THE BRIDGE

report

Australia, NZ Chamber of Commerce in Japan holds startup confab at new office

SHARE:

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. The Australia-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ANZCCJ) on Tuesday evening held, with support from Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and Japan Australia Business Co-operation Committee, a Tech Startup confab at its new headquarters inside WeWork Shimbashi, in Tokyo. The panel comprised Australian Paul Chapman of fintech firm Moneytree, New Zealand-raised Yuta Iguchi of Million Steps Partner now doing Israel-focused business in Japan, Japan manager Shota J. Adam of mattress provider Koala.com and Kiwi-Aussie serial entrepreneur Terrie Lloyd (Japan Travel CEO), moderated by Jared Campion of Carter Search. See also: Moneytree, Japanese personal finance app, raises $9M to better serve corporate users Japanese personal finance app Moneytree raises $1.5 million Moneytree gives Japanese consumers smarter access to their finances Japan-based MetroWorks raises funds from Sunbridge Global Ventures Part of the Small/Medium-sized Enterprises Support Programme, it brought an audience ranging from ANZ Bank and HRExperts to Rio Tinto and Vega Global, illustrating the keen interest by foreign affiliates as to communication and human resource aspects of tech startups in Japan. In addition to SME, ANZCCJ has a program supporting Youth…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.


Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

The Australia-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ANZCCJ) on Tuesday evening held, with support from Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and Japan Australia Business Co-operation Committee, a Tech Startup confab at its new headquarters inside WeWork Shimbashi, in Tokyo.

The panel comprised Australian Paul Chapman of fintech firm Moneytree, New Zealand-raised Yuta Iguchi of Million Steps Partner now doing Israel-focused business in Japan, Japan manager Shota J. Adam of mattress provider Koala.com and Kiwi-Aussie serial entrepreneur Terrie Lloyd (Japan Travel CEO), moderated by Jared Campion of Carter Search.

See also:

Part of the Small/Medium-sized Enterprises Support Programme, it brought an audience ranging from ANZ Bank and HRExperts to Rio Tinto and Vega Global, illustrating the keen interest by foreign affiliates as to communication and human resource aspects of tech startups in Japan. In addition to SME, ANZCCJ has a program supporting Youth Jobs too.

Image credit: ANZCCJ

Moneytree’s Chapman in particular noted how opportunities open up, referring to how the banking sectors in Japan and Australia both are conservative, yet once a trend begins, the momentum will be maintained on a long-term basis. For fintech, Open Banking — meaning accessibility via cyberspace to bank accounts — is a prominent example of this.

Hiring, training and retaining personnel were points stressed by intercultural expert Shota Adam of Internet-dependent Koala.com while the need to familiarize/educate clients and customers was emphasized by Messrs. Iguchi and Lloyd alike, though the latter apparently has an eye on philanthropic endeavors like disaster prevention activities as well.

Tokyu railway’s 3rd accelerator program showcases 6 startups to collaborate with

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese railway company Tokyu (TSE:9005) held a Demo Day of its startups accelerator Tokyu Accelerator Program 3rd batch in October in Tokyo. In this finals pitch, six teams as finalists plus six teams selected as excellent services gave Lightning Talks. Tokyu Accelerator Program has a feature of giving opportunities for test marketing to participant startups by utilizing Tokyu Group’s resources. Last year’s 2nd batch was managed by Tokyu, Spiral Ventures (ex. IMJ Investment Partners), Connected Design and Tokyo Agency, and from this batch, Tokyu Media Communications, Tokyu Recreation, Tokyu Sports System plus Tokyu Research Institute had newly joined the management. The program collected participants in 10 areas: transportation / urban development / lifestyle and service / advertisement and promotion / IoT (Internet of Things) smart home / inbound travel / entertainment / sports / healthcare / direct marketing. 28 teams had passed through interview process from among 138 applicants, and six teams remained as finalists. The six finalists had taken part in the program over five months from the kick-off of 3rd batch this April until this day. They will spend all of 2017 for brush up of their services, in order to commence…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese railway company Tokyu (TSE:9005) held a Demo Day of its startups accelerator Tokyu Accelerator Program 3rd batch in October in Tokyo. In this finals pitch, six teams as finalists plus six teams selected as excellent services gave Lightning Talks.

Tokyu Accelerator Program has a feature of giving opportunities for test marketing to participant startups by utilizing Tokyu Group’s resources. Last year’s 2nd batch was managed by Tokyu, Spiral Ventures (ex. IMJ Investment Partners), Connected Design and Tokyo Agency, and from this batch, Tokyu Media Communications, Tokyu Recreation, Tokyu Sports System plus Tokyu Research Institute had newly joined the management.

The program collected participants in 10 areas: transportation / urban development / lifestyle and service / advertisement and promotion / IoT (Internet of Things) smart home / inbound travel / entertainment / sports / healthcare / direct marketing. 28 teams had passed through interview process from among 138 applicants, and six teams remained as finalists.

The six finalists had taken part in the program over five months from the kick-off of 3rd batch this April until this day. They will spend all of 2017 for brush up of their services, in order to commence full-scale marketing from January of 2018 with Tokyu Group’s support.

In the event, all teams were examined by four items of novelty / affinity / potential growth / feasibility. The reviewers were as follows:

  • Toshihisa Adachi (Special Advisor, Japan Venture Capital Association)
  • Yuma Saito (General Manager, Deloitte Tohmatsu Venture Support)
  • Yuji Horiguchi (CEO / Partner, Spiral Ventures)
  • Toshiyuki Ichiki (Managing Director / Manager of Lifestyle and Service Business, Tokyu)
  • Isao Watanabe (Senior Managing Director, Tokyu) – chief reviewer

Tokyu Award: WAmazing by WAmazing

Prize money: 1.09 million yen (about $9,600)

WAmazing is an information portal for foreign visitors to Japan through use of free SIM cards. The team had won B Dash Camp 2017 Spring in Fukuoka.

WAmazing has so far set up vending machines to provide free SIM cards at Narita International Airport, Chubu Centrair International Airport and Kansai Airport, and will next month add Sendai International Airport to where their operation is entrusted to Tokyu Group. The team regards Hong Kong and Taiwan as its first targeting market to reach and also plans to advance into mainland China next year. The number of installed SIM cards exceeded 50,000 as of this October and is expected to surpass 150,000 by next March.

The team defines Tokyu’s commutation ticket users as “railway customers” being involved in transportation / shopping / residence along Tokyu railway, and said it aims to turn visitors  to Japan using WAmazing SIM card into new railway customers through cooperation with Tokyu Group.

See also:

Shibuya Award: Minchalle by A10lab

Prize money: 428,000 yen (about $3,800)

A10 Lab provides an app Minchalle that motivates those who are  prone to drop out from various activities. The app allows users to anonymously cheer up each others with the same challenges to improve themselves such as diet, rising early or training muscles. It encourages them to become habituated with team chat and photo sharing which certifies achievement of their goals.

The mean success rate of habituation with Minchalle is 69% which is eight times higher than the one by single challenge, and the app shows a high continuous use ratio at 46% a half year after the date of starting use. The team monetizes the app by B2B (business-to-business), charging for advertisement or official habituation support, and B2C (business-to-customer) charging for additional / premium functions.

The team had been born out from Sony’s Seed Acceleration Program and fundraised 66 million yen (about $580,000) from Sony, Dai-ichi Kangyo Credit Cooperative, Future Venture Capital, Globe Advisors and Yukihiro Yoshida in its seed round. It was chosen to the acceleration program of Aoyama Startup Acceleration Center (ASAC) 4th batch and the Nomura Holdings’ accelerator program Voyager 1st batch, in addition to Incubate Camp 10th.

NewWork Award: Player! by ookami

Supplemental prize: use rights of the Tokyu’s shared office network NewWork for four members

Ookami provides a sports social app Player! enabling more entertaining sports game watching utilizing online community. It is specified as a stealth matter so that the details of its service revealed in the Demo Day cannot be disclosed in this article.

See also:

NewWork Award: Ecbo Cloak by Ecbo

Supplemental prize: use rights of the Tokyu’s share office network NewWork for four members

Ecbo had not participated in the 3rd batch but gave a Lightning Talk. The details of its service are omitted here.

See also:

Silent Log Analytics by Rei Frontier

Rei Frontier provides a marketing service called Silent Log Analytics enabling a new type of activity analysis by analyzing customers’ location information with artificial intelligence (AI). Companies want to know about customers and customers want companies to make optimized proposal for each, but in reality, sometimes the problem occurs where products that were purchased offline are recommended online.

To solve this, Silent Log Analytics acquires 37,000 users’ activity data per day, obtaining their consent. Using smartphone-mounted GPS and sensors, it determines users’ condition or social attribute. Rei Frontier gathers information and owns the accumulated knowledge that only requires 3% power consumption. The team aims to optimize recommendation or customer notification by not sending entertainment information during work or not sending business information after work.

Through cooperation with Tokyu Card, the team proposed an analysis system for relationship between users’ activity and credit card use history by providing its auto-diary function. It also said it can notify the condition of each user’s destination in advance based on location and activity information, and can promote the optimized activity. With Tokyu Bus, the team showed a plan of promotion / effect measurement for Bus-mo! (free ride campaign of Tokyu Bus) users having similar background by jointly analyzing the users’ activity.

Futakotamagawa Award: Full Dive Novel by My Dearest

Prize money: 250,000 yen (about $2,500)

Full Dive Novel provides a virtual experience of becoming a hero of the story to users who read novels in virtual reality (VR) space. My Dearest has an advantage of making story nature-rich VR contents such as novels or videos by gathering editors and creators, while many of the VR content include games lacking good yarns. The team takes on creation / sales of its own content at first, and aims to make a universal developer kit enabling users to create VR content themselves and construct a platform capable of trading content in the future.

In Japan, with the low penetration rate of VR hardware, My Dearest proposed an expansion of location VR through cooperation with Tokyu Recreation. It emphasized the provision of location VR especially for nerdettes, and will consider optimized content / use time for females through test-marketing at 109 Cinemas in Tokyo. In addition, the team implied a possibility of making VR content featuring areas around Tokyu railway lines.

Switch Office by Hitokara Media

Hitokara Media provides an office relocation support Switch Office that matches persons moving into / out of fully-furnished offices. With this platform, users can drastically reduce restitution cost / interior arrangement costs during office relocation. Company users who want to move out leaving all furnishings behind may apply for Switch Office with the current offices’ information while company users who want to move in are examined and will be allowed to check / inquire / view privately the office.

As for cooperation with Tokyu, Hitokara Media proposes a  realization of closer environment for offices and residences. If offices could be established in urban residential areas such as Sangenjaya or Musashi Kosugi, various merits would be generated for companies, employees and Tokyu’s rail operations. The team exhibited office leasing plans utilizing real estate asset along Tokyu railway lines combining Hitokara Media’s office production know-how targeting startups, for example, by leasing a station-front property near academic institutions, availing an office environment where companies can easily attract interns and part-timers may be expected.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

India’s solar irrigation startup Claro Energy places first in AEA competition finals

SHARE:

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. All the pictures used in this article are courtesy of the AEA organizer. The sixth Asia Entrepreneurship Award (AEA) 2017 competition took place from October 25th to 27th, 2017 at the KOIL facilities on the University of Tokyo Kashiwa-no-ha Campus (located in Chiba Prefecture’s Kashiwa “Smart City”) northeast of the Japanese capital. 21 technology startups from 15 countries/regions mainly in Asia participated in the three-day event. Claro Energy from India, which avails a solar irrigation system for agriculture, won this year’s top award, while Singaporean image software firm ViSenze was runner-up as well as Audience Prize winner and engineering solutions provider Webgears WGT of Russia - offering Smart City programs - came in for the third-place finish. Claro Energy was established in early 2011 with the goal of disrupting the farm irrigation sector first on the Indian subcontinent, then around the rest of the world. Claro’s solar irrigation solutions to farmers should replace expensive Diesel engines/pumps. Besides being expensive Diesel-based pumps pollute extensively and use additional carbon footprint in the supply chains. Their intellectual property enables revectoring of horizontal solar solutions such as solar grids. Over the past six years…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. All the pictures used in this article are courtesy of the AEA organizer.


Participants are on a tour.

The sixth Asia Entrepreneurship Award (AEA) 2017 competition took place from October 25th to 27th, 2017 at the KOIL facilities on the University of Tokyo Kashiwa-no-ha Campus (located in Chiba Prefecture’s Kashiwa “Smart City”) northeast of the Japanese capital. 21 technology startups from 15 countries/regions mainly in Asia participated in the three-day event.

Claro Energy from India, which avails a solar irrigation system for agriculture, won this year’s top award, while Singaporean image software firm ViSenze was runner-up as well as Audience Prize winner and engineering solutions provider Webgears WGT of Russia - offering Smart City programs - came in for the third-place finish.

India’s Claro Energy wins the 1st prize.

Claro Energy was established in early 2011 with the goal of disrupting the farm irrigation sector first on the Indian subcontinent, then around the rest of the world. Claro’s solar irrigation solutions to farmers should replace expensive Diesel engines/pumps. Besides being expensive Diesel-based pumps pollute extensively and use additional carbon footprint in the supply chains.

Their intellectual property enables revectoring of horizontal solar solutions such as solar grids. Over the past six years they have deployed over 7,000 solar irrigation pumps across 15 states in India. They are also driving a lot of business model innovation in this space. Kartik Wahi, Co-founder and Director, made the presentation on behalf of Claro Energy.

Singapore’s ViSenze wins the 2nd prize.

ViSenze powers visual commerce at scale for retailers and image recognition for enterprises. Major shopping sites like the Japanese Rakuten Ichiba (ViSenze has Japan’s Rakuten as a corporate mainstayer too), the British ASOS and adidas, the globally-renowned German sportswear brand site, also use ViSenze to convert any UGC content into immediate product search opportunities, uplifting conversion rates.

Spun-off from the National University of Singapore in 2012 by web entrepreneurs and computer vision scientists, the company’s mission is to simplify the way people search and discover the visual world. ViSenze is venture-backed by WI Harper in addition to aforementioned Rakuten, and officially supported by MasterCard. CEO and Co-founder Oliver Tan gave his firm’s final pitch.

See also:

Russia’s Webgears WGT wins the 3rd prize.

Webgears is a software technology company focusing on novel web-based three-dimensional (3D) graphics for industrial applications, plus for gaming use. Their product is a graphics engine, which lets the clients extract significantly more value from 3D models as well as interactive 3D graphics by almost eliminating hardware requirements and moving interactive 3D content to the cloud.

The Russian outfit has been working closely with Dassault Systèmes of France, a global leader in the 3D field. These days coming to be well-recognized by the WGT brand mark among those in-the-know in the industry, Webgear is expanding its activities overseas, for example involving Smart City endeavors in Southeast Asia. According to CEO Larisa Dydykina who presented the Webgears pitch, they have just opened a new U.S. office in California where her son is located to further push business globally.

Participants at a mentoring session during the program.

This award competition has been held annually since 2012 aiming to realize an Asian ecosystem that generates innovation through collaborations of industry, government and academia. It has since then gathered together many young entrepreneurs from Asia not to mention from Oceania, in order to expand human networks through mentorship, discussion and mutual interaction.

With the particular focus this year being on support for business collaboration between technology startups and locally-rooted companies, AEA has for over half a dozen years been offering various schemes where the startups surroundings in each country and recent trends thereto can be studied in depth, not to mention learning more about the background of successful ecosystems.

Japan’s Genome Clinic wins the Kashiwa-no-ha Award.

As to the new Kashiwa-no-ha prize, established this year for a technology, product or service which could be useful in developing the Kashiwa-no-ha Campus as a smart city, this award was won by Genome Clinic of Japan, which as the name suggests is involved in genome medicine. In addition to the AEA 2017 prizes above, Thai startup AIM GLOBAL INNOVATION obtained the NanoCarrier Prize, named after one of the leading supporters of the competition; AIM produces cute robots for training of autistic children.

AIM Global Innovation wins the NanoCarrier Kashiwa-no-ha Award.

Further to support given by locally-headquartered bioventure NanoCarrier (TSE:4571) and others, kudos are due to real estate developer Mitsui Fudosan (TSE:8801), the University of Tokyo Division of University Corporate Relations, TX Entrepreneur Partners (an incorporated association) and The Japan Academic Society for Ventures and Entrepreneurs as the central backers (Co-Hosts) of AEA. As the driving force behind the “Kashiwa-no-ha” project, Mitsui Fudosan underscored the need to further push entrepreneurship for betterment of society.

See also:

AI-based health diagnosis app for plants wins AgriTech startup competition in Tokyo

SHARE:

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. From May 23rd to 25th at Toranomon Hills in Tokyo, a series of start-up pitches were given during Japan’s Agritech Summit (AG/SUM). The event was sponsored by the Japanese financial newspaper group Nikkei, and modeled after the American version which is replete with start-up participation. It was the second AG/SUM confab held by the Japanese side following a February pitch preliminaries that saw a dozen teams selected to prepare for the Harvest finals in May…10 teams ended up pitching in May. Three AG/SUM accelerator participants also made their Green Pitch presentations. Last year, Nikkei hosted Fintech Summit, in line with the mainstay business full of start-up activity in recent years. The news outfit will this year again organize the fintech event. In 2016 Nikkei had also backed Pioneers Asia, focused on the startup ecosystem in the Asian region. Regarding agritech as a concept it covers not only agribusiness but entails applying technology and innovations to solve a variety of problems ranging from labor shortage due to the steep decline in farms, the global environment and food supply, among other pressing…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.


The Banana Dream team
Image credit: AG/SUM

From May 23rd to 25th at Toranomon Hills in Tokyo, a series of start-up pitches were given during Japan’s Agritech Summit (AG/SUM). The event was sponsored by the Japanese financial newspaper group Nikkei, and modeled after the American version which is replete with start-up participation.

It was the second AG/SUM confab held by the Japanese side following a February pitch preliminaries that saw a dozen teams selected to prepare for the Harvest finals in May…10 teams ended up pitching in May. Three AG/SUM accelerator participants also made their Green Pitch presentations.

AG/SUM Harvest in Tokyo, February 2017
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

Last year, Nikkei hosted Fintech Summit, in line with the mainstay business full of start-up activity in recent years. The news outfit will this year again organize the fintech event. In 2016 Nikkei had also backed Pioneers Asia, focused on the startup ecosystem in the Asian region.

Life Sciences session at Pioneers Asia 2016
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Regarding agritech as a concept it covers not only agribusiness but entails applying technology and innovations to solve a variety of problems ranging from labor shortage due to the steep decline in farms, the global environment and food supply, among other pressing issues.

Automation for improved yield management, utilization of drones both apian and artificial, food safety and security, rural medicine — though as for veterinarians, Japan has a surplus of practitioners — these are fields in which biomedical and life sciences will be gaining in importance.

Banana Dream’s health diagnosis app
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

Regarding AG/SUM pitch competitions Harvest’s top winner, with a big monetary award from the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, was GreenPlanet Biotech-led Team Banana Dream while the special award went to agriculture-use fintech start-up Plus A, which will be provided direct access to the pitch finals at Fintech Summit 2017 being held again by Nikkei in a challenge for the top award there.

The Banana Dream team has developed an AI-based health diagnosis technology for plants using images of the veins of a leaf based on a technique called “freeze-thaw awakening method”. Plus A proposes a new funding option for farmers to help their business expansion and optimization.

The Plus-A team
Image credit: AG/SUM

The Green Pitch presentation were given followed by Livin Farms, Plant Data and Vegetalia, the last outfit being led by Satoshi Koike, a well-known in the startup field. Additionally seminars and workshops as well as exhibits were held (container-based Freight Farms being a favorite for urban/weekend farmer candidates, for example) plus smaller conferences… business and press…at the mid-city venue.

The Plant Data team
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

There was also an announcement made at AG/SUM of a joint endeavor by the City of Rikuzentakata (Mayor Futoshi Toba), Kyoto-based confectioner Salon de Royal (President Machiko Maeuchi) and the University of Tokyo’s Agriculture and Life Sciences Department as well as Institute of Industrial Science (efforts headed by Prof. Hiroyoshi Iwata, Assoc. Prof. Kazuo Oki, etc.) establishing a company and a pilot farm centered on pecan-nut production for revitalization of the rural region devastated by the March 2011 tsunami strike.

The Pecan team and their partners
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

From Monozukuri Hub Meetup in Kyoto: Online platforms for Startups

SHARE:

This is a guest post by Takumi Ishii, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by Kyoko Sunahiro, a wedding dress designer at Atelier 2du Monto. See the original article in Japanese. The Monozukuri Hub Meet Up was held for the 11th time on May 18th at MTRL Kyoto. This edition’s theme was “Online Platforms for Startups”. As opposed to startups dealing with software, issues unique to hardware startups were raised. One of the major themes of this gathering was “partnership, not competition.” Additionally, actual entrepreneurs of hardware startups took to the podium to share their stories, adding a degree of realness to the event. In order to solve the problem of mass production, which is akin to the “Valley of Death” for hardware startups, Makers Boot Camp recalled joining forces with Kyoto Shisaku to support the process startups must follow in mass-producing products. Makers Boot Camp has been collaborating with investors, start-ups and key institutions both in Japan and abroad, but concluded by emphasizing that there is a need to further strengthen this area….

This is a guest post by Takumi Ishii, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.

Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by Kyoko Sunahiro, a wedding dress designer at Atelier 2du Monto.

See the original article in Japanese.


The Monozukuri Hub Meet Up was held for the 11th time on May 18th at MTRL Kyoto. This edition’s theme was “Online Platforms for Startups”.

As opposed to startups dealing with software, issues unique to hardware startups were raised. One of the major themes of this gathering was “partnership, not competition.” Additionally, actual entrepreneurs of hardware startups took to the podium to share their stories, adding a degree of realness to the event.

In order to solve the problem of mass production, which is akin to the “Valley of Death” for hardware startups, Makers Boot Camp recalled joining forces with Kyoto Shisaku to support the process startups must follow in mass-producing products. Makers Boot Camp has been collaborating with investors, start-ups and key institutions both in Japan and abroad, but concluded by emphasizing that there is a need to further strengthen this area.

Presenting hardware startup ecosystems by three gurus

Greg Fisher of Hardware Massive began his presentation by asking the question, “Are there any among you who are developing a product for mass production, or anyone planning to?”

He related that mass-production by hardware startups has many problems, and emphasized that they are aiming to solve them through partnerships, that is to say collaborations rather than competition. Fisher then took up the problem of the enormous cost of engineering and introduced what Hardware Massive is doing to create an environment where startups can overcome it.

Greg Fisher, Founder of Hardware Massive

Fisher redefined hardware startups as, “a startup whose goal is to put physical products into full-scale distribution.” With that in mind, Hardware Massive listed the following as its missions:

  1. Networking
  2. Education
  3. Access to Resources

The company has branches around the world, with information on the branch, staff, and events available on their website. They also offer various resources including those about news and events, which shows that they have realized a global platform accessible to hardware startups.

Karlos Ishac, LifeChair

Next to take the stage was Lifechair’s Karlos Ishac, who is also a graduate student at the University of Tsukuba. Lifechair is the second startup begun by Ishac and they develop a product to solve problems such as physical ailments caused by long-term use of smartphones, computers, and desk work, as well as the problem of productivity deterioration. The product features a function to improve the posture of users by checking their posture and directing them to the correct posture using vibrations.

Ishac recalled his interest in inventing since childhood and how he was managing an informal business by the age of 14. He looked for a job after graduating from Sydney University but in his home country of Australia the majority of opportunities were in agriculture and maritime affairs which did not interest him. That is when he came across Tsukuba University’s OMECHA program, and decided to make the leap to Japan, where he has indulged his entrepreneurial spirit by inventing various products, including a medical robot.

He continuously emphasizes to his current team members, “Do not stick to just one product.” He believes that maintaining flexibility in creating numerous products is an important point for hard tech startups to survive.

Kentaro Yamamoto, Nain

Kentaro Yamamoto of Nain, a Japanese startup, rounded out the first half of the gathering. After studying complex systems engineering at Hokkaido University, he gained experience working for the Pioneer Corporation planning and developing car navigation systems and related materials.

He related that, personally, it is extremely bothersome to have to pick up his smartphone every time he needs to check it leading him to develop APlay, an eyes-free internet device. The company is interested in audio that can cooperate with smartphones, and they are looking to mass produce a device that is wireless and capable of voice recognition.

“You should break free from your isolation, open up, and challenge the world!”

The gathering has two panel discussions.

In the first panel, Hardware Massive Founder Greg Fisher and Narimasa Makino, CEO of Makers Boot Camp, sitting down to relay their viewpoints on assisting hardware startups. In comparison to software startups, they elaborated on the difficulties faced by hardware startups, such as funding and networks, and talked mutually about the importance of online platforms. Fisher emphasized,

A lot of pitch and other events are taking place, but I wanted to create a continuous community, not just a one-time event, so I started Hardware Massive. I believe in collaboration, not competition, and greatly value an open attitude.

Currently, there are all sorts of online platforms flooding the market, but the open attitude of Hardware Massive seems to be indispensable for the future of hardware startups. In the end, Fisher had this message for Japanese startups:

You should break free from your isolation, open up, and challenge the world without fear of failing.

Prior to the second panel discussion, Atsuhiko Tomita of PLENGoer presented their miniature robot PLENCube.

Tomita related,

I don’t believe technology will replace humans. I believe it will enrich our lives.”

He developed the assistant robot PLENCube that fits in the palm of a user’s hand and captures the important moments in their lives that they want to record and share. His team is looking to develop products that will make the lives of users more enjoyable.

See also:

Challleges for Hardware Startups

With that, the final panel discussion titled “Challenges for Hardware Startups” was delivered. Tomokazu Morisawa of The Deck, a co-working space in Osaka, facilitated, and Kentaro Yamamoto of Nain, Karlos Ishac of LifeChair, and Atsuhiko Tomita of PLENGoer talked about their startup efforts and future prospects. In this session, they also accepted questions from the audience using the service sli.do, which manages questions from online.

Upon Morisawa asking a question related to crowdfunding, PLENGoer’s Tomita had an innovative and very interesting response,

Although it is a great effort, there’s the danger that the team will become satisfied by the number of their supporters, which would interfere in future projects.

Following this, an audience member made the request, “Do you have any advice for what I should be doing while I’m still a student?” To which Lifechair’s Ishac, who is currently a student, replied, “You should get involved in the startup community as early as possible.” Regarding the question, “What are you doing to motivate your team?”

Nain’s Yamamoto had this unique answer,

Everyone on our team is lazy, so because of that we wanted to develop a product that is useful.

The panel discussion was especially interesting as there was a wide variety of opinions and the characteristics of each startup shone through. Wrapping up the second session and the end of the panel discussion, each startup stated what is necessary for their next step, what they need for financing and crowdfunding, as well as completing their final product.

Makino ended by remarking that they have created a significant hardware ecosystem, and he is determined to continue activities to support it, including meetups such as this. In the subsequent network sessions participants and presenters exchanged opinions  and it became a place to talk about future projects and ideas in a relaxed atmosphere while drinking.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

New Clip Nihonbashi site opens for business in Tokyo station neighborhood

SHARE:

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Clip Nihonbashi, managed by 31 Ventures which is backed by Mitsui Fudosan, has opened up a new structure housing itself as well as the satellite venture Axelspace (the latter on upper floors of the premises). The collaboration/meeting place was formerly located at CM Building in Nihonbashi nearby, albeit on the sixth floor in addition to being in a building shuttered after 6pm. The modern glass-covered facilities including a reception, conference rooms and locker space, along with a small cafe-esque operation run by a “socially-aware” startup, is conveniently placed adjacent to a major thoroughfare road. Some 90 seats are available for member use, and about a hundred people can be held in case a large event needs to be held. Mitsui Fudosan is supporting other similar establishment in the Tokyo area, including central Kamiyacho and Kasumigaseki areas within the city proper, not to the KOIL facilities in Kashiwanoha on the Tsukuba Express (TX) train line running from Tokyo’s Akihabara to Tsukuba, the science city sited to the northeast. Actually, Axelspace was first headquartered along TX. There is also a “Life Science…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.


Clip Nihonbashi, managed by 31 Ventures which is backed by Mitsui Fudosan, has opened up a new structure housing itself as well as the satellite venture Axelspace (the latter on upper floors of the premises). The collaboration/meeting place was formerly located at CM Building in Nihonbashi nearby, albeit on the sixth floor in addition to being in a building shuttered after 6pm.

The modern glass-covered facilities including a reception, conference rooms and locker space, along with a small cafe-esque operation run by a “socially-aware” startup, is conveniently placed adjacent to a major thoroughfare road. Some 90 seats are available for member use, and about a hundred people can be held in case a large event needs to be held.

Mitsui Fudosan is supporting other similar establishment in the Tokyo area, including central Kamiyacho and Kasumigaseki areas within the city proper, not to the KOIL facilities in Kashiwanoha on the Tsukuba Express (TX) train line running from Tokyo’s Akihabara to Tsukuba, the science city sited to the northeast. Actually, Axelspace was first headquartered along TX.

There is also a “Life Science Hub” building not far from Clip Nihonbashi since the locality is replete with major pharmaceutical concerns, like Astellas and Daiichi Sankyo plus popular medicament providers such as Kowa and Zeria. In fact, Takeda is now constructing its new Tokyo building right down the street to Clip Nihonbashi.

In terms of Clip Nihonbashi access, it is situated right above the Japan Railway Shin-Nihonbashi Station, a single stop away from the Tokyo terminal, in addition to being near Mitsukoshimae Station on the Ginza and Hanzomon Metro subway lines. It is also in hiking distance to other railway stations like JR Kanda and subway Nihonbashi stations.

See also:

Tokyo Office Tour: Xenodata Lab. uses AI to help investors analyze financial reports

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. This is part of our ‘Tokyo Office Tour’ series (RSS), a modest attempt to better understand how folks in the local startup scene are working every day. We have started to see startups here and there renting houses around Tokyo to use as offices. Instead of rural or suburban areas, this is happening inside of the Yamanote loop train line where rental prices are comparatively high. When asked what they did before moving to their new office, they answer that they used members’ living rooms, or co-working spaces, or even the Renoir coffee shop (yes, the same Renoir where Japanese leading game developer Gumi got its start). It is probably even the case that some of the empty rooms in the houses are being used as living spaces for team members. As long as they apply to divide the areas at the tax office, they should be able to cut costs for the area used as offices, and through the separation of public and private space we could see the birth of a new environment that combines living and working areas. The challenge of how to approach work-life balance would come up, but such…

See the original story in Japanese.

This is part of our ‘Tokyo Office Tour’ series (RSS), a modest attempt to better understand how folks in the local startup scene are working every day.

We have started to see startups here and there renting houses around Tokyo to use as offices. Instead of rural or suburban areas, this is happening inside of the Yamanote loop train line where rental prices are comparatively high. When asked what they did before moving to their new office, they answer that they used members’ living rooms, or co-working spaces, or even the Renoir coffee shop (yes, the same Renoir where Japanese leading game developer Gumi got its start).

It is probably even the case that some of the empty rooms in the houses are being used as living spaces for team members. As long as they apply to divide the areas at the tax office, they should be able to cut costs for the area used as offices, and through the separation of public and private space we could see the birth of a new environment that combines living and working areas. The challenge of how to approach work-life balance would come up, but such a concept is foreign to a single entrepreneur looking to establish their company.

FinTech startup Xenodata Lab. recently rented a house between Ebisu and Hiroo in Tokyo to use as their base of operations. Prior to this, they had worked out of one of their member’s living rooms located in Roppongi, but are now ready to forge the foundations of their business from within their “new castle”.

Ebisu is a popular area for offices, and nearly ten years ago when I was doing business, had I rented offices there I remember the month rent per tsubo (about 3.3 square meters) did not drop below 60,000 yen (around $539 US). Often a 10 month security deposit is necessary for office spaces, making it difficult to use for a business, and of course, you must pay a no interest deposit of a few million yen (tens of thousands of US dollars) to the landlord upon renting. Using the nest egg collected from investors to pay for a deposit is something, as a proprietor, I’d like to see avoided, but in using a residential house as an office the security deposit becomes relatively cheap, significantly lowering the hurdle for finding a space to do business in.

Xeno Flash, developed by Xenodata Lab., specializes in listed stocks in Japan and uses XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) analysis, PDF table analysis, and PDF graph analysis to convert information attached to various financial-related materials into tabular data, which they then apply their own algorithm to in order to extract the most important financial points, and furthermore, through natural language processing, they are able to pull up a background of specific numerical values from an enormous amount of sentence data in the material.

Of the 3,600 listed Japanese stocks, only 500 companies, corresponding to 14% of all stocks, are issuing financial reports which individual investors can refer to when making investment decisions. In other words, since the price fluctuations are so intense, account analysis reports are not issued by most of the small and medium-sized companies invested in by individuals, but if they use Xeno Flash, it would be possible for companies to make them available.

Xenodata Lab. won the Grand Prix of MUFG FinTech Accelorator’s first batch last year. In February of this year, they raised 60 million yen (about $539K US) from the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Teikoku Databank, Kabu.com Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital in a seed round.

Currently, Xenodata Lab. is focusing on sales to online and offline retail brokerage fims as well as financial analysts in investment banking departments of securities, and in the coming months we may expect big announcements from them, such as large collaboration projects with securities firms. Founder and CEO Yojiro Seki confided he would like to expand the range of automated analysis for financial data to include unlisted stocks and foreign listings, and also increase their clients by 50 to 100.

Although the engineering personnel necessary for the immediate system development seems to be satisfied, since the company’s business requires expert knowledge of analysis algorithms and natural language processing, etc., they are always looking for talented people in this field. If you are interested in a business that might be able to create a big impact on the securities industry, try getting in touch with them.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka

XenoHouse situated in a quiet neighborhood
At first glance the signboard appears to be that of a cafe or hair salon.
CEO Seki relaxing on the rooftop
xenoHouse rooftop panoramic image
View from the rooftop overlooking Ebisu (click to enlarge)
The engineer team busy developing.
The winning plaque of the MUFG Accelerator is transparent making it difficult to capture in a photograph.

The Bridge’s guide to VR hotspots in Tokyo (2017 new year edition)

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo’s Shibuya, aka Bit Valley, has long been the home of Japanese startups, with FinTech stationed in Otemachi, hardware in Akihabara, bioscience in Nihonbashi, and so on, but it appears startup hubs are popping up all over the place. So, I wondered where hot topic sectors like virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality related startups are gathering, thus the topic for this article was born. A number of VR arcades have appeared in Seoul and Shanghai and they play a role in introducing VR to general (not VR-savvy or VR-enthusiast) consumers. According to experts, in the US it seems that VR startups are starting to gather around Silicon Beach LA, from Santa Clara which is very near Hollywood (the mecca of the video and entertainment industry) to Venice Beach. In London they are appearing in Shoreditch, an area of Tech City. Is this where Tokyo’s VR startup hubs will gather? I walked around the city over the New Year while mulling this over. Future Tech Hub, an incubation facility specializing in VR, newly opened in December Future Tech Hub is Japan’s first incubation facility specialized in VR, as well as a coworking space…

Image credit: theendup / 123RF + bee32 / 123RF

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo’s Shibuya, aka Bit Valley, has long been the home of Japanese startups, with FinTech stationed in Otemachi, hardware in Akihabara, bioscience in Nihonbashi, and so on, but it appears startup hubs are popping up all over the place. So, I wondered where hot topic sectors like virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality related startups are gathering, thus the topic for this article was born.

A number of VR arcades have appeared in Seoul and Shanghai and they play a role in introducing VR to general (not VR-savvy or VR-enthusiast) consumers. According to experts, in the US it seems that VR startups are starting to gather around Silicon Beach LA, from Santa Clara which is very near Hollywood (the mecca of the video and entertainment industry) to Venice Beach. In London they are appearing in Shoreditch, an area of Tech City.

Is this where Tokyo’s VR startup hubs will gather? I walked around the city over the New Year while mulling this over.

Future Tech Hub, an incubation facility specializing in VR, newly opened in December

VR startups working hard at Future Tech Hub
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Future Tech Hub is Japan’s first incubation facility specialized in VR, as well as a coworking space and opened December 14. It is 5 minutes walking from Kayabacho station. In addition to investing in The Venture Reality Fund, they are operated jointly by Gumi (TSE: 3903) and Breakpoint. Gumi is managed by Tokyo VR Startups, an incubator specializing in VR. Breakpoint has been developing incubation facilities in Tokyo since 2004.

See also:

Tokyo VR Startups regularly develop incubation batches, with the Future Tech Hub raising VR startups until they can participate in these batches, the goal being to produce graduates capable of renting their own offices, creating a mutually beneficial relationship. According to Yasuchika Wakayama, CEO of Breakpoint, leading Japanese VR startups Yomuneco (led by journalist Kiyoshi Shin who has written numerous books related to the gaming industry) and Ouka-Ichimon (offering content production and consulting service specializing in the Oculus VR head-mounted display) have set up operations bases there.

Breakpoint CEO Yasuchika Wakayama (right) and Tokyo VR Startups’ Tatsuya Kurohama (left)
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

The theme of incubation is how to raise the business value of a startup in its early stage. Information about what kinds of hardware and software are up and coming filters down to us through our networks and we believe this could be helpful for startups.

Wakayama remarked.

On top of that, one the biggest advantages Silicon Valley has is the close proximity of startups and the market. For example, when an entrepreneur needs to meet with someone from Google to inspect their product, they can do it immediately. And they’ll know who to talk with at Pixar. We want to be able to provide this kind of information and create a similar environment.

He continued.

(In the context of open innovation) We are also getting inquiries from major Japanese companies. We are gathering information on what big companies are looking for in startups so, in turn, startups will be able to launch the products that the market wants more efficiently.

High-spec machines and an area to perform test and demonstrations are necessary when developing VR. At Future Tech Hub they have Galleria gaming computers produced by Thirdwave, HTC Vive from HTC, and cloud services from Amazon Web Services. Tenant startups can use these resources free of charge. Since the studio space for chroma key can be shared by several companies it is also economical.

Among the VR related materials placed by the entrance, there are also documents written by tenants.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

From Future Tech Hub it is a five minute walk along the Nihonbashi River to the Tokyo VR Startups base of operations, and it is expected that the two will share more than just close proximity. They have the power to function as a coworking space, but they have set the conditions for becoming a tenant high in seeking those that will contribute greatly to the VR startup community. Currently there are four corporations and one individual in fixed seats, with three more corporations in free seats and they want to increase this to 30 teams by the end of the year.

Gumi, which is jointly managing Future Tech Lab indirectly, is also jointly developing an incubation program in Korea called Seoul VR Startups. One foreseeable outcome is that VR startups from Korea in Japan using Future Tech Lab as their base.

VR Space

VR Space’s Co-founder and Executive Producer Akihito Ninomiya (left)
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

While our event space / live streaming studio The Bridge X is situated in Shibuya 2-chome, near Aoyama Gakuin University, at nearly the same time we moved our base there, the VR experience space VR Space opened in the same area. It is produced by serial entrepreneur Akihito Ninomiya, who previously operated the Talentio recruitment service (the hatch that operated Talentio was acquired by Ximera  in September 2015).

See also:

VR Space offers 6 booths, each with various VR gaming experiences using HTC Vive. (Currently, they are not licensed to use Oculus Rift, which is not available for direct sales to consumers; only HTC Vive is available.) They are in a favorable location facing Aoyama Street, with couples stopping in on dates, and groups of company employees dropping by for a little recreation. Foreign users have also increased, and recently it seems they had to prepare Chinese manuals and customer guides in a rush.

A portion of the VR titles installed on the machine
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

For Ninomiya, VR Space is not only an arcade, but can also be used as a marketing base for developers of VR content, with the expectation that they could create a scale based on the consulting revenue from the B2B business.

Tech Lab Paak, The Roots, and VR Park Tokyo

Outside of VR Park Tokyo
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Recruit Holdings (TSE: 6098) opened its Acceleration Course specializing in VR from the 6th batch of last year’s Tech Lab Paak startup accelerator in Shibuya. Readers may recall that a number of VR startups were introduced during the demo day for the 6th batch.

Additionally, Colopl Next, which is a fund specializing in VR, has developed an incubation space called The Roots in Shibuya.  Although The Roots is especially for student entrepreneurship support and is not necessarily a facility for VR startups, some kind of synergy may be expected between the fund specializing in VR and the VR startups they invest in.

See also:

Gree (TSE: 3632), a major internet service provider, along with Adores (TSE: 4712), a big name game center operator, opened the VR arcade VR Park Tokyo in Shibuya in December of last year to showcase attractions developed jointly by both companies. In November of 2015, Gree opened Gree VR Studio as a department specializing in the development of VR content, and it appears that the new titles created there can be experienced in Shibuya first. As we could not arrange an interview in time for this article, the interview released by the Japan Times has been posted below.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

“Health, Wealth and Fame”… Nevertheless, You Need Health to Begin with!

SHARE:

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. As my late granny, a nurse by training, used to say, “Without Health, what use is Wealth or Fame?” – indeed, that is surely on many a mind as we enter 2017 and the “Year of the Cock” according to the Chinese calendar, with avian flu already in the air. A befitting confab focusing on health and medicine while looking at the Asian setting was held at the end of last year, reiterating the need to closely scrutinize this aspect of human life. Health 2.0, started in the U.S., was first brought to Tokyo in November of 2015 with support from MedPeer… but true to being “2.0” its second meeting (using two Tokyo location rather than all being at Toranomon Hills) saw redoubled efforts. There are other activities ongoing, such as the Digital Health Meetups organized by GREE Ventures, a cornerstone of the “health 2.0” purview, as one startup-backing example. Additionally, the Japanese firm MedPeer has been doing a remarkable job in carrying on the Health 2.0 Tokyo chapter well, as highlighted by their hosting a seminar in September of…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.


Image Credit: Health2.0 Asia-Japan

As my late granny, a nurse by training, used to say, “Without Health, what use is Wealth or Fame?” – indeed, that is surely on many a mind as we enter 2017 and the “Year of the Cock” according to the Chinese calendar, with avian flu already in the air. A befitting confab focusing on health and medicine while looking at the Asian setting was held at the end of last year, reiterating the need to closely scrutinize this aspect of human life. Health 2.0, started in the U.S., was first brought to Tokyo in November of 2015 with support from MedPeer… but true to being “2.0” its second meeting (using two Tokyo location rather than all being at Toranomon Hills) saw redoubled efforts.

There are other activities ongoing, such as the Digital Health Meetups organized by GREE Ventures, a cornerstone of the “health 2.0” purview, as one startup-backing example. Additionally, the Japanese firm MedPeer has been doing a remarkable job in carrying on the Health 2.0 Tokyo chapter well, as highlighted by their hosting a seminar in September of 2016 at Nihombashi Life Science Building that covered the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the medical industry quite thoroughly. It is understood that major players ranging from startup Abeja to multinational giant IBM not to mention many medical schools found in Tokyo and around Japan took part then.

The 2016 Tokyo event was the 2nd Annual Health 2.0 Asia-Japan Conference held on December 6th and 7th. Emanating from Silicon Valley, the gathering brought to Asia the cutting-edge innovation taking hold in health and the healthcare-related fields via Japan. At their conferences tech from across the globe have been showcased, not to mention the holding of startup pitches. It featured live product demos including robots, company launches and a breakout session in addition to offering presentation and networking opportunities for those involved in healthcare technologies. The theme this year was “The Future is Here – Most Advanced Technologies and Healthcare.”

The first day sessions were held at the Hikarie complex in the Shibuya district, with its high concentration of startups clustered therein. Hikarie is also home to DeNA which has been providing digital health information, owing to the fact that its founder and current chairperson – who left the CEO position to take care of her ailing spouse – was interested in this situation . Most unfortunately this firm’s “wellness-centered” curation site under the present CEO was found to be dubious just prior to the Tokyo Health 2.0 opening. As luck would have it, the second day’s sessions were held in the Nihombashi district across town, an area replete with pharma and medical device companies.

Judges for pitch session
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

Getting back on track, the startup pitch session featured eleven outfits including four from outside of Japan (more than double the number of “pitchers” from 2015). The three-judge panel comprised event sponsor MSD’s business innovations director Katsuhiko Hiwatashi, Stanford University School of Medicine’s Dr. Fumiaki Ikeno and venture capitalist Taizo Son. The winner of the pitch competition, Neuroon based in California, offers a system using light to control a person’s sleep – especially useful for jetsetters and those suffering from sleep-related disorders – was awarded a free invitation to attend the U.S. session of Health 2.0 being held this year on the U.S. West Coast.

Interestingly, the Neuroon “eyemask” is now being availed in Japan by JIN, which runs a chain of Jins spectacles shops (as an aside, this scribe wears a pair of Jins eyeglasses too); this synergistic marketing arrangement could be reference for other startups. Furthermore, underscoring the widespread interest as to sleep disorders, on December 12th the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine (IIIS) headquartered at the University of Tsukuba held its 5th annual symposium, alongside Wako Pure Chemical‘s workshop, in Tokyo. For our reader’s benefit, RIKEN Brain Science Institute’s neural functions expert Dr. Hitoshi Okamoto was the Keynote Speaker.

Neuroon ‘s Ryan Goh
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

Neuroon’s Ryan Goh gave the top pitch while the three other foreign firm representatives making pitches were Medable‘s Kevin Chung, GraftWorx‘s David Kuraguntia and gripAble‘s Paul Rinne. Other (Japanese) competitors included those offering medical practitioner information services and monitors for checking overexposure to harmful radiation like ultraviolet (UV) light, which may lead to melanoma, among other products, encompassing those presented at live demos the previous day in Shibuya. Wide interest was illustrated by the fact that not only major medical arena participants but also smaller ventures eyeing the healthcare field were to be espied in the audience.

Medable’s Kevin Chung
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy
Graftworx’s David Kuraguntia
Image credit: “Tex” POmeroy
gripAble’s Paul Rinne
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

This reporter found quite intriguing medable’s development support productlines for healthcare apps, with fascinating names like Axon and Cortex, and saw gripAble offerings that help patients with problems gripping things to be very commendable, reflecting the stiff upper lip attitude oft-seen exhibited by Britons (perhaps magnified by the fact Mr. Rinne whose suitcase had gone AWOL in Dubai was making a pitch wearing a T-shirt in – pardon the pun – the “gripping” Tokyo cold). Yet GraftWorx, the top “batter” for the session, outlining well-designed wearables to be used in the clinical/hospital setting appeared eminently suited for adoption soon in the Japanese medical scene.

The finalist teams at the Health 2.0 Asia-Japan pitch competition.(Neuroon’s Ryan Goh stands in the center).
Image Credit: Health2.0 Asia-Japan

Worth noting as well was that the Health 2.0 Asia-Japan conference organizer’s Japan side operating out of Jikei Medical University, located a stone’s throw away from the 2015 Toranomon venue (its hospital being renowned among many Japanese athletes for treatment of injuries, as observed by hospital-savvy Imedex CEO Ichida), did admirably in coordinating activities. Beyond sponsorship and volunteer opportunities for the 2017 Japan event I wish to spotlight commercial opportunities also, because the presence of Fronteo Healthcare as a sponsor brought to mind the importance of patent in terms of health 2.0, the Fronteo group being known for its patent data business prowess.

Though the Japanese system still does not allow patenting of medical acts unlike other advanced countries, it recently paved the way for “supplementary foodstuff” patenting. Accordingly there is some notable movement in this front entailing university-backed startups, such as those in the Tohoku region pushing forward with innovative developments. A recent unveiling I am aware of is an “antidote” to hangovers that follow drinking sessions in Japan… though apparently such disaster with “firewater” does not apply to this “partial Native American.” However it seems that such openings, if taken on with serious science in mind and approached properly, bode well for startups.

Although healthcare systems across the world have been changing rapidly, Japan likely has the highest potentials for transformation because relatively few Japanese physicians today are using electronic medical records (EMR) and this nation still has a myriad of medical Uberregulations that may be removed. Patients are not well informed about digital healthtech either, despite the fact that Japan has advanced technological foundations. Since it is being faced with unprecedented greying that undermines the national healthcare system, one of the biggest in the world, Japan is seen being a perfect setting for health 2.0 tech to be implemented in producing a positive paradigm shift.

From Monozukuri Hub Meetup: The Power of Storytelling

SHARE:

This is a guest post by Joey Ho Nihei, a volunteer supporter for Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp as well as a student from National University of Singapore (Department of Global Studies). The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka. Makers Bootcamp is Japan’s leading hardware accelerator and the organizer of the wildly successful Monozukuri Hub meetups. These meetups aim to build, support and inspire a community of makers by acting as a platform for international collaboration and knowledge exchange. In the latest edition of 2016 Monozukuri Hub meetup titled “The Power of Storytelling”, Makers Bootcamp has brought together some of the tech industry’s most seasoned storytellers, investors and start-up founders for an evening packed with insights on how to build and leverage on compelling stories for startups. This meetup largely revolved around the theme of how powerful and effective storytelling is quintessential to startups in every single way — from picking investor’s initial interest to effectively projecting a startup’s value to consumers. Simply put, storytelling is a powerful tool that must be harnessed by startups in order to secure not only investments…

Joey Ho Nihei

This is a guest post by Joey Ho Nihei, a volunteer supporter for Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp as well as a student from National University of Singapore (Department of Global Studies). The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.

Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka.


Makers Bootcamp is Japan’s leading hardware accelerator and the organizer of the wildly successful Monozukuri Hub meetups. These meetups aim to build, support and inspire a community of makers by acting as a platform for international collaboration and knowledge exchange.

In the latest edition of 2016 Monozukuri Hub meetup titled “The Power of Storytelling”, Makers Bootcamp has brought together some of the tech industry’s most seasoned storytellers, investors and start-up founders for an evening packed with insights on how to build and leverage on compelling stories for startups.

This meetup largely revolved around the theme of how powerful and effective storytelling is quintessential to startups in every single way — from picking investor’s initial interest to effectively projecting a startup’s value to consumers. Simply put, storytelling is a powerful tool that must be harnessed by startups in order to secure not only investments but also its survival.

Three main perspectives dominated the evening’s presentations: the perspectives of the story consultant, the investor and the startups. The beauty of this meetup was in seeing the storytelling process from these closely related yet distinct perspectives.

The evening was kicked-off by Sabrina Sasaki from Makers Bootcamp who succinctly introduced the art of storytelling and its significance to a startup’s growth to get everyone warmed up for the magic that was about to happen in the following presentations. Her presentation served as an easily digestible introduction to those unacquainted to the art of storytelling (myself included). One key message that she conveyed in her presentation was how stories play a crucial role in a startup’s marketing and how it is no less important than building a revolutionary product.

Björn Eichstädt, Managing Partner, Storymaker

The first speaker for the evening, Storymaker‘s Björn Eichstädt, offered the perspective of the consultant, sharing snippets from his vast experiences managing a story-oriented communications consulting, PR and digital communications firm. He spoke about how having a powerful story to communicate a company’s identity and value is increasingly important in a world constantly bombarded with a multitude of information, and how originality (instead of jumping onto trends) is the only real way ahead. One of his sharings that left a particular impression on his audience was when he drew parallels between a story and dashi (Japanese soup stock), saying “a story is just like dashi – it can only be made with the right ingredients, and this dashi can be expressed in so many different ways. If customers and the media like it, they will retell it”.

See also:

James Riney, Head of 500 Startups Japan

James Riney, Head of 500 Startups Japan, followed Björn’s sharing by presenting the investor’s perspective to story-telling: What are investors really looking out for when they listen to pitches? One theme that he constantly emphasised on was the need for simplicity when presenting their idea and value and the need to earn trust and confidence quickly in the little bit of time they have to present to investors. The best way to do this, he advices, is to highlight the key strengths of the startup either in terms of traction, team, target market, media coverage or fundings from highly sought-after investors and funds. Simply put, all you need to do is to convey “why this? why now? And why you?”  and just KISS (Keep-it-simple-stupid). He also highlighted the importance of keeping things simple when startups ask for funding — just share with investors how much you need, what you will use it for, and how long this is going to last you.

See also:

The second half of the presentations saw Atsushi Nakanishi (AT) and Shota Takase sharing the stories of Dfree and Blincam respectively. Their stories were living proof of how startups can effectively leverage on powerful stories in order to propel their startups forward.

Atsushi Nakanishi, CEO of Dfree

Dfree CEO Atsushi Nakanishi has pooped his pants before — and he’s not ashamed to share it with the world because that was exactly what inspired the world’s first wearable device that aims to maintain every human’s dignity by using ultrasound to monitor changes in the body to predict toilet timings. His product’s vision to create “a world where nobody has to soil their pants” was as revolutionary as the way he presented his story — he began by asking the audience if “anyone pooped their pants before?” ensuing in a roar of laughter. Such personal, relatable anecdotes peppered with embarrassing examples have proven to be a key element in storytelling which values originality and surprise elements. To close his presentation, he shared Dfree’s future trajectories — a trajectory that would vastly change the way everyone lives in the future by “predicting everything” from toilet timings, appetites, menstrual cycles, aging and even one’s lifespan.

See also:

Shota Takase, CEO & Founder of Blincam

The last presentation for the evening was by Shota Takase, CEO & Founder of Blincam. Blincam’s story started by coincidence at a Startup Weekend session and has since been fueled by Shota’s strong desire capture natural and beautiful photographs of his family. The key inspiration behind Blincam was how Shota could never take candid photographs of his daughter because she would always make funny faces at the camera when she knew her photo was being taken. This desire to capture candid, beautiful pictures of our own children resonated with many people and this vision-turned-startup was what Blincam was all about: A wearable, hands-free camera that captures candid pictures with a blink of an eye. Shota then carried on to share every step of his journey from starting up in a garage all the way to securing a whopping 2640% of funding in Makuake and another 150% in Indiegogo just recently.

See also:

This event saw some of the most insightful stories and had some of the industry’s most seasoned storytellers and listeners (investors). Makers Bootcamp would once again like to extend our warmest regards to every single person who participated and we hope this meetup enriched you as much as it did for us! We hope to see everyone again soon!

Click here if you would like to check the presentation deck from all speakers, with detailed information about each one.