THE BRIDGE

Startups

From Monozukuri Hub Meetup in Kyoto: Entrepreneurship for Youth and Students in Japan

SHARE:

This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Taiga Tamura of Tamura Shashinkan. February was a busy time for Makers Boot Camp. Just one day after HackOsaka, when we supported Monozukuri Hardware Cup 2017, the first pitch contest for hardware startups in Japan, we also had the opportunity to invite special guest speakers from three different hubs of the world. After a very busy schedule in Osaka, some of them had the chance to stop by and bring their personal insights to our Monozukuri Hub in Kyoto. I was in charge of introducing the meetup topic and its relevance for students – a considerable amount of the population in Kyoto and the highest concentration in Japan – to engage in startup communities, share their ideas, learn about experiences and question the status quo. There were many new faces in the audience, as the idea was to focus on young people considering their next life choices. The first question I raised at the event was…

sabrina-sasaki-150x150
Sabrina Sasaki

This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.

Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Taiga Tamura of Tamura Shashinkan.


February was a busy time for Makers Boot Camp. Just one day after HackOsaka, when we supported Monozukuri Hardware Cup 2017, the first pitch contest for hardware startups in Japan, we also had the opportunity to invite special guest speakers from three different hubs of the world. After a very busy schedule in Osaka, some of them had the chance to stop by and bring their personal insights to our Monozukuri Hub in Kyoto.

I was in charge of introducing the meetup topic and its relevance for students – a considerable amount of the population in Kyoto and the highest concentration in Japan – to engage in startup communities, share their ideas, learn about experiences and question the status quo. There were many new faces in the audience, as the idea was to focus on young people considering their next life choices.

The first question I raised at the event was “Why Kyoto?”. There’re so many unique things about the city that it’s hard to define its industry in a few words, specially considering the diversity in terms of Art, Design and Architecture. Kyoto is a dynamic spot where innovation and creativity have been part of all sectors, and we’re lucky to be able to benefit from all those ventures that still impact our daily life.

A city where modern & famous companies like Nintendo, Kyocera and Omron coexist with an intensive and traditional craftsmanship activity, reference in industrialized countries for best practices, as in pottery, textile and culinary. Kyoto yearly hosts many visitors and Foreign Exchange students interested to get inspired and collaborate with the local ecosystem for creation and renovation. In that sense, connecting students from different universities to outsiders can facilitate our dialogues to promote alternative ways of making new things.

Sam Lai, Taiwan-based Managing Director of Yushan Ventures joined the audience as our special guest.

Our city has been a great environment for us! Makers Boot Camp shares the Japanese worldwide know-how with industrial best practices that come from this background, as our Co-Founders met thanks to this ecosystem. With our mentors and manufacturers, we provide startups the support they need to build the basis for a new business.We also have young professionals as part of our network and we’d like to get to know more student’s projects. We can start helping with some basic advise for the ones considering building a new product.

But in terms of requirements, how could we define a “right” person to become a maker or join a startup? There’s no such thing as the “right personality” or a specific expertise needed to join a startup, as you can always improve your skills. First of all, makers are all about discovering, trying new things and finding what they’re passionate about. In the end, what makes the difference is not an individual skill but the team work results, so sharing is part of our routine as a startup.

Looking at the steps of a hardware startup, represented as in a videogame with different stages, in order to move to the next one, you must achieve a certain level in the current one. In this sense, the part where most makers struggle to continue “playing the game” is when they have to make  a professional prototype, a stage we call “Design for Manufacturing” (DFM). That’s the part we can support startups with our prototype experts and we’d like to invite all students to experiment new things within our hub.

Ajay Revels, Polite Machines

Our first guest speaker was Ajay Revels (Polite Machines– NYC), who introduced her current work at as a researcher trained in design thinking, helping different teams uncover and develop products and services that people will love. She’s an anthropologist for business, daily analysing systems like universities, homes, offices, and even hospitals, observing and interviewing people to understand and validate possible problems. Then she maps all problems (like in a subway map) and provides insights for entire teams to see a holistic picture of a specific problem, as an example. She pointed out they’re three key questions to start with, when you have an idea for a new project:

  • Do I have a real problem to solve?
  • Can I make a product to solve this problem?
  • If so, what kind of value does my product add? (Proposition)

With startups, Ajay runs experiments to test if there is a product solving a real problem, and if people are willing to pay for this product. She applied some of her recent examples after observing people interacting in Kyoto.

Some startups work for traditional charity, just solving a problem without making money out of it. Others are part of a professional business, so there must be a profit to be given in return to investors. And there’s also the area of social entrepreneurship, that is a hybrid right in between the other two, when both making money and supporting the community are part of the core goals.

There’re many models that can be used to measure a startup achievement –  a broad concept of success could be applied in different ways, depending on the specific purpose defined by its stakeholders.

Jeffrey McDaniel, Innovation Works

The second speaker was Jeffrey McDaniel  (Innovation Works) who came from Pittsburgh (PA, US) to take part in Monozukuri Hardware Cup as the head of the Judges. He represents one of the main hardware startup ecosystems in the world, part of Alphalab Gear Hardware Cup. His role as Executive in Residence consists of spending a lot of time with early stage companies, as a mentor for founders and entrepreneurs.

Like Ajay, Jeff clarified the two basic things you need to start a company: a good idea that is able to solve a problem and find out who’s willing to pay for it.

Pittsburgh used to be known as the “Steel City”: 80% of the total amount of the metal in US used to be from the region, but nowadays it represents only 5%. The area has been an important hub for the American industry and the city managed to survive thanks to its qualities of reinventing itself. Combining natural resources with people’s talents and technologies, Pittsburgh could complete a triangle that allows ways to redefine success in its own way. Locals had to learn how to adapt to the economic changes and develop innovative skills with available resources, a survival skill very similar to what happened in Japan.

There are also many universities in Pittsburgh, thanks to its prosper history  – and a lot of money stayed there, helping new entrepreneurs to get support in order to take risks and start new projects. In this sense, the local ecosystem played a key role in the development of innovative initiatives, and the city is now a strategic hub for high tech companies like Google and Uber, who’s testing its self-drive pilot cars there.

Adrien Sedaka, Timescope

As the main purpose of our events is always giving visibility to startups, we also had two French entrepeneurs representing the diversity of one of the main global hubs for IoT startups.

Adrien Sedaka (Timescope) from Paris, studied business at ESCP Europe, where he began his career in consulting. During 5 years, he assisted C-level managers of SMEs and large groups on business and marketing issues.

In 2010, he visited Pompeii with Basile Segalen, his childhood friend. The tour took place in the high season, when the historical place becomes full of crowds, and they couldn’t have an experience  as they had dreamt about. They ended up frustrated, realizing the difficulties of projecting themselves into the magic of such a historical place. The idea of developing an immersive tool designed for outdoor public places was born there, after their own frustration.

In 2014, after the new progress of VR technologies, they decided to develop Timescope: the first self-service virtual reality terminal. After a year of development, the time machine was tested at the Bastille, one the most powerful historical sites in French history. Adrien and his team are now scaling-up the company, preparing new installations in 2017, and considering how they could implement this new service into Japanese historical sites.

Adrian wrote a few notes to share with the students interested to join a startup:

  • Choose careful who you want to work with, as a partnership is like a wedding.
  • Work with people who are really motivated and do care for them.
  • Try to execute your idea as fast as possible.
  • Don’t minimize the skills you don’t have: either work on those skills or partner with someone who can assist you with what you need.
Régis Duhot, Parkisseo

Régis DuhotParkisseo Founder & CEO, defines himself as a “fifty years old « young » start-upper”, who started his company after 25 years in finance and accounting areas, working for several multinationals, mostly in electronics.

As most of urban citizens in the world, Régis wastes a significant part of his days looking for a place to park his car. This is how he decided to focus on this issue with a new solution: a clever car system that helps drivers to find available parking spots easily, without wasting time.

Parkisseo offers a complete solution, with a connected device that will allow cities to be smarter, facilitating the routine of its citizens. Easy to use, simple to instal (wireless), the startup offers advantages for both drivers and car park owners.

Sushi Suzuki, Associate Professor at Kyoto D-Lab and Makers Boot Camp Adviser

Sushi Suzuki, Associate Professor at Kyoto D-Lab and Makers Boot Camp Adviser, invited students & startups to join Kyoto Startup Summer School.

We invited Eiji Takahashi to present his student startup project: Untilet.

Eiji studies polymeric glass transition at Kyoto Institute of Technology, and at the same time he is also interested in data science. Leading the development as a CTO, from early stage into the IoT device development team, he recently helped to create an entrepreneurial department within his university.

His first project, Untiled, consists of a device that can recognize unpleasant odor and recommend users who suffer from stuffy nose to change their daily habits. Connected to the mobile app, the sensors can capture specific substances in the air.

Eiji gave a demo trial about his device, which was under development.

In the end, he joined a panel discussion with other students and professors who explained the challenges to develop a startup project as a university student.

Ajay also invited the International guests, both startups and Jeff, for a panel discussion about their next steps and insights.

We had a Q&A session when the audience had the chance to ask questions to students, startups and experts.

Before the end, there was a special closing message from our first supporter Allen Minner, Chairman and Group CEO of Sunbridge. He is a serial-entrepreneur, known for being a mentor and also angel investor for Japan-based startups, including Makers Boot Camp.

Makers Boot Camp’s Narimasa Makino (left), Sunbridge’s Allen Miner (right)

Allen highlighted the potential of our local community and Monozukuri Hub current achievements lead by a generation of new entrepreneurs like our CEO Narimasa Makino, encouraging more students to learn English and try new projects.

ConnectFree’s Chris Tate (front left), FabFoundry’s Nobuhiro Seki (front right)

There was a networking session, where attendees & speakers could interact and test the startups devices.

L to R: Sushi Suzuki, Tatsuya Tsubuki, Shohei Nakamura

Associate Professors Sushi Suzuki and Tatsuya Tsubuki from Kyoto Institute of Technology joined Researcher Shohei Nakamura from Osaka University.

Meet 8 startups on inbound travel from IBM BlueHub program’s latest batch in Tokyo

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. IBM Japan held the Demo Day event for their BlueHub open innovation program last week. The latest batch features startups focused on inbound travel businesses. A number of companies offering inbound travel services participated, with four big corporates: NTT Docomo, Zenrin, Zenrin DataCom, and Softbank, and eight startups: Andeco, Crea Japan, Fesbase, Pretia, Mybase, Metro Engines, Rich Table, and Realista. Presented services and companies were: Fesbase: chatbot platform focused on serving Chinese visitors to Japan (by Crea Japan) Quippy for Restaurants: Marketing and product development support tool for restaurants (by Rich Table) Sakevel: Sake brewery tourism and personal sake sommelier service (by Mybase) SnapGo: AR(augmented reality)-based navigation service (by Pretia) Miccossy: Mobile app curating Japanese local festivals (by Andeco) Travel experience sharing platform (by NTT Docomo) 1Minute Japan: Video-based service for helping foreign visitors to Japan solve problems (by Realista) Metro Engines: AI (artificial intelligence) tool that helps hotels determine competitive pricing In late February, teams composed of a mix of the companies carried out kick-off meetings and held six workshops throughout the three month planning phase. Following the Demo Day they will begin to work on firm plans for commercialization. In the spirit…

See the original story in Japanese.

IBM Japan held the Demo Day event for their BlueHub open innovation program last week. The latest batch features startups focused on inbound travel businesses.

A number of companies offering inbound travel services participated, with four big corporates: NTT Docomo, Zenrin, Zenrin DataCom, and Softbank, and eight startups: Andeco, Crea Japan, Fesbase, Pretia, Mybase, Metro Engines, Rich Table, and Realista.

Presented services and companies were:

  • Fesbase: chatbot platform focused on serving Chinese visitors to Japan (by Crea Japan)
  • Quippy for Restaurants: Marketing and product development support tool for restaurants (by Rich Table)
  • Sakevel: Sake brewery tourism and personal sake sommelier service (by Mybase)
  • SnapGo: AR(augmented reality)-based navigation service (by Pretia)
  • Miccossy: Mobile app curating Japanese local festivals (by Andeco)
  • Travel experience sharing platform (by NTT Docomo)
  • 1Minute Japan: Video-based service for helping foreign visitors to Japan solve problems (by Realista)
  • Metro Engines: AI (artificial intelligence) tool that helps hotels determine competitive pricing

In late February, teams composed of a mix of the companies carried out kick-off meetings and held six workshops throughout the three month planning phase. Following the Demo Day they will begin to work on firm plans for commercialization. In the spirit of full disclosure, I was asked to participate in this event as a judge. The following are introductions of the seven services that gave presentations.

Fesbase: chatbot platform focused on serving Chinese visitors to Japan (by Crea Japan)

When planning vacations overseas you may often rely on TripAdvisor and Yelp, but it is hard to tell the atmosphere of a place and whether it is suitable for kids or not. It is easy to imagine the same situation occurring during the expected boom in inbound tourism to Japan. Many tourists from China come to Japan for the cuisine. They may be left wondering how to make a reservation in such situations. That’s where the Yoyaku app uses chatbot and AI to come to the rescue.

Users select the category of restaurant they want to reserve and input details like the area they hope to go to. The app supports voice input so it is easy for travelers to use, and recommended information is delivered leveraging IBM Watson.

Since Fesbase already has an existing project that offers a human concierge, there is a large amount of training data, so it is possible to provide accurate recommendations. If, due to the contents of the question, the bot cannot answer, it is possible for AI to sort and select a human concierge who can. They are currently in negotiations with the Chinese media and also looking into acquiring users before their arrival in Japan.

In terms of business, they are thinking to charge a fee to restaurants based on driving user traffic to them, and in the future, once the number of users increases, they are planning to offer a platform for restaurant searching services to businesses.

Quippy for Restaurants: Marketing and product development support tool for restaurants (by Rich Table)

The Quippy app

Quippy provides a restaraunt searching tool on Instagram. It offers users with the chance to discover (even the unexpected) restaurants via searching. When the user launches the app, information linked to the location information of the restaurant and the picture pulled from Instagram is displayed. Since the app will learn what content the user has browsed, it will recommend additional restaurants later on.

For the service geared at restaurants, the tool will show them posts in English on social network sites and restaurant review sites as negative or positive. If a specific dish receives a negative review, it can recommend Instragram examples from another shop to the restaurant to improve. The searching service is free, while the service for restaurants will be offered based on a monthly subscription model.

Sakevel: Sake brewery tourism and personal sake sommelier service (by Mybase)

Takashi Kageyama, CEO of Mybase

88 of the 100 foreigners questioned at Narita International Airport said they want to drink Japanese sake. On the flipside, they don’t really have any information about sake breweries. Moreover, more than 99% of such breweries are mid-sized or family run so they may not be able to fully support foreigners who show up unannounced, but even before that 60% of consumption by foreigners visiting Japan is in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The idea behind Sakevel is to utilize tourism resources to awaken the small sake breweries that sleep in unknown areas, thus promoting regional development.

The Sakevel app

As for the sake itself, the Sakevel app recognizes the images on labels and provides that information in multiple languages. It also introduces personalized sake recommendations for tourists based on information gathered from past posts on social media sites. Since breweries cannot attract customers alone, Mybase plans to offer sake brewery tours along the same lines as a winery tour. Services are set to begin in October this year.

SnapGo: AR-based navigation service (by Pretia)

The SnapGo app

SnapGo will take you where you want to go without GPS by specifying your location with a mobile picture. This solves the problem of the numbers of foreign tourists who get lost due to lack of multilingual signage in Japan.

The company receives a photo of the place from its premise owner, creates an algorithm from it, and makes it possible to identify places from photographs taken by users through machine learning. As a result, users without GPS on their devices or who experience language difficulties can get to their destination by simply taking pictures.

In order to develop the algorithm it appears they need about forty 360-degree images. Additionally, it is assumed that the destination is input using images or text.

Miccossy: Mobile app curating Japanese local festivals (by Andeco)

Simply put, it is a festival information service for foreign tourists in Japan. It is difficult for users to acquire real-time festival information even if they refer to guide books, etc. People outside of Japan search for “matsuri (literally festivals in Japanese)” on YouTube as much as “Mt. Fuji” so there is a demand. Moreover, the company expects that there are 310,000 festivals all over Japan.

The Micossy app displays festival information in the surrounding area and provides related information like how to participate, and so on, in multiple languages. Their business model is the sale of “happi” or traditional clothing to be worn at the festival. Initially they plan to start by offering information on 100 festivals.

1Minute Japan: Video-based service for helping foreign visitors to Japan solve problems (by Realista)

1Minute Japan is designed for travelers to Japan who come on their own, not as a tour. It provides help to travelers before departure on topics like SIM cards and Wifi in Japan, and once they begin their journey, the company offers transportation and ticket information, as well as a restaurant reservation service. Using Watson to analyze the information learned from these tasks, it can analyze sentiments and classify what kind of problems people in various countries experience. Then they release video content to solve these problems.

The service can be used in this way: the example that, “an American traveler in their 20’s doesn’t know how to eat at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant”, guides them to create video content to help this person. They started test marketing in April and have acquired around 5,000 followers on their Facebook page.

Metro Engines: AI tool that helps hotels determine competitive pricing

Metro Engine

Metro Engines can optimize revenue for hotels and inns. The tool targets the 35,000 facilities throughout Japan, with 1.2 million rooms. Many of the rooms were priced using an individual’s expertise. Some chains use tools, but set their prices based on past performance and competing room prices. However, it can be said that this method will become ineffective as the supply-demand balance collapses due to access to private residences, etc.

That is where Metro Engines comes in. It predicts the reservation behavior of guests, and then set room prices through data analysis peppered with budget information, reviews, and furthermore, information on renting private homes and rooms, as well as guest room photos. In addition, It has also visualized human behavior based on mobile behavior data from NTT Docomo, Zenrin, and Softbank and included it.

Based on the big data obtained through these measures, they can tangibly present how a room should be priced. The service was announced on the 25th of last month and is currently under evaluation at 50 facilities. When they link up with the individual systems of hotels and inns, they can verify that the price setting was appropriate.

Watson’s unique open innovation program and future issues

IMGP2544
Yuta Hagiwara, CEO of Prevent. His team won the previous program batch last year.

Followed by the previous batch focused on automotive and healthcare verticals, this was the second edition of the IBM BlueHub open innovation program. Prevent, one of the grads from the previous program batch last year, is a startup spun off from Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine. The team presented a solution preventing lifestyle diseases, which was collaboratively developed with a health insurance company.

Based on his research experience having succeeded in lowering the recurrence rate of high blood pressure, diabetes, cerebrovascular disease and other symptoms to less than 30%, he has developed an online consultation service. He claims that they will aim to gain the consultation efficiency by implementing the Watson technology into a chat-based consultation service.

In the latest batch focused on the inbound travel topic, participating companies were trying to create new values by combining with the unique strength of the services, technologies and resources that they have had.

Metro Engines was highly evaluated because of not only telling hotels optimized room pricing leveraging big data analysis but also predicting details and suggesting ideas about how to improve. The team is outstanding with having already 50 companies as potential clients.

Regarding aforementioned Predict and Metro Engines, they could unveil clear results through the program, however, the ideas of other teams were still “small” in the potential about their technologies and services or their ideas are still rough and unclear in the potential merit to come out of a collaboration work.

Moreover, we saw some projects which had probably managed to adjust their ideas into Watson in the program, meaning that they have turned a means into a purpose there.

It might sound good if we say a collaboration between resourceful corporates and game-changing startups with technologies. However, if the collaboration become a purpose, I assume that it will not bring a good result because of the gap in expectations and cultures on both sides, or the program host’s egotism.

Where is the problem to solve? Does it require any technology? What kind of businesses should be get together to speed it up? Open Innovation is now trending in Japan, that’s especially why I think these well-considered preparation may be more important.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s TownWiFi now offers mobile users with hassle-free public WiFi access in Asia

SHARE:

Tokyo-based startup TownWiFi has been developing and offering a mobile app for Android and iOS under the same name. The app allows mobile users to gain public WiFi access at more than 2 million locations worldwide without any time-consuming sign-in process.  The company announced on Thursday that it has started supporting public WiFi spots in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. This follows their global service expansion into Korea and the US (including Hawaii and Guam). TownWiFi, previously known as WiFi Share, was founded back in 2015 by former Rakuten employee Takehiro Ogita. In 2016, he and his team unveiled the TownWiFi concept at Incubate Camp, the startup incubation bootcamp initiative run by Japanese VC firm Incubate Fund, and subsequently won the special award at TechCrunch Tokyo, an annual startup showcase event by the tech blog’s local entity in Japan. For local users, the app allows them to off-load their data traffic using 3G/4G connection to public WiFi services when available without user intervention like choosing an SSID (service set identifier) or making a sign-in process so that they are likely to enjoy mobile web surfing without worrying about the possibility of hitting a monthly data usage limit. For international visitors,…

Image credit: TownWiFi

Tokyo-based startup TownWiFi has been developing and offering a mobile app for Android and iOS under the same name. The app allows mobile users to gain public WiFi access at more than 2 million locations worldwide without any time-consuming sign-in process.  The company announced on Thursday that it has started supporting public WiFi spots in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. This follows their global service expansion into Korea and the US (including Hawaii and Guam).

TownWiFi, previously known as WiFi Share, was founded back in 2015 by former Rakuten employee Takehiro Ogita. In 2016, he and his team unveiled the TownWiFi concept at Incubate Camp, the startup incubation bootcamp initiative run by Japanese VC firm Incubate Fund, and subsequently won the special award at TechCrunch Tokyo, an annual startup showcase event by the tech blog’s local entity in Japan.

The TownWiFi app
Image credit: TownWiFi

For local users, the app allows them to off-load their data traffic using 3G/4G connection to public WiFi services when available without user intervention like choosing an SSID (service set identifier) or making a sign-in process so that they are likely to enjoy mobile web surfing without worrying about the possibility of hitting a monthly data usage limit. For international visitors, it helps them use public WiFi spots easily so that they need less to subscribe to roaming services, rent a mobile router or purchase a SIM card supporting a local cellular network.

When a user fails to establish a WiFi connection using the app, it will report the failure to the WiFi spot owner so that they are encouraged to improve the connectivity environment for future users.

Since its launch back in April last year, the TownWiFi app has surpassed 2 million downloads. In addition to Japan, Korea and the US, the expansion at this time announces that the app now supports 34 different public WiFi services in Taiwan (200,000 hotspots), 56 different services in Hong Kong (100,000 hotspots), and 20 different services in Macau (10,000 hotspots).

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japanese adtech startup Fringe81 files for IPO

SHARE:

Tokyo-based Fringe81, the Japanese startup offering several adtech solutions, announced today that its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on 27 June with plans to offer 108,800 shares for public subscription and to sell 39,000 shares in over-allotment options, for a total of 151,300 shares. Nomura Securities will lead the underwriting. Its share price range will be released on 6 June with bookbuilding scheduled to start on 8 June and pricing on 15 June. According to the consolidated statement as of March 2017, they posted revenue of 4.5 billion yen (about $40.5 million) and an ordinary loss of 54 million yen ($486,000). Public offering price per share is expected to be around 2,070 yen ($18.6). Led by the company’s CEO, Yuzuru Tanaka, (holding a 49.8% stake), its major shareholders include Itochu Technology Ventures (16.84%), Cyber Communications (5.54%) and CyberAgent (5.48%). Fringe81 was launched in 2005 under the former name of RSS Kokokusha (literally meaning RSS ad agency) where they had been focused on advertising in RSS feeds. Rebranded to Fringe81 in 2010, the company has added several new ad tech solutions including Digitalice, a cloud-based…

Yuzuru Tanaka, founder and CEO of Fringe81
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Tokyo-based Fringe81, the Japanese startup offering several adtech solutions, announced today that its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on 27 June with plans to offer 108,800 shares for public subscription and to sell 39,000 shares in over-allotment options, for a total of 151,300 shares. Nomura Securities will lead the underwriting.

Its share price range will be released on 6 June with bookbuilding scheduled to start on 8 June and pricing on 15 June. According to the consolidated statement as of March 2017, they posted revenue of 4.5 billion yen (about $40.5 million) and an ordinary loss of 54 million yen ($486,000). Public offering price per share is expected to be around 2,070 yen ($18.6).

Led by the company’s CEO, Yuzuru Tanaka, (holding a 49.8% stake), its major shareholders include Itochu Technology Ventures (16.84%), Cyber Communications (5.54%) and CyberAgent (5.48%).

Fringe81 was launched in 2005 under the former name of RSS Kokokusha (literally meaning RSS ad agency) where they had been focused on advertising in RSS feeds. Rebranded to Fringe81 in 2010, the company has added several new ad tech solutions including Digitalice, a cloud-based ad server platform that allows advertisers and media companies to analyze ad performance as well as user behavior and how their users crawl the websites after viewing ads.

In February of 2015, Fringe81 raised 420 million yen (about $3.53 million) from iStyle Capital, NTT Docomo Ventures, Gree, Dentsu Digital Holdings and TBS Innovation Partners [1]. Prior to that, the company had raised 240 million yen (about $2.6 million at the exchange rate then) from Itochu Technology Ventures in March of 2013.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy


  1. iStyle Capital is the investment arm of iStyle, the company behind Japan’s leading cosmetics review portal @Cosme. TBS Innovation Partners is the investment arm of Tokyo-based private broadcaster Tokyo Broadcasting System, or TBS for short. 

Japan’s Zeals raises $720K+, unveils bot management tool for web media publishers

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. It has been around one year since we last reported (in Japanese) on Zeals. The company, which stems from producing interaction software for robots such as Palmi and Sota, raised an undisclosed amount of funds in January of 2015 from Will Group (TSE:6089), a major human resource (HR) service company in Japan. Zeals announced on Thursday that they have raised over 80 million yen (about $720K US) from Japanese adtech leader FreakOut Holdings (TSE:6094). In conjunction with this, they pivoted from producing the API for creating chatbots called Bot Tree and re-launched it as the chatbot management tool Fanp. The company will collaborate with FreakOut on strengthening their sales, development, in addition to international expansion. While Bot Tree made a dazzling debut in May of 2016, according to Zeals CEO Masahiro Shimizu, there was a continuous struggle in providing the service. Thanks to the offer of a free trial, hundreds of media sites signed up, but on the other hand, the amount of sites leaving was also great. Shimizu, who felt there was a problem in the service, determined to improve it by working together with media companies. The company joined forces with Iid…

L to R: Yusuke Sato (COO, FreakOut Holdings), Nobuyuki Akashi (Executive Officer, FreakOut Holdings), Masahiro Shimizu (CEO, Zeals), Yuzuru Honda (CEO, FreakOut Holdings)

See the original story in Japanese.

It has been around one year since we last reported (in Japanese) on Zeals. The company, which stems from producing interaction software for robots such as Palmi and Sota, raised an undisclosed amount of funds in January of 2015 from Will Group (TSE:6089), a major human resource (HR) service company in Japan.

Zeals announced on Thursday that they have raised over 80 million yen (about $720K US) from Japanese adtech leader FreakOut Holdings (TSE:6094). In conjunction with this, they pivoted from producing the API for creating chatbots called Bot Tree and re-launched it as the chatbot management tool Fanp. The company will collaborate with FreakOut on strengthening their sales, development, in addition to international expansion.

Fanp
Image credit: Zeals

While Bot Tree made a dazzling debut in May of 2016, according to Zeals CEO Masahiro Shimizu, there was a continuous struggle in providing the service. Thanks to the offer of a free trial, hundreds of media sites signed up, but on the other hand, the amount of sites leaving was also great.

Shimizu, who felt there was a problem in the service, determined to improve it by working together with media companies. The company joined forces with Iid (TSE:6038), developing and offering multiple online media projects, to jointly develop services. After getting wind of this, major companies such as En-Japan (HR service company, TSE:4849), the Mainichi Shimbun (newspaper publisher), and Career Design Center (HR media company, TSE:2410) introduced Bot Tree on their media sites. Reflecting the opinions of such companies, Zeals set about making changes to the interface to birth the new and improved Fanp.

Just as The Bridge also distributes newsletters, general media sites often send out email newsletters in order to raise reader retention (actually, engagement more important than retention). In the beginning, the rate of recipients who open these email newsletters is never high. Zeals uses chatbots to guide messenger (Facebook Messenger) users and it is said that the average opening rate is 72%, with an average withdrawal rate of 7.2%. It is 15 times higher than the opening rate of average email newsletters.

When we look at the fee structure of Fanp we might be reminded of Line@, the messenging giant’s ad service plan for business users, but for now Fanp is only available with Facebook Messenger. Fanp generates a database based on profiles and attributes acquired from Facebook when the user begins to use their bot, and it also has a CRM (customer relationship management) function that allows the media owner to reach the user by specifying conditions.

Shimizu recently had an opportunity to listen to Hiroto Kobayashi, CEO of Japanese leading online media publisher Infobahn, and he became aware that the media of the future is an era of increasing the engagement of the audience rather than creating a vast and shallow audience.

Shimizu said:

All the media site owners want to do e-mail newsletters, but the newsletters can’t tell who the readers are or their preferences yet. SNS covers this to a degree, but even if you get a lot of ‘likes’ you might not be able to reach a large audience. There just isn’t any really good channel.

So, next time you’re going to try to make an app, the CPA to get people to download the app becomes high. Ultimately, it is the push notification feature that is useful with apps. If it’s just a push notification, can’t we do that with messenger? Then let’s try chat media on messenger. That’s our proposal.

Fanp’s dashboard
Image credit: Zeals
Fanp’s dashboard
Image credit: Zeals

In addition to launching Fanp, the chatbot management tool designed for online media sites, they also released Fanp Biz for enterprises. While Fanp strives for an alternative channel for attracting users with email newsletters, Fanp Biz is the one specifically for enterprises aiming to replace their product landing pages.

Shimizu explained:

Now that it’s possible to lead users to messenger with Facebook ads, we can also bring in the bots.

By letting the bot accept documents and make appointments, I think we can obtain an overwhelmingly better user response than landing pages do.

The chatbot introduced on Iid’s automobile-focused online media site Response

Previously Zeals was a strong advocate of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in the development of conversational AI engines, but by switching to ”tap talk” (the user does not input text but instead selects the appropriate choice from multiple options presented in button form by the chatbot) between users and chatbots, they can minimize the resources needed for NLP development.

Shimizu added:

If we were still obsessed with natural language analysis like before, it would mean we’d have to develop in each language in order to go international, and obviously this makes it difficult to catch up with overseas competitors. ‘Tap talk’ is our way of overcoming this and moving towards international expansion.

At FreakOut there are many clients in Japan and abroad that use DSP (demand-side platform) / DMP (data management platform) and so on, and because they have headquarters overseas we have great expectations for international development, so that is what led to financing and collaborating with them.

When asked about their future development, Shimizu dropped the phrase “Communication Ad Platform”. This is when the media can use bots to round up readers, and perhaps next up on Shimizu’s plate is to monetize the next bot channel. There is a possibility that the media will be able to charge advertisers by having their bots relay advertising messages or by having them direct users to other sites (at the present time, there is no word from Facebook about regulating this).   

Zeals wants to deliver an experience of a hub of bots that can connects them each other to better serve users of Fanp and Fanp Biz.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s Candee acquires video production company to develop livestreaming platform

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Candee, running an overall mobile video-related media business, announced last week that it has acquired a full stake in Apollo Productions behind livestreaming business and made Apollo Productions into a wholly-owned subsidiary. The deal value was undisclosed. Along with this, Takuro Arai (Executive Vice-president and CCO of Candee) and Shuhei Okawa (Executive Officer of Candee) were appointed as board members of Apollo Productions. Toshiyuki Asada, the founder of Apollo Productions, was known for having established a portal website for students of the University of Tokyo when he was in university. He founded Apollo Productions in 2008 after engaging in video creation works for enterprise advertisement or movie promotion leveraging his experience of video distribution works such as a beauty pageant at the university. Subsequently, the firm started livestreaming business at Nico Nico Douga provided by Dwango (TSE:3715) in 2010. Apollo Productions had lately been taking on livestreaming business based on major distribution platforms including AbemaTV (by CyberAgent), Nico Nico Live and Line Live with about 30 staffers. Owning Apollo Productions, Candee is going to double the number of staffers and plans to arrange the system with 80 staffers just for content creation within…

From the left: Takuro Arai (CCO, Candee), Toshiyuki Asada (CEO, Apollo Productions), Kzuki Furugishi (CEO, Candee), Shuhei Okawa (Executive Officer, Candee)

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Candee, running an overall mobile video-related media business, announced last week that it has acquired a full stake in Apollo Productions behind livestreaming business and made Apollo Productions into a wholly-owned subsidiary. The deal value was undisclosed. Along with this, Takuro Arai (Executive Vice-president and CCO of Candee) and Shuhei Okawa (Executive Officer of Candee) were appointed as board members of Apollo Productions.

Toshiyuki Asada, the founder of Apollo Productions, was known for having established a portal website for students of the University of Tokyo when he was in university. He founded Apollo Productions in 2008 after engaging in video creation works for enterprise advertisement or movie promotion leveraging his experience of video distribution works such as a beauty pageant at the university. Subsequently, the firm started livestreaming business at Nico Nico Douga provided by Dwango (TSE:3715) in 2010.

Apollo Productions had lately been taking on livestreaming business based on major distribution platforms including AbemaTV (by CyberAgent), Nico Nico Live and Line Live with about 30 staffers. Owning Apollo Productions, Candee is going to double the number of staffers and plans to arrange the system with 80 staffers just for content creation within this year.

Arai explains the reason for this acquisition:

The movement of mobile content appears bipolar. One is the distribution of which a large quantity by individual amateurs and the other is the distribution by professionals. The latter will continue to expand since further increase in the number of clients is expected.

In the livestreaming business, the set of equipment, facilities and specialized experts is required. We had worked together with Apollo Productions as a creation partner in the past, but decided to become one in anticipation of future expansion.

The Candee team consists of professionals in the video industry including the founder members ambitiously aiming to create a new experience in the mobile era, and is expected to grow rapidly as fundraising 1 billion yen (about $8.8 million) last December.

So, do they pursue a rapid growth by further M&A activities?

Arai answered, “I cannot say.” This acquisition was not planned carefully in advance but reached agreement quickly and unexpectedly after the large-scale fundraising. There could be this kind of case again, since the firm professes an interest in related business including “girl management” or video experience production, other than content creation. In addition, they started an undisclosed test operation of the original platform of which we heard in the last interview.

Arai explains the vision of Candee:

We have no intention to create contents just being extreme or ones like downgraded TV shows. The project we are currently testing is to develop ‘video experience which cannot be accomplished by individuals’ focusing on the individual distribution field.

Sometime we may take on sudden projects, but mainly focus on projects based on community, such as the way how users are linked or the challenge to the limit of livestreaming.

Can these professional video creators cut into and step over the video platform business provided by top players such as Nico Nico, Line or Abema? The result of this acquisition will be checked in the official announcement of the new platform.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s digital marketing platform operator From Scratch lands $28.4M series C round

SHARE:

Tokyo-based From Scratch, the company behind an integrated digital marketing platform called B->Dash, announced on Tuesday that it has raised about 3.2 billion yen (about $28.4 million) from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) and Rakuten Ventures, in addition to existing investors. This follows their previous 300 million yen ($2.4 million at the exchange rate then) funding in May of 2015 and 1 billion yen (about $8.3 million) funding in November of the same year. The latest funding means that the company has raised a total of 4.5 billion yen (about $40 million) in funding to date. B->Dash is a web-based marketing platform that allows a company to integrate data from different points of their entire marketing process and analyze it comprehensively on an all-in-one basis. The service’s major clients include Kirin Brewery and Okasan Online Securities. From Scratch will use the funds to enhance the marketing platform, especially by strengthening data integration and data processing capability as well as further development of artificial intelligence technologies. Via TechCrunch Japan, Markezine Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy      

Image credit: From Scratch

Tokyo-based From Scratch, the company behind an integrated digital marketing platform called B->Dash, announced on Tuesday that it has raised about 3.2 billion yen (about $28.4 million) from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) and Rakuten Ventures, in addition to existing investors.

This follows their previous 300 million yen ($2.4 million at the exchange rate then) funding in May of 2015 and 1 billion yen (about $8.3 million) funding in November of the same year. The latest funding means that the company has raised a total of 4.5 billion yen (about $40 million) in funding to date.

B->Dash is a web-based marketing platform that allows a company to integrate data from different points of their entire marketing process and analyze it comprehensively on an all-in-one basis.

The service’s major clients include Kirin Brewery and Okasan Online Securities. From Scratch will use the funds to enhance the marketing platform, especially by strengthening data integration and data processing capability as well as further development of artificial intelligence technologies.

Via TechCrunch Japan, Markezine

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

 

 

 

Japan’s Shippio secures seed round funding to offer streamlined freight forwarding

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Circle-in, developing the total support tool for international logistics works named Shippio, announced on Monday that it has fundraised an undisclosed amount in a seed round from 500 Startups Japan, YJ Capital, and East Ventures. This fundraising succeeds the one conducted through the Code Republic accelerator program jointly run by YJ Capital and East Ventures. Circle-in was founded in June of 2016 by Takanori Sato (CEO) and Takashi Tsuchiya (managing director), both of whom formerly worked at the Chinese base of Mitsui & Co. Subsequently, the firm participated in the 1st batch of the Code Republic accelerator program and presented PortHub, its international distribution optimization tool, as a web-based logistics optimization platform for SMEs (small and mid-sized enterprises) at the Demo Day. Since the teaser website of PortHub is currently closed, it is surmised that the service has been re-branded into Shippio at this time. Shippio is a cloud-based platform for freight forwarders, export-import operators, trading companies and distribution department of enterprises, enabling simplication of complicated and time-consuming procedures such as communication via email / phone calls, document exchanges via FAX, spreadsheet-based trade management, in addition to helping improve business efficiency drastically and…

From left to right: Shinichiro Hori (YJ Capital), Batara Eto (East Ventures), Takashi Tsuchiya (Managing Director, Circle-in), Takanori Sato (CEO, Circle-in), Yohei Sawayama (500 Startups Japan), James Riney (500 Startups Japan)

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Circle-in, developing the total support tool for international logistics works named Shippio, announced on Monday that it has fundraised an undisclosed amount in a seed round from 500 Startups Japan, YJ Capital, and East Ventures. This fundraising succeeds the one conducted through the Code Republic accelerator program jointly run by YJ Capital and East Ventures.

Circle-in was founded in June of 2016 by Takanori Sato (CEO) and Takashi Tsuchiya (managing director), both of whom formerly worked at the Chinese base of Mitsui & Co. Subsequently, the firm participated in the 1st batch of the Code Republic accelerator program and presented PortHub, its international distribution optimization tool, as a web-based logistics optimization platform for SMEs (small and mid-sized enterprises) at the Demo Day. Since the teaser website of PortHub is currently closed, it is surmised that the service has been re-branded into Shippio at this time.

Shippio is a cloud-based platform for freight forwarders, export-import operators, trading companies and distribution department of enterprises, enabling simplication of complicated and time-consuming procedures such as communication via email / phone calls, document exchanges via FAX, spreadsheet-based trade management, in addition to helping improve business efficiency drastically and visualize forwarding processes and payments. Its official launch is scheduled in mid-June this year.

Regarding this business field, San Francisco-based Flexport is leading the industry, having funraised a total of $94 million through its series A and B rounds from Founders Fund along with other investors. At last year’s TechSauce Summit pitch competition which was the first large startup conference in Thailand, GizTix providing a logistics marketplace for international distribution won the top prize. In addition, Spain-based cloud-based logistics management platform Shipwise won the Bronze Prize of the pitch competition in HackOsaka held last year, so this field is apparently one of the verticals garnering a lot of attention.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

ShareMedical, Fast Doctor join forces to launch physician house-call app for Japan

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based medical ISV (independent service vendor) ShareMedical announced on Thursday their partnership with Fast Doctor, a company that provides night time in-home doctors visits, to begin offering a smart house call service in central Tokyo and its adjacent Chiba prefecture. ShareMedical is developing an mobile app geared for patients who wish to use this service, and plans to make it available from August. ShareMedical was founded in September of 2014 by Yoshimasa Mine. Prior to it he was involved in launching Japanese hospital search portal QLife before. The company has released mobile apps such as a messaging tool called MediLine and a medical term-optimized IME (input method editor) called Ikotoba. The MediLine app supports efficient and safe communication among physicians of medical institutions focused on house calls, as electronic medical record systems and portable medical examination machines are spreading owing to the development of various technologies including communication. It is easy to use via a smartphone, so perhaps describing it as the “Medical Version of Line” is most understandable. For regular workers it is most common to take a day off from work to be examined by a doctor at a hospital. When it…

From left: Fast Doctor CEO Ryo Kikuchi, ShareMedical CEO Yoshimasa Mine
Image credit: ShareMedical

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based medical ISV (independent service vendor) ShareMedical announced on Thursday their partnership with Fast Doctor, a company that provides night time in-home doctors visits, to begin offering a smart house call service in central Tokyo and its adjacent Chiba prefecture. ShareMedical is developing an mobile app geared for patients who wish to use this service, and plans to make it available from August.

ShareMedical was founded in September of 2014 by Yoshimasa Mine. Prior to it he was involved in launching Japanese hospital search portal QLife before. The company has released mobile apps such as a messaging tool called MediLine and a medical term-optimized IME (input method editor) called Ikotoba. The MediLine app supports efficient and safe communication among physicians of medical institutions focused on house calls, as electronic medical record systems and portable medical examination machines are spreading owing to the development of various technologies including communication. It is easy to use via a smartphone, so perhaps describing it as the “Medical Version of Line” is most understandable.

For regular workers it is most common to take a day off from work to be examined by a doctor at a hospital. When it is impossible to take time off, people seek medical institutions that offer nighttime treatment or rely on hospitals that have an emergency outpatient clinic; but, it is important to keep in mind the limited number of human resources in medical care when visiting the emergency room for issues that are not urgent. The accounting departments of hospitals are often closed at night, and it is sometimes necessary to pay extra cash in advance with the return to be settled at a later date; and, if there is no medical institution open in your neighborhood, it would be also difficult to secure transportation.

ShareMedical is aiming to begin, in a sense, the “Medical Version of Uber”. Users can register their credit card and health insurance information in advance on the app and request a doctor to visit when necessary. A driver takes the doctor on the house call so if first aid is necessary, the patient can communicate with the doctor until their arrival.

In this partnership, Fast Doctor will provide a network of house call doctors while ShareMedical will be responsible for providing a user experience that attracts prospective patients. According to the law, doctors are permitted to visit areas within a 16-kilometer radius from where the hospital is located; and to start with, ShareMedical’s service area will be a part of the central Tokyo and its adjacent Chiba prefecture centering on the offices of Fast Doctor. In the future, they are planning to increase the medical institutions and related facilities participating in this network, and to expand both ShareMedical and Fast Doctor’s services nationwide.

ShareMedical plans to undertake the reception processes of calculating the payments for medical services, as well as keeping track of medical fees and expenses, in addition to taking the medical clerical work off the hands of doctors. Due to the limitations of the law, it is not possible to put the data or processing related to the reception in the cloud, making it necessary to set up a server containing medical information at the medical institution. In the future, ShareMedical has plans to set up a BPO (business process outsourcing) center with qualified medical coding specialists and make it possible to respond by remote login. In fact, medical institutions and related facilities that participate in the above-mentioned network would not each have to have qualified individuals for medical affairs, so (even if they have medical equipment) they are not medical institutions with installed facilities, thus the birth of the “freelance house call specialists”.

This new business opportunity is convenient for doctors working in public hospitals and trainees that do not necessarily have a large income. In the daytime, they can work their day job at the university hospital or clinic, and at night they can adopt an on-call work style, so their degree of freedom is higher than doctors who work the night shift. A subsequent income is another merit. Because they are limiting the provision of services to only night visits, the risk of competing with the traditional medical institutions and practitioners in the market has also been minimized. This also eliminates the concern of being labeled a “threat” by the medical association and other stakeholders.

The mobile app under development
Image credit: ShareMedical

A glance at companies in the field of smart house call services in the US includes Stat in Philadelphia, Heal in Los Angeles, and Pager in New York.  At last month’s World Health Day, Uber announced UberHEALTH which allows users to conduct a diabetes examination and thyroid function test during a house call.

ShareMedical raised funds in December of 2015 from Slogan Coent (amount undisclosed), and in November of 2016 raised 50 million yen (about $440K US) from leading medical and nursing HR matching company Tsme.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s wearable walkie-talkie Bonx secures $1.8M for North American expansion

SHARE:

Tokyo-based Bonx, the Japanese startup developing a wearable walkie-talkie device under the same name, unveiled today its fundraising of 200 million yen (about $1.76 million) from Adways (TSE:2489), Keio Innovation Initiative and Japanese hearing aid manufacturer Rion (TSE:6823) as well as several unnamed individual investors. With the latest funding, the company has raised a total of 5 million yen (about $4.4 million) to date. They will use the funds to set up a US subsidiary for North American expansion while exploring technological synergies with the investors participating this time around. Bonx launched a crowdfunding campaign for its first market-ready product back in October of 2015, and subsequently unveiled the second generation called Bonx Grip in December of 2016. The new version sees many improvements in supporting usage environment such as water resistance and wearing comfort. Given that a recent increased coverage of 3G/4G connectivity in ski resorts or snowy landscapes around the globe, CEO Takahiro Miyasaka expects that more foreign outdoor go-ers will start using the Bonx device to communicate with each others during their leisure and sporting activities. Given the recent increased coverage of 3G/4G connectivity in ski resorts or snowy landscapes around the globe, CEO Takahiro Miyasaka expects…

Tokyo-based Bonx, the Japanese startup developing a wearable walkie-talkie device under the same name, unveiled today its fundraising of 200 million yen (about $1.76 million) from Adways (TSE:2489), Keio Innovation Initiative and Japanese hearing aid manufacturer Rion (TSE:6823) as well as several unnamed individual investors.

With the latest funding, the company has raised a total of 5 million yen (about $4.4 million) to date. They will use the funds to set up a US subsidiary for North American expansion while exploring technological synergies with the investors participating this time around.

Bonx launched a crowdfunding campaign for its first market-ready product back in October of 2015, and subsequently unveiled the second generation called Bonx Grip in December of 2016. The new version sees many improvements in supporting usage environment such as water resistance and wearing comfort.

Given that a recent increased coverage of 3G/4G connectivity in ski resorts or snowy landscapes around the globe, CEO Takahiro Miyasaka expects that more foreign outdoor go-ers will start using the Bonx device to communicate with each others during their leisure and sporting activities.

Given the recent increased coverage of 3G/4G connectivity in ski resorts or snowy landscapes around the globe, CEO Takahiro Miyasaka expects that more foreign outdoor go-ers will start using the Bonx device to communicate with each others during their leisure and sporting activities.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Via TechCrunch Japan