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CyberAgent rebrands investment arm, looks at synergies between core biz and portfolio

Masaru Ikeda 2019.01.07

See the original story in Japanese. CyberAgent (CA) announced today that CyberAgent Ventures (CAV), a consolidated subsidiary of the company to develop its VC business, has been rebranded into CyberAgent Capital (CAC). Hirofumi Kondo, who served as the Japan Lead for CAV, is being appointed as CEO of CAC. Established as CyberAgent Investment (CAI) back in 2006, the company subsequently rebranded itself CAV in 2010. This marks the 2nd rebranding for the company. Growth in the company and the fund are behind these changes. Additionally, as the saying “CAV mafia” goes, the company has produced many venture capitalists, who then went on to join other VCs or establish new, independent VCs. With the birth of CAC, the company appears to be organizing the roles of new team members and increasing its presence. In 2010 when CAI was rebranded CAV, they only had about 100 portfolio startups (including 20 overseas), but now the number has increased to about 350 startups across 8 countries (the cumulative number, including those that have exited). Including the headquarters in Tokyo, CAC has offices in 10 locations in 8 countries mainly in Asia. Along with the establishment of CAC, the company announced that 3rd generation Japanese…

cyberagent-capital-group-photo — The CAC team. Front row, center: CEO Hirofumi Kondo; To his right: Riho Hayama managing the Fujita Fund. 2nd row, center: new team member Mauricio Omura.
Image credit: CyberAgent Capital

See the original story in Japanese.

CyberAgent (CA) announced today that CyberAgent Ventures (CAV), a consolidated subsidiary of the company to develop its VC business, has been rebranded into CyberAgent Capital (CAC). Hirofumi Kondo, who served as the Japan Lead for CAV, is being appointed as CEO of CAC.

Established as CyberAgent Investment (CAI) back in 2006, the company subsequently rebranded itself CAV in 2010. This marks the 2nd rebranding for the company. Growth in the company and the fund are behind these changes. Additionally, as the saying “CAV mafia” goes, the company has produced many venture capitalists, who then went on to join other VCs or establish new, independent VCs.

With the birth of CAC, the company appears to be organizing the roles of new team members and increasing its presence. In 2010 when CAI was rebranded CAV, they only had about 100 portfolio startups (including 20 overseas), but now the number has increased to about 350 startups across 8 countries (the cumulative number, including those that have exited). Including the headquarters in Tokyo, CAC has offices in 10 locations in 8 countries mainly in Asia. Along with the establishment of CAC, the company announced that 3rd generation Japanese Brazilian Mauricio Omura will join the team.

fujita-at-monthly-pitch — CyberAgent CEO Susumu Fujita commenting at Monthly Pitch
Image credit: CyberAgent

On top of this, the company is also restarting investment activity from so-called Fujita Fund, which was established in 2013 but has remained less active in recent years. Fujita Fund is an investment initiative for seed/early-startups by CA CEO Susumu Fujita in order to support young executives. For the sake of convenience, the term fund is used, but there are no limited partners and the investment comes straight from CA’s main accounts.

Fujita Fund has successfully invested in numerous Japanese startups that reached IPO including Wantedly, CrowdWorks, and Base, but all investment activities were frozen after the fall of 2014 due to the startup bubble. The first company to receive funds after the resumption of activities is Taimee, which launched a work share app of the same name in August of last year. Last year Taimee raised a total of 56 million yen (about $501K US) from Genesia Ventures, CAV (at the time), and Gaiax.

See also:

CyberAgent CEO Susumu Fujita chats with Japanese entrepreneurs about their journey

The new Fujita Fund collaborates with CAC in making an investment. CyberAgent CEO Office’s Investment Planning Headquarters manages Fujita Fund, but CAC’s CEO Kondo will also be in charge of this Headquarters, while Riho Hayama, who previously worked as a producer at CyberAgent’s entertainment livestreaming service Abema TV, will manage the Fujita Fund full time. Fujita Fund’s ticket size is around 100 million yen (about $895K US) to several hundred million yen and if the startup is internet related the vertical does not matter. So far, the company has decided to invest in four projects including Taimee (the remaining three are unpublished) while CAC has already invested in two of them including Taimee.

CA and CAC are planning to progressively manage Monthly Pitch, a monthly meet-up focused on helping startups get funds, from here on out. With the redevelopment of Shibuya, CA and CAC are planning transfer to a new building, which could mean that events to encourage startups and entrepreneurs will be held more frequently than last year. The number of companies participating in Monthly Pitch has exceeded 160 and it appears the company may be considering global development of the event (in the same manner as the Rising Expo conference).

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

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CyberAgent launches crowdsourced jobs platform for mothers in Japan

Masaru Ikeda 2014.03.19

Japanese internet company CyberAgent recently launched a crowdsourcing platform called Mama & Crowd, which is focused on crowdsourced jobs for women with kids. Many mothers typically want to work to supplement their household income, but it can be difficult to find a nursery that would allow for conventional work at an office. The platform aims to help these mothers work at home by giving them crowdsourced jobs they can do while still caring for their kids. via CNET Japan

Japanese internet company CyberAgent recently launched a crowdsourcing platform called Mama & Crowd, which is focused on crowdsourced jobs for women with kids.

Many mothers typically want to work to supplement their household income, but it can be difficult to find a nursery that would allow for conventional work at an office. The platform aims to help these mothers work at home by giving them crowdsourced jobs they can do while still caring for their kids.

via CNET Japan

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Dash Labs proposes a sort of FitBit for cars, attracts investment from CyberAgent

Rick Martin 2014.03.05

Japanese internet giant CyberAgent announced today that it has invested in New York-based Dash Labs (Dash.by), a young startup whose service is billed as a sort of FitBit for cars. Details of the investment were not disclosed. Dash works through the installation of a low-cost on-board diagnostic unit that connects your smartphone to your car via Bluetooth. In this way, it enables a range of features, such as giving you a driving score, providing alerts for engine issues or feedback on maintenance issues, or gamified social functions where you can compare your driving to friends. Dash’s Android app was just recently launched, and an iPhone version will follow soon. Even though they are just getting their mobile apps out now, the company claims to have tested its technology for over 18 months, driving a million miles in 30 countries. Dash is part of the 2013 TechStars NYC class of startups. CyberAgent didn’t specify the time of its investment, but it looks like it was part of a $1.2 million financing round from December.

Japanese internet giant CyberAgent announced today that it has invested in New York-based Dash Labs (Dash.by), a young startup whose service is billed as a sort of FitBit for cars. Details of the investment were not disclosed.

Dash works through the installation of a low-cost on-board diagnostic unit that connects your smartphone to your car via Bluetooth. In this way, it enables a range of features, such as giving you a driving score, providing alerts for engine issues or feedback on maintenance issues, or gamified social functions where you can compare your driving to friends.

Dash’s Android app was just recently launched, and an iPhone version will follow soon. Even though they are just getting their mobile apps out now, the company claims to have tested its technology for over 18 months, driving a million miles in 30 countries.

Dash is part of the 2013 TechStars NYC class of startups. CyberAgent didn’t specify the time of its investment, but it looks like it was part of a $1.2 million financing round from December.

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Japanese educational app developer Smart Education raises $5.4 million

Junya Mori 2014.02.18

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Smart Education, a developer of educational mobile apps for kids, announced yesterday that it has raised 550 million yen (approximately $5.4 million) from CyberAgent and Infinity Venture Partners. This follows their previous funding worth 75.3 million yen (approximately $750,000) from Shinsei Corporate Investment secured back in May of last year. CyberAgent also invested in the startup’s series B round back in April of last year. Fujita Fund is an investment initiative by CyberAgent, its name derived from the company’s CEO Susumu Fujita. It’s focused is on mid/late-stage startups in Japan. This contrasts with their investment arm CyberAgent Ventures, focused on early-stage startups all across Asia. Regarding this funding, Smart Education’s CEO Daigo Ikeya explains: When looking at our users, we found characteristics very close to those of Ameba users (CyberAgent’s blog platform). So we thought that partnering with CyberAgent could create a synergistic relationship in the future. But more importantly, this partnership lets us benefit from the advice of CyberAgent. Ikeya previously worked at CA Mobile, a mobile app development arm at CyberAgent. He told us how Fujita got involved in this investment: I think their investment was possible because of Fujita’s decision….

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Smart Education, a developer of educational mobile apps for kids, announced yesterday that it has raised 550 million yen (approximately $5.4 million) from CyberAgent and Infinity Venture Partners. This follows their previous funding worth 75.3 million yen (approximately $750,000) from Shinsei Corporate Investment secured back in May of last year. CyberAgent also invested in the startup’s series B round back in April of last year.

Fujita Fund is an investment initiative by CyberAgent, its name derived from the company’s CEO Susumu Fujita. It’s focused is on mid/late-stage startups in Japan. This contrasts with their investment arm CyberAgent Ventures, focused on early-stage startups all across Asia.

Regarding this funding, Smart Education’s CEO Daigo Ikeya explains:

When looking at our users, we found characteristics very close to those of Ameba users (CyberAgent’s blog platform). So we thought that partnering with CyberAgent could create a synergistic relationship in the future. But more importantly, this partnership lets us benefit from the advice of CyberAgent.

Ikeya previously worked at CA Mobile, a mobile app development arm at CyberAgent. He told us how Fujita got involved in this investment:

I think their investment was possible because of Fujita’s decision. Our business sector is not bad but it can’t make a bunch of money. It may require some time to reach any successful milestone, but he has been encouraging us to keep going, saying that the sector will grow enormously in five to ten years.

Our readers may recall the company has been launching a new app and is working on global expansion. Their apps are showing good numbers in terms of overseas user acquisition. They have surpassed 6.4 million total downloads and will reach 7 million very shortly. The company expects to reach 10 million downloads, with an eventual domestic/international ratio of 50/50.

It has been said that our apps are designed to suit Japanese preferences, and have been not accepted in the overseas markets. But our Gocco brand targets the global audience, and has been seeing good results. If we can keep going at this pace, we may catch up with other developers in this space, such as Sweden’s Toca Boca. Their apps are currently making money through in-app purchases, but they plan to shift it to a monthly, subscription-based system, as they do with their apps targeting the Japanese domestic market, which may contribute to more rapid growth in downloads as well as revenue.

Smart Education is doing more than just developing apps. They are also making an effort to suggest the appropriate usage of apps for infants, based on discussions with high profile people in the educational industry. Ikeya explains:

When you become a parent for the first time, you may not quite know how to take care of your baby, or feel a little uneasy. We are building a resource website for such people, especially for those who are a little confused about what to do.

The company recently announced that their educational app Oyako de Smahon (literally, “smartphone app for parents and kids”) will be adopted at 250 nurseries in Japan. They want to make people use their apps as they would an illustrated book. Ikeya explains:

By sorting out a curriculum focused on digital creation, and giving kids opportunities to learn through picture-drawing apps, we expect to help kids create something by taking advantage of IT skills.

If kids draw and share their pictures, it can break language barriers and may even start interactions with people in different countries. Ikeya adds:

There’s no border for such communication. We expect kids to experience this concept in their childhood, and we would like to help them grow as cosmopolitan-minded people through our business.

Smart Eduction will spend this year creating manuals for their curriculum, followed by the launch of a full-scale service next year.

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Japan’s CyberAgent jumps into market for mothers with crowdsourcing site

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.11.20

Back in May, CyberAgent announced the launch of a business that would be specifically for mothers here in Japan. This is a natural and smart step for its Ameba platform, considering that many of its top Ameba bloggers are female celebrities with children. Mothers mean business. For mothers, Ameba chose a crowdsourcing website as its first business, calling it Mama & Crowd. Although crowdsourcing is a busy market with existing players like Crowdworks and Lancers, Mama & Crowd will focus on mothers as its work force, and will provide work that doesn’t require such specialized skills — simple jobs like responding to questionnaires or writing short articles fo the web. Mama & Crowd will officially launch in late December, but it already begun its pre-registration on November 19th. Here in Japan, we are seeing more and more apps and services for the mothers demographic. Prima is another example, a flea market mobile app for mothers. The app can be used to sell and buy used clothes and items for kids under 12. The app recently enabled of payment through national convenient stores. According to a survey conducted by CyberAgent through its own flea market app ‘Maifri’, the numbers indicated that…

Back in May, CyberAgent announced the launch of a business that would be specifically for mothers here in Japan. This is a natural and smart step for its Ameba platform, considering that many of its top Ameba bloggers are female celebrities with children. Mothers mean business.

For mothers, Ameba chose a crowdsourcing website as its first business, calling it Mama & Crowd. Although crowdsourcing is a busy market with existing players like Crowdworks and Lancers, Mama & Crowd will focus on mothers as its work force, and will provide work that doesn’t require such specialized skills — simple jobs like responding to questionnaires or writing short articles fo the web. Mama & Crowd will officially launch in late December, but it already begun its pre-registration on November 19th.

Here in Japan, we are seeing more and more apps and services for the mothers demographic. Prima is another example, a flea market mobile app for mothers. The app can be used to sell and buy used clothes and items for kids under 12. The app recently enabled of payment through national convenient stores.

According to a survey conducted by CyberAgent through its own flea market app ‘Maifri’, the numbers indicated that more businesses should enter this market. Female respondents between the ages of 20 to 30 with children were asked about their mobile phone usage. When asked whether smartphones have changed how they doing housework and raising children, 77% of respondents said that it has. Some examples of how mothers use their phones include searching for food recipes for cooking, and showing videos to kids when they’re crying in public. Almost 90% of mothers answered that the smartphone is a useful tool for them.

With smartphone becoming an essential part of motherhood, we can expect to see more apps targeting this particular segement in the future.

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

Takeshi Hirano 2013.10.23

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

See the original story in Japanese.

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

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

Tsuruoka describes meeting with Fujita back in August:

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

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

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

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

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

An annual startup showcase event by CyberAgent Ventures.↩

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CyberAgent subsidiary Sirok rolls out mobile debugging solution

Takeshi Hirano 2013.10.11

See the original story in Japanese. At B Dash Camp earlier this week, Kaizen Platform, the Tokyo-based startup behind A/B testing tool PlanBCD, won the top prize. But interestingly, there are a number of other development tools that are popping up here in Japan. Testing tool Fello, for example, has exceeded 100 corporate users in its first month. And yesterday, another Japanese startup gave us something new as well. Tokyo-based Sirok, the CyberAgent subsidiary behind camera app My365, introduced a comprehensive service package that helps developers debug their mobile apps. It is called Growth Debug. The new service is a complementary product positioned along side Growth Push, a testing tool focused on gaining user retention which they introduced back in August. Fierce competition Sirok CEO Yuto Mukaiyama explains: I thought the market was sort of ‘Blue Ocean’, but seems like it’s turning red [1]. But a surge in this market is something worth appreciating though. When the testing tool was launched back in August, he wanted to see it used by 1,000 apps, delivering 10 million testing notifications in three months. So how are they doing now? Mukaiyama responded: For the target about the number of apps using our service,…

See the original story in Japanese.

At B Dash Camp earlier this week, Kaizen Platform, the Tokyo-based startup behind A/B testing tool PlanBCD, won the top prize. But interestingly, there are a number of other development tools that are popping up here in Japan. Testing tool Fello, for example, has exceeded 100 corporate users in its first month.

And yesterday, another Japanese startup gave us something new as well. Tokyo-based Sirok, the CyberAgent subsidiary behind camera app My365, introduced a comprehensive service package that helps developers debug their mobile apps. It is called Growth Debug.

The new service is a complementary product positioned along side Growth Push, a testing tool focused on gaining user retention which they introduced back in August.

Fierce competition

Sirok CEO Yuto Mukaiyama explains:

I thought the market was sort of ‘Blue Ocean’, but seems like it’s turning red [1]. But a surge in this market is something worth appreciating though.

When the testing tool was launched back in August, he wanted to see it used by 1,000 apps, delivering 10 million testing notifications in three months. So how are they doing now? Mukaiyama responded:

For the target about the number of apps using our service, we’re still struggling. But we’ll probably be able to surpass 10 million notifications pretty soon. We don’t yet provide our service to foreign developers though. In terms of demographics, many of our users are social gaming developers, and casual gaming and community apps follow.

The company also expects to make see the platform used by all 200 Ameba mobile apps (iOS / Android) from CyberAgent, which they expect to account for 20% of their three-month target.

He also explained a little how how their platform can contribute to a better user retention rate:

We are using the platform to improve user retention on our own My365 app, and it is gaining 1.2 to 1.5 times in the number of daily active users on average.

The problem of debugging mobile apps

Growth Debug, their new service, provides developers with improvements in quality and efficiency by taking a different approach.

The company not only gives you the tools, but also provides personnel who can understand how to eliminate bugs.

Unlike conventional tools like Excel, when you find a bug in your app you can record and manage it via an online tool. This lets you submit an issue to management tools such as JIRA and Redmine, including a screen capture, a handset terminal ID, and a log. Mukaiyama explains how it differes from conventional debugging solutions:

We used to create a script to automate text inputs in testing a sign-up process in an app. But this doesn’t work at all on mobile apps where an enormous number of minor adjustments are usually implemented. As a result, these developers are forced to input texts manually when testing.

Finding bugs and extracting testing cases is very important, but the quality of this process depends on who is involved. An engineer many need to ask a debugger to find clarify some meaning in a list of bugs or testing cases. For social gaming developers, a bug related to in-app purchases may have a great impact on how much money you can make. That’s why we developed a tool that allows you to easily submit a defect as soon as you find it by connecting a desktop and a smartphone device.

Mukaiyama explains their another advantage they have is their strong network of debuggers:

Our parent company CyberAgent has developed a number of apps, and their experience will help our users debug more efficiently. We aim to help developers improve their apps with a combination of a tool and professionals.

In contrast with PlanBCD, their aforementioned competitor which uses crowdsourced workers to help users improve user experience, Sirok has partnered with about ten temporary employment agencies and ask them to send the company staffers when needed.

When they used their debugging package to improving some Ameba mobile apps, debugging time was shortened by about 30%.

We recently wrote about Query Eye as our readers may recall.↩

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3 apps making life easier for Japanese teen girls

SCORE 1,730

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.09.25

For many people, thinking back to teenage years may bring some awkward memories. But recently here in Japan we’re seeing a number of apps that attempt to make life better and more fun for kids going through these difficult years. Here are three apps that we stumbled upon that are targeted at teenage girls in Japan, in no particular order. My Nikibi The last thing a girl wants is a pimple on her face on the day of a hot new date. ‘My Nikibi’, meaning ‘my pimples’, is an app that helps girls deal with unwanted blemishes. It lets them manage their pimples by taking photos, and noting which ointment they used to treat it. By looking back later, they can then figure out which methods work best. Like many services in Japan, My Nikibi features a cute character as well. The app is available as a free download for both iOS and Android. Decolink Decolink is another app by CyberAgent which we mentioned in a past article. Released back in February, the app competes directly with Line but focuses exclusively on teenage girls as its target user base. There are over 10,000 free stamps available, and girls can enjoy…

For many people, thinking back to teenage years may bring some awkward memories. But recently here in Japan we’re seeing a number of apps that attempt to make life better and more fun for kids going through these difficult years. Here are three apps that we stumbled upon that are targeted at teenage girls in Japan, in no particular order.

My Nikibi

The last thing a girl wants is a pimple on her face on the day of a hot new date. ‘My Nikibi’, meaning ‘my pimples’, is an app that helps girls deal with unwanted blemishes. It lets them manage their pimples by taking photos, and noting which ointment they used to treat it. By looking back later, they can then figure out which methods work best. Like many services in Japan, My Nikibi features a cute character as well.

The app is available as a free download for both iOS and Android.

Decolink

Decolink is another app by CyberAgent which we mentioned in a past article. Released back in February, the app competes directly with Line but focuses exclusively on teenage girls as its target user base. There are over 10,000 free stamps available, and girls can enjoy many customization features like changing the fonts and backgrounds for the chat app.

Decolink is available for both iOS and Android.

JK Mezamashi

JK Mezamashi is a simple alarm clock app released by CyberAgent. The application is unique in that it is produced by an actual high school student who serves as the editor-in-chief of the mobile blogging platform, Candy. On Candy, CyberAgent conducted a survey of teens asking about their wake-up habits. Not surprisingly, 44% of girls uses the default alarm clock on their phones. Half of the respondents listed checking their mobile phone as the first thing they do after waking up.

The app has many fun alarm sounds including voices by cute guys in three different dialects. You can download the app for both iOS and Android.

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Japanese startup offers A/B testing for mobile push notifications

Takeshi Hirano 2013.08.08

See the original story in Japanese. CyberAgent subsidiary Sirok, the startup behind mobile photo app My365, announced yesterday that it has launched a tool for app developers to analyze user responses to push notifications. The service is called Growth Push, and allows you to conduct an A/B testing to measure user responses by implementing their SDK. The setup is free, and there is no monthly fee required for the first 50,000 notification testings. It is currently available (in Japanese) for iOS, but it will be coming to Android soon. This kind of growth hacking tool typically helps marketers increase their user base. In this space we’ve already seen AppSocially, which is now under the 500 Startups umbrella. We heard from the Sirok’s COO Yuto Mukoyama about their expectations for this tool. We learned that app developers need this kind of tool through our experience managing our apps My365 and Pipul (an avatar-based RPG). Developers need to focus on how they can efficiently retain users. Conventional web services typically have an e-mail notification feature, and a push notification is [the mobile] equivalent to that, and it is important in terms of keep users engaged in this mobile era. The startup tested…

See the original story in Japanese.

CyberAgent subsidiary Sirok, the startup behind mobile photo app My365, announced yesterday that it has launched a tool for app developers to analyze user responses to push notifications. The service is called Growth Push, and allows you to conduct an A/B testing to measure user responses by implementing their SDK.

The setup is free, and there is no monthly fee required for the first 50,000 notification testings. It is currently available (in Japanese) for iOS, but it will be coming to Android soon.

This kind of growth hacking tool typically helps marketers increase their user base. In this space we’ve already seen AppSocially, which is now under the 500 Startups umbrella.

We heard from the Sirok’s COO Yuto Mukoyama about their expectations for this tool.

We learned that app developers need this kind of tool through our experience managing our apps My365 and Pipul (an avatar-based RPG). Developers need to focus on how they can efficiently retain users. Conventional web services typically have an e-mail notification feature, and a push notification is [the mobile] equivalent to that, and it is important in terms of keep users engaged in this mobile era.

The startup tested this tool trying to improve the app launch rate of their game Pipul, and they confirmed that it had a positive impact. It lets you to conduct A/B testing to show different messages to both free users and to paying users. Mukoyama adds:

You can refine your app based on A/B test results and your measurement of the app launch rate or conversion rate. The tool primarily targets startups developing iOS-based gaming apps and community services. I believe we can help them improve user retention based on analytics.

Sirok was founded last year by many student entrepreneurs, and they went on to became a subsidiary of CyberAgent. The internet company helped them learn how to market app services, since the internet company has much experience launching its own apps in the past. Mukoyama elaborated on how his team foresees working with CyberAgent.

Ameba (CyberAgent’s blogging and virtual world platform) has released more than a few games, many with several million downloads. We expect to start acquiring users with this base. We’re aiming to have 1,000 apps using the tool worldwide in three months, sending out about 100 million notifications for their testings.

To date, photo app My365 has seen three million downloads, at a pace of about new 3,000 users a day. Their daily active users total reached 60,000 and is still rising.

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CyberAgent launches its own crowdfunding platform

Masaru Ikeda 2013.08.08

Today Japanese internet giant CyberAgent launched a crowdfunding platform called Makuake (meaning ‘beginning’). The company started the service as a rewards-type crowdfunding service, but plans to enhance it to become an investment-type platform in the future. As you may already know, CyberAgent also runs one of Japan’s biggest blogging platforms, Ameba, where many celebrities or entertainers post updates for fans and promote themselves. In collaboration with such celebrities, the company plans to launch many notable crowdfunding projects, thus attracting more users. At the time of launch, we can find seven projects on site. This includes an initiative from a Japanese soccer player to assist young athletes in the country master English so they can better partake in international activities. The company is also inviting a fundraising project to manufacture Raspberry Pi-enabled robot Rapiro, and that will go live later this month. The platform is currently available for PC, and a smartphone version will go live this coming fall. It is expected that Makuake will transact $1 million in deals monthly by next March. Via CNET and IT Media

Today Japanese internet giant CyberAgent launched a crowdfunding platform called Makuake (meaning ‘beginning’). The company started the service as a rewards-type crowdfunding service, but plans to enhance it to become an investment-type platform in the future.

As you may already know, CyberAgent also runs one of Japan’s biggest blogging platforms, Ameba, where many celebrities or entertainers post updates for fans and promote themselves. In collaboration with such celebrities, the company plans to launch many notable crowdfunding projects, thus attracting more users.

At the time of launch, we can find seven projects on site. This includes an initiative from a Japanese soccer player to assist young athletes in the country master English so they can better partake in international activities. The company is also inviting a fundraising project to manufacture Raspberry Pi-enabled robot Rapiro, and that will go live later this month.

The platform is currently available for PC, and a smartphone version will go live this coming fall. It is expected that Makuake will transact $1 million in deals monthly by next March.

Via CNET and IT Media

CyberAgent

CyberAgent rebrands investment arm, looks at synergies between core biz and portfolio

Dash Labs proposes a sort of FitBit for cars, attracts investment from CyberAgent

Japanese educational app developer Smart Education raises $5.4 million

Japan’s CyberAgent jumps into market for mothers with crowdsourcing site

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