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Japan’s VRize launches 360-degree VR ad network in closed beta

Takeshi Hirano 2016.08.12

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based VRize, developing ad business in the virtual reality (VR) space, last week announced the closed beta launch of a VR ad network named VRize Ad. With the network, ads can be distributed in three different formats: 360-degree video ad, over 150-inch large-screen feel video ad and 3DCG video ad. The VRize team started looking for developers to try out closed beta, and plans an official launch this fall. Participant developers can start distributing ads by integrating VRize’s SDK (software developer kit) into their gaming or other mobile apps. The pricing is based on CPM (cost per mille) while most of ads distributed through the network may be initially treated as a kind of “pure ads” due to the limited number of advertisers. Well, an aggressive startup has appeared. VR advertising is a solution to help VR content and game developers better monetize. The idea was brought in from ad network in the web field to the VR field, and some cases like Immersv have already been appearing overseas. In Japan, although Japanese gaming developer Colopl (TSE:3668) had set up a 360-degree video distribution platform named 360channel, this VRize Ad may be the first…

vrize_featuredimage — Image credit: VRize

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based VRize, developing ad business in the virtual reality (VR) space, last week announced the closed beta launch of a VR ad network named VRize Ad. With the network, ads can be distributed in three different formats: 360-degree video ad, over 150-inch large-screen feel video ad and 3DCG video ad. The VRize team started looking for developers to try out closed beta, and plans an official launch this fall.

Participant developers can start distributing ads by integrating VRize’s SDK (software developer kit) into their gaming or other mobile apps. The pricing is based on CPM (cost per mille) while most of ads distributed through the network may be initially treated as a kind of “pure ads” due to the limited number of advertisers.

Well, an aggressive startup has appeared.

VR advertising is a solution to help VR content and game developers better monetize. The idea was brought in from ad network in the web field to the VR field, and some cases like Immersv have already been appearing overseas. In Japan, although Japanese gaming developer Colopl (TSE:3668) had set up a 360-degree video distribution platform named 360channel, this VRize Ad may be the first case of as a true VR ad network in Japan.

According to VRize CEO Hideyuki Shoda, the large-screen ad with more than 150-inch feel is close to Immersv’s creation while the 3DCG video ad is close to Budweiser’s one by Jaunt (see below video clips).

Immersv is a VR-only ad network established by the founder of mobile app monetization platform Tapjoy, proposing a style of letting users watch ads of movies or games in immersive environment while equipping head-mounted display (HMD).

Budweiser’s ad by Jaunt is more optimized to VR spaces, having a feature which enables experiences that approximate sojourns at actual locations. The excellence of each ad can be experienced by equipping HMD.

The market for VR or 360-degree content is expected to grow over the next few years from now. Highly-functional HMDs like Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStationVR have fully entered the market, leading some people to call 2016 ‘the commencement year for VR.’

vr-landscape-july-602x504 — Image credit: The Virtual Reality Fund

On the other hand, in an early stage of the market as shown above in the VR/AR industry landscape, tools which back the industry such as dedicated hardware or authoring tools precede as to business formation. Generally, realization of content or ad-network monetization takes a while.

Shoda answered the question as to whether it is too early in terms of timing: he had chosen to drive the field as a pioneer after understanding this point.

Exactly two years ago, Shoda had launched a flea marketplace app called 10sec which enabled product exhibits via Instagram. He went over to the US to take on challenges, but unfortunately it was not easy to succeed there. He gave up the next fundraising and returned to Japan. After dissolving that company, he took on this new challenge.

Inviting patrons again, he restarted by raising funds from TLM (run by venture capitalist Keisuke Kogure), East Ventures and other individual investors.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Japan’s Anydoor, offering crowdsourced translation service, acquired for $14M

Takeshi Hirano 2016.08.09

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese translation service giant Rosetta (TSE:6182) announced today that it would take the entire stake in Tokyo-based Anydoor, the company behind crowdsourced translation service Conyac, for about 1.4 billion yen (about $14 million). In this deal, the startup plans to exchange its 49.88% stake for the acquirer’s share and receive a value for the remaining 50.12% stake in cash. Established in February of 2009 by Naoki Yamada, who had studied abroad, Conyac is a product of his experience as he was often asked to translate short messages. According to the company’s website, it has acquired over 80,000 crowdsourced translators across 100 countries as of this month. After winning seed money at a business competition hosted by Skylight Consulting, Yamada paired up with his buddy Tomohiro Onuma and kicked it into gear by encountering Tokyo-based startup accelerator Samurai Incubate. Since then, Anydoor has successfuly secured funds totaling $600,000 from Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and SMBC Venture Capital in October of 2013 while receiving funding from Japanese VC firm ngi group (now known as United) as well as venture capitalist Anri Samata. See also: Japan’s Conyac now provides more than translation, better helping companies go global Japan’s…

naoki-yamada — Anydoor co-founder and CEO Naoki Yamada

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese translation service giant Rosetta (TSE:6182) announced today that it would take the entire stake in Tokyo-based Anydoor, the company behind crowdsourced translation service Conyac, for about 1.4 billion yen (about $14 million). In this deal, the startup plans to exchange its 49.88% stake for the acquirer’s share and receive a value for the remaining 50.12% stake in cash.

Established in February of 2009 by Naoki Yamada, who had studied abroad, Conyac is a product of his experience as he was often asked to translate short messages. According to the company’s website, it has acquired over 80,000 crowdsourced translators across 100 countries as of this month.

After winning seed money at a business competition hosted by Skylight Consulting, Yamada paired up with his buddy Tomohiro Onuma and kicked it into gear by encountering Tokyo-based startup accelerator Samurai Incubate.

Since then, Anydoor has successfuly secured funds totaling $600,000 from Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and SMBC Venture Capital in October of 2013 while receiving funding from Japanese VC firm ngi group (now known as United) as well as venture capitalist Anri Samata.

See also:

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Japan’s Abeja, analytics for retail stores, gets $2M funding for ASEAN expansion

Masaru Ikeda 2016.08.08

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Abeja, the company offering solutions for retail stores to improve customer path or traffic based on image analysis and machine learning technologies, announced today that it has fundraised 200 million yen (about $2 million) from Inspire PNB Partners. Inspire PNB is the joint venture between Japanese investment firm Inspire and Malaysia’s state-run firm Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), managing a Sharia-compliant private equity fund called PNB-INSPiRE Ethical Fund 1 (formed in April of 2014, valued around 6 billion yen = $60 million). The fund recently invested in Japanese private cloud platform developer Keepdata. The fund was raised in a series B round, meaning that the company has secured approximately a total of $7 million in this round combined with their $5 million funding last month. The company obtained funding in a seed round from Inspire, the parent company of Inspire PNB. In Islamic countries, since Sharia (Islamic law) prohibits acceptance of specific interest or fees for loaning money, hedge funds or other financing schemes common in Western countries are unlikely to be accepted. Meanwhile, Malaysia has now become an Islamic finance hub offering Sharia-compliant financing schemes. Startups receiving funds from such schemes can expand…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Abeja, the company offering solutions for retail stores to improve customer path or traffic based on image analysis and machine learning technologies, announced today that it has fundraised 200 million yen (about $2 million) from Inspire PNB Partners. Inspire PNB is the joint venture between Japanese investment firm Inspire and Malaysia’s state-run firm Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), managing a Sharia-compliant private equity fund called PNB-INSPiRE Ethical Fund 1 (formed in April of 2014, valued around 6 billion yen = $60 million). The fund recently invested in Japanese private cloud platform developer Keepdata.

The fund was raised in a series B round, meaning that the company has secured approximately a total of $7 million in this round combined with their $5 million funding last month. The company obtained funding in a seed round from Inspire, the parent company of Inspire PNB.

In Islamic countries, since Sharia (Islamic law) prohibits acceptance of specific interest or fees for loaning money, hedge funds or other financing schemes common in Western countries are unlikely to be accepted. Meanwhile, Malaysia has now become an Islamic finance hub offering Sharia-compliant financing schemes. Startups receiving funds from such schemes can expand their services into Islamic markets more smoothly, just as Halal-approved restaurants can.

Abeja claims that the company will use the funds to strengthen their ASEAN expansion effort and to gain competitive power in the market globally. They haven’t specified which market to target but huge Islamic markets in the ASEAN region include Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Mamorio, major Japanese pharma tie up for dementia sufferer support

The Bridge 2016.08.04

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Eisai (TSE:4523) － a Japanese pharmaceuticals major － and Tokyo-based startup Mamorio, led by Daiki Masuki, announced that they have entered into an agreement to collaborate on development of the Me-Mamorio tracking tool to support people with dementia upon going out. A demonstration experiment aimed at implementation as well as development of Me-Mamorio will be held in cooperation with various stakeholders such as government, healthcare professionals and careworkers. The two Japanese firms aim to realize an environment where the community as a whole can look out for people with dementia. Me-Mamorio is a small tag which utilizes the short-range wireless Bluetooth communication standard. When dementia sufferers carry the Me-Mamorio tag pass, people in the community who have the corresponding application installed on their smartphones can help provide position data, which has been sent automatically to a server. Unlike the Global Positioning System (GPS), the system enables pinpointing of a civilian’s location (GPS primarily being for military use). This data is then automatically transmitted to careworkers, family members and other designated people. People in the community are not notified when dementia…

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

mamorio_featuredimage — Image credit: Mamorio

Eisai (TSE:4523) － a Japanese pharmaceuticals major － and Tokyo-based startup Mamorio, led by Daiki Masuki, announced that they have entered into an agreement to collaborate on development of the Me-Mamorio tracking tool to support people with dementia upon going out. A demonstration experiment aimed at implementation as well as development of Me-Mamorio will be held in cooperation with various stakeholders such as government, healthcare professionals and careworkers. The two Japanese firms aim to realize an environment where the community as a whole can look out for people with dementia.

Me-Mamorio is a small tag which utilizes the short-range wireless Bluetooth communication standard. When dementia sufferers carry the Me-Mamorio tag pass, people in the community who have the corresponding application installed on their smartphones can help provide position data, which has been sent automatically to a server. Unlike the Global Positioning System (GPS), the system enables pinpointing of a civilian’s location (GPS primarily being for military use). This data is then automatically transmitted to careworkers, family members and other designated people.

me-mamorio-_diagram — Image credit: Eisai

People in the community are not notified when dementia sufferers carrying the Me-Mamorio are nearby; however just their carrying a smartphone with Bluetooth switched on enables community-wide support to be offered so dementia sufferers may go outside with peace of mind safely. The strengths of Me-Mamorio are that it is small and lightweight compared to a GPS device, in addition to being easy to carry. The aim of Me-Mamorio is to enable people with dementia to preserve their dignity and allow them to go out freely in areas they are used to in relative safety.

There are many reasons why dementia sufferers wish to go outside the home, such as having a strong need to do so or feeling much anxiety. According to the Metropolitan Police Department, of the missing persons reported to the police in 2015, 12,208 of these were people suffering from dementia. Ever since 2012 when record-keeping began, this number has been rising year after year. Of these, 150 people were still missing at the end of 2015. According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the number of dementia sufferers was approximately 4.62 million in 2012, and is expected to increase to about 7 million by 2025.

Leveraging the experience gained from the development and marketing of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, Eisai has agreements signed with medical associations and local governments in some 65 locations nationwide, so is able to realize interprofessional collaboration among healthcare professionals, careworkers and others. These kinds of dementia-related knowledge and capabilities accumulated will be applied to the Me-Mamorio demonstration experiment and development.

Under the slogan of “Forget about forgetting” Mamorio has developed as well as managed a number of products and services, including Japan’s biggest lost-and-found portal site Otoshimono.com. Additionally the company provides the world’s smallest IoT (Internet of Things) product Mamorio, a tag which utilizes Bluetooth that when simply attached to an important object; it can quickly locate the item if lost by using an alert and map displayed on a smartphone to receive information from a user-based smartphone crowdtracking platform. Mamorio will utilize the assets built up through these platforms in the demonstration experiment, not to mention development of Me-Mamorio.

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Japanese printing startup Raksul secures $20.2M to strengthen global expansion

Raksul

Masaru Ikeda 2016.08.04

Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, today announced that it has raised 2.05 billion yen (about $20.2 million) from Fidelity Investments and Development Bank of Japan as well as existing investors including Opt, Global Brain, GMO Venture Partners and Global Catalyst Partners. This follows their $33.7 million funding in a series C round back in February of 2015. The latest funds mean that the company has fundraised a total of 7.9 billion yen (about $78.1 million) from investors to date. It has now become one of the most-funded startups in Japan, following biotech startup Spiber and C2C e-commerce startup Mercari. The company claims that the funds will be used to enhance human resources and marketing for its online printing services in addition to a new business called Hacobell, an on-demand delivery service for individual users. The company also said it had recently invested in India’s online printing marketplace Inkmonk following their previous investment in Indonesia’s Prinzio back in November of 2015. See also: Hot Japanese printing startup expands to Southeast Asia with local investment (Tech in Asia) Founded in 2009, Raksul is a fabless company which provides printing services in partnership with printing facilities across Japan. Users can…

Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, today announced that it has raised 2.05 billion yen (about $20.2 million) from Fidelity Investments and Development Bank of Japan as well as existing investors including Opt, Global Brain, GMO Venture Partners and Global Catalyst Partners.

This follows their $33.7 million funding in a series C round back in February of 2015. The latest funds mean that the company has fundraised a total of 7.9 billion yen (about $78.1 million) from investors to date. It has now become one of the most-funded startups in Japan, following biotech startup Spiber and C2C e-commerce startup Mercari.

The company claims that the funds will be used to enhance human resources and marketing for its online printing services in addition to a new business called Hacobell, an on-demand delivery service for individual users. The company also said it had recently invested in India’s online printing marketplace Inkmonk following their previous investment in Indonesia’s Prinzio back in November of 2015.

See also:

Hot Japanese printing startup expands to Southeast Asia with local investment (Tech in Asia)

Founded in 2009, Raksul is a fabless company which provides printing services in partnership with printing facilities across Japan. Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the company takes advantage of downtime at participating printers to complete those orders. Additionally, the company provides the aforementioned Hacobell on-demand delivery service as well as a flyer delivery service for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Crypto-currency and Blockchain: Future of Finance?

The Bridge 2016.07.29

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Focusing on financial sector development, the Asia Development Bank Institute (ADBI) in Tokyo hosted a seminar to encourage debate among policymakers, researchers, academics, think-tanks and other audiences interested in economic development challenges in Asia and the Pacific. This research institute is affiliated with the Asia Development Bank, based in Manila. ADBI this time brought the BitCoin startup Quoine‘s Mike Kayamori (MBA, Harvard) into the series. As per past articles, Quoine is looking to become an “exchange of exchanges” in this arena. It was started up in Singapore but due to legal changes there was reorganized so that the former Japan subsidiary is now the main operational entity, with a Japanese CEO who is also co-founder running things out of Tokyo now. Kayamori is Quoine’s co-founder and CEO, following on from a career spanning 20 years where he held senior roles at Mitsubishi Corporation, Globespan Capital Partners and Softbank Group. He brings extensive experience in business and management both in Japan as well as abroad, in addition to having been closely linked to investment activities covering technology and telecommunications fields. At…

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

adbi-tokyo-seminar-1 — Image credit: ADBI

Focusing on financial sector development, the Asia Development Bank Institute (ADBI) in Tokyo hosted a seminar to encourage debate among policymakers, researchers, academics, think-tanks and other audiences interested in economic development challenges in Asia and the Pacific. This research institute is affiliated with the Asia Development Bank, based in Manila.

ADBI this time brought the BitCoin startup Quoine‘s Mike Kayamori (MBA, Harvard) into the series. As per past articles, Quoine is looking to become an “exchange of exchanges” in this arena. It was started up in Singapore but due to legal changes there was reorganized so that the former Japan subsidiary is now the main operational entity, with a Japanese CEO who is also co-founder running things out of Tokyo now.

Kayamori is Quoine’s co-founder and CEO, following on from a career spanning 20 years where he held senior roles at Mitsubishi Corporation, Globespan Capital Partners and Softbank Group. He brings extensive experience in business and management both in Japan as well as abroad, in addition to having been closely linked to investment activities covering technology and telecommunications fields.

At the seminar, general explanations of blockchain and crypto-currency and why these are seen as being the future of finance were offered. There were also elaborations as to opportunities and risks entailed, in addition to a look at the competitive landscape. Particular emphasis was made on how regulators look at crypto-currencies today.

It is understood that Quoine is rapidly expanding its presence in Japan and will be extensively publicizing itself in the market here — including a planned October appearance at a specialist-oriented seminar in Kabutocho area, Tokyo’s financial center and seat of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, among others.

adbi-tokyo-seminar-2 — Image credit: ADBI

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Attaining 20M+ monthly visitors, Retty, Japan’s answer to Yelp, gets $10.5M series D funding

retty

Masaru Ikeda 2016.07.28

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Retty, the Japanese startup behind the restaurant finder app of the same name, announced today that it has fundraised $1.1 billion yen (about $10.5 million) in a series D round. This round was led by World Innovation Lab (WiL) with participation from ABC Dream Ventures and Eight Roads Ventures Japan. ABC Dream Ventures is the investment arm of Osaka-based private TV broadcaster Asahi Broadcasting Corporation. Eight Roads Ventures Japan (previously known as Fidelity Growth Japan) also participated in a series C round for Retty back in March of 2015. For Retty, the funding sum from disclosed rounds including this time has reached 2.55 billion yen (about $24.3 million). The company claims that the funds raised this time will be used to hire system engineers to develop an overseas edition of the app, improve and fulfill a dashboard interface for restaurants as well as upgrading backend system infrastructure for global service expansion. See also: Japanese restaurant finder app Retty surpasses 5M monthly visitors How Japan’s online social restaurant guide Retty doubled its monthly visitors CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Retty’s mobile advantage Coinciding with this, the company announced that they have surpassed 20 million…

retty-kazuya-takeda — Retty CEO Kazuya Takeda

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Retty, the Japanese startup behind the restaurant finder app of the same name, announced today that it has fundraised $1.1 billion yen (about $10.5 million) in a series D round. This round was led by World Innovation Lab (WiL) with participation from ABC Dream Ventures and Eight Roads Ventures Japan. ABC Dream Ventures is the investment arm of Osaka-based private TV broadcaster Asahi Broadcasting Corporation. Eight Roads Ventures Japan (previously known as Fidelity Growth Japan) also participated in a series C round for Retty back in March of 2015. For Retty, the funding sum from disclosed rounds including this time has reached 2.55 billion yen (about $24.3 million).

The company claims that the funds raised this time will be used to hire system engineers to develop an overseas edition of the app, improve and fulfill a dashboard interface for restaurants as well as upgrading backend system infrastructure for global service expansion.

See also:

retty-user-growth — Retty’s MAUs growth since its launch.

Coinciding with this, the company announced that they have surpassed 20 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of May, 2016. Given the marking of a milestone 10 million monthly active users in May of 2015, they spent almost five years to acquire the first 10 million monthly active users but the latter 10 million users was gained only within an year… which is five times faster. Meanwhile, Retty rolled out its mobile web interface back in May.

Retty has been looking into global expansion for a long time, but the road towards that doesn’t look smooth. They tried to expand into the US and Singapore in 2012 but later was forced to leave these markets. At a press conference back in 2015 commemorating the milestone of 10 million monthly active users, they revealed the start of their Asian expansion within that year but the plan has not yet been carried out. However, according to Retty CEO Kazuya Takeda, their targeted milestone of 100 million monthly active users by the year of 2020 has never been changed. This goal can be achieved by targeting the global market as well as the Japanese market and their global expansion is mandatory, he says.

We cannot yet disclose which country to start with. However, we want to start our global expansion effort with the Asian region.

retty-mobile-web-screenshots — Mobile web interface was renewed in May.

For Retty, their global expansion effort will require no local office in the targeted market since their app localization and user engagement efforts are primarily conducted at their headquarters in Tokyo. Therefore, as long as they are focused on B2C (business-to-consumer), it would entail less risk for them. Retty relies for its primary revenue on driving customer traffic to restaurants as well as in-app ads by renowned Japanese companies. Leveraging local agents, they would be able to achieve a business on top of the same model even abroad.

In the vertical, specifically serving restaurants to help them improve their sales and streamline their operations, we’ve seen a solid growth of restaurant reservation, customer ledger and POS (point-of-sales) services such as TabSquare (Singapore) and iChef (Taiwan and Hong Kong) in addition to Japan’s Toreta which recently started its operation in Singapore. Takeda told The Bridge that his company will not compete with these operators but rather potentially collaborate with each other. As a matter of fact, Retty has partnered with other service operators like HotPepper and OpenTable in Japan.

We have been told that the trends of gourmet apps are usually changed every five years. Given the fact that the Retty iOS app was released in November of 2011, this year will be crucial for the company looking at loftier goals.

retty-office — Employees devoting themselves to discussions at Retty’s office.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Japan’s Abeja, Google Analytics for retail stores, secures $5M in series B round

Abeja

Masaru Ikeda 2016.07.27

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Abeja, the company offering solutions for retail stores to improve customer path or traffic based on image analysis and machine learning technologies, announced today that it has fundraised 530 million yen (about $5 million) from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) and Archetype Ventures in a series B round. This follows their 6-digit figure (in US dollars) series A funding from Salesforce Ventures in December of 2014. Founded in September of 2012, followed by graduation from the 1st batch of the Orange Fab Asia acceleration program, Abeja has fundraised an undislcosed sum of investment from Keisuke Tomimatsu in an angel round in addition to Archetype, Inspire, Mitsbishi UFJ Capital, Mizuho Capital, NTT Docomo Ventures and Sakura Internet in a seed round. Abeja offers a suite of data analytics solutions for retail stores to improve their business, such as Abeja Behavior for analyzing customer flow line and detention time in a real store, Abeja Demographics for detecting the gender and age of visiting customers in addition to Abeja DMP for analyzing data from both online and offline sales. Abeja Platform, the company’s flagship cloud platform comprising of these solutions, has been adopted by more…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Abeja, the company offering solutions for retail stores to improve customer path or traffic based on image analysis and machine learning technologies, announced today that it has fundraised 530 million yen (about $5 million) from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) and Archetype Ventures in a series B round. This follows their 6-digit figure (in US dollars) series A funding from Salesforce Ventures in December of 2014.

Founded in September of 2012, followed by graduation from the 1st batch of the Orange Fab Asia acceleration program, Abeja has fundraised an undislcosed sum of investment from Keisuke Tomimatsu in an angel round in addition to Archetype, Inspire, Mitsbishi UFJ Capital, Mizuho Capital, NTT Docomo Ventures and Sakura Internet in a seed round.

Abeja offers a suite of data analytics solutions for retail stores to improve their business, such as Abeja Behavior for analyzing customer flow line and detention time in a real store, Abeja Demographics for detecting the gender and age of visiting customers in addition to Abeja DMP for analyzing data from both online and offline sales. Abeja Platform, the company’s flagship cloud platform comprising of these solutions, has been adopted by more than 100 retail stores in Japan as this month. In other verticals, the company started a collaborative business with Japanese air-conditioning giant Daikin (TSE:6367) at its Technology Innovation Center last month.

See also:

Science fiction becomes reality? Abeja unveils futuristic ad at Tokyo’s busiest station

Upon funding, Abeja has invited Ken Yasunaga, Managing Director of Strategic Investment Group at INCJ, to the management board while the company expects Archetype to support business development for B2B (business-to-business) and B2B2C (business to business to consumer) verticals.

In the space of customer path improvement solutions leveraging image analytics, Taiwan-based SkyRec, the winning team at pitch competitions at events like Slush Asia 2016 and Fukuoka Night, is reportedly poised to enter the Japanese market soon, which may produce fierce competition for Abeja on their local turf.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Japan’s Spectee secures series A round to analyze live events realtime for broadcasters

Spectee

Masaru Ikeda 2016.07.26

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Spectee, the startup behind the platform offering news materials based on social media analytics, announced today that it has secured series A funding. This round was led by Fuji Startup Ventures (FSV for short), the investment arm of Tokyo-based private broadcaster Fuji TV, with participation from Japanese investment firm Mizuho Capital not to mention CBC, the company behind a globally-renowned CCTV system brand called Ganz. Further financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. Spectee was founded under the previous name of Euclid Lab in February of 2014, followed by graduation from the 11th incubation batch of Tokyo-based startup accelerator Open Network Lab in October of 2015. This March, the team launched a new service called Newsdeck, curating images and video clips for live events from social media and offering copyright clearance for use by broadcasters and news organizations, similar to Banjo in the US. The artificial intelligence (AI) technology for analyzing curated image and video clips is now pending patent. Spectee is now offering the Newsdeck service to more than 15 platforms in Japan such as TV broadcasters and online news media sites. Of particular note is the fact that Fuji…

spectee_featuredimage — Image credit: Spectee

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Spectee, the startup behind the platform offering news materials based on social media analytics, announced today that it has secured series A funding. This round was led by Fuji Startup Ventures (FSV for short), the investment arm of Tokyo-based private broadcaster Fuji TV, with participation from Japanese investment firm Mizuho Capital not to mention CBC, the company behind a globally-renowned CCTV system brand called Ganz. Further financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.

Spectee was founded under the previous name of Euclid Lab in February of 2014, followed by graduation from the 11th incubation batch of Tokyo-based startup accelerator Open Network Lab in October of 2015. This March, the team launched a new service called Newsdeck, curating images and video clips for live events from social media and offering copyright clearance for use by broadcasters and news organizations, similar to Banjo in the US. The artificial intelligence (AI) technology for analyzing curated image and video clips is now pending patent.

newsdeck_diagram — Image credit: Spectee

Spectee is now offering the Newsdeck service to more than 15 platforms in Japan such as TV broadcasters and online news media sites. Of particular note is the fact that Fuji TV’s news department has been testing Newsdeck, in preparing for adoption as a platform for fulfilling the core function of the broadcaster’s online news coverage department, which was established this month. The company has also partnered with Fuji TV Lab, planning to launch business involving image/video clip curation and “affairs mining” through integration of the Spectee platform into the broadcaster’s system for accepting video clip and image posting from viewers.

Considering the example of aforementioned Banjo plus that of the Associated Press (AP) which recently began generating news articles using Automated Insights’ WordSmith technology, AI is expanding the range of its applications to the news industry. In particular this year, not only curation of news articles but also generation of original text as well as news material gathering are becoming automated with such technology. Since it is said that AI-powered news generation usually goes well with news categories dealing with figures or stats, such as reporting sport game results or a fact-finder news piece, the one like this article could also be generated using an automated “writing program” in the future.

newsdeck_screenshot1 — Image credit: Spectee

By coincidence similar to the writer team structure of The Bridge in terms of locations, Spectee has added new personnel in Berlin and Los Angeles in addition to Tokyo this month in order to manage the distribution of news materials on the Newsdeck platform and gaining approvals from social media users who posted images of live events that are likely to be used by news media outfits. Applying the three-location structure enables 24-hour nonstop operations by distributing employees according to their local time zone.

The CBC Group, one of the companies that Spectee has fundraised from, has many sales offices outside Japan while earning its primary revenue from global sales. Spectee is looking to gain assistance from CBC in selling the Newsdeck solution to TV broadcasters around the globe.

Disclosure: Fuji Startup Ventures has invested in The Bridge.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Tokyo Office Tour: 500 Startups Japan further engages with entrepreneurs from new base

Masaru Ikeda 2016.07.24

See the original story in Japanese. This is part of our ‘Tokyo Office Tour’ series (RSS), a modest attempt to better understand how folks in the local startup scene are working every day. On July 1st, Global Business Hub Tokyo (GBHT) officially opened in Otemachi, the city’s financial district near Tokyo station. Thus, a new startup hub has additionally appeared in the area filled with various co-working spaces or event spaces such as Egg Japan, FINOLAB and 3×3 Lab Future. 500 Startups Japan, a 500 Startup’s micro-fund for the Japanese market, bases itself at this GBHT, and will likely frequently hold events like an “office hours” with entrepreneurs or a meet-up utilizing the public space, a bragging right for GBHT. See also: Tokyo’s FinTech startup hub FINOLAB holds its first growth hack seminar In the first $30 million-sized fund launched by 500 Startups Japan last September, Mixi, Mizuho Bank, Mistletoe and angel investor Kotaro Chiba participated as LP (limited partner), and recently it was revealed that Egg Japan and Mitsubishi Estate (which is also part of GBHT’s management matrix) had joined the LP. Although 500 Startups Japan is a fund originated in Silicon Valley, it is also a ‘made-in-Japan startup…

See the original story in Japanese.

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

On July 1st, Global Business Hub Tokyo (GBHT) officially opened in Otemachi, the city’s financial district near Tokyo station. Thus, a new startup hub has additionally appeared in the area filled with various co-working spaces or event spaces such as Egg Japan, FINOLAB and 3×3 Lab Future. 500 Startups Japan, a 500 Startup’s micro-fund for the Japanese market, bases itself at this GBHT, and will likely frequently hold events like an “office hours” with entrepreneurs or a meet-up utilizing the public space, a bragging right for GBHT.

See also:

Tokyo’s FinTech startup hub FINOLAB holds its first growth hack seminar

In the first $30 million-sized fund launched by 500 Startups Japan last September, Mixi, Mizuho Bank, Mistletoe and angel investor Kotaro Chiba participated as LP (limited partner), and recently it was revealed that Egg Japan and Mitsubishi Estate (which is also part of GBHT’s management matrix) had joined the LP. Although 500 Startups Japan is a fund originated in Silicon Valley, it is also a ‘made-in-Japan startup fund’ in whicn most of the LPs are composed of Japanese companies or investors.

Since the fund’s launch last fall, 500 Startups Japan unveiled that it had invested in meeting space-sharing service Spacee, followed by Pocket Menu which runs an O2O (online-to-offline) service for restaurants named Pocket Concierge (series A round), a virtual reality content developer Dverse (seed round) and Sora, which runs MagicPrice that emanated from Tech Lab Paak 3rd batch (seed round).

See also:

According to partners James Riney and Yohei Sawayama of 500 Startups Japan, two strategies upon investment are pointed out as factors for differentiating 500 Startups Japan, other than financials and its mentor network.

One is the “time machine” business. Like Spacee or Pocket Menu cases in their portfolio, some kind of business synergy are sought with startups in the same profession which already exists in US 500 Startups’ portfolio. Or, another case can be considered where US startups aiming to expand into Japan cooperate / combine / purchase Japanese startups in advance in the Japanese market. It is based on the idea of ‘buying time.’ Looking at 500 Startups as a whole, plural startups in the portfolio are able to associate and provide one worldwide services quickly, resulting in higher valuation.

The other corresponds to Dverse. Even if startups focusing on edge (specialized) technologies have the potential for global development, it is not unusual that they are not good at marketing. To support such tech-focused startups to enable global marketing by leveraging a network of journalists around the world is one of 500 Startups’ mission.

When The Bridge started up its English version under the name of SD, I mentioned that Western investors who do not speak Japanese see the Japanese startup community as a black box. Riney and Sawayama noted that 500 Startups Japan has close ties to Silicon Valley which wants to make its ability to act becoming a guide for global investors as one of the company’s strength in order to make them more interesting to the Japanese startups and to call in further investment activities.

Upon locating its genuine base, 500 Startups Japan is currently recruiting a Marketing & Community Manager for management of events including office hours, meet-ups or for deepening engagement with startups, as well as an Executive Assistant or intern. Do check them out if interested.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Tokyo Office Tour: 500 Startups Japan further engages with entrepreneurs from new base

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