to its premium service (as of June this year). In addition, the company also sells antivirus products of Slovakian IT security company ESET.

Founded in July of 2000 as EC Studio, the company raised 300 million yen (about $2.5 million) from GMO Venture Partners in April of 2015, and subsequently 1.5 billion yen (about $12.8million) from GMO Venture Partners, Jafco, Shinsei Corporate Investment, and SMBC Venture Capital in January of 2016. Established in Osaka, they have moved their headquarters to Tanigami, the western part of Kobe City, as an effort to help making the mountainous area “another Silicon Valley”. They also have business operations in Tokyo and Osaka as well as a representative office in Taipei.

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News app developer Smartnews nabs $29M in series E, becomes Japan’s 3rd unicorn

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Smartnews, the developer of curated news app under the same name, announced on Monday that it has raised 3.1 billion yen (about $29.3 million) in a series E round. The round was led by Japan Post Capital with participation from Japan Co-Invest Limited Partnership, SMBC Venture Capital (SMBC-VC), and Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) according to CrunchBase. Japan Co-Invest, SMBC-VC and DBJ also joined the startup’s series D round back in July of 2016. The latest round brought the total funding to date up to 12.2 billion yen ($115.4 million US). With this funding, the market cap of Smartnews reached $1 billion US and joined the unicorn club. According to CB Insights, the company is the third Unicorn from Japan following AI startup Preferred Networks and Liquid Group which runs a crypto exchange called Liquid by Quoine. (C2C commerce startup used to be a unicorn but went public last year.) Smartnews launched its curated news app in the US back in October of 2014. After nearly five years since then, the company now sees more than 20 million active users in Japan and the US. In particular, the number of users in the…

smartnews-logo
Image credit: The Bridge

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Smartnews, the developer of curated news app under the same name, announced on Monday that it has raised 3.1 billion yen (about $29.3 million) in a series E round. The round was led by Japan Post Capital with participation from Japan Co-Invest Limited Partnership, SMBC Venture Capital (SMBC-VC), and Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) according to CrunchBase. Japan Co-Invest, SMBC-VC and DBJ also joined the startup’s series D round back in July of 2016. The latest round brought the total funding to date up to 12.2 billion yen ($115.4 million US).

With this funding, the market cap of Smartnews reached $1 billion US and joined the unicorn club. According to CB Insights, the company is the third Unicorn from Japan following AI startup Preferred Networks and Liquid Group which runs a crypto exchange called Liquid by Quoine. (C2C commerce startup used to be a unicorn but went public last year.)

Smartnews launched its curated news app in the US back in October of 2014. After nearly five years since then, the company now sees more than 20 million active users in Japan and the US. In particular, the number of users in the US grew five times in a year, and Parse.ly put Smartnews in the 10th rank in traffic sources bringing users to English-language news outlets. Smartnews will use the funds to accelerate the growth in the US market and strengthen the team for global expansion.

As part of global expansion effort, Smartnews appointed Ken Kutaragi, former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, as an external director back in June while Youlin Li, former Head of News Feed Infrastructure at Facebook, joined the team as Vice President of Engineering, Backend System and Foundation back in May. The company has presence in six locations in the world: Tokyo, San Francisco, New York City, Palo Alto, Fukuoka, and Shanghai. Going forward, they will strengthen hiring engineers, product managers, data scientists and other talents.

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Japanese startup Nature raises $4.7M to grow smart AC control business globally

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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese startup Nature develops an IoT product for smart air-conditioner named Nature Remo. The company announced on Thursday that it has fundraised 500 million yen (about $4.7 million US) from Energy & Environment Investment and Japanese internet company DeNA (TSE:2432). The investment from DeNA will be replaced with the one from Delight Ventures, which was recently introduced as the investment arm of DeNA. For Nature, this follows their 100 million yen ($9.5 million US) funding from Daiwa Corporate Investment back in February of last year but the funding round is unknown. Nature was founded in Boston by Haruumi Shiode who previously worked for Mitsui & Co. and later obtained an MBA at Harvard University. Nature Remo allows users to turn on their air conditioner at home before they arrive by using their mobile, integrate with Google Home and Amazon Echo to control a TV set and room lights, and even develop a third-party service from scratch via API (application programming interface). Nature Remo was introduced back in 2016, and subsequently succeeded in raising a total of 22 million yen from three crowdfunding campaigns at Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Makuake. In 2018, the firm started selling…

nature-team
The Nature team
Image credit: Nature

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese startup Nature develops an IoT product for smart air-conditioner named Nature Remo. The company announced on Thursday that it has fundraised 500 million yen (about $4.7 million US) from Energy & Environment Investment and Japanese internet company DeNA (TSE:2432). The investment from DeNA will be replaced with the one from Delight Ventures, which was recently introduced as the investment arm of DeNA. For Nature, this follows their 100 million yen ($9.5 million US) funding from Daiwa Corporate Investment back in February of last year but the funding round is unknown.

Nature was founded in Boston by Haruumi Shiode who previously worked for Mitsui & Co. and later obtained an MBA at Harvard University. Nature Remo allows users to turn on their air conditioner at home before they arrive by using their mobile, integrate with Google Home and Amazon Echo to control a TV set and room lights, and even develop a third-party service from scratch via API (application programming interface).

Nature Remo was introduced back in 2016, and subsequently succeeded in raising a total of 22 million yen from three crowdfunding campaigns at Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Makuake. In 2018, the firm started selling the product at Amazon, as well as electronics retail stores such as Bic Camera or Kojima, allowing general users other than early adopters to purchase. They have been seeing a steady growth by launching a suite bundling Nature Remo mini with Google Home Mini as a starter kit for smart home beginners this year. We were told that more than 10,000 Nature Remo items have been sold to date.

The company will use the funds to double their team size to strengthen engineering, sales and customer support. Expecting to launch a new home solution called Nature Remo E within this year, they are foraying into energy management business. They will bring their all headquarters functions back to Japan for better global business expansion.

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Japan’s Ground, developing AI and robotics for intelligent logistics, secures $16.2M

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Ground, the Japanese startup developing artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics solutions specifically focused on offering intelligent logistics, announced on Friday that it has secured up to 1.71 billion yen (about $16.2 million US) in the latest round. This round was led by Japanese state-owned investment company INCJ with participation from Sony (Sony Innovation Fund), Saphire Capital, JA Mitsui Leasing, IMM Investment (Korea), and IMM INvestment Group Japan. Of these, INCJ has agreed to invest up to 1 billion yen (about $9.5 million US) in the logistics startup. Ground was founded in April of 2015 by Hiratomo Miyata who previously led the respective logistics arms of Japanese e-commerce giants Askul and Rakuten. The startup has formed a capital and business tie-up with Japanese office furniture maker Okamura (TSE:7944) in addition to Frameworx, the logistics-focused subsidiary of Japanese largest homebuilder Daiwa House Industry (TSE:1925). The funding at this time follows 1 billion yen (about $9.5 million US) funding from Daiwa House Industry back in June of 2017. The company has developed a platform that combines robots and AI software to optimize logistics operations including picking in warehouse. Leveraging a customer database to help understand consumer…

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AMR, Ground’s autonomous collaborative robot for the logistics industry
Image credit: Ground

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Ground, the Japanese startup developing artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics solutions specifically focused on offering intelligent logistics, announced on Friday that it has secured up to 1.71 billion yen (about $16.2 million US) in the latest round. This round was led by Japanese state-owned investment company INCJ with participation from Sony (Sony Innovation Fund), Saphire Capital, JA Mitsui Leasing, IMM Investment (Korea), and IMM INvestment Group Japan. Of these, INCJ has agreed to invest up to 1 billion yen (about $9.5 million US) in the logistics startup.

Ground was founded in April of 2015 by Hiratomo Miyata who previously led the respective logistics arms of Japanese e-commerce giants Askul and Rakuten. The startup has formed a capital and business tie-up with Japanese office furniture maker Okamura (TSE:7944) in addition to Frameworx, the logistics-focused subsidiary of Japanese largest homebuilder Daiwa House Industry (TSE:1925). The funding at this time follows 1 billion yen (about $9.5 million US) funding from Daiwa House Industry back in June of 2017.

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Image credit: Ground

The company has developed a platform that combines robots and AI software to optimize logistics operations including picking in warehouse. Leveraging a customer database to help understand consumer behavior, the platform adopts machine learning to allow users to predict how many products should be manufactured and will be sold, thereby improving the overall efficiency of their logistics operations. The platform is unique in terms of offering all at once: both hardware-powered (robotics) and software-driven (AI) approaches.

Ground participated in Rock Thailand, the cross-market open innovation initiative co-hosted by the Japanese Embassy to Thailand and Thailand’s major conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group (CP) earlier this year, where the startup suggested the possibility of overseas business expansion. They will use the funds to strengthen hiring talents for business expansion as well as research and development of new technologies in the logistics sector.

Makuake, Citiesocial join forces to help Japan crowdfunded products reach Asian markets

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Makuake, the Japanese company behind the leading crowdfunding site under the same name, announced today that it has partnered with Taipei-based e-commerce platform Citisocial. Through the partnership, the Tokyo company will help campaign owners having succeeded in crowdfunding expand their products into Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia — four markets in Southeast Asia where the Taipei startup is serving. As an international expansion effort for Makuake, this follows their partnership with Korean crowdfunding site Wadiz back in July of last year, which is aimed to create more cross-border crowdfunding deals between the two nations. Founded back in 2011, Citiesocial is an e-commerce platform focused on curating excellently designed and unique lifestyle products from all around the world. They have secured seed and series A rounds to date, raising a total of $2.8 million US from Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund, Cherubic Ventures, and CDIB Capital. The platform has dealt with over 60,000 items by partnering with more than 2,000 brands. As the first joint effort of the partnership, Makuake will handpick some 20 products from the campaigns having succeeded on the crowdfunding platform so that Citiesocial help these campaign owners sell their products…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Makuake, the Japanese company behind the leading crowdfunding site under the same name, announced today that it has partnered with Taipei-based e-commerce platform Citisocial. Through the partnership, the Tokyo company will help campaign owners having succeeded in crowdfunding expand their products into Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia — four markets in Southeast Asia where the Taipei startup is serving.

As an international expansion effort for Makuake, this follows their partnership with Korean crowdfunding site Wadiz back in July of last year, which is aimed to create more cross-border crowdfunding deals between the two nations.

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Japanese products having succeed in crowdfunding campaigns on Makuake attract Citiesocial users.
Image credit: citiesocial

Founded back in 2011, Citiesocial is an e-commerce platform focused on curating excellently designed and unique lifestyle products from all around the world. They have secured seed and series A rounds to date, raising a total of $2.8 million US from Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund, Cherubic Ventures, and CDIB Capital. The platform has dealt with over 60,000 items by partnering with more than 2,000 brands.

As the first joint effort of the partnership, Makuake will handpick some 20 products from the campaigns having succeeded on the crowdfunding platform so that Citiesocial help these campaign owners sell their products on the e-commerce platform.

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Japan’s WAmazing secures $8.5M series B from railway operators to serve foreign visitors

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See the original story 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 930 million yen (about $8.5 million US) in a series B round funding. This round was led by Tokyo-based private railway operator Tokyu Corporation (TSE:9005) with participation from JR West Innovations (corporate venture capital of the Japanese railway company covering western part of Japan), JR East Startup (the one covering eastern part of Japan), Yamaguchi Capital, Pola Orbis Holdings (TSE:4927), Nihon Unisys’ investment arm Canal Ventures as well as several unnamed angel investors. For WAmazing, this follows their previous $9.2 million funding back in September of 2017 (it’s supposed to be a series A round, and the amount includes loans from financial institutions). WAmazing distributes free SIM cards to foreigners visiting Japan and provides tourism information via a mobile app. Foreign tourists register their personal information on the WAmazing website before embarking on their trip and then can pick up the SIM card upon arrival at 20 international airports in Japan (covering 90% of overseas tourist inflow routes). WAmazing directs tourists to activity providers and in doing so takes a 10%-15%…

wamazing-at-kaohsiung-travel-exhibition
WAmazing exhibits a booth at International Travel Fair in Kaohsiung, Taiwan last week, in partnership with Tokyu Corporation’s resort hotel promotion.
Image credit: WAmazing

See the original story 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 930 million yen (about $8.5 million US) in a series B round funding. This round was led by Tokyo-based private railway operator Tokyu Corporation (TSE:9005) with participation from JR West Innovations (corporate venture capital of the Japanese railway company covering western part of Japan), JR East Startup (the one covering eastern part of Japan), Yamaguchi Capital, Pola Orbis Holdings (TSE:4927), Nihon Unisys’ investment arm Canal Ventures as well as several unnamed angel investors. For WAmazing, this follows their previous $9.2 million funding back in September of 2017 (it’s supposed to be a series A round, and the amount includes loans from financial institutions).

WAmazing distributes free SIM cards to foreigners visiting Japan and provides tourism information via a mobile app. Foreign tourists register their personal information on the WAmazing website before embarking on their trip and then can pick up the SIM card upon arrival at 20 international airports in Japan (covering 90% of overseas tourist inflow routes). WAmazing directs tourists to activity providers and in doing so takes a 10%-15% sales commission.

In two years and more since the service launched the app has been installed 240,000 times, mainly in Taiwan and Hong Kong Users are also expanding in China and Southeast Asia. The startup has made excellent results at many startup showcase events, such as winning B Dash Camp 2017 Spring in Fukuoka, the Tokyu Prize (equivalent of First Prize) at Tokyu Corporation’s 3rd accelerator batch Demo Day, Morning Pitch’s 2019 year-beginning edition, and JR East’s 1st accelerator batch Demo Day.

In contrast with their series A round backed by VC firms mainly, business companies including railway operators participate in the series B round at this time. Since these companies are strengthening their inbound and regional revitalization businesses all across Japan, WAmazing recognizes they can share the same marketing strategy and aim to work collaboratively.

How Japan’s most international Startup Summer School was created

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This is a guest post by Sushi Suzuki, Founder and Lead Organizer of Kyoto Startup Summer School. Sushi is a specially appointed associate professor at the Kyoto Institute of Technology and KYOTO Design Lab where he teaches Design Thinking, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is responsible for ME310/SUGAR, a nine-month innovation program that originated in Stanford University and expanded globally. Previously, Sushi co-founded Paris Est d.school while teaching design innovation at École des Ponts ParisTech and was the Executive Director of the ME310 program at Stanford University. he also set up an innovation team for Panasonic Europe, was one of the co-founding members of i-kimono.com, a Japanese start-up company that handles antique kimono and accessories online. Sushi was born in Kyoto, Japan but spent over fifteen years in the US and over five in Europe and has traveled to over sixty countries. He holds a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and B.A. in Studio Arts from Rice University. Kyoto Startup Summer School is a two-week entrepreneurship program hosted by the KYOTO Design Lab (D-Lab) at the Kyoto Institute of Technology. The program, conducted entirely in English, brings together over sixty participants, workshop facilitators,…

sushi-suzuki
Sushi Suzuki

This is a guest post by Sushi Suzuki, Founder and Lead Organizer of Kyoto Startup Summer School.

Sushi is a specially appointed associate professor at the Kyoto Institute of Technology and KYOTO Design Lab where he teaches Design Thinking, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is responsible for ME310/SUGAR, a nine-month innovation program that originated in Stanford University and expanded globally.

Previously, Sushi co-founded Paris Est d.school while teaching design innovation at École des Ponts ParisTech and was the Executive Director of the ME310 program at Stanford University. he also set up an innovation team for Panasonic Europe, was one of the co-founding members of i-kimono.com, a Japanese start-up company that handles antique kimono and accessories online.

Sushi was born in Kyoto, Japan but spent over fifteen years in the US and over five in Europe and has traveled to over sixty countries. He holds a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and B.A. in Studio Arts from Rice University.


Kyoto Startup Summer School is a two-week entrepreneurship program hosted by the KYOTO Design Lab (D-Lab) at the Kyoto Institute of Technology. The program, conducted entirely in English, brings together over sixty participants, workshop facilitators, and lecturers from around the world.

Why a Startup Summer School?

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A scene from Kyoto Startup Summer School
Image credit: Sushi Suzuki

Back in 2014, I was moonlighting with a German startup company called Yocondo that was working on creating a semantic product search engine to be used as a personal shopping assistant. The team was four brilliant engineers and me, a concept developer with mechanical engineering and Design Thinking backgrounds. Bootstrapping, we worked hard to develop proprietary technology and a product that would be useful to people. While the product was rapidly improving, we didn’t quite reach the explosive uptick in usage or meetings with investors for funding. After the unemployment pay for some of the team members ran out, the team disbanded. Another funny-named company in the startup graveyard.

Through this experience, I got to attend both Web Summit in Dublin and Slush in Helsinki, both world class startup events. Trying to network with investors and get attention from the media, we quickly realized that there was so much we didn’t know about the startup world. Engineers and designers have this mistaken belief that “if you build something good, users will come.” While we did read books and articles on startups, it didn’t quite sink in with us. I realized that being good at making things doesn’t necessarily make you a good entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship and startups are buzzing around the world now, and more and more young people want to start companies. However, there is so much more one needs to learn than what is available in most universities. Going to engineering, design, business school will only give you a piece of the whole puzzle. This is why Kyoto Startup Summer School (KS3) was created, to give a comprehensive overview of entrepreneurship.

How is Kyoto Startup Summer School structured?

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Participants discussing during the workshop
Image credit: Sushi Suzuki

There are a lot of entrepreneurship programs and courses out there modeled after the Lean Launchpad model. Participants get together on day 1 with their ideas and form teams. After successive user interviews, mentoring sessions, and pitches over several weeks to months, the teams ultimately deliver a startup idea with a strong product-market fit. KS3 purposefully avoids this model and focuses more on a variety of content that entrepreneurs should know before founding. These are organized in modules of different lengths, taught by active entrepreneurs, professionals, and academics in the field.

At the core of KS3 are two multi-day workshops of Design Thinking and Lean Startup. The Design Thinking module focuses on the mindset of innovation, of being collaborative, user-centered, and experimental through rapid prototyping. For the last two years, we’ve been fortunate to have Anja Nabergoj, lecturer at the Stanford d.school teach this workshop. The Lean Startup module is about developing your idea to make sure you achieve good product-market fit through micro-experiments. Too many entrepreneurs keep making the wrong product with a misguided notion of what the customer wants, and both Design Thinking and Lean Startup help prevent this.

After the two big workshops, there are many smaller lecture and workshop modules. These modules could include sessions on investors-entrepreneur relations by the head of 500 Startups Japan, crowdfunding by the head of design and technology at Kickstarter, or “how to work with accelerators” by the managing director of Plug and Play Center Japan. One popular session from 2018 was focusing on corporate culture at startups by a researcher who did his Ph.D. on this topic. I teach a session on startup pitches utilizing my experience as the pitch coach for Slush Tokyo.

Meetup session with local entrepreneurs
Image credit: Sushi Suzuki

The smaller workshops focus on introductions to more skill-based topics such as mechatronics prototyping with Arduino, introduction to software development or CAD, and storytelling for marketing. The goal of these modules isn’t to make the participants into experts in any single field but to provide foundational knowledge into many different fields that is important for creating startups. By getting a strong introduction, the participants will know what they have to learn in order to be successful when they take that leap into entrepreneurship.

In addition, throughout the two weeks, there are more fun events such as meetups with local entrepreneurs, visits to startups in the region, and morning yoga and meditation sessions. KS3 finishes with 54 hours of Startup Weekend where participants can flex their muscles and apply everything they’ve learnt. This session is co-organized with the SW Kyoto community and brings in local members as well.

Who comes to Kyoto Startup Summer School?

KS3 started in 2016 as a two-day beta test with four lecturers and a dozen participants. Most of the participants were local as we only advertised the program a month in advance. In 2017, we expanded the program to two weeks and spread the word to all corners of the world. I remember thinking: “will people really come to Japan for a two-week program on entrepreneurship?” Sure enough, we had 199 applicants from 51 countries that year from which we selected 35 people, and people really did come from around the world. 2018 was just as popular. Some participants came from Brazil, Chile, and Egypt, places very far from Japan. We even had a candidate from Iraq but he was not able to get a visa.

On the other hand, we don’t get nearly as many applications from Japanese students. Originally, we thought the applicant pool may be 40-50% Japanese, but in the last two years, it’s been about 3-5%. We knew the language barrier will scare off a lot of people, but we’re starting to realize that there isn’t much of a summer school culture in Japan. Getting more Japanese participants is definitely a challenge for the future.

Countries where everyone involved in KS3 have come from
Image credit: Sushi Suzuki

In 2018, we also opened up the first week of the program to corporate participants. The two core workshops on Design Thinking and Lean Startup are actually applicable for companies and employees trying to develop new products, services, and businesses. We had several companies send their employees to be trained in these methodologies and we hope to expand this in the future.

One of the greatest satisfactions we’ve gained from running KS3 has been the community we’ve been able to form every year. Every year we create a Facebook group with all the participants and we see that many of them continue to interact after the summer school. Many people come from countries where the startup movement is still in its infancy and connecting with like-minded passionate people around the world is empowering. We’ve also been getting a lot of great feedback, both positive and constructive. We’re continuing to improve every aspect of KS3 and looking forward to those who will join us this year!

 

Japan Embassy in Bangkok, CP Group help Japan startups digitalize Thai conglomerates

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This article was rearranged by our editorial from the original by Momoko Furukawa, Assistant to Executive/PR at TalentEx. TalentEX is a Bangkok-based startup offering a media outlet and an online platform for recruitment and human resources. All the photos in this article were taken by Tomohiro Ueno, Corporate Planning at TalentEx. See our past coverage to learn more about TalentEx. See the original story in Japanese. The Japanese Embassy in Thailand together with the CP Group (Charoen Pokphand Group), operating 7/11 convenience stores in Thailand and also owning local mobile telco giant True, held a Demo Day and matchmaking event called Rock Thailand in March, aiming to help Japanese startups and Thai conglomerates to work together. The event is part of the Open Innovation Columbus (OIC) initiative, which promotes strategic alliances between Japanese startups and Thai conglomerates. With regards to OIC-related events, this follows the DX Summit held by the Japanese Embassy in Thailand last October. The majority of Thai conglomerates do not reap the benefits of a digital economy. In Japan, large companies are moving to start digital transformation (DX) by collaborating with startups (it’s so called ‘open innovation’), while in Thailand, due to the nature of the verticals…

This article was rearranged by our editorial from the original by Momoko Furukawa, Assistant to Executive/PR at TalentEx. TalentEX is a Bangkok-based startup offering a media outlet and an online platform for recruitment and human resources.

All the photos in this article were taken by Tomohiro Ueno, Corporate Planning at TalentEx.

See our past coverage to learn more about TalentEx.


See the original story in Japanese.

The Japanese Embassy in Thailand together with the CP Group (Charoen Pokphand Group), operating 7/11 convenience stores in Thailand and also owning local mobile telco giant True, held a Demo Day and matchmaking event called Rock Thailand in March, aiming to help Japanese startups and Thai conglomerates to work together. The event is part of the Open Innovation Columbus (OIC) initiative, which promotes strategic alliances between Japanese startups and Thai conglomerates. With regards to OIC-related events, this follows the DX Summit held by the Japanese Embassy in Thailand last October.

The majority of Thai conglomerates do not reap the benefits of a digital economy. In Japan, large companies are moving to start digital transformation (DX) by collaborating with startups (it’s so called ‘open innovation’), while in Thailand, due to the nature of the verticals that local startups specialize in, DX through open innovation will likely still take time.

In response to this, OIC selected a team of 10 Japanese startups that lead verticals likely to be useful for DX (AI, robotics, IoT, logistics), and that are particularly interested in advancing into Southeast Asia, including Thailand, and invited them to Bangkok. This is an attempt at targeting cross-border open innovation and focuses on using the power of Japanese startups to foster DX for Thai conglomerates.

Representatives from the 10 Japanese startups pitched in front of top executives from major corporations such as CP Group’s CEO Suphachai Chearavanont, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), major retailer TCC known for its beer brewing brand Chang, Kasikornbank, the Thai royal family-backded SCG (Siam Cement Group), and the big name in hospital management BDMS (Bangkok Dusit Medical Service). Individual consultations between representatives were also made with the goal of establishing cooperative relationships starting with a PoC (proof of concept).

A committee made up of 10 venture capitalists and media personnel from Japan who have deep knowledge of the startup scenes in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, selected the startups to participate in this first edition of the event.

The following is an introduction of the participating startups. They are introduced in the order that they pitched. The collaboration specifics were not disclosed except between the Thai conglomerates and startups, so we introduce only the comments from participating startups.

PKSHA Technology

Yugo Takino, VP of Product, PKSHA TEchnology

PKSHA Technology (TSE: 3993) develops algorithm solutions focused on natural language processing, image recognition, machine learning and deep learning technologies. The company also develops function-specific algorithm modules and provides services to use them as core functions/ sub-functions for various software/hardware. Founded by engineers and researchers who conduct algorithm research, approximately 70% of PKSHA’s engineers who have completed doctoral programs make up their team along with a collection of qualified personnel with academic expertise. PKSHA said that their resources could be used to provide services adapted to each industry such as weather and equipment maintenance.

ABEJA

Naoki Tonogi, Managing Director, ABEJA Singapore

ABEJA provides all kinds of solutions for a variety of industries using its core technology, the AI platform “ABEJA Platform”. The company uses deep learning to automatically extract feature values from accumulated big data without human intervention.

Naoki Tonogi, Managing Director of ABEJA Singapore, cited three of ABEJA’s strengths.

  1. ABEJA can provide services for all industrial fields.
  2. The company has developed services internationally, and has already achieved results, especially in Southeast Asia.
  3. In addition to providing solutions with AI, the company produces its own products.

Tonogi shared the following comments regarding the company’s participation in Rock Thailand.

We were able to talk with major conglomerates including CP Group. Companies that we had already talked to said they’d like to work together, and we were able to propose approaches using AI tailored to each task such as smart factories, smart cities, smart stores to the others. Because of the back-up from the Japanese government, it seems possible to create a cooperative system for innovation with the conglomerates in Thailand, rather than receiving a simple project order from them.¥

It’s been about two years since I came to Singapore and Thailand, but over the past year or so the interest of corporate management in AI has greatly increased, and we were able to put together a number of projects with them. Based on the idea central to our company ‘implementing a fruitful world’, we would like to implement a rich society in Thailand for all the people involved in AI.

See also our past articles of ABEJA.

LPixel

Yuki Shimahara, CEO & Founder, LPixel

Spun off from the University of Tokyo, LPixel has a strength in image analysis for life science. The company is developing software and optimizing AI technology for image analysis in life science such as medicine, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture. They continue to research and develop medical image diagnosis support using AI in cooperation with the National Cancer Center Japan and a number of other medical institutions. They have expanded into Cambridge, US to provide global services.

See also:

Skydisc

Yoshihiko Suenaga, Head of Overseas Strategy Division, Skydisc

Skydisc develops IoT sensor devices and services that allows users to analyze the data collected using AI. It has most often been introduced in the manufacturing industry, and contributes to creating smart factories by diagnosing abnormalities in machines, increasing yield rates, and improving the accuracy of inspections.

See also:

Umitron

Masahiko Yamada, Co-founder and Managing Director, Umitron

Umitron is working on solutions for food and environmental issues by using technology for aquaculture. The company has offices in Singapore and Japan and it provides services using IoT, satellite remote sensing, and machine learning. Umitron Cell, a smart feeder recently announced by the company, allows users to feed cultured fish on schedule and monitor their appearance autonomously or remotely.

Masahiro Yamada, Co-founder and Managing Director of Umitron, shared shared the following impressions regarding participation in Rock Thailand.

I’ve participated in many matching events, but I’ve never been to an event that left me so satisfied. Top class executives from the country’s top conglomerates gathered together, the interviews were set up, and I was able to meet the people I wanted to meet, so it was really great.

I was able to talk with nearly all the conglomerates (that participated), and my first order of business is to begin discussions regarding their on-site issues. As far as business partners in Thailand, I expect there is a good chance for collaboration.

See also:

SmartDrive

Retsu Kitagawa, CEO, SmartDrive

Telematic startup SmartDrive provides services to collect travel data from cars and other mobility devices and then visualize and analyze it. Their services include SmartDrive Fleet (real-time vehicle management for corporations), SmartDrive Cars (flat-rate connected cars for personal use), SmartDrive Families (monitoring of the elderly), and Public Service (mapping of dangerous areas and traffic sharing). The company has also focused on developing sensors, including drive recorders, and creating its own route for data acquisition.

See also:

Smart Shopping

Ryosuke Shimohara, VP of B2B Business, Smart Shopping

Smart Shopping is a price comparison site for daily goods and food and serves over 400,000 users. In October of last year, the company launched a new product called SmartMat, an IoT device equipped with weight sensors that enables automatic recurring orders and inventory replenishment for consumables. It is primarily desgined for corporations tand automates the task of always keeping the necessary amount of items that may be easy to forget to order. With Smart Shopping, the pre-consumption weight of the product is stored in the company’s product database and based on regular weight checks asks the user to authorize purchases when the remaining weight is low.

Ryosuke Shimohara, VP of B2B Business, Smart Shopping, shared the following comments about participating in Rock Thailand.

For WHA, a big name in Thai industrial parks and rental warehouses, we were able to propose added value for logistics facilities, solutions for their factory customers, and supply chain optimization using Smartmats. For the CP Group, Singha (beer brand), and Siam Makro (Thailand’s answer to Costco), we were able to propose the introduction of an automatic recurring ordering solution for retail stores using SmartMats. We hope this will lead to the acquisition of large customers when developing business in Thailand, and lead to partnerships in Southeast Asia, including Thailand.

Ground

Takatsugu Kobayashi, Chief Data Officer and Head of Global Innovation, Ground

Ground provides logistics solutions with “Intelligent Logistics” as its company slogan. Starting with picking operations in warehouses, the company has built a platform combining robots and AI software to optimize logistics.

Problems that companies often encounter include too many options for consumers, consumers becoming easily bored, and the inability to detect consumer behavior in advance (such as cancellations). Ground uses machine learning based on a customer database that can identify consumers’ behavior. Then, based on demand forecasts, it predicts the number of products to be made and the number of sales, and aims to improve the efficiency of all logistics operations.

Takatsugu Kobayashi, Chief Data Officer and Head of Global Innovation, Ground shared his impressions of participating in Rock Thailand.

We talked with several conglomerates, but we are especially considering whether we can provide solutions to the CP Group, Kasikornbank, and WHA. We believe that we can accelerate the development of our company’s AI logistics software ‘DyAS’ and aim for early market-in to Thailand.

For startups that offer both hardware and software like ours, both the speed and scale axes are required–more so than regular startups. In terms of business expansion, if you don’t take the three big steps PoV (Proof of Value) > PoC (Proof of Concept) > PoB (Proof of Business), it is very difficult. In that sense, business development in mature markets tends to be expensive for explanation and introduction costs, and startups with weak capital capabilities are likely to struggle.

However, after talking with the representatives from the conglomerates, such concerns have been lowered. I felt like in the current age we cannot compete overseas (especially with Amazon and Alibaba) if we don’t market-in early (in Thailand) and support reverse innovation in Japan.

Souco

Kunehito Nakahara, Founder and CEO, Souco

Souco is a logistics sharing platform that has built an online database of warehouses and matches companies that want to lend warehouses with those that would like to rent them. The company simplified the procedures necessary to complete before using the space and made it easy to begin using warehouses with a “small lot” for a “short period” in 3 days minimum from the application date. Since the service launch, user growth has been steady and registered users have reached more than 300 companies.

See also:

Hacobu

Masaru Sakata, COO, Hacobu

Hacobu offers a shared logistics platform called Movo. Thanks to the cloud and hardware such as the IoT devices managing moving vehicles, the company solves problems like vehicle dispatch (as an integrated logistics management solution, solves the problem of the difficulty of finding trucks to dispatch), operation management (solves the problem of not knowing location information of the trucks), and berth management (solves the problem of using trucks efficiently because of waiting time).

From left: Polapatr Suvarnazorn (SVP, Thai Beverage), Takatsugu Kobayashi (Ground Chief Data Officer and Head of Global Innovation, Ground), Naoki Tonogi (Managing Director, Abeja Singapore)

Following their pitches, there was a networking opportunity where talks about collaborations between Thai conglomerates and Japanese startups were lively. Thai executives also had positive comments to share about joining Rock Thailand.

Pichairat Jiranunrat, Director of Robotics AI & Intelligent Solution at PTT, says:

Thailand has long established good relationships with Japan and Japanese companies, and I think of Japan as a “good friend”. Based on this trust, perhaps we can create something even more new?

I felt that it’s important to incorporate technology (like that introduced today) into our company.

Yojiro Koshi (center), CEO of TalentEX, also also participated in the networking party.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Doreming Asia now allows employees in Vietnam to get paid before payday

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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese financial inclusion startup Doreming Asia has developed a payroll system enabling calculation of the salary amount real-time before the closing date of companies, allowing workers to get paid before their payday. Last week the company launched the service in Vietnam through ViViet, the digital wallet app by the country’s leading retail bank Lien Viet Post Bank. Leveraging its propretary real-time payroll system, the firm gives Vietnamese workers an easy access to pro-rata payments or their monthly paycheck. Although it is the poor who really require financial services for a stable life and security, not enough such services are provided in emerging countries. If low-income people with poor credit ratings can receive loans, the service plans will be limited to ones with annual interests of 100%, 300% or even 1,600% due to the high probability of these becoming irrecoverable. By allowing workers get paid before their payday, Doreming Asia wants to prevent their unnecessary debt and to help them manage a better family budget. Doreming Asia signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Lien Viet Post Bank and Mitsui Knowledge Industry for a PoC (proof of concept) study in Vietnam, which was conducted from…

ViViet
Image credit: Doreming Asia

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese financial inclusion startup Doreming Asia has developed a payroll system enabling calculation of the salary amount real-time before the closing date of companies, allowing workers to get paid before their payday. Last week the company launched the service in Vietnam through ViViet, the digital wallet app by the country’s leading retail bank Lien Viet Post Bank. Leveraging its propretary real-time payroll system, the firm gives Vietnamese workers an easy access to pro-rata payments or their monthly paycheck.

Although it is the poor who really require financial services for a stable life and security, not enough such services are provided in emerging countries. If low-income people with poor credit ratings can receive loans, the service plans will be limited to ones with annual interests of 100%, 300% or even 1,600% due to the high probability of these becoming irrecoverable. By allowing workers get paid before their payday, Doreming Asia wants to prevent their unnecessary debt and to help them manage a better family budget.

Doreming Asia signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Lien Viet Post Bank and Mitsui Knowledge Industry for a PoC (proof of concept) study in Vietnam, which was conducted from September to December back in 2017. Subsequently, these three parties signed an agreement to roll out the total service in May of last year.

Vietnam is celebrating Lunar New Year’s Day called Tết today, having set the weeks from January 29 to February 12 the annual holiday season for the New Year celebration. The company could successfully launch the service before Vietnamese people may have unforeseen expenses or enjoy shopping sprees especially in the season.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda