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Japanese mobile captcha startup Capy wins IVS Launchpad, has more plans ahead

Rick Martin 2013.12.05

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013 Last week I had a chance to catch up with the folks from Capy in an office they’re working out of in Shibuya. The founder of the up-and-coming Japanese startup and CEO Mitsuo Okada first developed the concept behind his secure captcha service while studying at Kyoto University. Capy’s value proposition, for those unfamiliar with it, is that it’s less frustrating than the twisted letter solution of convention captchas, replacing it with a sort of sliding image puzzle that robots cannot complete (see below). While talking with Okada and his colleagues last week, I happened to mention that I’d be attending the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Kyoto. “Oh, we’ll be there too,” said Okada. Skip to a week later where Okada pitched his captcha technology in front of a packed hall at the Westin Hotel Kyoto. They were one of 12 startups that took to the stage, but Capy was judged to be the best of them all. We first interviewed Okada about Capy way back in August, so they aren’t a newcomer to us. But among Japanese startups, the company does stand out in that…

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013

Last week I had a chance to catch up with the folks from Capy in an office they’re working out of in Shibuya. The founder of the up-and-coming Japanese startup and CEO Mitsuo Okada first developed the concept behind his secure captcha service while studying at Kyoto University. Capy’s value proposition, for those unfamiliar with it, is that it’s less frustrating than the twisted letter solution of convention captchas, replacing it with a sort of sliding image puzzle that robots cannot complete (see below).

While talking with Okada and his colleagues last week, I happened to mention that I’d be attending the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Kyoto.

“Oh, we’ll be there too,” said Okada.

Skip to a week later where Okada pitched his captcha technology in front of a packed hall at the Westin Hotel Kyoto. They were one of 12 startups that took to the stage, but Capy was judged to be the best of them all.

We first interviewed Okada about Capy way back in August, so they aren’t a newcomer to us. But among Japanese startups, the company does stand out in that it has taken a pretty global approach from the very beginning, initially launching the business in the US [1].

Even though conventional captchas can be frustrating, I’ve always admired the elegance of reCAPTCHA which makes us of user input not as a security precaution, but also as a means of digitizing books. Two birds with one stone. But Capy will be able to do something similar as well, and I think that’s why it has such great potential.

capy-awards — Okada-san all smiles on stage after winning IVS Launchpad

Websites that use Capy can repurpose its validation screen as a space to advertise, and that’s especially useful given how precious space is on a typical smartphone screen. Capy will have free and premium versions, the free version being ad-supported, and with the premium version, a publisher can use whatever image they want. Right now, the company is focusing on developing the premium version. In addition to advertising, there are other purposes for which Capy images could be used. They’re hoping to attend SxSW next year, and so I expect that many of the things they are currently working on should be ready for showtime by then.

Okada tells me that currently Capy is providing 50,000 captchas per day across three or four clients here in Japan. This is the perfect test market he says, because Japan is very closed. They still have improvements they want to make in user interface and experience, but I’m told they still need more engineers. Currently they are still just a team of four with only two engineers.

Their mentor and angel investor is security expert William Saito, with series A funding last May. I expect that a lot more eyes will be on Capy after their win at IVS Launchpad. So look forward to hearing more from them in the next year or so.

Capy is incorporated in Delaware. ↩

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Japanese tech giant collects job application fee from graduates to narrow the field

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.12.05

We previously wrote about Niconico Douga, a popular Japanese social video platform. With over 30 million registered users and two million paid users, the company behind the site, Dwango is one of the major tech companies here in Japan. Dwango recently made an interesting announcement regarding employment of fresh graduates. For its 2015 entry exam, the company will charge a 2525 yen (or about $25) fee. (2525 because of ‘Niconico’ douga). This system only applies to those residing in areas around Tokyo, and does not apply to those living in the countryside. This strategy was taken to attract only those who are truly passionate and serious about working at Dwango. The collected money will be subsequently donated to charity. According to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the employment rate for graduating students is high as 93.9%. With the spread of technology and mobile phones, students can now apply to over 100 companies with a push of a button online. But Dwango explains that the number of available employment spots have not changed. And the increase in the number of application naturally means more work for the hiring side to narrow the field to the best candidates. Back in…

We previously wrote about Niconico Douga, a popular Japanese social video platform. With over 30 million registered users and two million paid users, the company behind the site, Dwango is one of the major tech companies here in Japan.

Dwango recently made an interesting announcement regarding employment of fresh graduates. For its 2015 entry exam, the company will charge a 2525 yen (or about $25) fee. (2525 because of ‘Niconico’ douga). This system only applies to those residing in areas around Tokyo, and does not apply to those living in the countryside. This strategy was taken to attract only those who are truly passionate and serious about working at Dwango. The collected money will be subsequently donated to charity.

According to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the employment rate for graduating students is high as 93.9%. With the spread of technology and mobile phones, students can now apply to over 100 companies with a push of a button online. But Dwango explains that the number of available employment spots have not changed. And the increase in the number of application naturally means more work for the hiring side to narrow the field to the best candidates.

Back in April, we introduced a unique startup called Wild Card, which works to ease the job-hunting process for fresh graduates. As we mentioned at that time, the typical job-hunting process for such graduates begins in the fall of their junior year where they spend around six months to a year searching for their dream jobs. For big companies (i.e. those with over 5,000 employess), the job openings to applications ratio can be as low as 0.60.

We can expect to see more startups dedicated to disrupting the traditional job-hunting process, as well as creative tactics from employers to ease the rush on their end.

Recently we have also seen the emergence of a new website called Recme, which allows job-seeking students to post a 30- to 90-second long self-introduction video to appeal to potential employers. Leading Mark, the company behind Recme received funding of 50 million yen from Cyberagent Ventures in November.

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How can Yahoo Japan fend off emerging e-commerce challengers?

Takeshi Hirano 2013.12.04

This is part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013 See the original story in Japanese. The Japanese e-commerce market has a volume of $83 billion, but that accounts for only 10% of the country’s entire retail market [1]. Users in Japan have shifted to browsing on mobile, and that’s where the Japanese e-commerce industry will move as well. On day one of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013, we heard from Yahoo Japan’s Takao Ozawa, whose title within the Internet giant is the head of ‘shopping company’. He shared some thoughts about how e-commerce companies can give users ways to discover new things to buy [2]. E-commerce giant Rakuten is said to be have over 100 million items on its platform, which helps you understand how important discovery and recommendation technologies will be for the e-commerce industry in the future. This session was moderated by Hirofumi Ono, of Infinity Ventures Partners. In a response to his queston about how e-commerce platforms should communicate or suggest possible purchases to customers, Ozawa noted that there are three keys: curation, search, and recommendation. He elaborated: Yahoo (Japan) is a search technology company. We’re actually using Google’s engine though. When you try…

This is part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013

See the original story in Japanese.

The Japanese e-commerce market has a volume of $83 billion, but that accounts for only 10% of the country’s entire retail market ^[1]. Users in Japan have shifted to browsing on mobile, and that’s where the Japanese e-commerce industry will move as well.

On day one of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013, we heard from Yahoo Japan’s Takao Ozawa, whose title within the Internet giant is the head of ‘shopping company’. He shared some thoughts about how e-commerce companies can give users ways to discover new things to buy ^[2]. E-commerce giant Rakuten is said to be have over 100 million items on its platform, which helps you understand how important discovery and recommendation technologies will be for the e-commerce industry in the future.

This session was moderated by Hirofumi Ono, of Infinity Ventures Partners. In a response to his queston about how e-commerce platforms should communicate or suggest possible purchases to customers, Ozawa noted that there are three keys: curation, search, and recommendation. He elaborated:

Yahoo (Japan) is a search technology company. We’re actually using Google’s engine though. When you try to find something with a keyword like ‘TV’ on our platform, it gives you back few relevant results. This was fortunately fixed. Compared to other recommendation platforms, we have more capability to assess what pages or sites our users have browsed, and which ones can give them more relevant recommendations. We all know Amazon is very good at recommendation. But Yahoo Japan might provide better results since it has such an enormous number of active users in this country.

Yahoo News is also optimizing its interface for mobile browsing, and that may represent another chance to drive traffic to the e-commerce channel by inserting recommendations between articles. Our readers may recall news curation app Gunosy found success inserting ads between news headlines or articles.

Speaking to the recent trend of emerging ‘instant’ e-commerce platforms such as Stores.jp and Base, he encouraged retailers using these platforms to use Yahoo Shopping too, and that prompted a big laugh from the audience.

I think what Stores.jp and Base are providing are functions. I expect to give retailers ways to automate setting up a shop on Yahoo Shopping when they do that on both Stores.jp and Base. We’re a media platform, which is better at acquiring users. I think the combination of function and media will make for the best business results.

I’m skeptical if Yahoo Japan is serious about partnering with the emerging e-commerce platforms, but it is interesting to see how the platforms will generate a strong lead for their merchants.

According to the Japanese ministry of economy, trade, and industry. ↩
A serial entrepreneur who launched a second-hand book and video marketplace EasySeek, established a professional baseball team at Rakuten, and invested in many emerging startups like Star Festival, Nanapi, and Tokyo Otaku Mode. He sold his social marketing agency Crocos to Yahoo Japan back in August of 2012, and joined YJ Capital (the investment arm of Yahoo Japan) to help cultivate its investment and e-commerce businesses. ↩

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Japanese fashion commerce site Muse＆Co passes $1M in monthly sales

Takeshi Hirano 2013.12.04

See the original story in Japanese. This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013 On day one of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Kyoto, I had a chance to speak with Hirotake Kubo, the CEO of Japanese fashion flash-sale commerce site Muse&Co. The startup was launched back in 2012, and raised 350 million yen (approximately $3.4 million) from several Japanese investment companies including Infinity Venture Partners back in May. According to Kubo, their monthly sales are now almost double what they were a half year ago, and have reached 100 million yen ($1 million). The Bridge: Your company has grown rapidly in the last half year. What happened? Kubo: We were only providing flash sale services, but it might not have been interesting enough for users. So we added curated content about fashion, and this helped us improve our conversion rate among our users. The Bridge: Adding curated content is not such a unique strategy to build a userbase. What was the key? Kubo: A list of items recommended by other users will not have such a great impact. So we used celebrities and asked them to recommend their favorite items on our site….

See the original story in Japanese.

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013

On day one of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Kyoto, I had a chance to speak with Hirotake Kubo, the CEO of Japanese fashion flash-sale commerce site Muse&Co. The startup was launched back in 2012, and raised 350 million yen (approximately $3.4 million) from several Japanese investment companies including Infinity Venture Partners back in May.

According to Kubo, their monthly sales are now almost double what they were a half year ago, and have reached 100 million yen ($1 million).

The Bridge: Your company has grown rapidly in the last half year. What happened?

Kubo: We were only providing flash sale services, but it might not have been interesting enough for users. So we added curated content about fashion, and this helped us improve our conversion rate among our users.

The Bridge: Adding curated content is not such a unique strategy to build a userbase. What was the key?

Kubo: A list of items recommended by other users will not have such a great impact. So we used celebrities and asked them to recommend their favorite items on our site. But consumers are very smart and will only buy items if they are good. So we carefully choose people who recommend good items, and we’re not so much focused on selling our products through that effort.

The Bridge: This kind of editorial operation is expensive I’m sure. How are your finances doing?

Kubo: I think they’re reasonable. Our editorial flow is not complete. We’re outsourcing the work, and managing it at all times with consideration of how to get better results for our money.

The Bridge: Can you share any specific growth figures?

Kubo: Our userbase keeps growing 15% every month. We have 30,000 monthly downloads of our mobile app and 40,000 new visitors on desktop. The growth rate more than doubled that of half a year ago.

The Bridge: What about the number of brands on site, and the number of users?

Kubo: We’re serving almost 1,000 brands to 400,000 users right now.

The Bridge: How much more sales you can expect to see?

Kubo: Our competitors are making around 5 billion yen ($50 million). So we can probably reach 400 million yen ($4 million) on a monthly basis.

The Bridge: Any idea on how to achieve that milestone?

Kubo: I have something in my mind, but I can’t disclose it. One thing I can share is that we’re looking to get our service out of the flash commerce business. Flash commerce helps us trigger potential customers, but we need to keep providing them with trending items at all times.

The Bridge: Thanks for talking with us!

Fashion magazine-style curated content can go a long way to helping users find things they like where a simple text search will not work. So I believe some media entities will launch e-commerce platforms in the near future, which may give consumers better accessibility to a wide variety of eye-catching items.

news

This Japanese startup wants to open source its DNA amplifier

Rick Martin 2013.12.04

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013 At Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto, we saw a few new startups pitching at the Launchpad event. One of the most notable was the very last to come on stage, as Shingo Hisakawa, the founder of hardware startup Tori Ningen [1], pitched a DNA amplifier device. This amplification step is a sort of prerequisite, I understand, for many biological experiments. Shingo posited the problem that DNA sampler devices typically cost $4000 to $10000. But his company wants to reduce that by 1/10, and then offer it open source. The details of how the device actually works were relatively complex (and I won’t venture to summarize it based on a simultaneous translation). But the results of a test sample, after they are processed, can be viewed in a Chrome browser, so it doesn’t require any special software. The hardware itself can be viewed below, and at the end of the video above. In my view, this was the most passionate pitch, the founder proclaiming that ’the internet is part of our own DNA, and we should use it to leave a legacy behind. They have already has started selling…

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013

At Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto, we saw a few new startups pitching at the Launchpad event. One of the most notable was the very last to come on stage, as Shingo Hisakawa, the founder of hardware startup Tori Ningen [1], pitched a DNA amplifier device. This amplification step is a sort of prerequisite, I understand, for many biological experiments.

Shingo posited the problem that DNA sampler devices typically cost $4000 to $10000. But his company wants to reduce that by 1/10, and then offer it open source. The details of how the device actually works were relatively complex (and I won’t venture to summarize it based on a simultaneous translation). But the results of a test sample, after they are processed, can be viewed in a Chrome browser, so it doesn’t require any special software. The hardware itself can be viewed below, and at the end of the video above.

In my view, this was the most passionate pitch, the founder proclaiming that ’the internet is part of our own DNA, and we should use it to leave a legacy behind.

They have already has started selling domestically here in Japan, but they want to bring it overseas as well. In fact, they are already selling in Malaysia, and hope to open a factory in China.

Update: I previously referred to the device as a DNA sampler, which is incorrect.

He used to make aircraft, hence the name ‘Tori Ningen’, or ‘bird person’. He says the company is comprised of himself, his wife, and his cat. ↩

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Hairmo: Another Japanese startup that wants to match stylists and models

Rick Martin 2013.12.04

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013 One of the early pitches at the Infinity Ventures Summit in Kyoto was Hairmo.jp. What this startup proposed was not a unique solution: matching aspiring hair-stylists (or hair-stylist assistants) with models to style for practice. “We are not the first,” they said, “but none of the others have been successful.” Our readers may recall that we have already featured a few of them. They pointed out two issues facing any startup in this space. Customer’s level of trust in beauty salon assistants is low. (i.e. Some might even lie and say they are stylists assistants when they are not.) Difficulty in making reservations in a smooth manner. Hairmo claims to have cracked this problem, since they are funded by a company that already has a large network of hair salons, so by using this network they aim to solve this problem by implementing a sort of ‘authorized’ mark for stylists. The other problem is reservation, which they hope to simplify with an easy calendar, and a streamlined confirmation and payment process. Hairmo already has 5000 users, having benefitted from some TV features. “We want our assistants to…

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013

One of the early pitches at the Infinity Ventures Summit in Kyoto was Hairmo.jp. What this startup proposed was not a unique solution: matching aspiring hair-stylists (or hair-stylist assistants) with models to style for practice. “We are not the first,” they said, “but none of the others have been successful.” Our readers may recall that we have already featured a few of them.

They pointed out two issues facing any startup in this space.

Customer’s level of trust in beauty salon assistants is low. (i.e. Some might even lie and say they are stylists assistants when they are not.)
Difficulty in making reservations in a smooth manner.

Hairmo claims to have cracked this problem, since they are funded by a company that already has a large network of hair salons, so by using this network they aim to solve this problem by implementing a sort of ‘authorized’ mark for stylists.

The other problem is reservation, which they hope to simplify with an easy calendar, and a streamlined confirmation and payment process.

Hairmo already has 5000 users, having benefitted from some TV features. “We want our assistants to become full stylists,” they proclaimed.

It will be interesting to see how they fare in this competitive area. But if you’d like to try them out, you can get their app over on the App Store.

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Japan’s Netprice.com raises $7.7M from Digital Garage, intensifies ties for global business

Masaru Ikeda 2013.12.03

Japan-based internet giant Netprice.com (TSE:3328) recently announced that it has raised about 790 million yen (approximately $7.67 million) from fellow Japanese web conglomerate Digital Garage (TSE:4819). It will use the funds to intensify its efforts to discover new internet business opportunities in global markets. Both companies have been operating startup incubator Open Network Lab since 2010, and have also been working together on cultivating business opportunities in the Southeast Asian region, including co-investing in Indonesian payment processor Veritrans Indonesia back in 2012. Coinciding with this funding, the two companies intend to collaboratively discover more internet business opportunities in the US as well as emerging markets. Digital Garage purchased a multi-storey building in the heart of San Francisco last month, where it has set up an incubation space called DG717. To commemorate this, the city’s mayor Edwin Lee has declared November 5th as Digital Garage Day in San Francisco. Netprice.com is expected to make the use of the location to gain accessibility to high potential startups and other opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our readers may also recall that Netprice.com has established its own incubation program, Beenos, which is separate from the aforementioned Open Network Lab initiative.

Japan-based internet giant Netprice.com (TSE:3328) recently announced that it has raised about 790 million yen (approximately $7.67 million) from fellow Japanese web conglomerate Digital Garage (TSE:4819). It will use the funds to intensify its efforts to discover new internet business opportunities in global markets.

Both companies have been operating startup incubator Open Network Lab since 2010, and have also been working together on cultivating business opportunities in the Southeast Asian region, including co-investing in Indonesian payment processor Veritrans Indonesia back in 2012. Coinciding with this funding, the two companies intend to collaboratively discover more internet business opportunities in the US as well as emerging markets.

Digital Garage purchased a multi-storey building in the heart of San Francisco last month, where it has set up an incubation space called DG717. To commemorate this, the city’s mayor Edwin Lee has declared November 5th as Digital Garage Day in San Francisco. Netprice.com is expected to make the use of the location to gain accessibility to high potential startups and other opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Our readers may also recall that Netprice.com has established its own incubation program, Beenos, which is separate from the aforementioned Open Network Lab initiative.

news

New Japanese iPhone game challenges you to have as many babies as possible

Rick Martin 2013.12.03

Lots of weird and wonderful apps pass through Apple’s App Store, and that seems to be especially true here in Japan. We’ve already written about a few of them in fact. But one game popped on our radar over the past few weeks, an unusual title by the name of Egg and Seed. While there is a sort of background story behind the game, it is pretty trivial and obviously contrived. As the human race faces extinction, you play the role of a special ‘super egg’ which has to avoid viruses and liaise with as many swimming sperm as you can. Sounds like a party, right? The purpose is simply to have as many babies as possible, and continue to try to beat your high score if you can. I myself had 80 babies just this morning, so I challenge you to top that if you can. Like any game this strange, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through the heads of the folks who creates it. A response to Japan’s supposed no-sex crisis perhaps? I decided to get in touch with the developers to ask. It turns out that, for Ryo Shirakawa and ‘Ika’ [1], this game…

Lots of weird and wonderful apps pass through Apple’s App Store, and that seems to be especially true here in Japan. We’ve already written about a few of them in fact. But one game popped on our radar over the past few weeks, an unusual title by the name of Egg and Seed.

While there is a sort of background story behind the game, it is pretty trivial and obviously contrived. As the human race faces extinction, you play the role of a special ‘super egg’ which has to avoid viruses and liaise with as many swimming sperm as you can. Sounds like a party, right?

The purpose is simply to have as many babies as possible, and continue to try to beat your high score if you can. I myself had 80 babies just this morning, so I challenge you to top that if you can.

Like any game this strange, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through the heads of the folks who creates it. A response to Japan’s supposed no-sex crisis perhaps? I decided to get in touch with the developers to ask. It turns out that, for Ryo Shirakawa and ‘Ika’ [1], this game (their first and only game) was merely a trial to learn game programming. But after making it initially, they found they could make it better by adding a few extra features and functions. Unlike many made-in-Japan games, it’s ready to go for international users too, with an easy interface and a great app description on the App Store.

Surprisingly the end result, Egg and Seed, after briefly breaking into Japan’s top ten app rankings, still sits among the country’s top ten games in the action and adventure categories (see chart below), a pleasant result for what looks like a mere side project from its developers. The control mechanism for this one is smart, and I look forward to future games from these guys whenever they decide to get really serious.

The game is available over on the App Store if you’d like to give it a try.

Ika is the apparent nickname of one of the two developers. ↩

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Singapore-based Coda Payments raises $2.3M from several Japanese firms

Coda Payments

Masaru Ikeda 2013.12.03

See the original story in Japanese. In the Southeast Asia region, online payment systems still aren’t as developed as in other parts of the world [1]. To help compensate, Singapore-based Coda Payments provides users with mobile payment solutions in partnership with local mobile carriers in Indonesia and other countries. That company announced today it has secured series A funding worth of $2.3 million from GMO Global Payment Fund, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten, CyberAgent Ventures, Singapore-based Gloden Gate Ventures, and Skype co-founder/angel investor Toivo Annus [2]. Golden Gate Ventures and Toivo Annus participated in the company’s $900,000 seed round investments last year. Coda Payments launched back in 2011 and has been providing payment services in Indonesia since last March in partnership with local mobile operators Axis and Esia. On the content provider side, the company has partnered with game publishers – such as Garena (Singapore), ChangYou (China), Boyaa Interactive (China), and CJ Internet (Korea) – to provide users with payment methods to purchasing virtual items in game via phone bill payments or prepaid airtime. Regarding this latest funding, Coda Payments CEO Neil Davison noted: We are delighted to have three of Japan’s most prominent technology firms in Coda’s investor group. GMO’s…

See the original story in Japanese.

In the Southeast Asia region, online payment systems still aren’t as developed as in other parts of the world ^[1]. To help compensate, Singapore-based Coda Payments provides users with mobile payment solutions in partnership with local mobile carriers in Indonesia and other countries. That company announced today it has secured series A funding worth of $2.3 million from GMO Global Payment Fund, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten, CyberAgent Ventures, Singapore-based Gloden Gate Ventures, and Skype co-founder/angel investor Toivo Annus ^[2].

Golden Gate Ventures and Toivo Annus participated in the company’s $900,000 seed round investments last year.

Coda Payments launched back in 2011 and has been providing payment services in Indonesia since last March in partnership with local mobile operators Axis and Esia. On the content provider side, the company has partnered with game publishers – such as Garena (Singapore), ChangYou (China), Boyaa Interactive (China), and CJ Internet (Korea) – to provide users with payment methods to purchasing virtual items in game via phone bill payments or prepaid airtime.

Regarding this latest funding, Coda Payments CEO Neil Davison noted:

We are delighted to have three of Japan’s most prominent technology firms in Coda’s investor group. GMO’s expertise in payments, Rakuten’s in e-commerce, and CyberAgent’s in gaming, in addition to the fact that all three are actively investing across Southeast Asia, ideally position them to help accelerate Coda’s growth.

The company will use these new funds to expand its footprint in Southeast Asia. In the Southeast Asian region where internet and mobile payments are limited in accessibility, many startups are fiercely competing to provide alternative options. To learn more about this space, check out Tech in Asia’s 10 startups that can beat PayPal in Southeast Asia.

This is one reason why a system like Candy is being introduced in the region.↩
Disclosure: Jeffrey Paine, one of the co-founding partners of Golden Gate Ventures, is our advisor. ↩

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Dragon Quest Portal app tops iOS, Android charts in Japan

Rick Martin 2013.12.03

The most popular mobile app in Japan right now (the top free app on both iOS and Google Play) is a mobile port of the original Dragon Quest. Publisher Square Enix, long under fire for its relatively overpriced mobile games, has given nostalgic gaming fans a freebie by rolling out this smartphone version of the 80s 8-bit classic. What’s interesting here is how the game was released, not as a standalone ‘Dragon Quest Classic’ app, but rather as a Dragon Quest Portal app, in which the original game is available as a ‘free’ in-app purchase. Other games in the series, like Dragon Quest II and Dragon Quest III will be subsequently made available from the portal as well, although I doubt they’ll be free as well [1]. If that’s the case, it looks like this will be a clever way to get customers in the door, and then profit from them later. The initial promotion was to make Dragon Quest available to the first 1 million people who downloaded it, after which it would be sold for 500 yen (or about $5). But apparently fan response has been very positive, with more than three million downloads to date, and the…

The most popular mobile app in Japan right now (the top free app on both iOS and Google Play) is a mobile port of the original Dragon Quest. Publisher Square Enix, long under fire for its relatively overpriced mobile games, has given nostalgic gaming fans a freebie by rolling out this smartphone version of the 80s 8-bit classic.

What’s interesting here is how the game was released, not as a standalone ‘Dragon Quest Classic’ app, but rather as a Dragon Quest Portal app, in which the original game is available as a ‘free’ in-app purchase. Other games in the series, like Dragon Quest II and Dragon Quest III will be subsequently made available from the portal as well, although I doubt they’ll be free as well [1]. If that’s the case, it looks like this will be a clever way to get customers in the door, and then profit from them later.

The initial promotion was to make Dragon Quest available to the first 1 million people who downloaded it, after which it would be sold for 500 yen (or about $5). But apparently fan response has been very positive, with more than three million downloads to date, and the promotion has been extended until December 10.

A couple of days after that, of course, Dragon Quest VIII drops, at the hefty price of 2800 yen (or almost $28).

But if you are in Japan and you’d like to re-live the original Dragon Quest, you still have a little over a week to get it for iOS or Android.

If they are, maybe not for long I suspect. ↩

Article

Japanese mobile captcha startup Capy wins IVS Launchpad, has more plans ahead

Japanese tech giant collects job application fee from graduates to narrow the field

How can Yahoo Japan fend off emerging e-commerce challengers?

Japanese fashion commerce site Muse＆Co passes $1M in monthly sales

This Japanese startup wants to open source its DNA amplifier

Hairmo: Another Japanese startup that wants to match stylists and models

Japan’s Netprice.com raises $7.7M from Digital Garage, intensifies ties for global business

New Japanese iPhone game challenges you to have as many babies as possible

Singapore-based Coda Payments raises $2.3M from several Japanese firms

Dragon Quest Portal app tops iOS, Android charts in Japan

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