THE BRIDGE

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Japan’s Uzabase introduces business news curation app

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See the original story in Japanese. The advent of social media and smart devices has allowed us to receive continuous updates from content producers at any time, no matter where we are. So these days people really need practical solutions to help them filter what to receive and read. We’ve seen several outstanding Japanese startups working on such information solutions, including Smart News, Vingow, and Gunosy. It’s an economic journal for the smartphone era On Friday another player jumped into this space. Tokyo’s Uzabase, the startup behind corporate profile database Speeda, unveiled an iOS app that curates financial and business news updates. It’s called News Picks. News Picks aggregates business and financial updates from 30 news entities in Japan and around the world, delivering them to subscribers with in-depth analysis by the startup’s team of economists and high profile entrepreneurs. The app is available for iOS, and its desktop version will be also introduced by the end of this year. If you think this is just a RSS news aggregator, you’re partly right. But the biggest draw of this service is that it is developed and managed by a team with a solid background in finance. The startup was founded…

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See the original story in Japanese.

The advent of social media and smart devices has allowed us to receive continuous updates from content producers at any time, no matter where we are. So these days people really need practical solutions to help them filter what to receive and read. We’ve seen several outstanding Japanese startups working on such information solutions, including Smart News, Vingow, and Gunosy.

It’s an economic journal for the smartphone era

On Friday another player jumped into this space. Tokyo’s Uzabase, the startup behind corporate profile database Speeda, unveiled an iOS app that curates financial and business news updates. It’s called News Picks.

News Picks aggregates business and financial updates from 30 news entities in Japan and around the world, delivering them to subscribers with in-depth analysis by the startup’s team of economists and high profile entrepreneurs. The app is available for iOS, and its desktop version will be also introduced by the end of this year. If you think this is just a RSS news aggregator, you’re partly right. But the biggest draw of this service is that it is developed and managed by a team with a solid background in finance.

The startup was founded back in 2008. The company’s first app, Speeda, was invented by its founding members who previously worked with investment banks. It collects news updates and business analysis from think tanks, and provides them to finance businesses. In terms of differentiation from big players like Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters, the service requires users to have no special terminal nor master specific commands or functions.

The company is rapidly expanding its focus on Asia, and has overseas offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Curation by economic experts might be the key

newspicks

One key service provided by the startup is a strong expertise in business trends, with valuable news updates curated by financial experts.

When you launch the app, you’re required to log in to the service with your social media accounts. But I found it somewhat discouraging that it asked me to create a user account/password for the service in addition to the social media login. Subsequently, you choose persons or business categories that interest you. This process is similar to that of the Vingow app as well.

You can browse updates in the timeline curated by other users you follow, or check out the news crawling robots. You can add notes on updates, which then allows other users know why you liked it. Like conventional RSS reader apps, you can jump to the original website from any given update.

From my perspective, there’s still room to improve in terms of choosing updates to suit my preference. It’s difficult to choose which high profile user I should follow. For example, if I follow Japanese dotcom tycoon Takafumi Horie, I don’t know what kind of curated updates I will get through his timeline.

Here on this site, we also bring you updates from startup scenes around the world, including business updates. From a media person’s perspective, I’m looking forward to seeing how this kind of solutions changes how consumers’ get news updates.

newspicks newspicks

newspicks newspicks

Why a Japanese startup is betting on human-powered data entry over OCR

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See the original story in Japanese. BearTail, a startup comprised mainly of graduates from Tsukuba University, today unveiled a cloud-based household accounting solution called Dr. Wallet. The service lets you do personal finance data entry by simply scanning your receipts. It was launched in beta back several months ago, and is now available for the Android platform. In Japan, there are more than a few competitors in this space. Since last year, we’ve seen more than 20 startups providing cloud-based accounting services for freelancers and SMEs. (See our previous article for more info.) In terms of differentiation from conventional services, Dr. Wallet does not use OCR (optical character recognition) but instead depends on human-powered data entry for ensuring accuracy. It also automatically sorts and classifies your purchases. With this human-powered processing, the startup could achieve data entry accuracy of up to 99.98%, likely enough to ease users’s concerns of erroneous inputs. But why is this startup providing the service for free when the back-end human component is likely so costly and time-consuming? We’re told that BearTail is exploring monetizing the accounting service with big data solutions. If they collect purchase histories from users, they establish some behavior models. For example,…

dr-wallet_logoSee the original story in Japanese.

BearTail, a startup comprised mainly of graduates from Tsukuba University, today unveiled a cloud-based household accounting solution called Dr. Wallet. The service lets you do personal finance data entry by simply scanning your receipts. It was launched in beta back several months ago, and is now available for the Android platform.

In Japan, there are more than a few competitors in this space. Since last year, we’ve seen more than 20 startups providing cloud-based accounting services for freelancers and SMEs. (See our previous article for more info.)

In terms of differentiation from conventional services, Dr. Wallet does not use OCR (optical character recognition) but instead depends on human-powered data entry for ensuring accuracy. It also automatically sorts and classifies your purchases. With this human-powered processing, the startup could achieve data entry accuracy of up to 99.98%, likely enough to ease users’s concerns of erroneous inputs.

dr-wallet_mobileapp_screenshot

But why is this startup providing the service for free when the back-end human component is likely so costly and time-consuming? We’re told that BearTail is exploring monetizing the accounting service with big data solutions. If they collect purchase histories from users, they establish some behavior models. For example, if you find users who frequently stay at a certain hotel or use a beauty salon, you can give them a discount coupon that encourages them to pay with a specific brand of credit card.

This scheme calls to mind fellow Japanese startup Sansan, which operates a free CRM business card solution called Eight. Their strategy is also “Grow first, monetize later”, building a reputation and driving users to their high-end service Link Knowledge.

BearTail unveiled a subscription-based, e-commerce service called Amazon Gacha back in February, which randomly selects items from Amazon’s showcase and delivers them to users. But it was subsequently forced to shut down in order to avoid a possible infringement on Amazon’s trademark. But I believe its new service is well thought out in terms of a monetization, and it will be an interesting company to watch as it continues to grow.

Japanese accounting startup Freee raises $2.7 million from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM

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Tokyo-based cloud startup Freee announced today that it has raised 270 million yen (approximately $2.7 million) in a series A funding from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM. This follows the previous seed round where the company secured seed funding of 50 million yen (about $523,000) from DCM back in December. Coinciding with this new funding, the startup rebranded its company name to Freee from CFO K.K., coinciding with the name of its accounting service. At the time of its launch back in March, CEO Daisuke Sasaki stated his goal of acquiring at least 10,000 users in its first year. Surprisingly it is way ahead of that pace, acquiring 6,500 users in the last four and half months, 1.7 times faster than expected. The startup originally planned series A funding for the end of this year but moved up its timeline to accelerate service expansion and user growth. With these new funds, the startup is expecting to hire additional staff and intensify its system development. According to Mr. Sasaki, their users have given them a lot of feedback, and they have been adding features and refining user interface based on those responses. He believes these efforts have helped them acquire many…

freee_new_logo-c3970ad3866dd25fda6b1c27779b6173Tokyo-based cloud startup Freee announced today that it has raised 270 million yen (approximately $2.7 million) in a series A funding from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM. This follows the previous seed round where the company secured seed funding of 50 million yen (about $523,000) from DCM back in December. Coinciding with this new funding, the startup rebranded its company name to Freee from CFO K.K., coinciding with the name of its accounting service.

At the time of its launch back in March, CEO Daisuke Sasaki stated his goal of acquiring at least 10,000 users in its first year. Surprisingly it is way ahead of that pace, acquiring 6,500 users in the last four and half months, 1.7 times faster than expected. The startup originally planned series A funding for the end of this year but moved up its timeline to accelerate service expansion and user growth.

With these new funds, the startup is expecting to hire additional staff and intensify its system development. According to Mr. Sasaki, their users have given them a lot of feedback, and they have been adding features and refining user interface based on those responses. He believes these efforts have helped them acquire many new users, and now his first priority is to form a responsive team.

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Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki

The company has three key topics that it will focus on moving forward: opening up to third-party services, easing collaborative work, and providing a better user experience. They plan to introduce an API that encourages third-party developers to connect with its platform, which should help the platform in terms of its collaborative capabilities. To improve user experience, they are expecting to introduce a native app for tablet devices to allow users to record and sort out their revenue and expenses regardless of where they are.

Some of our readers may recall that the company previously won the top prize at the Infinity Ventures Summit back in May, a conference hosted by Japan’s Infinity Ventures Partners. We’ve seen more than a few outstanding financial apps in the Japanese startup scene, and Freee can be considered to be among the best of them.

Japanese personal budget app Zaim now features local supermarket bargains

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See the original story in Japanese. After Zaim officially released its household accounting app back in 2011, it has gone on to partner with Japan’s largest recipe sharing community Cookpad, raising 42 million yen (approximately $420,000) from the company. They’ve also added an OCR feature to the app back in April, so users can record their expenses by taking pictures of their receipts. The startup will continue to work closely with Cookpad, as it has recently announced the Zaim app will integrate app with a specific Cookpad service to provide users with bargain updates from their local supermarkets. This bargain search service was launched back in February on Cookpad, and is currently serving about 500,000 users. It allows supermarket clerks to feature certain merchandise in a more quick and efficient manner than traditional hand-delivered fliers. In addition to monetizable streams like analyzing user data, the startup is likely to expand business by driving user traffic towards real purchase opportunities. According to a survey that Cookpad conducted back in July of 2012, 37% of its user base no longer subscribes to any newspaper, meaning they won’t see such supermarket fliers. Also operating in this space is a service from Toppan Printing…

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See the original story in Japanese.

After Zaim officially released its household accounting app back in 2011, it has gone on to partner with Japan’s largest recipe sharing community Cookpad, raising 42 million yen (approximately $420,000) from the company. They’ve also added an OCR feature to the app back in April, so users can record their expenses by taking pictures of their receipts.

The startup will continue to work closely with Cookpad, as it has recently announced the Zaim app will integrate app with a specific Cookpad service to provide users with bargain updates from their local supermarkets. This bargain search service was launched back in February on Cookpad, and is currently serving about 500,000 users. It allows supermarket clerks to feature certain merchandise in a more quick and efficient manner than traditional hand-delivered fliers.

In addition to monetizable streams like analyzing user data, the startup is likely to expand business by driving user traffic towards real purchase opportunities. According to a survey that Cookpad conducted back in July of 2012, 37% of its user base no longer subscribes to any newspaper, meaning they won’t see such supermarket fliers.

Also operating in this space is a service from Toppan Printing called Shufoo, which allows households to check the latest supermarket discounts online. The service is provided in partnership with NTT Broadband Platform using their WiFi access points, typically located at railway stations in urban areas.

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Japanese receipt recording app ‘ReceReco’ hits 1M downloads in first 145 days

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Back in mid-May we noted that Japanese receipt recording app ReceReco had broken through its first year target of 500,000 downloads, just three and a half months after its January 31st launch. The app lets you take pictures of your receipts with your smartphone camera, reading, analyzing, and storing data about your purchasing history, and it has been very popular here in Japan since its release. At the time, Brain Pad (the company behind the app) said that they were targeting a million downloads before the end of the year. But ReceReco, which remains a fixture at or near the top of the finance app category in Japan, topped 1 million this past Monday, the company now tells us. It took just 145 days to reach that goal, a pace that far exceeds their initial expectations. What’s remarkable here is that this growth comes only on the iOS platform, so once an Android version hits Google Play (that release is scheduled for September), similar popularity is virtually assured now that the app has gained some popularity and name recognition. ReceReco is still only available in Japan, and can be downloaded over on the app store for free, with a paid…

rece-reco

Back in mid-May we noted that Japanese receipt recording app ReceReco had broken through its first year target of 500,000 downloads, just three and a half months after its January 31st launch. The app lets you take pictures of your receipts with your smartphone camera, reading, analyzing, and storing data about your purchasing history, and it has been very popular here in Japan since its release.

At the time, Brain Pad (the company behind the app) said that they were targeting a million downloads before the end of the year. But ReceReco, which remains a fixture at or near the top of the finance app category in Japan, topped 1 million this past Monday, the company now tells us. It took just 145 days to reach that goal, a pace that far exceeds their initial expectations.

What’s remarkable here is that this growth comes only on the iOS platform, so once an Android version hits Google Play (that release is scheduled for September), similar popularity is virtually assured now that the app has gained some popularity and name recognition.

ReceReco is still only available in Japan, and can be downloaded over on the app store for free, with a paid add-ons that removes advertisements. To mark this 1 million download milestone, ReceReco has the ad removal function available at a discount (85 yen) for the rest of the month.

Japanese finance app ReceReco off to a good start, surpasses 500,000 downloads for iPhone

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I’ve written about Japanese personal finance app Zaim in the past, which I’ve been a fan of for quite some time. And now that it has OCR functions to read receipts it’s really a must have if you live in Japan. But as we recently pointed out, Japan has a wide range of startups that offer financial solutions. And one app that is a direct competitor of Zaim is ReceReco. Initially launched back on January 31, this app was developed by Tokyo-based data-mining company Brain Pad, and its name is a sort of mish-mash of the words ‘receipt recording’, which exactly describes its function: recording your personal purchases by snapping a picture of your receipt with your smartphone camera. According to IT Media, the company had previously set a target of 500,000 downloads for its first year. It has reached that goal in just three and a half months, and are now hoping for a million before the year is through. BrainPad is also planning to release an Android app, as well as add more service integrations so you can share your recorded financial data to more destinations. So far it features Facebook and Evernote integration, as well as CSV…

recereco

I’ve written about Japanese personal finance app Zaim in the past, which I’ve been a fan of for quite some time. And now that it has OCR functions to read receipts it’s really a must have if you live in Japan.

But as we recently pointed out, Japan has a wide range of startups that offer financial solutions. And one app that is a direct competitor of Zaim is ReceReco. Initially launched back on January 31, this app was developed by Tokyo-based data-mining company Brain Pad, and its name is a sort of mish-mash of the words ‘receipt recording’, which exactly describes its function: recording your personal purchases by snapping a picture of your receipt with your smartphone camera.

According to IT Media, the company had previously set a target of 500,000 downloads for its first year. It has reached that goal in just three and a half months, and are now hoping for a million before the year is through.

BrainPad is also planning to release an Android app, as well as add more service integrations so you can share your recorded financial data to more destinations. So far it features Facebook and Evernote integration, as well as CSV export. Unlike Zaim, however, ReceReco is only available in Japanese.

If you’d like to learn more about how ReceReco works, check out the demo video below (in Japanese). [Via IT Media]

Japanese finance app Zaim rolls out slick web version, updates Android app with OCR

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Read our Japanese article on Zaim’s new web interface Last week we mentioned that Japanese personal finance application Zaim had added OCR to its repertoire, allowing users to quickly scan receipts with their smartphone camera. And today that function has been added to the Zaim Android app as well. Today but my colleague Junya also noticed today that the web version of the Zaim service has finally dropped, with a pretty gorgeous interface. The main page gives you a general overview of your spending, showing totals for the current month, week, and day. There’s also a slick category breakdown of expenditures, plus a list of recent purchases in the sidebar. And while most people will use the smartphone apps for inputing purchases, the web version now also allows for purchase input as well. There is also a ‘history’ tab where you can get an more extensive look at recent purchases, as well as a ‘totals’ tab where you can view graphical and tabular summaries of spending. Currently this web version is only available in Japanese, although I would hope that like their apps that it becomes available in English later as well. There is no shortage of finance management options…

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Zaim’s new web interface

Read our Japanese article on Zaim’s new web interface

Last week we mentioned that Japanese personal finance application Zaim had added OCR to its repertoire, allowing users to quickly scan receipts with their smartphone camera. And today that function has been added to the Zaim Android app as well.

Today but my colleague Junya also noticed today that the web version of the Zaim service has finally dropped, with a pretty gorgeous interface. The main page gives you a general overview of your spending, showing totals for the current month, week, and day. There’s also a slick category breakdown of expenditures, plus a list of recent purchases in the sidebar. And while most people will use the smartphone apps for inputing purchases, the web version now also allows for purchase input as well.

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Zaim web version, calendar view

There is also a ‘history’ tab where you can get an more extensive look at recent purchases, as well as a ‘totals’ tab where you can view graphical and tabular summaries of spending.

Currently this web version is only available in Japanese, although I would hope that like their apps that it becomes available in English later as well.

There is no shortage of finance management options in Japan. We also recently featured Moneytree, another handy app that helps you track your expenditures by importing bank and credit card billing updates.

Moneytree gives Japanese consumers smarter access to their finances

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See the original story in Japanese. Our readers may recall when we recently featured Japanese personal finance app Zaim. It finally has OCR functionality which can collect purchase data just by taking a photo of your receipt. But as many people have multiple bank accounts and multiple credit cards, they might be interested in a more robust financial organization system for their money management. Australian entrepreneur Paul Chapman (based in Japan) has created Moneytree, a smartphone app that allows users to manage their spending by importing bank balances and card billing updates. The app has a sort of artificial intelligence, and can sort your spendings into the appropriate categories. Its data analysis feature will surface trends about your spending too. In comparison to similar apps, Moneytree eliminates much of the manual work, as it just syncs with user accounts from more than 30 banks and credit card companies. The Moneytree team is working out of Co-ba, a co-working space in Shibuya. As to why they developed this sort of app, Paul explains: People feel tracking their finances is a heavy burden. It takes too much time, so people give up soon after starting, and that makes you feel a sense…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Our readers may recall when we recently featured Japanese personal finance app Zaim. It finally has OCR functionality which can collect purchase data just by taking a photo of your receipt. But as many people have multiple bank accounts and multiple credit cards, they might be interested in a more robust financial organization system for their money management.

Australian entrepreneur Paul Chapman (based in Japan) has created Moneytree, a smartphone app that allows users to manage their spending by importing bank balances and card billing updates.

The app has a sort of artificial intelligence, and can sort your spendings into the appropriate categories. Its data analysis feature will surface trends about your spending too. In comparison to similar apps, Moneytree eliminates much of the manual work, as it just syncs with user accounts from more than 30 banks and credit card companies.

mtkk-presskit-detail

The Moneytree team is working out of Co-ba, a co-working space in Shibuya. As to why they developed this sort of app, Paul explains:

People feel tracking their finances is a heavy burden. It takes too much time, so people give up soon after starting, and that makes you feel a sense of guilt. Moneytree is an app that seeks to do the hard work for you — after signing up, you just open the app on your device to see bank balances or credit card usage.

These days, with a growing number of e-commerce services out there, consumers will tend to use cash less often when purchase, preferring to use credit card or e-money. New payment methods, such as the Coiney app for example, could drastically change the Japanese payment market and increase the volume of credit card transactions.

It will be interesting to see where Moneytree will fit in among the forest of finance management options available in Japan.

Zaim: If you live in Japan and you buy things, you need this app

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[See our Japanese article on Zaim’s update] Japanese personal finance application Zaim has today pushed out a new update to its iOS app that gives it one very exciting and powerful feature. For users here in Japan, the app now has convenient OCR functionality which enables you to record and categorize your purchases simply by taking photos of your receipts. For a quick demo of how it works, check out the video above. On the Zaim blog, they boast an average recognition rate of 96% for this new OCR feature. The app will also collect data about the name of the store too, so you’ll have a record of where you’ve made your purchases. This is especially handy considering that the web version of Zaim lets you download your data in CSV format (see right), which you can then bring into your preferred spreadsheet software. For now, it’s just the iOS version of Zaim that has the OCR function, but Android users can look forward getting this soon as well. I’ve been a big fan of the Zaim app for a long time. It was developed by Tokyo-based entrepreneur and programmer Takako Kansai, who – as legend has it –…

[See our Japanese article on Zaim’s update]

Japanese personal finance application Zaim has today pushed out a new update to its iOS app that gives it one very exciting and powerful feature. For users here in Japan, the app now has convenient OCR functionality which enables you to record and categorize your purchases simply by taking photos of your receipts. For a quick demo of how it works, check out the video above.

Zaim, export data as CSV
Zaim, export data as CSV

On the Zaim blog, they boast an average recognition rate of 96% for this new OCR feature. The app will also collect data about the name of the store too, so you’ll have a record of where you’ve made your purchases. This is especially handy considering that the web version of Zaim lets you download your data in CSV format (see right), which you can then bring into your preferred spreadsheet software.

For now, it’s just the iOS version of Zaim that has the OCR function, but Android users can look forward getting this soon as well.

I’ve been a big fan of the Zaim app for a long time. It was developed by Tokyo-based entrepreneur and programmer Takako Kansai, who – as legend has it – developed the app while on the train commuting to and from work.

zaim-ocr

14 standout financial solution startups from Japan

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These days in Japan, there are a bunch of startups providing accounting or financial solutions, both for personal and business use. Let’s take a quick rundown of some of the more popular ones. BizNote by CrowdCast ¶ BizNote is a cloud-based accounting app that helps SME owners and startup managers handle their cash flows using their PC or smartphone. The app aims to simplify accounting, thus letting business spend their time on more important tasks. BizNote won the top award at the Yayoi App Contest, an Android app competition run by Japan’s largest accounting software company. It recently added key features like receipt scanning as well as data integration with major accounting software packages. It’s available in English and Japanese, and for free for the first 30-days. Apps are available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Google Chrome. The app was developed by CrowdCast, a company founded in 2011 by Takashi Hoshikawa. He previously worked with Microsoft Japan and DEC Japan. Coiney ¶ Coiney is Japan’s first-ever smartphone-based credit card processing service. It’s similar to services like Square, Paypal Here, and Swiff. The company was founded by ex-Paypal Japan employee Naoko Samata and won the top prize at Rising Expo…

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These days in Japan, there are a bunch of startups providing accounting or financial solutions, both for personal and business use. Let’s take a quick rundown of some of the more popular ones.


BizNote by CrowdCast

BizNote is a cloud-based accounting app that helps SME owners and startup managers handle their cash flows using their PC or smartphone. The app aims to simplify accounting, thus letting business spend their time on more important tasks.

biznote_logoBizNote won the top award at the Yayoi App Contest, an Android app competition run by Japan’s largest accounting software company. It recently added key features like receipt scanning as well as data integration with major accounting software packages. It’s available in English and Japanese, and for free for the first 30-days. Apps are available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Google Chrome.

The app was developed by CrowdCast, a company founded in 2011 by Takashi Hoshikawa. He previously worked with Microsoft Japan and DEC Japan.

Coiney

coiney_logoCoiney is Japan’s first-ever smartphone-based credit card processing service. It’s similar to services like Square, Paypal Here, and Swiff. The company was founded by ex-Paypal Japan employee Naoko Samata and won the top prize at Rising Expo 2012, a startup showcase competition event held by CyberAgent Ventures.

The startup announced in February that it had fundraised 100 million yen (over $1 million) from four investors including East Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures, and Shinji Kimura (the founder of ad platform developer AtLantis). It has partnered with Sumitomo Mitsui Card, the largest issuer/acquirer of Visa-affiliated credit cards in Japan, and is working together with them to accelerate merchant acquisition.

I previously spoke with the team when the service was launched last October, so check that out for more details.

Freee by CFO K.K.

freee_new_logo-c3970ad3866dd25fda6b1c27779b6173The recently launched Freee is a cloud-based accounting solution that aims to set SME owners free of tedious accounting tasks. By synchronizing your account to this cloud system (which is integrated with web services provided by banks and credit companies) your payments will be logged in the system using web-scraping technology. They are sorted into the appropriate categories corresponding to the items you’ve purchased.

It was developed by CFO K.K., a company founded in July of 2012 by ex-Googler Daisuke Sasaki and ex-Sony engineer Ryu Yokoji. They’ve been developing the service as a stealth project at their home, and fundraised 50 million yen (about $523,000) from notable US-based VC firm DCM in December.

Hottoscope

hottoscope_logoHottoscope is a data-mining company that provides market analysis and prediction based on the aggregated information from social media. It provides analysis to Bloomberg Terminal, one of the most famous information resources for stock traders.

The company was launched about 12 years ago as a kind of a hobby/study group at the University of Tokyo. Since then it has been providing various tools for analyzing social updates to prevent companies from being financially damaged by harmful rumors and misinformation.

Kanmu’s Card Link

kanmuclo_logoBy associating coupons with your credit card, Kanmu allows you to get discounts from participating merchants when paying with a credit card. For merchants, you’ll be charged on a performance basis, and can reduce transfer fees while easily targeting a specific segment of customers. For the consumers, you even don’t need to print coupons beforehand or present virtual coupons with your smartphone at storefronts.

The startup was founded by Wataru Yamaki who previously worked with several web startups as an intern. He also has developed Marketgeek.

Makeleaps

makeleaps_logoMakeleaps is a web-based invoicing solution that targets startups and SME owners. It was founded in 2010 by Tokyo-based (Australian) entrepreneur Jason Winder who’s also known for organizing Hacker News Tokyo. They launched the service in Japan because people here aggressively pursue product quality, which is why he believes his business can work globally once it succeeds here. In addition to invoice delivery via snail mail and fax, the startup provides an optional dunning service too.

Misoca by Stand Firm

misoca_logoMisoca is an online invoice-issuing solution for startups and SMEs, a service provided by Nagoya-based company Stand Firm. The app is totally cloud-based and has features to send invoices to your clients via snail mail or fax.

Money Forward

moneyforward_logoMoney Forward provides online personal accounting for individuals, allowing them to easily manage their daily expenses by integrating with their bank passbooks and credit purchase history with information scraped from their web account. The startup was spun-off from Tokyo’s famous online stock brokerage Monex in 2012.  It recently raised 100 million yen (over $1 million) from several angel investors and WIT Corporation, a TLO (technology licensing organization) under Waseda University.

Mycredit.jp

mycredit.jp_logoMycredit.jp provides a credibility report of your finances, a sort of Japanese version of Experian or Equifax. By authenticating your identity over the phone, you will be able to get the report in just about 10 minutes after placing the order. This is intended as a service to check your credibility prior to applying for a house mortgage. Subsequently you can find a way to improve your standing for future borrowing from financial institutions.

The startup was founded by serial entrepreneur Russell Cummer who’s also running Acqush, a Tokyo-based social lending startup, backed by Dave McClure’s 500 Startups.

Paygate by Royal Gate

paygate_logoPaygate is a credit card processor that works as an attachment to tablets and smartphones. Using it together with a small printer, merchants can issue receipts to customers at purchase. The product is intended for people like motorcycle messengers, or insurance canvassers.

The service was developed by a 5-year-old IT company, and fundraised a total of 100 million yen (over $1 million) from NTT Investment Partners and Mizuho Capital in its final seed round in 2011.

ReceReco by Brain Pad

recereco_logoTokyo-based data mining company Brain Pad launched an iOS app called ReceReco (receipt recording) last month. By scanning receipts with your iPhone camera, the personal accounting app can recognize what you’ve paid for, visualize it in diagrams, and even lets you to share to Evernote or Facebook.

Brain Pad was founded in 2004 and was ranked 23rd place on Deloitte’s Fast50 Japan, a ranking of 50 Japanese tech companies based on revenue growth in Japan.

Totte Okuru

totte-okuru_logoTotte Okuru is an iPhone app developed by Tokyo-based startup Pirika Works. The app allows users to easily record expenses by scanning your receipts. Unlike similar services, scanned images will be transferred to keypunchers and entered to the system manually, which enables reading of not only machine-printed receipts but also hand-written ones.

The service uses people living in the Tohoku region for keypunching, which goes a little ways towards helping some people affected by the 2011 East Japan Earthquake.

Ubiregi

ubiregi_logoUbiregi is a cloud-based POS (point of sales) system that uses an iPad at the storefront. Compared to conventional systems, it can be reasonably deployed and easily maintained, especially for individual merchants like small restaurants, standing bars, and accessory shops.

The startup was launched by Keita Kido in August of 2010, and raised around 20 million yen (over $200,000) from Voyage Ventures and Kronos Fund. It also has a capital tie-up with SalesForce.com.

Zaim

zaim_logoZaim is a smartphone app that allows you to input your expenses into an assortment of categories, thus gaining some insight into your spending habits thanks to its graphic analysis. The startup has partnered with OCN Kakeibo, a cloud-based household accounting solution run by NTT Communications, and allows users to shorten the time requirements of their bookkeeping tasks.

It was launched in 2011 by Japan’s notable geek girl Takako Kansai. Zaim was incorporated last September, and raised 42 million yen (about $450,000) from Japan’s top recipe sharing site Cookpad. My colleague Rick spoke with her a little more about the service in this Tech in Asia article.