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Japanese mobile tutor app Manabo acquired by prep school major Sundai Group

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Manabo, providing the mobile tutor app under the same name, announced on Wednesday that it has been acquired by Japanese prep school major Sundai Group. SATT, one of the group company engaging in IT-related service development, obtained all of Manabo’s share and made it a wholly-owned subsidiary company. The cost of the acquisition was not disclosed. Manabo was founded in April of 2014. Katsuhito Mihashi, CEO of the firm, developed the idea of a real-time mobile tutor service while studying at a graduate school of the University of Tokyo. He declined employment offers from large enterprises and decided to start up. The following year, the firm secured 40 million yen (about $374,000 at the exchange rate then) in its seed round from CyberAgent Ventures and subsequently secured 330 million yen (about $3.4 million at the exchange rate then) from Benesse in 2014 and 250 million yen (about $2.3 million) from Zoshinkai Holdings in 2016. On the platform, about 200,000 lectures have been delivered and over 3,500 online tutors are registered. The platform has been introduced mainly to cram schools or prep schools, and that resulted in the buyout this time. Mihashi told that…

Katsuhito Mihashi, CEO of Manabo

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Manabo, providing the mobile tutor app under the same name, announced on Wednesday that it has been acquired by Japanese prep school major Sundai Group. SATT, one of the group company engaging in IT-related service development, obtained all of Manabo’s share and made it a wholly-owned subsidiary company. The cost of the acquisition was not disclosed.

Manabo was founded in April of 2014. Katsuhito Mihashi, CEO of the firm, developed the idea of a real-time mobile tutor service while studying at a graduate school of the University of Tokyo. He declined employment offers from large enterprises and decided to start up. The following year, the firm secured 40 million yen (about $374,000 at the exchange rate then) in its seed round from CyberAgent Ventures and subsequently secured 330 million yen (about $3.4 million at the exchange rate then) from Benesse in 2014 and 250 million yen (about $2.3 million) from Zoshinkai Holdings in 2016.

On the platform, about 200,000 lectures have been delivered and over 3,500 online tutors are registered. The platform has been introduced mainly to cram schools or prep schools, and that resulted in the buyout this time. Mihashi told that Manabo had been discussing about business cooperation and capital tie-in with Sundai Group since around 2017:

We had been received several offers but decided to accept Sundai’s one in consideration of its general evaluation, future possibility of service development, flexibility in business management and so forth. In the educational service field, “cheap, nasty, brutish and short services” can never be allowed.

Even with the same products, performance could change depending on the presence or absence of a provider’s reliability and business result.

In an analysis conducted through the cooperation with Benesse or Zoshinkai Publishers (Z-kai) in the past, Manabo found the efficacy of online tutorials to be higher in ‘real cram schools’ taught by real actual tutors than in correspondence education system in terms of the point of students’ motivation.

Mihashi, now 31, could not buy reference books for economic reasons and had a frustrating experience suffering some inconveniences in studies due to external factors. That experience brought him to the idea of the mobile tutor app allowing users to be taught by online tutors anytime.

However, after the foundation of Manabo, Mihashi realized that few people have difficulties in studies due to economic reasons but the decline of motivation for learning is a more serious problem for them. That is the reason for the cooperation with a real prep school this time, although Manabo had collaborated mainly with online learning service providers.

Mihashi added:

In real cram schools, tutors lift up students’ motivation. Since Manabo is the tool that motivate such motivate people more, our services are a good match.

The two companies will promote the expanded use of Manabo within and outside of Japan leveraging the network of Sundai Group, in addition to aiming at creating new EdTech services.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Transform Africa Summit: How Japan can get involved in Rwandan startup ecosystem

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See the original story in Japanese. This article is a part of series of covering Transform Africa Summit 2018 Transform Africa Summit (TAS) 2018 was held in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, over two days from May 7th to 8th. 21 countries mainly in sub-Saharan Africa participate in Smart Africa, the organizer of this event aiming to encourage the ICT-driven economy in Africa led by Rwanda. Japan Pavilion was set by 20 Japanese organizations including large enterprises or startups. Japan and Rwanda have close business relationships; Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) develops ICT Innovation Ecosystem Strengthening Project in Rwanda, and the cities of Kobe and Kigali are in a cooperation relationship. Other than Rwanda, only Japan and Estonia set up their own pavilions. Japan Pavilion had about 80 Japanese staffers and stood out among the others. As Chinese companies have the initiative in every country in Africa, none of them can be seen in the context of innovation or startup. In addition to Japan, UK (Rwanda participates in the British Commonwealth) and Israel play a important part to drive a startup ecosystem in this country. Relationship between Japan and Rwanda in startup ecosystem On the first day of the event,…

Kigali Convention Center, the main venue of Transform Africa Summit 2018
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

See the original story in Japanese.
This article is a part of series of covering Transform Africa Summit 2018

Transform Africa Summit (TAS) 2018 was held in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, over two days from May 7th to 8th. 21 countries mainly in sub-Saharan Africa participate in Smart Africa, the organizer of this event aiming to encourage the ICT-driven economy in Africa led by Rwanda.

Japan Pavilion was set by 20 Japanese organizations including large enterprises or startups. Japan and Rwanda have close business relationships; Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) develops ICT Innovation Ecosystem Strengthening Project in Rwanda, and the cities of Kobe and Kigali are in a cooperation relationship.

Japan Pavilion in TAS2018
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Other than Rwanda, only Japan and Estonia set up their own pavilions. Japan Pavilion had about 80 Japanese staffers and stood out among the others. As Chinese companies have the initiative in every country in Africa, none of them can be seen in the context of innovation or startup. In addition to Japan, UK (Rwanda participates in the British Commonwealth) and Israel play a important part to drive a startup ecosystem in this country.

Relationship between Japan and Rwanda in startup ecosystem

Jean de Dieu Rurangirwa (Rwandan Minister of ICT, center), Masahiko Tominaga (Japanese Vice-Minister for Policy Coordination of Internal Affairs and Communications, right) and Takayuki Miyashita (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Rwanda, left) show a memorandum regarding cooperative relationship between Japan and Rwanda.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

On the first day of the event, Masahiko Tominaga (Japanese Vice-Minister for Policy Coordination of Internal Affairs and Communications) and Jean de Dieu Rurangirwa (Rwandan Minister of ICT) signed a memorandum regarding cooperative relationship in ICT field between the governments of Japan and Rwanda.

JICA had financially supported the establishment of technology hubs such as kLab (2012) or FABLAB (2016) in Kigali City. About 100 entrepreneurs or investors bases their activities on these hubs and had turned out dozens of startups. On the other hand, more than 40 Rwandan students are on exchange at Kobe Institute of Computing (KIC) Graduate School of Information Technology utilizing the Japanese scholarship.

Japanese space / satellite startups such as Axelspace or Infostellar participated in the event. Intelligent Space Systems Laboratory from the University of Tokyo concluded an agreement on partnership with Smart Africa.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

On the second day of the event, KIC and the U.S.-based major drone developer Swift Engineering announced that they will establish a joint venture (JV) in Rwanda. KIC had been training ICT engineers by providing lectures on programing based on kLab, and will expand the range of its support activity through providing education of drone engineers or promotion of drone business, triggered by the JV establishment.

Kobe Institute of Computing Graduate School of Information Technology and Swift Engineering announces establishment of JV for education of drone engineers in Rwanda.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Rwanda is located in the highlands (here in Kigali is at an altitude of 1,500 meters) and has a rainy season, so that the daily utilization of drone is drawing attention in this country because of inadequate road condition out of urban areas. Through the investment into the Rwanda-based drone-driven medical distribution startup Zipline by the Japanese startup studio Mistletoe in 2016, the people involved in startup ecosystem recognized the high compatibility of Rwanda and drone business.

The author of this article plans to visit three sub-Saharan countries of Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya until next week and cover the present situation of the startup scene in these countries.

Jean de Dieu Rurangirwa (Rwandan Minister of ICT) and participants / staffers of Japanese companies / startups, Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, JICA and Embassy of Japan in Rwanda
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Loopin’ for more — Upon attending “Startup Mantra” recitals in Tokyo

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This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Startups, Startups Everywhere Tokyo I daresay is as of June looking to launch full-fledged efforts to leverage various international events, not only the Olympiad but also — American football in Japan having besmirched its name during May — Rugby World Cup, Gov. Yuriko Koike having had to clear some obstacles such as those related to Central Fish Market and development/environment issues. As a prelude, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in late May organized in conjunction with Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) Invest Japan Center a Startup Tokyo gathering. It was followed thereupon by startup-focused events, to culminate in the once-every-five-year international fire safety and disaster mitigation event which this year particularly highlights startup roles. Thus, the startup mantra recitations. To underscore Tokyo’s friendliness towards foreign-affiliated startups the Startup Tokyo seminar was held at a WeWork facility in ARK Hills South, aptly located next to JETRO HQ as well as Invest Japan office. The event was opened by the Governor herself, with a short speech. In fact, prior to her arrival the participants got to view a looping video of her exhorting…

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


TOSBEC
Image credit: Invest Tokyo

Startups, Startups Everywhere

Tokyo I daresay is as of June looking to launch full-fledged efforts to leverage various international events, not only the Olympiad but also — American football in Japan having besmirched its name during May — Rugby World Cup, Gov. Yuriko Koike having had to clear some obstacles such as those related to Central Fish Market and development/environment issues.

As a prelude, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in late May organized in conjunction with Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) Invest Japan Center a Startup Tokyo gathering. It was followed thereupon by startup-focused events, to culminate in the once-every-five-year international fire safety and disaster mitigation event which this year particularly highlights startup roles. Thus, the startup mantra recitations.

To underscore Tokyo’s friendliness towards foreign-affiliated startups the Startup Tokyo seminar was held at a WeWork facility in ARK Hills South, aptly located next to JETRO HQ as well as Invest Japan office. The event was opened by the Governor herself, with a short speech. In fact, prior to her arrival the participants got to view a looping video of her exhorting the merits of Tokyo.

See also:

Yuriko Koike, Governor of Tokyo
Image credit: Invest Tokyo

Invest Tokyo

The Governor noted that the Financial Times [I would note the paper is owned by Nikkei now] and some others had found Tokyo to be the best city to live, and that thanks to first-instance use of National Strategic Special Zone scheme, the Tokyo One-Stop Business Establishment Center (TOSBEC) facilitates corporate foundation for startups as well as foreign companies to set up branches and subsidiaries.

The WeWork Japan CEO Chris Hill then spoke about the foray made by the international collaboration group into Tokyo since the beginning of this year. His staff gave a presentation after this, and invited participants to explore the facility while networking with entrepreneurs there, including two (a Japanese husband-and-wife team as represented by cleanliness expert Ms. Ohashi and a global outfit) who presented their experiences.

American businessman Mr. Erek Yedwabnick spoke on behalf of his international Internet consultant colleagues at Webguru. He noted that even with the combined knowledge of multinational web-savvy people and language support from his Japanese wife it would have been quite cumbersome to set up shop so quickly without use of TOSBEC. As it is, going forth Webguru will need to negotiate IP issues and suchlike.

See also:

Chris Hill, CEO of WeWork Japan
Image credit: Invest Tokyo

Expanding Business

As for Ouchi Detox headed by Ms. Ohashi, she outlined her company expansion. A former nurse, she started out at an individual level armed with knowhow as to compact storage of goods and struck a chord with the social problem of “hoarders” in Japan. She methodically expanded business, gaining IT-literacy and business-computing prowess (her husband being good with numbers too), to enable incorporation.

Apparently, she is expanding operations into Kyoto area with a business partner located there. As it is, Kyoto and other history-laden locations in Japan could use expertise in proper storage methods since some items with value could become irretrievably ruined, whether they be family heirlooms (as the old saying goes, a spoilt… or moldy, as it were… apple will ruin the whole basket) or invaluable documentation.

Interestingly, clean storage can be seen becoming a good business in Asia-Pacific overall. Not only such necessities as the need to reduce allergens and infections becoming widespread, there is the Damocles sword of natural and even man-made disasters hanging over the region so preparedness in terms of appropriate storage and maintenance is foreseen forming new demands at home/work (including collab space).

Waka Ohashi, CEO of Ouchi Detox
Image credit: Invest Tokyo

Coworking space WeWork makes headway in Japan, uses government-related activities

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This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. WeWork, the New York-born coworking space operation with a global company which entered the Japanese market this year. It already has four locations to Tokyo, thanks to adept leveraging of government-related activities. There are already many real estate companies in Japan looking to use the increased demand to expand their business, but foreign-affiliated services that until now were targeting the high-end of the market is joining the fray. The Roppongi/ARK Hills South base where the Governor of Tokyo visited to highlight investments from abroad recently is one example. ARK Hills is known as the base for Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Within ARK Hills also can be found the associated Invest Tokyo center, which handles activities like bringing in foreign direct investment. See also: How to start a business in Tokyo using Metropolitan Government resources Tokyo Government looking to attract foreign entrepreneurs in effort to create New Tokyo But those near other properties such as Toranomon Hills located close to the Japan Red Cross and Mid-Town Hibiya, in addition to…

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


WeWork Shimbashi location
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

WeWork, the New York-born coworking space operation with a global company which entered the Japanese market this year. It already has four locations to Tokyo, thanks to adept leveraging of government-related activities. There are already many real estate companies in Japan looking to use the increased demand to expand their business, but foreign-affiliated services that until now were targeting the high-end of the market is joining the fray.

The Roppongi/ARK Hills South base where the Governor of Tokyo visited to highlight investments from abroad recently is one example. ARK Hills is known as the base for Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Within ARK Hills also can be found the associated Invest Tokyo center, which handles activities like bringing in foreign direct investment.

See also:

But those near other properties such as Toranomon Hills located close to the Japan Red Cross and Mid-Town Hibiya, in addition to city center Marunouchi and shopping district Ginza, are now available in Japan’s capital. As for the nearby Shimbashi WeWork site, it is close to Toranomon/Kasumigaseki, the government quarters of Japan, and the WeWork location just south of the Foreign Ministry-supported ASEAN Centre is now home to the Australia-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce (ANZCC).

It will soon open its Shibuya branch, the place now known as the startup hub of Tokyo; Plug-and-Play is another foreign player already sited in the area. Although not fully­confirmed at press time, it is understood that a foreign batterytech startup seems to find the possibility of a Shibuya office with easy access to the Canadian Embassy quite enticing. Further reporting on this will be forthcoming after the stealth mode period.

Japan’s Gumi forms $30M crypto fund, unveils investments in 5 blockchain startups

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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese gaming company Gumi recently announced on Thursday the establishment of the Gumi Cryptos fund for investment in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology-based services. It was set up as a limited liability company, and as a fund will add the scheme of silent partnership. The fund is worth $30 million US, with Gumi investing through its venture capital subsidiary Gumi Ventures, and about 10 major Japanese financial institutions also participating.  The company names are not disclosed. Miko Matsumura, the founder of Evercoin is appointed as a co-partner of the fund. He has also been managing other funds as a partner. Gumi Cryptos has already invested in US-based crypto bsinesses. Specifically, it has invested in five companies: Basis (cryptocurrency issuer), Robot Cache (decentralizsed game content distribution platform), Origin (sharing economy marketplace), Pryze (blockchain-based sweepstakes platform), and Theta (decentralized video distribution platform). Tokyo-based Unicon, the startup behind the Bitinvestors crypto evaluation and comparison site, is expected to support the fund in terms of managing tokens. Gumi Cryptos uses SAFT scheme to invest Various methods have arisen with regards to investments in unlisted companies, especially in startups, such as classified stocks and convertible notes. The feeling is that…

Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu
Photographed by Takeshi Hirano in May of 2017

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese gaming company Gumi recently announced on Thursday the establishment of the Gumi Cryptos fund for investment in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology-based services. It was set up as a limited liability company, and as a fund will add the scheme of silent partnership.

The fund is worth $30 million US, with Gumi investing through its venture capital subsidiary Gumi Ventures, and about 10 major Japanese financial institutions also participating.  The company names are not disclosed. Miko Matsumura, the founder of Evercoin is appointed as a co-partner of the fund. He has also been managing other funds as a partner.

Gumi Cryptos has already invested in US-based crypto bsinesses. Specifically, it has invested in five companies: Basis (cryptocurrency issuer), Robot Cache (decentralizsed game content distribution platform), Origin (sharing economy marketplace), Pryze (blockchain-based sweepstakes platform), and Theta (decentralized video distribution platform).

Tokyo-based Unicon, the startup behind the Bitinvestors crypto evaluation and comparison site, is expected to support the fund in terms of managing tokens.

Gumi Cryptos uses SAFT scheme to invest

Various methods have arisen with regards to investments in unlisted companies, especially in startups, such as classified stocks and convertible notes. The feeling is that these formats have been maturing in the last ten years even in Japan.

At the same time, investment through cryptocurrency is undergoing something similar. Initial Coin Offering or ICO, which one commonly hears, is actually closer to crowdfunding than investment, and usually does not include the right to control corporations like through stock voting rights. On the other hand, it causes controversy because of dividend scheme like Airdrop and capital gain functions.

Amid such differences, what kind of method do the Gumi cryptos use to invest in and collect gains from unlisted companies? According to Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu, at present it is customary to use the SAFT scheme.

First of all, crypto investments began with crowdsales or ICO. It is possible for anyone to purchase tokens, and as the reader may be aware, the ability to assign development costs with fluctuating prices due to the expected value of projects has spread like wildfire. Exchanges handle “listings”, and it is recent that they began to handle security-like elements. However, with this method, the investor protection method that is used in the regular stock market was not applied at all and a lot of fraud occurred.

Therefore, a new method was adopted which involved shifting to selling only to a few experts, such as qualified investors and affluent people, and as a result a new version of “SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity)”,  “SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens)”, was born.

Without going into details, SAFT first provides the initial development costs in order to promote project development. Following this, after the project development has been successfully completed and it is at the stage where ordinary users can buy and sell tokens on exchanges, the fund will have priority in making purchases.

There was also talk that a future scheme may have the initial offering as common stock and preferred stock, after which investors would be able to convert them to tokens. Additionally, the Gumi Cryptos Fund is denominated entirely in dollars, if it is necessary to purchase in cryptocurrency the rate will be determined at the time of investment.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Robotics process automation startup Cinnamon secures $8.3M in series B round

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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese startup Cinnamon, developing a document reading engine for “white collar” businesses, announced today that it has secured 800 million yen (about $7.4 million) in a series B round funding and 100 million yen (about $926,000) in loans. The latest round is led by SBI Investment with participation from FFG Venture Business Partners, Itochu Techno-Solutions, Sony Innovation Fund and TIS. Loans were secured from Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Bank this time. The latest round follows the previous funding from multiple institutional and individual investors back in January this year (the announcement was made in February). The sum of funding in the previous round has not been disclosed but Cinnamon revealed that it was part of a series A round in an interview with The Bridge. When Cinnamon changed its business model from developing photo-sharing apps to an AI (artificial intelligence) solution provider, their incorporated entity was also changed over from a Singaporean company into a Japanese one. Combined with the sum raised by the previous entity, this round saw Cinnamon having raised a total of over 1 billion yen (about $9.2 million) to date. The company will use the funds to strengthen hiring…

Cinnamon’s AI Lab members in Vietnam with CTO Hajime Hotta in the center of the front row.
Image credit: Cinnamon

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese startup Cinnamon, developing a document reading engine for “white collar” businesses, announced today that it has secured 800 million yen (about $7.4 million) in a series B round funding and 100 million yen (about $926,000) in loans. The latest round is led by SBI Investment with participation from FFG Venture Business Partners, Itochu Techno-Solutions, Sony Innovation Fund and TIS. Loans were secured from Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Bank this time.

The latest round follows the previous funding from multiple institutional and individual investors back in January this year (the announcement was made in February). The sum of funding in the previous round has not been disclosed but Cinnamon revealed that it was part of a series A round in an interview with The Bridge. When Cinnamon changed its business model from developing photo-sharing apps to an AI (artificial intelligence) solution provider, their incorporated entity was also changed over from a Singaporean company into a Japanese one. Combined with the sum raised by the previous entity, this round saw Cinnamon having raised a total of over 1 billion yen (about $9.2 million) to date.

The company will use the funds to strengthen hiring and fostering AI engineers, expanding sales channels, solidifying team structure and develop new products. The company is managing, developing business and sell products based on five offices in Asia – Tokyo, Hanoi (Vietnam), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Taipei (Taiwan) and Singapore. Among all of them, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Taipei locations have “AI Lab” functions to foster engineers and develop technologies with an aim to employ 500 AI engineers by 2022.

A briefing and lecture given to AI engineers and potential employees
Image credit: Cinnamon

The company’s main focus is the RPA (robotics process automation) class 2 solution Flax Scanner, which uses the document reading engine “Cinnamon AI” also developed by the company. Instead of simple OCR (optical character recognition), the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), which is one type of deep learning, finally achieves accurate document reading with a precision rate of 99% or more. The biggest feature is not only the document reading, but also a system that can understand the context of the document and capture information in a semantic manner that databases and other systems can easily handle.

Specific use cases include contracts, resumes, sales progress reports, medical charts, handwritten application forms, real estate property information, receipts, etc. In particular, it is expected to be utilized in the fields of finance and insurance where paper documents are abundant, and it set the general goals of quadrupling business speed and cutting costs to a quarter.

Among the investors participating this round, FFG Venture Partners (the investment arm of Fukuoka Bank) looks at synergy in streamlining document processing at banking operations while system integrators like Itochu Techno-Solutions and TIS are expected to provide the company with partner sales channels leveraging their vast network with potential corporate users.

Cinnamon is also developing Rossa Voice, a voice dictation solution based on an automated word correction technology used for Flax Scanner. Rossa Voice allows users to transcript records at call centers and correctly dictate proper nouns or technical terms in discussions between representatives and customers.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s parking lot sharing platform Akippa raises $7.4M, unveils IoT gate control system

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See the original story in Japanese. Akippa, which provides a peer-to-peer sharing and reservation service for car parking, announced that it has successfully raised funds and entered into new business alliances. Japan Post Holdings, JR East Startup Program, Nippon Rent-a-car, Fukuoka Financial Group Venture Business Partners, Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting, and Chishima Real Estate joined existing investor Sumitomo Corporation bringing the total to seven participating companies. The total amount raised this time was 810 million yen (about $7.4M US) and it brought the cumulative amount raised to $2.4 billion yen (nearly $22M US). In addition to improving the service, Akippa aims to use the funds raised to build a new mobility platform. Prior to this release, the company had also announced Share Gate, a control system for parking lots using IoT gates, in collaboration with electronic key developer/supplier Art. The system can be installed at the entrance/exit of gated parking lots. Until now, parking lots that could use Akippa were limited to those without gates due to the problem of arranging entering and exiting. By using the system, Akippa users can book a parking space, connect to the system via Bluetooth, enter the access code generated by the app, and successfully open…

Akippa CEO Genki Kanaya

See the original story in Japanese.

Akippa, which provides a peer-to-peer sharing and reservation service for car parking, announced that it has successfully raised funds and entered into new business alliances. Japan Post Holdings, JR East Startup Program, Nippon Rent-a-car, Fukuoka Financial Group Venture Business Partners, Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting, and Chishima Real Estate joined existing investor Sumitomo Corporation bringing the total to seven participating companies. The total amount raised this time was 810 million yen (about $7.4M US) and it brought the cumulative amount raised to $2.4 billion yen (nearly $22M US).

In addition to improving the service, Akippa aims to use the funds raised to build a new mobility platform.

Prior to this release, the company had also announced Share Gate, a control system for parking lots using IoT gates, in collaboration with electronic key developer/supplier Art.

The system can be installed at the entrance/exit of gated parking lots. Until now, parking lots that could use Akippa were limited to those without gates due to the problem of arranging entering and exiting. By using the system, Akippa users can book a parking space, connect to the system via Bluetooth, enter the access code generated by the app, and successfully open and close the gates. As a result, even in unmanned parking lots the company can provide advance booking and smart settlement.

With the development of Share Gate, parking lot operators can also use Akippa to rent out parking lots during times of low occupancy. The initial cost of the device is 200,000 yen (about $1,800 US), and installation is an additional 50,000 yen ($457 US). Monthly maintenance is free and the contract period is for two years. However, if a company signs a contract within 2018 all of these costs will be born by Akippa, effectively making it free. Art provides the terminal maintenance. At the time of the release, Daiwa House Parking, Daiwa Lease, and  Izumi Parking had all introduced it.

Akippa aims for MaaS–The Future of an “Akippa ID” Platform

Akippa announced a large funding. It is the first news released in nearly one and a half years, the last being December 2016 with the announcement of its alliance with Toyota. Currently Akippa has 700,000 users and the number of available parking spaces has grown to 20,000. By contrast, the competition among parking sharing is getting more intense. One symbolic example is Softbank’s entry in April of this year.

How does the leader in user numbers, Akippa, dodge the advancement of large companies? CEO Genki Kanaya said the answer lies in the expanded use of Akippa ID.

Kanaya says:

In terms of our business plan, we’ve seen (a growth curve). Our sales prediction includes roughly 1/5th of the coin parking market.

According to Kanaya, the company will continue to push the current Akippa service, and with the acquired user IDs it plans to provide other services. One example he put forward was peer-to-peer car sharing, or other experiences centered around “movement”. While still in the concept stage, the strategy is to construct a mobility platform and involve many external companies.

For example, along with Nippon Rent-a-car, which they aligned with this time, it will take steps to promote sharing the vacant spaces of car rental lots, and through sharing IDs, encourage mutual use among current users.

In the future, the company will expand the parking spots to 100,000 by 2020 and advance the construction of a conceptual mobility platform.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Young Japanese investor launches $4.5M seed fund for startups in Sub-Saharan Africa

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See the original story in Japanese. Similar to Singapore that has won a place as a startup hub in the entire Southeast Asian region, we recently reported in a coverage of Transform Africa Summit that Rwanda wants to become one in the Sub-Saharan African region. And now, there’s one young Japanese who has moved here to start fostering local startups. He is Takuma Terakubo who previously worked for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate. Terakubo revealed this time around that he has founded Leapfrog Ventures, a joint venture with Samurai Incubate, to invest in seed-stage startups of Eastern Africa, centered on Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. The fund is worth 500 million yen (approximately $4.5 million), with planned investment up to $50,000 in each of about 80 startups. The company’s name is derived from Leapfrogging, which is often seen in the Next Billion market these days. The fund’s targeted verticals include logistics, finance, healthcare, agriculture and energy-related businesses. Terakubo is serving JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) in Rwanda as an ICT incubator for the organization’s innovation ecosystem strengthening project, in addition to having built solid relationships with Rwandan governmental agencies and VC firms/accelerators in neighboring countries. He intends to deal with…

Takuma Terakubo (left)
Image credit: Leapfrog Ventures

See the original story in Japanese.

Similar to Singapore that has won a place as a startup hub in the entire Southeast Asian region, we recently reported in a coverage of Transform Africa Summit that Rwanda wants to become one in the Sub-Saharan African region. And now, there’s one young Japanese who has moved here to start fostering local startups. He is Takuma Terakubo who previously worked for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate.

Terakubo revealed this time around that he has founded Leapfrog Ventures, a joint venture with Samurai Incubate, to invest in seed-stage startups of Eastern Africa, centered on Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. The fund is worth 500 million yen (approximately $4.5 million), with planned investment up to $50,000 in each of about 80 startups. The company’s name is derived from Leapfrogging, which is often seen in the Next Billion market these days.

Terakubo joined Q&A session at the Face the Gorillas reality show at Transform Africa Summit in May.
Image credit: Kozue Ishii

The fund’s targeted verticals include logistics, finance, healthcare, agriculture and energy-related businesses. Terakubo is serving JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) in Rwanda as an ICT incubator for the organization’s innovation ecosystem strengthening project, in addition to having built solid relationships with Rwandan governmental agencies and VC firms/accelerators in neighboring countries. He intends to deal with prominent local startups to invest in leveraging these vast networks. He is expected to be based at kLab, a renowned co-working space in the Rwandan capital, plus at other locations.

In addition to making massive investments in local startups, Leapfrog Ventures wants to foster entrepreneurs by leveraging the region’s unique demographics that the younger generation accounts for the vast majority. By forming Tech SandBox in cooperation with the Rwandan Government, the company wants to create open innovation opportunities between Japan and Rwanda so that Japanese companies can easily conduct PoC (proof-of-concept) tests without concern about regulations.

Partnerships with VCs/accelerators in Africa
Image credit: Leapfrog Ventures

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Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japanese telemedicine startup Micin raises $10M series A from Mitsubishi Corp., others

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Micin, the Japanese startup offering the Curon mobile telemedicine app and a medical data business for corporations, announced earlier this month that it has fundraised a total of 1.1 billion yen (around $9.9M US) by the end of April this year in a series A round. Mitsubishi Corporation, along with three other unnamed Japanese companies, participated this round. Micin was founded in November of 2015 by Seigo Hara (current CEO), Yusuke Sugomori (current CTO), and Ryoichi Kusama (current COO). Hara previously worked as a clinician and was involved in consulting for the medical industry, pharmaceutical industry, and for hospitals at McKinsey. Sugomori is a founding member of Japanese curated news app Gunosy and crowdfunding site Readyfor, and previously worked for Google’s New York office. Kusama, like Hara, hails from McKinsey where he was involved in many patient engagement projects. Curon is a platform which includes SaaS (software as a service) to reduce the amount of work for physicians who input information during medical consultations, which then improves work efficiency. For patients, Curon provides a mobile app with consultation, prescription, and payment functions, as well as continuous medication support. In the two years since…

L to R: Micin CEO Seigo Hara, CTO Yusuke Sugomori, COO Ryoichi Kusama
Image credit: Micin

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Micin, the Japanese startup offering the Curon mobile telemedicine app and a medical data business for corporations, announced earlier this month that it has fundraised a total of 1.1 billion yen (around $9.9M US) by the end of April this year in a series A round. Mitsubishi Corporation, along with three other unnamed Japanese companies, participated this round.

Micin was founded in November of 2015 by Seigo Hara (current CEO), Yusuke Sugomori (current CTO), and Ryoichi Kusama (current COO). Hara previously worked as a clinician and was involved in consulting for the medical industry, pharmaceutical industry, and for hospitals at McKinsey. Sugomori is a founding member of Japanese curated news app Gunosy and crowdfunding site Readyfor, and previously worked for Google’s New York office. Kusama, like Hara, hails from McKinsey where he was involved in many patient engagement projects.

Curon is a platform which includes SaaS (software as a service) to reduce the amount of work for physicians who input information during medical consultations, which then improves work efficiency. For patients, Curon provides a mobile app with consultation, prescription, and payment functions, as well as continuous medication support. In the two years since the service launched approximately 500 medical institutions have introduced it. Meanwhile, in the field of medical data where previously it was only possible to obtain public information, the company uses AI to comprehend the knowledge of stakeholders in the medical field and of medical systems and policies. It also combines networks to provide medical data and analysis results in a form that is easy for companies to utilize.

Curon
Image credit: Micin

Mitsubishi Corporation has a number of subsidiaries with sales channels in medical institutions including MC Healthcare, MC Medical, and Japan Medicalnext. Micin hopes to use the funds strategically procured this time around to expand its user base through the Mitsubishi Corporation subsidiaries. Additionally, it will use the funds to strengthen its human resources including data scientists and business developers, with special attention to the data business.

With regards to Micin’s future goals, Hara had this to say during an interview with The Bridge:

By providing data in a form that makes it easy to use, we will be able to further predict the condition of the human body, the condition of an illness, etc. By having (AI) learn the what skilled doctors know (the unformatted knowledge), many doctors will be able to use it, which will also spur on preventative medicine.

Hara expects that Micin’s efforts can also contribute to the scalability of the medical market. A doctor’s skill is often passed down tacitly, for example, how to become good at performing surgeries, and it tends to be dependent upon individual expertise. Until now it has only been possible to scale the medical industry based on medical devices or medicines, but Micin has imagined a system that can distribute the medical knowledge that is the core of the medical industry.

Micin’s competitors in the field of healthcare include online businesses Medley, Integrity Healthcare, and MRT; and LPixel’s System Integrator is one example of a competitor dealing in medical data. Micin is forming cooperative relationships with the big players in the healthcare industry, including the undisclosed investors from this round, which is expected to further accelerate its growth.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s influencer marketing startup BitStar expands into Greater China, Southeast Asia

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup BitStar, the company behind influencer support platform under the same name and YouTuber production E-DGE, announced earlier this month that it has partnered with Fun Japan Communications (Fun! Japan for short) to start offering promotion services targeting the Greater China and Southeast Asian markets. Fun! Japan is an online community for “Japan freaks” consisting of 4.4 million followers and 760,000 members living in the Asian market. It aims to help Japanese companies expand into Asia or invite more visitors from the region by developing touchpoints with consumers, measuring the performance of online promotional activities,or building up a long-term relationship with locals. The partnership with Fun! Japan will allow BitStar to offer their clients looking into these markets by helping them launch their campaigns with performance measurement. Some of our readers may recall that we covered BitStar (known as Bizcast at that time) in September of 2015 for the first time. But it seems like there have been many changes in the influencer marketing industry since then, gradually but drastically. TV broadcasters initially tended to rival online video services like YouTube due to fears that the latter may take disposable time from consumers…

BitStar CEO Taku Watanabe
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup BitStar, the company behind influencer support platform under the same name and YouTuber production E-DGE, announced earlier this month that it has partnered with Fun Japan Communications (Fun! Japan for short) to start offering promotion services targeting the Greater China and Southeast Asian markets.

Fun! Japan is an online community for “Japan freaks” consisting of 4.4 million followers and 760,000 members living in the Asian market. It aims to help Japanese companies expand into Asia or invite more visitors from the region by developing touchpoints with consumers, measuring the performance of online promotional activities,or building up a long-term relationship with locals. The partnership with Fun! Japan will allow BitStar to offer their clients looking into these markets by helping them launch their campaigns with performance measurement.

Some of our readers may recall that we covered BitStar (known as Bizcast at that time) in September of 2015 for the first time. But it seems like there have been many changes in the influencer marketing industry since then, gradually but drastically.

TV broadcasters initially tended to rival online video services like YouTube due to fears that the latter may take disposable time from consumers (for enjoying watching TV shows). But since data covering consumer reactions is not enough with conventional media companies, there’s an increasing number of them partnering or integrating with emerging services including influencer marketing. Taku Watanabe, CEO and Founder of BitStar, thinks a service provider offering three functions at a time: media creation, production and ad agency — all of which used to be separately operated but vertically integrated in the past — can eventually win the game.

Because of such reasons, it seems like BitStar is diversifying its business lines. In addition to online fan club service Costar, quantitative analysis platform Influencer Power Ranking (IPR) and multichannel network for virtual YouTubers, the company is now planning to produce new products in partnership with brand communities, fan communities and TV broadcasters. Although online video media has been getting extremely popular in recent years, if a media company is accepted by an audience in design or format, they are likely to be imitated later on. This is why BitStar thinks it’s very important to have more companies work together.

Comprising of 75 employees as of March of 2018, BitStar raised an undisclosed sum of seed round funding from East Ventures back in 2014, estimated several million US dollars in a series A round from Colopl back in August of 2016, and about $2.7 million in a series B round from Global Brain back in July of 2017, in addition to an undisclosed sum from TBS Innovation Partners and ABC Dream Ventures — investment arms of leading Japanese broadcasters respectively — back in October of 2017.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy