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Cinemacraft raises $1.5M in funding, expands team in Tokyo and LA

Rick Martin 2013.09.17

Tokyo-based media startup Cinemacraft has announced today that it has closed a $1.5 million round of funding from NTT Docomo Ventures, Turner Broadcasting’s Media Camp, and 500 Startups. We have previously featured Cinemacraft’s primary offering Videogram, a clever thumbnailed display that gives users visual previews of the various parts of a video. Check out the Runner Runner trailer below for an example of how it works. It feels good to reach market validation but work is not over yet. We’re just getting started The new funds will be used to expand the team, adding three new engineers to the core team in Tokyo, which will continue to be Cinemacraft’s engineering center. Founder Sandeep Casi tells us that they are currently hiring developers (iOS, Android, HTML5, Java/JSP) and if anyone would like to apply they can do so here. Including Casi, the team is still a lean six people in total, with two additions in Los Angeles for business development and operations. Readers may recall back in June when we mentioned that the startup had been admitted into Turner Broadcasting’s Media Camp. Founder Sandeep Casi notes how important that experience was for him: [It] was awesome. We had traction from Hollywood…

Tokyo-based media startup Cinemacraft has announced today that it has closed a $1.5 million round of funding from NTT Docomo Ventures, Turner Broadcasting’s Media Camp, and 500 Startups.

We have previously featured Cinemacraft’s primary offering Videogram, a clever thumbnailed display that gives users visual previews of the various parts of a video. Check out the Runner Runner trailer below for an example of how it works.

It feels good to reach market validation but work is not over yet. We’re just getting started

The new funds will be used to expand the team, adding three new engineers to the core team in Tokyo, which will continue to be Cinemacraft’s engineering center. Founder Sandeep Casi tells us that they are currently hiring developers (iOS, Android, HTML5, Java/JSP) and if anyone would like to apply they can do so here. Including Casi, the team is still a lean six people in total, with two additions in Los Angeles for business development and operations.

Readers may recall back in June when we mentioned that the startup had been admitted into Turner Broadcasting’s Media Camp. Founder Sandeep Casi notes how important that experience was for him:

[It] was awesome. We had traction from Hollywood going into Media Camp. We had a product that was market ready and what the Media Camp did was amplify our execution. Now it is about scaling. Getting the right hires in place is the next major priority. It feels good to reach market validation but work is not over yet. We’re just getting started.

So what lies ahead for Cinemacraft? Casi adds that they are already deploying their product in the US with some large entities like Fox, Turner, and Capitol Records. They will also be working with NTT group here in Japan.

This new round brings the startups total amount of funds raised to $2 million.

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PyCon APAC: Nasty weather doesn’t constrict Pythonistas in Japan

Rick Martin 2013.09.16

Japan has seen some pretty bad weather this weekend, but that hasn’t stopped many in the Python community from coming out to the fourth annual PyCon APAC. For the previous three years, the event was held in Singapore, so this marks the first time that it has come to Japan, held at the Shinjuku campus of Kougakuin University here in Tokyo. I had a chance to visit the event on Saturday to check out some of the talks. There were a number of prominent speakers in attendance, from Japan as well as abroad. This included core developer and release manager for Python 3.2 and 3.3, Georg Brandl, who gave the day 1 keynote (see below); and Dropbox’s third employee Rian Hunter who gave the day 2 keynote. And with Monday being a national holiday here in Tokyo today, the extra day for the conference was devoted to development sprints Speaking as a perpetual beginner programmer, I was pleased to see that the conference had something to offer folks of all levels, and session tracks in English and Japanese. And there were a number of familiar faces from around the tech community lending their support, including sponsors CyberAgent, Rakuten, Google, KLab…

Japan has seen some pretty bad weather this weekend, but that hasn’t stopped many in the Python community from coming out to the fourth annual PyCon APAC. For the previous three years, the event was held in Singapore, so this marks the first time that it has come to Japan, held at the Shinjuku campus of Kougakuin University here in Tokyo.

I had a chance to visit the event on Saturday to check out some of the talks. There were a number of prominent speakers in attendance, from Japan as well as abroad. This included core developer and release manager for Python 3.2 and 3.3, Georg Brandl, who gave the day 1 keynote (see below); and Dropbox’s third employee Rian Hunter who gave the day 2 keynote. And with Monday being a national holiday here in Tokyo today, the extra day for the conference was devoted to development sprints

Speaking as a perpetual beginner programmer, I was pleased to see that the conference had something to offer folks of all levels, and session tracks in English and Japanese. And there were a number of familiar faces from around the tech community lending their support, including sponsors CyberAgent, Rakuten, Google, KLab and others.

For those of you who didn’t have a chance to get out to the event – perhaps due to the weather – you can find the talks over on YouTube and I encourage you to check them out.

news

Japan brings brilliant colored designs to boring paper receipts

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.09.13

If you go into a Japanese convenience store, you might notice a little box by the register where customers can trash their unwanted receipts. Since the usual purchase is relatively small, many people don’t bother to keep the receipts. But this could change, thanks to a creative little idea called the Design Receipt Project. This project focuses on transforming receipts into a new communication tool. The initiative was started by Hiroaki Sato, and over 16 designers joined in to put their designs on the back of receipts. One of the many talented designers on board is includes Issei Kitagawa, the lead designer at Graph, a design and branding company. The colorful receipt paper can be purchased over on the DRP official website, starting at 2,310 yen. In the digital age, receipts are one of the few physical things we all still come in contact with. But yet no one pays attention to the empty white space on the back. At least, not until now. Thanks to the Design Receipt Project, we may see this previously empty space suddenly being used in new and creative ways! image via. Roomie

If you go into a Japanese convenience store, you might notice a little box by the register where customers can trash their unwanted receipts. Since the usual purchase is relatively small, many people don’t bother to keep the receipts. But this could change, thanks to a creative little idea called the Design Receipt Project.

This project focuses on transforming receipts into a new communication tool. The initiative was started by Hiroaki Sato, and over 16 designers joined in to put their designs on the back of receipts. One of the many talented designers on board is includes Issei Kitagawa, the lead designer at Graph, a design and branding company. The colorful receipt paper can be purchased over on the DRP official website, starting at 2,310 yen.

In the digital age, receipts are one of the few physical things we all still come in contact with. But yet no one pays attention to the empty white space on the back. At least, not until now.

Thanks to the Design Receipt Project, we may see this previously empty space suddenly being used in new and creative ways!

image via. Roomie

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Japan e-commerce startup Monoco partners with major broadcaster Fuji TV

Takeshi Hirano 2013.09.13

See the original story in Japanese. Monoco is a flash sales e-commerce site specializing in limited quantity fashions selected by curators and buyers worldwide. The company announced today that it has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of Japanese TV network Fuji TV. Coinciding with this funding, the two companies are expecting to work on collaborative product development and explore possible sales opportunities on Fuji TV’s own programs. Furthermore Monoco plans to launch a physical store in Shibuya, Tokyo on September 27th, to be called Monoco Showroom. The company has been seeing good progress of late as well. I spoke with the startup’s CEO Takehiro Kakiyama back in April of last year, when his team has just shifted their gears to become Monoco after its previous efforts under the FlutterScape banner. The team has devoted itself to growth since them, and raising funds (thought to be in the millions of dollars) from Japanese telco KDDI back in July. Monoco now has over 80,000 users, and has partnered with 1,100 product designers Kakiyama didn’t disclose any revenue figures, but he did say that the marketplace now has over 80,000 users, has partnered with 1,100…

See the original story in Japanese.

Monoco is a flash sales e-commerce site specializing in limited quantity fashions selected by curators and buyers worldwide. The company announced today that it has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of Japanese TV network Fuji TV.

Coinciding with this funding, the two companies are expecting to work on collaborative product development and explore possible sales opportunities on Fuji TV’s own programs. Furthermore Monoco plans to launch a physical store in Shibuya, Tokyo on September 27th, to be called Monoco Showroom.

The company has been seeing good progress of late as well. I spoke with the startup’s CEO Takehiro Kakiyama back in April of last year, when his team has just shifted their gears to become Monoco after its previous efforts under the FlutterScape banner. The team has devoted itself to growth since them, and raising funds (thought to be in the millions of dollars) from Japanese telco KDDI back in July.

Monoco now has over 80,000 users, and has partnered with 1,100 product designers

Kakiyama didn’t disclose any revenue figures, but he did say that the marketplace now has over 80,000 users, has partnered with 1,100 product designers (both in Japan and around the world), and has over 50,000 items available on the platform.

Their headcount has reached 22, way up from five when the service was launched.

It will be interesting to see how Monoco will compete in this space now that it has the support of this Japanese media giant.

news

Now with 200M game downloads, Line Corporation adds MapleStory title

Rick Martin 2013.09.12

Line Corporation made some headlines earlier today when it announced that its games lineup had surpassed 200 million downloads [1]. There are more than 230 million registered users for its Line chat platform, and many of them are spending time with the company’s many casual game titles to date. What’s most interesting to me about Line’s gaming success so far is that it has all been with relatively unremarkable IP. Its biggest game to date in terms of downloads has been Line Pop with over 32 million, followed by Line Bubble with 25 million. But I’m expecting even bigger figures when Sonic Dash comes to Line this fall. Nexon’s Maple Story celebrated its tenth anniversary this year In addition to announcing its lofty downloads milestone, the company also rolled out Line MapleStory Village today. This is a farm/town-building game from the successful Maple Story franchise by Nexon, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. Line MapleStory Village is currently available in Japanese, English, and traditional Chinese, and is available worldwide with the exceptions of China and South Korea. This game should fare well around the Asia region even without those big markets [2]. If you’d like to give it a…

Line Corporation made some headlines earlier today when it announced that its games lineup had surpassed 200 million downloads [1]. There are more than 230 million registered users for its Line chat platform, and many of them are spending time with the company’s many casual game titles to date.

What’s most interesting to me about Line’s gaming success so far is that it has all been with relatively unremarkable IP. Its biggest game to date in terms of downloads has been Line Pop with over 32 million, followed by Line Bubble with 25 million. But I’m expecting even bigger figures when Sonic Dash comes to Line this fall.

Nexon’s Maple Story celebrated its tenth anniversary this year

In addition to announcing its lofty downloads milestone, the company also rolled out Line MapleStory Village today. This is a farm/town-building game from the successful Maple Story franchise by Nexon, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year.

Line MapleStory Village is currently available in Japanese, English, and traditional Chinese, and is available worldwide with the exceptions of China and South Korea. This game should fare well around the Asia region even without those big markets [2].

If you’d like to give it a try, you can get it now as a free download for iOS and Android. Check out the trailer below for a preview.

For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of games, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011.

The milestone was reached on September 6th, according to the company. ↩
And even though it is a stupid farm/town-building game… ↩

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Japanese startup Fello raises $1M to help game developers improve user retention

Takeshi Hirano 2013.09.12

See the original story in Japanese. Singapore-based Unicon, the Japanese startup behind user retention improvement platform Fello, announced today that it has raised 100 million yen (approximately $1 million) from Jafco and other Japanese investors. With these funds, the startup will intensify engineering and marketing efforts and is planning to set up an office in Japan. The platform provides testing and analysis features for typical mobile gaming app functions such as push notification or messaging via an SDK. According to the startup’s CEO Ryuichi Tanaka, more than 100 app developers have signed up for the service since its launch back in August. Over 100 app developers have signed up for Fello since its launch in August In the Japanese gaming industry, many publishers are shifting their development efforts from browser-based apps to native apps. Fello’s growth indicates there’s a high need for this kind of platforms in terms of helping developers improve their apps. Why are they off to such a good start? Tanaka says that it’s likely because the service is free. For developers, if you have published a number of apps, a plan that charges by volume would be a heavy burden. Users can gain a 7-day user…

See the original story in Japanese.

Singapore-based Unicon, the Japanese startup behind user retention improvement platform Fello, announced today that it has raised 100 million yen (approximately $1 million) from Jafco and other Japanese investors. With these funds, the startup will intensify engineering and marketing efforts and is planning to set up an office in Japan.

The platform provides testing and analysis features for typical mobile gaming app functions such as push notification or messaging via an SDK. According to the startup’s CEO Ryuichi Tanaka, more than 100 app developers have signed up for the service since its launch back in August.

Over 100 app developers have signed up for Fello since its launch in August

In the Japanese gaming industry, many publishers are shifting their development efforts from browser-based apps to native apps. Fello’s growth indicates there’s a high need for this kind of platforms in terms of helping developers improve their apps.

Why are they off to such a good start? Tanaka says that it’s likely because the service is free. For developers, if you have published a number of apps, a plan that charges by volume would be a heavy burden. Users can gain a 7-day user retention rate of up to 60% on average by adding a messaging function using the platform’s SDK. That rate is three times higher than the average without such a function.

So how will the startup monetize this platform? I presumed it would adopt a freemium business model — but I was wrong. Tanaka tells me that they will launch an ad network in the beginning of September, but he could not go into more details.

The startup is targeting casual game developers, and that may be why they are based in Singapore, likely hoping fill the need for this kind of solutions for the entire Asian region. They have already started talks with major game developers that may potentially participate in the ad network. We will update you with more details when they become available.

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Japanese romantic simulation chat app adds more characters, hits 1M downloads

Rick Martin 2013.09.12

A few weeks back we told you about an unusual chat app from Japan called Henshin Kudasai. Roughly translated as ‘Please text me back’, the interesting thing about this application is that it doesn’t actually require any second person for you to engage in a flirty chat. It’s a romantic texting simulation game. When we last checked in, the app had 500,000 downloads just after its launch. And now, according to the folks at over at Growing App Henshin Kudasai has surpassed a million downloads since then. Last week, there were six new virtual characters added for users to chat with, bringing the total to 32. That seems to have given the game a boost because in the past week the game has been gaining momentum, becoming the top simulation game in the iOS app store, and breaking into the top 20 free apps overall (see chart below). For Android, it has also fared pretty well, peaking at the third position among all free apps on Google Play in Japan back on August 26th. The game was created by Japanese internet company Basic, and if you’d like to give it a try, it’s available as a free download on iOS…

A few weeks back we told you about an unusual chat app from Japan called Henshin Kudasai. Roughly translated as ‘Please text me back’, the interesting thing about this application is that it doesn’t actually require any second person for you to engage in a flirty chat. It’s a romantic texting simulation game.

When we last checked in, the app had 500,000 downloads just after its launch. And now, according to the folks at over at Growing App Henshin Kudasai has surpassed a million downloads since then.

Last week, there were six new virtual characters added for users to chat with, bringing the total to 32. That seems to have given the game a boost because in the past week the game has been gaining momentum, becoming the top simulation game in the iOS app store, and breaking into the top 20 free apps overall (see chart below).

For Android, it has also fared pretty well, peaking at the third position among all free apps on Google Play in Japan back on August 26th.

The game was created by Japanese internet company Basic, and if you’d like to give it a try, it’s available as a free download on iOS and Android.

henshin-kudasai-app-annie — Henshin Kudasai rankings on iOS, via App Annie

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Learning platform iKnow helps Japanese people study up for Ad-tech Tokyo

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.09.12

We recently wrote about a new education app called Chojimaku which uses subtitled movies to teach English. Another well-established learning platform from Japan is iKnow, which has 1.2 million registered users. It was recently announced that the service has added new content to its platform, a very specific course that lets attendees prepare for Ad:tech Tokyo, taking place next week. Studying English is one of the top priorities for many Japanese people, especially working professionals. The new content is titled ‘Mastering English for the marketing and advertisement industry in a week’. By making the reason for learning very clear, it motivates learners and to better prepare for a specific event or occasion. You need to sign up for the service to use the content, but it is provided for free. There are over 100 marketing-related words available to learn, and lessons to enhance your listening ability for this topic. Studying English is one of the top priorities for many Japanese people, especially working professionals. So it is only natural that in the Japanese market, there have always been services in this field, including Rarejob which recently got funded. What differentiates iKnow from other services is that its courses are based…

We recently wrote about a new education app called Chojimaku which uses subtitled movies to teach English. Another well-established learning platform from Japan is iKnow, which has 1.2 million registered users. It was recently announced that the service has added new content to its platform, a very specific course that lets attendees prepare for Ad:tech Tokyo, taking place next week.

Studying English is one of the top priorities for many Japanese people, especially working professionals.

The new content is titled ‘Mastering English for the marketing and advertisement industry in a week’. By making the reason for learning very clear, it motivates learners and to better prepare for a specific event or occasion. You need to sign up for the service to use the content, but it is provided for free.

There are over 100 marketing-related words available to learn, and lessons to enhance your listening ability for this topic.

Studying English is one of the top priorities for many Japanese people, especially working professionals. So it is only natural that in the Japanese market, there have always been services in this field, including Rarejob which recently got funded. What differentiates iKnow from other services is that its courses are based on a spaced-repetition system with a strong focus on obtaining more vocabulary.

The company behind iKnow is Cerego, founded way back in the year 2000. The company provides online language learning services to consumers as well as enterprises inside and outside of Japan. There are over 100 companies that have deployed the learning platform, including Softbank group with its 20,000+ employees.

To see how iKnow works, you can check out the video below.

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Japanese startup raises $600K, gets you into hard-to-book restaurants

Junya Mori 2013.09.11

See the original story in Japanese. Pocket Concierge is a website that allows you to book popular restaurants, even if they are fully booked for several months. Tokyo-based startup Pocket Menu, the startup behind the service, announced today it has raised 60 million yen (approximately $600,000) from Fuji Startup Ventures, Nippon Venture Capital, and individual investors. It’s really tough to reserve popular restaurants online or over the phone. However, when the restaurants experience sudden cancellations, they could be wasting food. So it’s useful for them to be able to invite other customers instead. This service allows the restaurant to e-mail you an invite when they have an unexpected vacancy in their reservation list. As a result, you can have a chance to enjoy dining at the restaurant that you normally might not be able to visit. The service was launched by former chef Kei Tokado back in March, and recently added new features that give users a better experience. The startup has limited its service area to restaurants in Tokyo, but with these new funds, it expects to expand the beyond Tokyo to other major Japanese cities such as Kyoto and Osaka.

See the original story in Japanese.

Pocket Concierge is a website that allows you to book popular restaurants, even if they are fully booked for several months. Tokyo-based startup Pocket Menu, the startup behind the service, announced today it has raised 60 million yen (approximately $600,000) from Fuji Startup Ventures, Nippon Venture Capital, and individual investors.

It’s really tough to reserve popular restaurants online or over the phone. However, when the restaurants experience sudden cancellations, they could be wasting food. So it’s useful for them to be able to invite other customers instead. This service allows the restaurant to e-mail you an invite when they have an unexpected vacancy in their reservation list. As a result, you can have a chance to enjoy dining at the restaurant that you normally might not be able to visit.

The service was launched by former chef Kei Tokado back in March, and recently added new features that give users a better experience. The startup has limited its service area to restaurants in Tokyo, but with these new funds, it expects to expand the beyond Tokyo to other major Japanese cities such as Kyoto and Osaka.

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Translation startup Conyac partners with World Jumper, introduces new API

Masaru Ikeda 2013.09.10

Tokyo-based Anydoor, the startup behind crowdsourced translation service Conyac, announced today that it has partnered with Yaraku, the provider of website translation tool World Jumper. Since its launch back in 2009, Anydoor has been providing translation services between multiple languages using crowdsourced workers. The company recently set up its first overseas office in San Francisco, and is intensifying its global expansion efforts to better serve users worldwide and diversify the language base of its crowdsourced workers. To date the startup has raised a total of approximately 40 million yen ($431,000) from several Japanese investors. World Jumper was launched last year, and has been a translation service mainly for website owners. The company outsources orders to third-party agencies (such as Conyac or Gengo), but it also accumulates frequently-used translation requests and results in its database for future reference. This results in better translation results without the need to outsource to agencies, and it helps keep translation costs down while the quality improves as time goes by. The company raised 110 million yen (about $1.1 million) from several Japanese investors back in May. By joining forces, the two startups expect to serve more translation needs, but at affordable rates. Surely this sector…

Tokyo-based Anydoor, the startup behind crowdsourced translation service Conyac, announced today that it has partnered with Yaraku, the provider of website translation tool World Jumper.

Since its launch back in 2009, Anydoor has been providing translation services between multiple languages using crowdsourced workers. The company recently set up its first overseas office in San Francisco, and is intensifying its global expansion efforts to better serve users worldwide and diversify the language base of its crowdsourced workers. To date the startup has raised a total of approximately 40 million yen ($431,000) from several Japanese investors.

World Jumper was launched last year, and has been a translation service mainly for website owners. The company outsources orders to third-party agencies (such as Conyac or Gengo), but it also accumulates frequently-used translation requests and results in its database for future reference. This results in better translation results without the need to outsource to agencies, and it helps keep translation costs down while the quality improves as time goes by. The company raised 110 million yen (about $1.1 million) from several Japanese investors back in May.

By joining forces, the two startups expect to serve more translation needs, but at affordable rates. Surely this sector will be positively impacted by recently announced Tokyo Olympic Games coming up in 2020. With the partnership, Conyac also changed its web interface today and released a new API that allows third-party developers to integrate the translation solutions with their apps.

News

Cinemacraft raises $1.5M in funding, expands team in Tokyo and LA

PyCon APAC: Nasty weather doesn’t constrict Pythonistas in Japan

Japan brings brilliant colored designs to boring paper receipts

Japan e-commerce startup Monoco partners with major broadcaster Fuji TV

Now with 200M game downloads, Line Corporation adds MapleStory title

Japanese startup Fello raises $1M to help game developers improve user retention

Japanese romantic simulation chat app adds more characters, hits 1M downloads

Learning platform iKnow helps Japanese people study up for Ad-tech Tokyo

Japanese startup raises $600K, gets you into hard-to-book restaurants

Translation startup Conyac partners with World Jumper, introduces new API

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