THE BRIDGE

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Japanese Web3 entrepreneurs join forces to launch accelerator, raises $10M in funding

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See the original story in Japanese. Singapore-based Next Web Capital (NeW) announced on Tuesday that it has secured $10 million in funding from WiL (World Innovation Lab) and crypto exchange Bitbank in addition to the launch of an accelerator aiming to support entrepreneurs in the Web3 and crypto space. The firm supports global Web3.0 protocols, aiming to co-create new projects with entrepreneurs from Japan. The firm was founded by seven Japanese entrepreneurs – Sota Watanabe (CEO, Stake Technologies / Founder, Astar Network), Shun Ishikawa (COO, Astar Network), Kei Seki (Fund Manager, Astar Network), Yudai Suzuki (Co-founder, Fracton Ventures), Toshihiko Kamei (Co-founder, Fracton Ventures), Naoki Akazawa (Co-founder, Fracton Ventures), and Yusuke Obinata (Web3 Foundation). NeW plans to support entrepreneurs starting their business in the new ecosystem based on cryptos and blockchain. Specifically speaking, the firm provides mentoring by its founders and other members, share their experience in addition to offering financial support by actively participating in the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) and other ecosystems. They also plan to use SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) to raise funds for participating entrepreneurs. Expressing his expectations, Masaya Kubota, Partner at WiL, says, In encouraging more and more Japanese startups to expand into the…

See the original story in Japanese.

Singapore-based Next Web Capital (NeW) announced on Tuesday that it has secured $10 million in funding from WiL (World Innovation Lab) and crypto exchange Bitbank in addition to the launch of an accelerator aiming to support entrepreneurs in the Web3 and crypto space. The firm supports global Web3.0 protocols, aiming to co-create new projects with entrepreneurs from Japan.

The firm was founded by seven Japanese entrepreneurs – Sota Watanabe (CEO, Stake Technologies / Founder, Astar Network), Shun Ishikawa (COO, Astar Network), Kei Seki (Fund Manager, Astar Network), Yudai Suzuki (Co-founder, Fracton Ventures), Toshihiko Kamei (Co-founder, Fracton Ventures), Naoki Akazawa (Co-founder, Fracton Ventures), and Yusuke Obinata (Web3 Foundation).

NeW plans to support entrepreneurs starting their business in the new ecosystem based on cryptos and blockchain. Specifically speaking, the firm provides mentoring by its founders and other members, share their experience in addition to offering financial support by actively participating in the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) and other ecosystems.

Founders of New Web Capital

They also plan to use SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) to raise funds for participating entrepreneurs. Expressing his expectations, Masaya Kubota, Partner at WiL, says,

In encouraging more and more Japanese startups to expand into the global market, I am glad that such young and talented members have joined forces. We want to push them and hope that they will become role models and create a new image of entrepreneurs in the Web3 world.

Toshihiko Kamei, one of the co-founder of NeW, says

For entrepreneurs, especially in the Web3 and crypto space, it’s important to start their business globally from Day 1. Seeing global projects by Japanese entrepreneurs such as Astar Network, UXD Protocol and InsureDAO, more and moe Japanese entrepreneurs are taking on global challenges but the the number of them is still limited.

While technologies, domains, and regulations in each country are changing at a rapid pace, Web 3.0 entrepreneurs are blazing new trails. Our intention to encourage more entrepreneurs from Japan has led us this initiative. The seven of us expect to become role models for Web 3.0 entrepreneurs by being at the forefront of the world ourselves, and also doing our best to support them so that they can become the next role models for entrepreneurs who are willing to take on the world.

It is yet to be decided whether NeW will hold an event-driven acceleration program like more than a few existing accelerators have been doing. If you are interested in joining the program, you should directly contact anyone of the founders or e-mail them through their website.

Japan VC Radar – A glance of the most active VCs in 2021 (Infographic)

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. We’ve mentioned this before: the venture ecosystem in Japan is on the rise! Now we have some supporting evidence. The Japan VC Radar indicates the most active VC funds in Japan last year. Based on data sourced from Startup DB or the funds directly, the Japan VC Radar depicts the number of new domestic investments in 2021 by Japan’s independent VC funds (note: please feel to contact us for any corrections).

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.


We’ve mentioned this before: the venture ecosystem in Japan is on the rise! Now we have some supporting evidence. The Japan VC Radar indicates the most active VC funds in Japan last year.

Based on data sourced from Startup DB or the funds directly, the Japan VC Radar depicts the number of new domestic investments in 2021 by Japan’s independent VC funds (note: please feel to contact us for any corrections).

(Click to enlarge)

Misaky Tokyo secures $1M to bring innovative Japanese confectionery to more Americans

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See the original story in Japanese. Los Angeles-based Cashi Cake, the startup behind Misaky Tokyo and other D2C-focused Japanese confectionery brands, announced on Wednesday that it has secured 120 million yen (about $1 million) in the first tranche of its seed round. Participating investors include Chiba Dojo Fund, Coconala Skill Partners (CSP), Headline Asia in addition to angel investors including Hiromi Okuda and Shin Murakami. This follows two angel rounds when the startup received 60 million yen (about $600,000) in total from ISGS Investment Works, Jun Nishikawa, Kazuma Yamauchi, Kotaro Tamura, Yoichiro Hirano, Heart Catch and others. The latest tranche brought their total funding sum up to 180 million yen (about $1.6 million). The company will use the funds to expand confectionery manufacturing capacity as well as strengthening the development effort of a seaweed drink brand. Founded by Alyssa Miky in September of 2019, Cashi Cake uses a proprietary technology to process seaweed agar to develop high-end Japanese confectionery products. After serving the Academy Awards and Emmy Awards eve as a vendor, her company has collaborated with Kim Kardashian’s fragrance brand KKW and been featured in the Bon Appétit food magazine. The company has 310,000 followers on its Tiktok account.

Alissa Miky, Founder and CEO of Cashi Cake

See the original story in Japanese.

Los Angeles-based Cashi Cake, the startup behind Misaky Tokyo and other D2C-focused Japanese confectionery brands, announced on Wednesday that it has secured 120 million yen (about $1 million) in the first tranche of its seed round. Participating investors include Chiba Dojo Fund, Coconala Skill Partners (CSP), Headline Asia in addition to angel investors including Hiromi Okuda and Shin Murakami.

This follows two angel rounds when the startup received 60 million yen (about $600,000) in total from ISGS Investment Works, Jun Nishikawa, Kazuma Yamauchi, Kotaro Tamura, Yoichiro Hirano, Heart Catch and others. The latest tranche brought their total funding sum up to 180 million yen (about $1.6 million). The company will use the funds to expand confectionery manufacturing capacity as well as strengthening the development effort of a seaweed drink brand.

Founded by Alyssa Miky in September of 2019, Cashi Cake uses a proprietary technology to process seaweed agar to develop high-end Japanese confectionery products. After serving the Academy Awards and Emmy Awards eve as a vendor, her company has collaborated with Kim Kardashian’s fragrance brand KKW and been featured in the Bon Appétit food magazine. The company has 310,000 followers on its Tiktok account.

2022 predictions from insightful investors

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. Years ago I started publishing an annual list of technology predictions from global venture capitalists. By design, I deliberately prioritize VCs beyond the usual Silicon Valley household names, whose voices were not necessarily heard on the world stage. For this season’s set of predictions, I am again pleased to be able to give the floor to an all-female cast of investors, who in my opinion are poised to make a disproportionately positive impact on the venture ecosystem this year. May 2022 bring us further enlightenment. Happy new year ! –mark Yumiko Murakami — MPower Partners, Japan ESG investments, which showed record growth in 2021, will continue to gain momentum in 2022. At the same time, criticism of greenwashing will increase,…

mark-bivens_portraitThis guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.


Years ago I started publishing an annual list of technology predictions from global venture capitalists. By design, I deliberately prioritize VCs beyond the usual Silicon Valley household names, whose voices were not necessarily heard on the world stage.

For this season’s set of predictions, I am again pleased to be able to give the floor to an all-female cast of investors, who in my opinion are poised to make a disproportionately positive impact on the venture ecosystem this year.

May 2022 bring us further enlightenment. Happy new year !

–mark

Yumiko Murakami — MPower Partners, Japan

ESG investments, which showed record growth in 2021, will continue to gain momentum in 2022. At the same time, criticism of greenwashing will increase, and the quality of ESG investments will be questioned in 2022.

ESG has so far been focused on listed companies. This year, ESG will begin to be introduced to the private market in earnest.

Tonna Obaze — Harlem Capital, NYC, USA

I believe the world will continue its Web3 evolution with blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, & NFTs. However this year, the focus will not be awareness but more mass adoption. I’m excited to see new players emerge who make Web3 accessible for everyone — those who communicate concepts in plain language to help the “non expert” understand and those who build infrastructure to make onboarding seamless. Once upon a time, only few had access to computers and even fewer had them within their homes — Apple sought out to change that and make computers accessible to everyone. Time will tell who will step up and do the same for Web3.

Emiko Takeda — Monex Climate Impact, Japan

I personally expect a lot of interesting innovation in sustainable food. For instance, I see projects which transform empty sea urchins, traditionally a scourge of algae vital to sea life and a headache for fishermen, into highly-prized sea urchins for sushi based on an all-natural alimentation program. Another example is a project producing delicious plant-based cheese alternatives from sticky rice by employing koji malt often used in Japan for fermentation of miso and sake.

Abi Mohamed—Tech Nation, UK

2021 was a remarkable year for European startups, with a record $100B of capital invested, 100 new unicorns (Atomico Report 2021), but there was still a lack of investment in underrepresented founders, the biggest disparity was towards founders who self identifies as Black. We still saw incredible funding deals to UK Black founders, i.e. Marshmallow and AudioMob. My prediction for 2022 is that we will see more UK Black founders being funded by micro/solo funds, ex-founder turned angel investors or international institutional funds.

Mai Iida — D4V, Japan

2021 saw the rise in new content driven by individuals and communities (think NFTs, EdTech cohort programs, Japan’s “Oshikatsu” or fan activities in pop culture, etc). The diversification of opportunities has put creators in a strong position to pick and choose what is best for them. People are also revisiting their way of work and life, such as the “Great Resignation” in the US, choosing a career that suits their lifestyle best. In 2022 I look forward to seeing these two trends merging – we may see more people choosing novel ways of work, treating their hobbies just as seriously as their so-called “actual” jobs. This is an interesting and hot area for startups to contribute their innovative ideas.

Commmune, customer success support platform from Japan, announces US expansion

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Tokyo-based Commmune, the Japanese startup behind a customer success support platform under the same name, revealed on Friday that it is expanding into the US market. The company has raised funds from several investors, including DNX Ventures, in Series A and Series B rounds. Yuya Takada, founder and CEO of Commmune, plans to move to the U.S. himself and start operations at DNX Ventures’ Silicon Valley office in San Mateo, CA. The specific timing of the start of activities has not yet been determined due to logistical arrangements but is expected to be early next year. Commmune was founded in May of 2018 by Yuya Takada (CEO) and Shota Hashimoto (initially COO, now CPO), both of whom graduated from the University of Tokyo and had previously worked in the U.S. prior to the startup. Commmune currently has about 100 employees and contractors working in its Japan office. After the announcement, Takada will focus on decision making and market fit effort for the US market while Hashimoto will supervise team building in the Japan office. The startup offers companies with a online community environment to improve their user engagement, enabling them to get their words out as well as receiving responses…

Yuya Takada, Founder and CEO of Commmune
Image credit: Commmune

Tokyo-based Commmune, the Japanese startup behind a customer success support platform under the same name, revealed on Friday that it is expanding into the US market. The company has raised funds from several investors, including DNX Ventures, in Series A and Series B rounds. Yuya Takada, founder and CEO of Commmune, plans to move to the U.S. himself and start operations at DNX Ventures’ Silicon Valley office in San Mateo, CA. The specific timing of the start of activities has not yet been determined due to logistical arrangements but is expected to be early next year.

Commmune was founded in May of 2018 by Yuya Takada (CEO) and Shota Hashimoto (initially COO, now CPO), both of whom graduated from the University of Tokyo and had previously worked in the U.S. prior to the startup. Commmune currently has about 100 employees and contractors working in its Japan office. After the announcement, Takada will focus on decision making and market fit effort for the US market while Hashimoto will supervise team building in the Japan office.

The startup offers companies with a online community environment to improve their user engagement, enabling them to get their words out as well as receiving responses from users, which is quite challenging with conventional communication channels like blogs and other platforms like Medium.com. For companies managing online accounts for their users, the platform allows them to integrate their member database to enable single sign-on login. The startup’s user base of enterprises is growing as the pandemic has forced various companies to keep in touch with their customers in a digital manner.

Commmune
Image credit: Commmune

This enterprise need is not limited to Japan, but is likely to exist in Western markets that pursue a good customer journey. However, Takada says platforms like Commmune do not yet exist in the Western market, and some services with similar functions are not sufficiently recognized and are small in scale. Given that there must be a market there, Takada expressed his determination to go to SF Bay Area and take on the global market before other startups from Europe and the US do it.

Takada says,

We know a Dutch startup called inSided. In contrast to our platform mainly serving B2C startups, they have more B2C services as users and their scale is still small. Some people say we have to dominate the Japanese market and IPO here first before expanding into the US market. However, I thought that we might not stand a chance if we do that after IPO. It will be too late because US startups grow at least three times faster than Japanese startups.

He continued,

We know a Dutch startup called inSided. In contrast to our platform mainly serving B2C startups, they have more B2C services as users and their scale is still small. Some people say we have to dominate the Japanese market and IPO here first before expanding into the US market. However, I thought that we might not stand a chance if we do that after IPO. It will be too late because US startups grow at least three times faster than Japanese startups.

Looking at the Japanese market, major tools in CRM (Customer Relationship Management), MA (Marketing Automation), SFA (Sales Force Automation), and among others are all provided by foreign firms. Commmune is solving a problem that is not dependent on the culture of a particular country. Even in the areas of customer success and community management, history tells us that we will eventually see strong players from outside the country if we don’t make a global expansion. We have no choice but to go now.

One of the reasons why Takada could make this decision was probably due to the changing perspective of Japanese investors. In the past, both entrepreneurs and investors used to prioritize the Japanese market which has a reasonably large domestic demand. More foreign institutional investors pouring larger sums of cash into Japanese VC firms, making it easier for them to understand the need to expand into the global market in terms of maximizing growth potential. A good recent example is Snkrdunk (pronounced as Sneaker Dunk), which secured funds from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 earlier this month and announced its full-scale expansion into the Asian market.

Takada does not believe that their product in Japan will work in the US without tailoring to the local context. It will need certain time to reach product-market fit. For this reason, he will appoint no country manager but hire and manage several local employees during the initial stage of market development because he hasn’t yet fixed what it looks like they want to offer to US businesses.

Venture Capital: why AUM is the wrong metric

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. There’s an old dig that venture capitalists like to make about private equity professionals: private equity folks boast about the size of their ego in AUM, whereas VCs know that what really matters is their IRR. Now let’s define these three-letter words. First, I’m using the word ego as a euphemism here to be gender agnostic (albeit in reality it’s usually only men who tend to make this brag). AUM means assets under management (i.e. the total amount of money in the funds managed by the general partner team). IRR means internal rate of return (i.e. the cash returns distributed to a fund’s investors, annualized). Asset managers care about AUM because it directly translates into guaranteed revenue. Closed-end investment funds…

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.

Image credit: Pixnio

There’s an old dig that venture capitalists like to make about private equity professionals: private equity folks boast about the size of their ego in AUM, whereas VCs know that what really matters is their IRR.

Now let’s define these three-letter words. First, I’m using the word ego as a euphemism here to be gender agnostic (albeit in reality it’s usually only men who tend to make this brag). AUM means assets under management (i.e. the total amount of money in the funds managed by the general partner team). IRR means internal rate of return (i.e. the cash returns distributed to a fund’s investors, annualized).

Asset managers care about AUM because it directly translates into guaranteed revenue. Closed-end investment funds typically follow a “2 and 20 model,” meaning annual management fees of 2% and a share of 20% of the capital gains generated by the fund (aka carried interest). The annual management fees are a direct function of AUM, i.e. 2% of total AUM each year. They are contractually established for the life of the fund, usually 10 years. The carried interest is a direct function of fund performance, i.e. 20% of the capital gains generated by the fund.

Accordingly, a large AUM directly translates into a significant guaranteed revenue stream for the entire life of the fund. A fund manager with $1 billion in AUM is probably receiving around $20 million per year in recurring revenue. A micro VC fund of say $10 million is receiving only $200k per year in recurring revenue via its management fees. 

Risk of misalignment

Since management fees are meant to cover the operations of the fund, excessively high management fees can translate into high salaries for the managing partners, luxurious offices, and lavish parties. Even if the fund’s financial performance is lackluster, a guaranteed annual revenue stream in the double-digit millions for several years makes for a fairly comfortable lifestyle. Do you see where a potential misalignment can emerge?

In contrast, a small VC fund can afford no such excesses. The managers of a small VC fund cannot become wealthy on management fees alone. They must perform. Only by generating significant capital gains on the funds they manage will they be able to generate wealth for themselves via the carried interest mechanism. IRR represents each fund’s financial performance.

For LP investors in private equity or VC funds who care about financial return, IRR is the metric that reflects their financial return, not AUM. So I submit that when a fund manager brags about their AUM, the appropriate rebuttal would be to ask their IRR.

Full disclosure: I too used to be guilty of the AUM flex. As a former GP in a fund that managed nearly $1 billion in AUM, I would often open my introduction at conferences by citing this figure. But over time, I learned that IRR represents my true KPI as a fund manager. IRR is the indicator of how well or how poorly I perform my job. It is not a mathematical anomaly that my best-performing funds have been those with smaller fund sizes, hence lower AUM.

In many ways actually, a propensity to chatter more about AUM than IRR is an indication of the stage of an ecosystem. When the venture market in a given region is still nascent, track records are limited, so the nearest metric people can look for is assets under management. However, once a fund manager has progressed beyond their first vintage, the more the relevant question to ask is, “So what is your IRR?”

Japan’s space debris remover Astroscale secures $109M, brings valuation to $295M

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Tokyo-based Astroscale Holdings, the Japanese startup offering space debris removal services, has secured approximately 12.4 billion yen (about $109 million) in a Series F round, which brought the startup’s valuation to 33.4 billion yen (about $295 million). This follows their series E round back in October of last year. Investors participating in the latest round are: DNCA Invest Beyound Global Leaders Environmental Energy Investment Siniphian AXA Life Insurance Innovation Engine OPS Seraphim Space Investment Trust Solaris ESG Master Fund Chiba Dojo Nomura Sparks Investment Prelude Structured Alternatives Master Fund Yamauchi-No.10 Family Office (the family office of Nindendo’s founder) Y’s Investment According to the company, the funding will enable the company’s global growth, including the development of technology for safe and cost-effective on-orbit services and the expansion of its own facilities for mass production in Japan, the UK and the US. Since its Series E round back in October of last year, the company’s workforce has grown by more than 60 percent, reaching about 250 employees globally. The company successfully launched and put into orbit the ELSA-d space debris removal satellite in March, and this month, followed by introducing its docking plate this month, which is designed to be pre-loaded onto…

ELSA-d
Image credit: Astroscale Holdings

Tokyo-based Astroscale Holdings, the Japanese startup offering space debris removal services, has secured approximately 12.4 billion yen (about $109 million) in a Series F round, which brought the startup’s valuation to 33.4 billion yen (about $295 million). This follows their series E round back in October of last year.

Investors participating in the latest round are:

  • DNCA Invest Beyound Global Leaders
  • Environmental Energy Investment
  • Siniphian
  • AXA Life Insurance
  • Innovation Engine
  • OPS
  • Seraphim Space Investment Trust
  • Solaris ESG Master Fund
  • Chiba Dojo
  • Nomura Sparks Investment
  • Prelude Structured Alternatives Master Fund
  • Yamauchi-No.10 Family Office (the family office of Nindendo’s founder)
  • Y’s Investment

According to the company, the funding will enable the company’s global growth, including the development of technology for safe and cost-effective on-orbit services and the expansion of its own facilities for mass production in Japan, the UK and the US.

Since its Series E round back in October of last year, the company’s workforce has grown by more than 60 percent, reaching about 250 employees globally.

The company successfully launched and put into orbit the ELSA-d space debris removal satellite in March, and this month, followed by introducing its docking plate this month, which is designed to be pre-loaded onto low-Earth orbit satellites, one of the main possible sources of space debris.

Japan music marketplace Audiostock secures $5.8M for global subscription service

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Okayama, Japan-based Audiostock, the Japanese startup behind a marketplace for music composers and sound creators under the same name, has secured 670 million yen (about $5.8 million) in its latest round, according to Nikkei’s report on Wednesday. Participating investors include Susquehanna International Group, Ceres (TSE:3696), and HBCC Technology Investment. This follows the company’s series B round back in July of 2020 and previous funding from Link-U and CiP Council in April of 2020 as well as previous rounds in March of 2018 and October of 2012. The company has partnered with overseas companies to sell foreign-branded background music and sound effects to the Japanese market. With the latest round, the company is planning to sell Japanese music and sound effects to the global market on a subscription basis. Previously known as Cleoguga, Audiostock was founded in October of 2007 and subsequently launched the music marketplace in 2013. The company claims that it has attracted over 10,000 amateur composers and has helped promote games and music artists.

Image credit: Audiostock

Okayama, Japan-based Audiostock, the Japanese startup behind a marketplace for music composers and sound creators under the same name, has secured 670 million yen (about $5.8 million) in its latest round, according to Nikkei’s report on Wednesday. Participating investors include Susquehanna International Group, Ceres (TSE:3696), and HBCC Technology Investment.

This follows the company’s series B round back in July of 2020 and previous funding from Link-U and CiP Council in April of 2020 as well as previous rounds in March of 2018 and October of 2012.

The company has partnered with overseas companies to sell foreign-branded background music and sound effects to the Japanese market. With the latest round, the company is planning to sell Japanese music and sound effects to the global market on a subscription basis.

Previously known as Cleoguga, Audiostock was founded in October of 2007 and subsequently launched the music marketplace in 2013. The company claims that it has attracted over 10,000 amateur composers and has helped promote games and music artists.

Blogging as a recruiting tool

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. During a return visit to France last month, I caught up with a successful French entrepreneur (whom I wish I would have backed on his first venture, but that’s another story). Anyway, he opened the conversation with flattery, claiming that I had inspired him. So of course I’m growing suspicious at this point, either expecting a punch line or reconsidering my assessment of his sound judgment. But he wasn’t joking. Rather, he stated that a blog post I wrote several years ago inspired him to adopt a habit which has now given his company a competitive advantage in recruiting talent. Specifically, he was referring to something that I had written way back in 2013: The importance of blogging for entrepreneurs….

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.

Image credit: Pxfuel

During a return visit to France last month, I caught up with a successful French entrepreneur (whom I wish I would have backed on his first venture, but that’s another story). Anyway, he opened the conversation with flattery, claiming that I had inspired him. So of course I’m growing suspicious at this point, either expecting a punch line or reconsidering my assessment of his sound judgment. But he wasn’t joking. Rather, he stated that a blog post I wrote several years ago inspired him to adopt a habit which has now given his company a competitive advantage in recruiting talent.

Specifically, he was referring to something that I had written way back in 2013: The importance of blogging for entrepreneurs.

As I posited back then, regular blogging is about far more than shameless self-promotion; it’s about communication of thoughts, transparency in opinions, and beta-testing ideas with the sounding board of your readers. Regular blogging exercises the muscles of intuition and creativity. It facilitates achieving clarity in your mind’s eye, and it establishes you as a thought leader in your domain.

The fifth benefit I had cited in particular has proven especially relevant to this French entrepreneur I caught up with. Consistent blogging over the years is paying dividends to him now as his most effective recruiting tool.

The market for hiring talent, especially software developers, is insanely competitive right now across Europe, he told me. Startups are finding themselves outbid for developers by deep-pocketed incumbent companies, or increasingly, by other startups who have recently closed on massive fundraising rounds.

By having established his voice over the years through blogging, this guy inadvertently compiled a loyal following of readers who subscribe to the narrative of his ambition. Now, when he posts a job opening, he benefits from a ready-made audience. Better yet, candidates from this audience often prove to fit well culturally, because they’ve already been indoctrinated into his company’s vision over the years.

Blogging is playing a long game. The fruits of it do not appear immediately, causing many people to abandon it prematurely. Yet this entrepreneur is now reaping the rewards of his long-term investment. Given today’s war for talent, by accelerating the recruiting process and attracting individuals who are already on board with his project, the returns are astronomical.

Granted, the world has changed in the 8 years since I originally wrote that piece on the powers of blogging. There are other ways to evangelize and build a following as an entrepreneur. Podcasting, for example.

Creating something that does not rely on the approval of others can offer limitless upside. Naval Ravikant refers to this concept as permissionless leverage.

I like this articulation and will adopt it too.

Japan’s sticker character production Quan to merge with cartoonist agency Wwwaap

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Quan, the Japanese startup producing characters like Betakkuma and Business Fish for messaging stickers, has announced that it will merge with Wwwaap (pronounced ‘warp’), an agency of cartoonists and influencers. The two companies will be merged by January of 2022 to establish a new company called Minto. Quan’s CEO Kazuhiro Mizuno will be appointed as the CEO of the new company while Wwwaap’s CEO Genta Nakagawa, Wwwaap’s director Nobuyuki Takahashi, and Quan’s director Jun Oagawa will join the new company’s director board. In the U.S., influencing creators such as YouTubers, Instagramers, and Tiktokers are expanding their fan base all over the world, which has grown the creator economy up to over $104 billion US. Meanwhile, Japan’s creator economy is centered on two-dimensional content, mainly on manga and anime illustration. Webtoons originally from South Korea has recently spread into the Japanese market, which lets Kakao Japan operating the Piccolo manga app become valued over $7 billion US by riding on the wave. We won’t go into detail about Quan’s business here because we’ve covered them many times while Wwwaap was founded in 2016 by Nakagawa, who started a manga editing team and an app…

Nobuyuki Takahashi (Co-CEO of Wwwaap), Kazuhiro Mizuno (CEO of Quan), Genta Nakagawa (Co-CEO of Wwwaap)
Image credits Quan, Wwwaap

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Quan, the Japanese startup producing characters like Betakkuma and Business Fish for messaging stickers, has announced that it will merge with Wwwaap (pronounced ‘warp’), an agency of cartoonists and influencers. The two companies will be merged by January of 2022 to establish a new company called Minto. Quan’s CEO Kazuhiro Mizuno will be appointed as the CEO of the new company while Wwwaap’s CEO Genta Nakagawa, Wwwaap’s director Nobuyuki Takahashi, and Quan’s director Jun Oagawa will join the new company’s director board.

In the U.S., influencing creators such as YouTubers, Instagramers, and Tiktokers are expanding their fan base all over the world, which has grown the creator economy up to over $104 billion US. Meanwhile, Japan’s creator economy is centered on two-dimensional content, mainly on manga and anime illustration. Webtoons originally from South Korea has recently spread into the Japanese market, which lets Kakao Japan operating the Piccolo manga app become valued over $7 billion US by riding on the wave.

We won’t go into detail about Quan’s business here because we’ve covered them many times while Wwwaap was founded in 2016 by Nakagawa, who started a manga editing team and an app marketing team at a major digital ad agency. With more than 250 creators, mainly manga and anime creators attracting fans through social network channels, the company has successfully monetized their content by making companies to use them for promotion. It claims that 80 to 90% of the manga illustrations used in Twitter ads in Japan are created by them. In other words, they can be called a multi-channel network for manga artists.

Nakagawa says,

In this industry, even if you are extremely talented (as an artist), you can’t make a living. While there are many people quitting, we have succeeded in monetizing their works to tell them how much we can pay them if they have a certain number of followers. We have over than 250 manga artists having 10,000 followers, and some of them are housewives earning 10 million yen ($8.8 million US) a year.

By joining forces, the two companies are expected to create several complementary relationships. It allows Quan to distribute Wwwaap’s creators’ works through Quan’s vast region-wide network in Asia while Wwwaap will be able to expand its sales channels. In addition to their own characters, Quon will be able to play a trader role in the distribution of third-party content.

Mizuno says,

Whether it’s webtoon or animation, there are so many small productions are working here. It is true that this has created diversity, but in order to be strategic and dynamic business, a certain level of scale is necessary. If we only had our own characters, we would not be able to cover all the demands form clients. After subsiding the pandemic, it would be especially difficult to differentiate ourselves from other competitors from the rest of the world.

Some of characters and manga titles by Quan and wwwaap
Image credit: Quan, Wwwaap

Mizuno’s and Nakagawa’s different areas of expertise will complementary work. Despite several business models in hand Quan has been focused on monetizing by character merchandising as well as promotion use for companies in Asia after gaining popularity of unique characters through the use of free messaging stickers. Having successfully established his own business in Japan, Nakagawa expressed confidence in the business potential after the merger in terms of diversifying revenue stream in the region.