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iSitter wants to crowdsource babysitters for moms in Japan

Yukari Mitsuhashi Yukari Mitsuhashi
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These days, it seems like crowdsourcing is becoming an integral part of many existing online services. Major examples here in Japan would be websites like CrowdWorks and Lancers, where clients can find freelance workers. But many other companies want a piece of this seven billion yen market [1]. One such Japanese company is iSitter, a service similar to US-based Urbansitter. It launched just a few days ago, providing a crowdsourcing site that helps busy moms find qualified babysitters. The site requires babysitters to identify themselves using their Facebook credentials, which helps ensure safety for mothers and children. The company takes this precaution a step further, doing check ups on newly registered babysitters as well (checking things like their driver’s license, health-insurance, etc). Their five star review system provides objective evaluations of registered care-takers. Although iSitter is a much needed service, it might be headed down a rocky road in Japan. In this country there is not really any babysitting culture, perhaps since Japan is generally a safe place where parents can leave young children at home by themselves. But according to iSitter, the babysitting market is a 20.5 billion yen market in Japan. And it will be interesting to see…

iSitter

These days, it seems like crowdsourcing is becoming an integral part of many existing online services. Major examples here in Japan would be websites like CrowdWorks and Lancers, where clients can find freelance workers. But many other companies want a piece of this seven billion yen market [1].

One such Japanese company is iSitter, a service similar to US-based Urbansitter. It launched just a few days ago, providing a crowdsourcing site that helps busy moms find qualified babysitters. The site requires babysitters to identify themselves using their Facebook credentials, which helps ensure safety for mothers and children. The company takes this precaution a step further, doing check ups on newly registered babysitters as well (checking things like their driver’s license, health-insurance, etc). Their five star review system provides objective evaluations of registered care-takers.

Although iSitter is a much needed service, it might be headed down a rocky road in Japan. In this country there is not really any babysitting culture, perhaps since Japan is generally a safe place where parents can leave young children at home by themselves.

But according to iSitter, the babysitting market is a 20.5 billion yen market in Japan. And it will be interesting to see whether or not they can succeed in grabbing some of that.

Besides the hourly wage paid to babysitters, iSitter is free to use. The company’s goal is to acquire 3,000 parents and 200 babysitters within a year. In the future it is expected to implement a paid model, with a monthly fee of a few hundred yen.

  1. As of 2012.  ↩

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Meet the startup crowdsourcing Japanese demand for overseas musicians

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Yuno Group today launched a crowdfunding site focused on live musical performances. It enables music fans in Japan to collaboratively invite their favorite artists from overseas. The new site is called Alive (alive.mu). The number of live performance events hosting musicians from the overseas has been gradually decreasing. For those in the event business, there is always the risk of poor sales or way too many vacant seats, and that may scare organizers away from inviting niche artists. But this new crowdfunding platform receives ticket orders prior to organizing an event, and the artist will be invited when the number of advanced orders reaches a preset target. In this way, the platform reduces the chance of an unsuccessful event. It is a similar business model to on-demand theater service Dreampass which was acquired by Yahoo Japan back in March. As of today, the platform has five crowdfunding projects available: Blue Hawaii – An electronic music duo from Montreal, Canada. The band’s latest album Untogether features acoustic folk and electronic sounds. San Cisco – An Australian four-piece indie pop band formed in 2009. Awkward, a single from their first album San Cisco, has…

alive_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup Yuno Group today launched a crowdfunding site focused on live musical performances. It enables music fans in Japan to collaboratively invite their favorite artists from overseas. The new site is called Alive (alive.mu).

The number of live performance events hosting musicians from the overseas has been gradually decreasing. For those in the event business, there is always the risk of poor sales or way too many vacant seats, and that may scare organizers away from inviting niche artists. But this new crowdfunding platform receives ticket orders prior to organizing an event, and the artist will be invited when the number of advanced orders reaches a preset target. In this way, the platform reduces the chance of an unsuccessful event. It is a similar business model to on-demand theater service Dreampass which was acquired by Yahoo Japan back in March.

As of today, the platform has five crowdfunding projects available:

  • Blue Hawaii – An electronic music duo from Montreal, Canada. The band’s latest album Untogether features acoustic folk and electronic sounds.
  • San Cisco – An Australian four-piece indie pop band formed in 2009. Awkward, a single from their first album San Cisco, has over 5 million views on YouTube.
  • Crocodiles – An indie pop band from San Diego. Their sound has typically been likened to The Jesus and Mary Chain and Stone Roses because of their psychedelic pop style. They have performed all across Europe.
  • XXYYXX – A 17-year-old electronic musician and producer from Orlando, Florida. His style has been likened to James Blake and Burial because of his experimental lo-fi music.
  • Nouvelle Vague – A French pop cover band known for punk rock, post-punk, new wave, and their use of ’60s bossa nova-style arrangements.

The Alive team was founded by British neuroscientist Sam Mokhtary and Japanese UI designer Yutaka Fujiki. They are based at PAX Coworking, a space here in Tokyo. It seems their team is comprised of many people from music startup Nana.

In this space, we’ve already seen some websites providing showbiz-focused crowdfunding projects, such as UK-based Songkick and Brazil’s WeDemand (previously known as Queremos). The former raised $10 million from Sequoia Capital last year, which is a good indication of the potential in this sector.

alive_screenshot

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Japanese business reporting tool Gamba raises $200,000 from Skyland Ventures

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
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See the original story in Japanese. Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup behind the business reporting tool of the same name, announced today that it has raised $20 million yen (approximately $200,00) from Skyland Ventures, a Japanese investment company focused on seed-stage startups. Some of our readers may recall when we reported back in July that their tool would be integrated with a number of code- and task-tracking tools: GitHub, BitBucket, Pivotal Tracker and Google Tasks. The company was launched last December by Masahiro Morita who previously worked with e-commerce giant Rakuten as a business development producer. As of July, it has acquired more than 1,000 corporate accounts in Japan across a wide range of companies. For sales representatives or engineers, the app provides an easy way to share your updates with colleagues or management, at the beginning and the end of business hours. For management who have difficulties finding time to speak with employees face-to-face, it provides information on the progression of tasks as well as information about what are employees are working on. Among social tools available for enterprises, we’ve recently seen big developments like corporate messaging tool Yammer’s, acquired last year by Microsoft, and Australian business tool startup Atlassian,…

get-gamba

See the original story in Japanese.

Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup behind the business reporting tool of the same name, announced today that it has raised $20 million yen (approximately $200,00) from Skyland Ventures, a Japanese investment company focused on seed-stage startups. Some of our readers may recall when we reported back in July that their tool would be integrated with a number of code- and task-tracking tools: GitHub, BitBucket, Pivotal Tracker and Google Tasks.

The company was launched last December by Masahiro Morita who previously worked with e-commerce giant Rakuten as a business development producer. As of July, it has acquired more than 1,000 corporate accounts in Japan across a wide range of companies. For sales representatives or engineers, the app provides an easy way to share your updates with colleagues or management, at the beginning and the end of business hours. For management who have difficulties finding time to speak with employees face-to-face, it provides information on the progression of tasks as well as information about what are employees are working on.

gamba_screenshot

Among social tools available for enterprises, we’ve recently seen big developments like corporate messaging tool Yammer’s, acquired last year by Microsoft, and Australian business tool startup Atlassian, currently preparing for an IPO.

In the Japanese market, Talknote raised $2 million earlier this week, and Chatwork is accelerating its global expansion efforts as well. We can expect this space to get even more interesting over the next year.

For Skyland Ventures, this is the largest of its investments to date. The company’s portfolio also includes Wonder Graphics, a company specializing in video explainers; Hachimenroppi, which does food distribution for restaurants; and Creofuga, a vertical social network for musical composers.

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Tokyo’s Ptmind to set up shop in Silicon Valley, provide analytics solutions globally

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
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Ptmind is the Tokyo-based startup behind access analytics tool Miapex. The company recently announced that it will expand to serve global customers, and set up an office in Silicon Valley by the end of this year. The tool allows users to analyze visitor access to websites, as well as better understand their experience on your website, regardless of whether you are on desktop or mobile. In this space, there are already more than a few competitors including Google Analytics, Clicky, clicktale, Crazyegg, and Heatmaps. To differentiate from these services, the company aims to give more visual, more intimate access to real-time analytics by providing traffic heatmaps and compatibility tests for multiple mobile browsers, and click-through heatmap reports. The company was originally launched back in 2007 by graduates from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has been trying to acquire users in the Chinese market but was forced to shut down after its investor folded due to the global financial crisis. In 2010, the team revived as PtThink China and founded a Japanese subsidiary in Tokyo as Ptmind. Ptmind has been generating its main revenue stream in Japan over the last few years. In addition to the recent announcement of its…

miapex_featured

Ptmind is the Tokyo-based startup behind access analytics tool Miapex. The company recently announced that it will expand to serve global customers, and set up an office in Silicon Valley by the end of this year.

The tool allows users to analyze visitor access to websites, as well as better understand their experience on your website, regardless of whether you are on desktop or mobile. In this space, there are already more than a few competitors including Google Analytics, Clicky, clicktale, Crazyegg, and Heatmaps. To differentiate from these services, the company aims to give more visual, more intimate access to real-time analytics by providing traffic heatmaps and compatibility tests for multiple mobile browsers, and click-through heatmap reports.

The company was originally launched back in 2007 by graduates from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has been trying to acquire users in the Chinese market but was forced to shut down after its investor folded due to the global financial crisis. In 2010, the team revived as PtThink China and founded a Japanese subsidiary in Tokyo as Ptmind.

Ptmind has been generating its main revenue stream in Japan over the last few years. In addition to the recent announcement of its partnership with Softbank BB, Softbank’s internet service provider, the company released an English edition of its tool and plans to set up a Silicon Valley office.

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Japanese e-commerce platform provider Base raises $2M from CyberAgent

Takeshi Hirano Takeshi Hirano
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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese e-commerce platform provider Base announced today that it will raise 200 million (approximately $2 million) from Japanese internet giant CyberAgent. This will be the first investment from the latter’s new fund targeting middle- and late-stage startups, also known as Fujita Fund after the company’s CEO Susumu Fujita. According to Base’s CEO Yuta Tsuruoka, his company also raised 50 million yen ($500,000) from Sun Eight Investment back in July. The total amount of funds raised is about 273 million yen ($2.73 million), including investments from East Ventures, Party Factory, and angel investors. Tsuruoka describes meeting with Fujita back in August: About four months ago, I met up with him for the first time. After Rising Expo [1] back in September, I had a chance to see him and shared our KPIs. I think at that moment, he seemed to decide on the investment. When we look at how the platform was growing back in August, one of its primary sources of traffic was from Ameba, CyberAgent’s blog platform, following Facebook and Twitter. Subsequently, Tsuruoka asked his co-founder/investor Kazuma Ieiri to ask Fujita if CyberAgent was interested in investing. And to his surprise Fujita was…

yuta-tsuruoka
Base CEO Yuta Tsuruoka

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese e-commerce platform provider Base announced today that it will raise 200 million (approximately $2 million) from Japanese internet giant CyberAgent. This will be the first investment from the latter’s new fund targeting middle- and late-stage startups, also known as Fujita Fund after the company’s CEO Susumu Fujita.

According to Base’s CEO Yuta Tsuruoka, his company also raised 50 million yen ($500,000) from Sun Eight Investment back in July. The total amount of funds raised is about 273 million yen ($2.73 million), including investments from East Ventures, Party Factory, and angel investors.

Tsuruoka describes meeting with Fujita back in August:

About four months ago, I met up with him for the first time. After Rising Expo [1] back in September, I had a chance to see him and shared our KPIs. I think at that moment, he seemed to decide on the investment.

When we look at how the platform was growing back in August, one of its primary sources of traffic was from Ameba, CyberAgent’s blog platform, following Facebook and Twitter. Subsequently, Tsuruoka asked his co-founder/investor Kazuma Ieiri to ask Fujita if CyberAgent was interested in investing. And to his surprise Fujita was indeed interested.

With the funds raised this time, Base plans to expand its team from 12 to 20 people, and to intensify marketing and advertising efforts as well.

We have acquired 50,000 merchants in the last eleven months, showing about 10% monthly growth on average. We recently launched an iOS app, and it seems to have had a big impact for our merchants, changing their experience and environment. For example, a retailer manufacturing handmade crafts can handle all the necessary tasks with his iPhone, ranging from taking pictures of items to be sold to his store management.

70% of Base’s user activity comes from smartphones, yet another indication that the Japanese e-commerce industry has mostly transitioned to mobile. The company is exploring monetization opportunities but intends to keep focusing on user acquisition for the time being.

  1. An annual startup showcase event by CyberAgent Ventures.↩

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Traditional Japanese pottery decoration now comes as a DIY kit

Yukari Mitsuhashi Yukari Mitsuhashi
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We all have those moments when we want to do something out of the ordinary, something creative. If you don’t know where to start, Kutani Seal might be a great option if you’re into decorating tableware and pottery. Kutani Choemon is a pottery manufacturer founded in Ishikawa prefecture all the way back in 1897. They have brought beautiful tableware and tea ceremony utensils to the people of Japan for over 130 years. Kutani Seal began back in 2009 as a workshop to design and create Kutani pottery by using seal transfers. Besides these workshops, Kutani Seal is available as a make-it-yourself kit which is sold over on its website. There are different utencils available, such as coffee cups, flower-shaped plates, and rice bowls. All you have to do is layout the accompanying stickers on the utensil of your choice, and send back the plate to the manufacturer. The finished pottery will then be delivered to your door. This kit is a very smart and fun way to encourage people to be creative, bringing the traditional Kutani pottery closer to the masses. You can follow Kutani Seal on Twitter to get their most recent updates. Or check out the video below…

Kutani-Seal

We all have those moments when we want to do something out of the ordinary, something creative. If you don’t know where to start, Kutani Seal might be a great option if you’re into decorating tableware and pottery. Kutani Choemon is a pottery manufacturer founded in Ishikawa prefecture all the way back in 1897. They have brought beautiful tableware and tea ceremony utensils to the people of Japan for over 130 years.

Kutani Seal began back in 2009 as a workshop to design and create Kutani pottery by using seal transfers. Besides these workshops, Kutani Seal is available as a make-it-yourself kit which is sold over on its website.

Kutani-Seal-kit

There are different utencils available, such as coffee cups, flower-shaped plates, and rice bowls. All you have to do is layout the accompanying stickers on the utensil of your choice, and send back the plate to the manufacturer. The finished pottery will then be delivered to your door.

This kit is a very smart and fun way to encourage people to be creative, bringing the traditional Kutani pottery closer to the masses. You can follow Kutani Seal on Twitter to get their most recent updates. Or check out the video below to learn more about how it works.

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WeChat turns to Japanese startup Quan for mobile sticker content

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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Japanese startup Quan announced today that it has partnered with Chinese internet giant Tencent to provide stamp content within the latter’s WeChat mobile messaging app, starting today. The first set of stamps will be a Mr. Egg character set, downloadable for free from within the chat application (pictured below). Quan has built an interesting business model on top of cute, exportable Japanese content. It’s very much the same flavor of content that has led to the global success of other cute Japanese apps such as CocoPPa or Decopic. But in addition to its ‘kawaii’ appeal, Quan is riding the message app wave, with its app myStickerShop and other sticker-related business. Currently, when it comes to chat-related content, Quan has over 200 characters under its belt. Recently the company has been focused on obtaining licenses for even more, which should help solidify its reputation as the go-to company for this kind of mobile content. Readers may recall that we interviewed the company’s CEO Kazuhiro Mizuno earlier in the year about his company’s business in Thailand, including a tie-up with the nation’s largest mobile operator, AIS. They plan to establish a subsidiary in Thailand by the end of the year. As for…

mr-egg-wide

Japanese startup Quan announced today that it has partnered with Chinese internet giant Tencent to provide stamp content within the latter’s WeChat mobile messaging app, starting today. The first set of stamps will be a Mr. Egg character set, downloadable for free from within the chat application (pictured below).

Quan has built an interesting business model on top of cute, exportable Japanese content. It’s very much the same flavor of content that has led to the global success of other cute Japanese apps such as CocoPPa or Decopic. But in addition to its ‘kawaii’ appeal, Quan is riding the message app wave, with its app myStickerShop and other sticker-related business.

Currently, when it comes to chat-related content, Quan has over 200 characters under its belt. Recently the company has been focused on obtaining licenses for even more, which should help solidify its reputation as the go-to company for this kind of mobile content.

Readers may recall that we interviewed the company’s CEO Kazuhiro Mizuno earlier in the year about his company’s business in Thailand, including a tie-up with the nation’s largest mobile operator, AIS. They plan to establish a subsidiary in Thailand by the end of the year.

As for Tencent, this is not the first time that it has turned to Japanese expertise to improve its mobile offerings. The company previously enlisted Japan-based Nanameue Inc to develop its MotionPics Maker app for WeChat.

mr-egg2 mr-egg-1

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Japanese service brings manga characters to life with 3D printing

Yukari Mitsuhashi Yukari Mitsuhashi
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With its established culture of manga and animation, many people here in Japan are fans of collecting figures of their favorite characters. Recently a new crowd-funding platform was launched here, dedicated to creating character figures according to user votes. It’s called Okuyuki, which roughly means ‘depth’. On the Okuyuki platform, all that a user needs to do is upload an image of their illustration. By promoting his or her Okuyuki project to fans, they enlist the support of others to help get their project created. Once there are enough supporters for a project, Okuyuki takes over. It creates the 3D data, makes the figure, and then ships the end product. If and when a project meets its funding goal, the original designer receives 10% of sales from Okuyuki. Of the five projects currently running on the platform, only one has succeeded in gaining any supporters, specifically this character, which is available for 25,000 yen (or about $254). Okuyuki is provided by Japanese company Emotional Brains. It’s a clever idea, and we hope to see more projects on there soon!

Okuyuki-figure

With its established culture of manga and animation, many people here in Japan are fans of collecting figures of their favorite characters. Recently a new crowd-funding platform was launched here, dedicated to creating character figures according to user votes. It’s called Okuyuki, which roughly means ‘depth’.

On the Okuyuki platform, all that a user needs to do is upload an image of their illustration. By promoting his or her Okuyuki project to fans, they enlist the support of others to help get their project created. Once there are enough supporters for a project, Okuyuki takes over. It creates the 3D data, makes the figure, and then ships the end product. If and when a project meets its funding goal, the original designer receives 10% of sales from Okuyuki.

Of the five projects currently running on the platform, only one has succeeded in gaining any supporters, specifically this character, which is available for 25,000 yen (or about $254).

Okuyuki is provided by Japanese company Emotional Brains. It’s a clever idea, and we hope to see more projects on there soon!

Okuyuki-website

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After billion dollar deal, Supercell’s Hay Day becomes Japan’s top game

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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The Japanese mobile game market is a lucrative one, capable of making game publishers the world over salivate. But it is rarely an easy space to break into. Finland’s Supercell has managed to find a loophole of sorts though, collaborating with GungHo Entertainment to make Clash of Clans a hit. And now, just after news of $1.5 billion in investment from SoftBank and GungHo, the company’s other prominent title Hay Day is finding success in Japan, becoming as the top free app last Friday (see chart below) after the Japanese version hit the App Store. Hay Day has also been spotlighted in the ‘featured’ section of the Japanese App Store, and it has been heavily promoted by the folks over at Japanese app review site AppBank as well. Readers may recall that Supercell also credited part of the success of Clash of Clans to AppBank’s promotional efforts as well. The GungHo/Supercell partnership is intended to be a two-way street, so it will be interesting to see how Supercell can help promote GungHo’s game titles in European and North American markets. Puzzle & Dragons just launched in the UK market on October 16, so lets wait and see what kind of…

hay_day_japan

The Japanese mobile game market is a lucrative one, capable of making game publishers the world over salivate. But it is rarely an easy space to break into.

Finland’s Supercell has managed to find a loophole of sorts though, collaborating with GungHo Entertainment to make Clash of Clans a hit. And now, just after news of $1.5 billion in investment from SoftBank and GungHo, the company’s other prominent title Hay Day is finding success in Japan, becoming as the top free app last Friday (see chart below) after the Japanese version hit the App Store.

Hay Day has also been spotlighted in the ‘featured’ section of the Japanese App Store, and it has been heavily promoted by the folks over at Japanese app review site AppBank as well. Readers may recall that Supercell also credited part of the success of Clash of Clans to AppBank’s promotional efforts as well.

The GungHo/Supercell partnership is intended to be a two-way street, so it will be interesting to see how Supercell can help promote GungHo’s game titles in European and North American markets. Puzzle & Dragons just launched in the UK market on October 16, so lets wait and see what kind of assistance Supercell can provide, and how it is received by gamers there.

hay-day-japan

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Honda’s popular video app RoadMovies surpasses 3M downloads

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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Back in August we featured Honda’s mobile video app RoadMovies, which at the time was the top-ranked photo app in Japan. Ever since then the app has continued to do well in its home market in Japan, but also in South Korea too, where it has been a top–5 mainstay in the iOS photo category. Just recently it was announced that RoadMovies has surpassed the 3 million downloads milestone, this according to Nikkei Business. Personally, I’m a big fan of the app, and I still use it regularly. Honda’s original intention may have been for people to use their app to document road trips (especially using the interval camera feature), but my guess is that people are using it for all kinds of purposes. I’m using it to make short home movies of my baby, for example. To summarize what the application does, it allows you to record many short clips that can then be conjoined to make a 24-second video with filter effects and right-free background music applied. As you can see in the sample video below (posted to YouTube), the result is beautifully retro and fun. If you’d like to give RoadMovies a try, you can get it…

honda-roadmovies-icon

Back in August we featured Honda’s mobile video app RoadMovies, which at the time was the top-ranked photo app in Japan. Ever since then the app has continued to do well in its home market in Japan, but also in South Korea too, where it has been a top–5 mainstay in the iOS photo category.

Just recently it was announced that RoadMovies has surpassed the 3 million downloads milestone, this according to Nikkei Business. Personally, I’m a big fan of the app, and I still use it regularly. Honda’s original intention may have been for people to use their app to document road trips (especially using the interval camera feature), but my guess is that people are using it for all kinds of purposes. I’m using it to make short home movies of my baby, for example.

To summarize what the application does, it allows you to record many short clips that can then be conjoined to make a 24-second video with filter effects and right-free background music applied. As you can see in the sample video below (posted to YouTube), the result is beautifully retro and fun.

If you’d like to give RoadMovies a try, you can get it for free from the App Store.

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