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Indonesia’s Touchten Games closes Series B funding from Japanese investors

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Based on the original article in Japanese Touchten Games is a Jakarta-based game studio which raised Series B financing from Japan’s CyberAgent Ventures back in November 2013. And the games startup most recently announced that it has completed its Series B round, by raising funds from Japanese animation studio Tms Entertainment, Singapore’s UOB Venture Management, and Indonesian incubator Ideosource. The amount(s) of funds were not disclosed. Early this year, Tms Entertainment invested in Blina, an Indonesian E-commerce site for baby products. We hope to take a more detailed look at Tms’s involvement with Indonesian startups in the near future. Touchten, a startup that just celebrated its fifth year in business this March, is now focusing on developing its online-to-offline Touchten Platform (see above). Incorporating a gamification approach, the launch of this platform actually helped a lot as they were trying to complete their Series B round. On this platform, users can acquire points based on the result of the games they played. Those points can be exchanged for items at partnering retail stores, who then also benefit when those users enter the shops. Touchten Platform will be implemented in a new Touchten game to be released this month for the…

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Based on the original article in Japanese

Touchten Games is a Jakarta-based game studio which raised Series B financing from Japan’s CyberAgent Ventures back in November 2013. And the games startup most recently announced that it has completed its Series B round, by raising funds from Japanese animation studio Tms Entertainment, Singapore’s UOB Venture Management, and Indonesian incubator Ideosource. The amount(s) of funds were not disclosed.

Early this year, Tms Entertainment invested in Blina, an Indonesian E-commerce site for baby products. We hope to take a more detailed look at Tms’s involvement with Indonesian startups in the near future.

Touchten, a startup that just celebrated its fifth year in business this March, is now focusing on developing its online-to-offline Touchten Platform (see above). Incorporating a gamification approach, the launch of this platform actually helped a lot as they were trying to complete their Series B round.

On this platform, users can acquire points based on the result of the games they played. Those points can be exchanged for items at partnering retail stores, who then also benefit when those users enter the shops.

Touchten Platform will be implemented in a new Touchten game to be released this month for the Indonesian market. We understand that the acquired points can be used in some of Indonesia’s biggest convenience stores, certain restaurants, karaoke cafes, or movie theaters. They plan to expand the platform in Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam by the end of this year, and are also now looking for potential partner companies in the Philippines and Malaysia.

Indonesia’s Touchten delivers games with a Japanese flavor

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Touchten Games is a startup gaming studio based in Jakarta. Since its launch back in 2009, it has introduced 17 gaming titles for Android and iOS platforms. During my recent visit to Jakarta for Startup Asia, Touchten’s co-founder and CEO Anton Soeharyo told me that his company has raised an undisclosed sum of series B investment from CyberAgent Ventures and other investors. Prior to launching the company, Anton attended Tokyo’s Waseda University where he learned much about Japanese culture and business. After graduating, he returned to Jakarta and launched the company. He explains: Our titles have a Japanese flavor because I love Japan so much, like Ramen Chain and the Sushi Chain. We hope our efforts will help people around the world know more about the Japanese culture. Remarkably Touchten’s Ramen Chain app was copied by a pirate developer and published as ‘Daren Ramen Shop’ back in October. It seems like it has already been removed from the appstore, but it was not a good situation for Touchten. On the bright side though, it did indicate that there was big potential for such a title in the South East Asian regions, since pirates deemed it worthy of imitation. Anton recently…

Touchten Games is a startup gaming studio based in Jakarta. Since its launch back in 2009, it has introduced 17 gaming titles for Android and iOS platforms. During my recent visit to Jakarta for Startup Asia, Touchten’s co-founder and CEO Anton Soeharyo told me that his company has raised an undisclosed sum of series B investment from CyberAgent Ventures and other investors.

Prior to launching the company, Anton attended Tokyo’s Waseda University where he learned much about Japanese culture and business. After graduating, he returned to Jakarta and launched the company. He explains:

Our titles have a Japanese flavor because I love Japan so much, like Ramen Chain and the Sushi Chain. We hope our efforts will help people around the world know more about the Japanese culture.

Remarkably Touchten’s Ramen Chain app was copied by a pirate developer and published as ‘Daren Ramen Shop’ back in October. It seems like it has already been removed from the appstore, but it was not a good situation for Touchten. On the bright side though, it did indicate that there was big potential for such a title in the South East Asian regions, since pirates deemed it worthy of imitation.

Anton recently married a Japanese national whom he has been with for quite some timenow. So he’s now enjoying good fortune in both his private life and his work life. Hopefully he can grow his business further and bridge the two startup ecosystems in Japan an Indonesia.

For those who are interested in getting in touch with him, startup incubator Samurai Incubate will be holding an evening meet-up event on December 12th in partnership with the Tech in Asia blog. Anton will give you a speech at that event, and will be available afterwords if you’d like to chat.

Excite Japan and Indonesia’s Sinar Mas to launch online mobile ad business

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Excite Japan, one of Japan’s leading internet portals, announced today that it has teamed up with Jakarta-based conglomerate Sinar Mas, to start working an online ad service in Indonesia. The companies previously established up a joint venture called Excite Indonesia earlier this month. The new company will launch an online ad service that gives rewards to mobile users of SmartFren Telecom, one of Indonesia’s largest mobile operators. They hope to acquire 100 advertisers by the end of this year, and expect the annual turnover to reach 600 million yen (about $6.12 million) in 2017. This is the first time for Excite Japan to launch a local office outside Japan. The company is expecting to explore more business opportunities in Southeast Asian region in the future. Excite Japan is a subsidiary of Japan’s largest trading company Itochu Corporation. In Taiwan, it has invested in two companies: e-commerce platform PCHome, and the review site Fashion Guide. Should this point rewards system prove successful in Indonesia, the company plans to bring it to the Philippines next.

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Excite Japan, one of Japan’s leading internet portals, announced today that it has teamed up with Jakarta-based conglomerate Sinar Mas, to start working an online ad service in Indonesia.

The companies previously established up a joint venture called Excite Indonesia earlier this month. The new company will launch an online ad service that gives rewards to mobile users of SmartFren Telecom, one of Indonesia’s largest mobile operators. They hope to acquire 100 advertisers by the end of this year, and expect the annual turnover to reach 600 million yen (about $6.12 million) in 2017.

This is the first time for Excite Japan to launch a local office outside Japan. The company is expecting to explore more business opportunities in Southeast Asian region in the future.

Excite Japan is a subsidiary of Japan’s largest trading company Itochu Corporation. In Taiwan, it has invested in two companies: e-commerce platform PCHome, and the review site Fashion Guide. Should this point rewards system prove successful in Indonesia, the company plans to bring it to the Philippines next.

Honda begins trials of anti-traffic jam app in Jakarta

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Japanese auto maker Honda started testing a trial version of its Android app in Indonesia yesterday, in an effort to reduce traffic jams in the country. The company distributed the app to 100 people including Jakarta police officers and local Honda employees. They will collect feedback after a three-month public road test. Jakarta is known for its heavy traffic since the country’s economy and car usage has been growing rapidly. Prior to this trial, Honda deployed the app on 14 cars which usually run on expressways in Indonesia, conducting tests from September of 2012 to February of 2013. The test yielded positive results in terms of improving traffic, potentially delaying a traffic jam by six minutes in some cases. Takamasa Koshizen, the project leader at the Honda Research Institute, explains: The app encourages a driver not to accelerate or decelerate suddenly, thus helping other drivers maintain almost same speed and keeping traffic clogging up. In addition to improving the flow of traffic, if you drive according to the app’s instructions, you can save more than 20% on fuel consumption. Jakarta police expect that the app may also help people drive in a better manner. Honda is planning to integrate the…

honda_trafficapp

Japanese auto maker Honda started testing a trial version of its Android app in Indonesia yesterday, in an effort to reduce traffic jams in the country. The company distributed the app to 100 people including Jakarta police officers and local Honda employees. They will collect feedback after a three-month public road test.

Jakarta is known for its heavy traffic since the country’s economy and car usage has been growing rapidly. Prior to this trial, Honda deployed the app on 14 cars which usually run on expressways in Indonesia, conducting tests from September of 2012 to February of 2013. The test yielded positive results in terms of improving traffic, potentially delaying a traffic jam by six minutes in some cases.

Takamasa Koshizen, the project leader at the Honda Research Institute, explains:

The app encourages a driver not to accelerate or decelerate suddenly, thus helping other drivers maintain almost same speed and keeping traffic clogging up.

In addition to improving the flow of traffic, if you drive according to the app’s instructions, you can save more than 20% on fuel consumption. Jakarta police expect that the app may also help people drive in a better manner. Honda is planning to integrate the app with its interactive intelligent car navigation system, Inter Navi.

(Via Nikkei IT Pro)

Japanese developer Nijibox continues Southeast Asia push

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Japanese game developer Nijibox has launched a new title in its Fantasia series, Legend of Fantasia, on the Kotagames platform, targeting South- and Southeast Asia audiences. It will also soon be launching on the mig33 platform as well. Legend of Fantasia is a card battle game, and is not only available for feature phones (Kotagames is primarily a feature phone gaming platform), but is also optimized for smartphones as well. We’re told that the previous Fantasia titles on Kotagames, Costume Fantasia and Monster Fantasia, saw about 10 percent of revenue coming from smartphones. The folks at Nijibox expect this share to increase rapidly as smartphone adoption increases in the region. Interestingly, Legend has been especially localized for Indonesia, as it is available in not only English but in Bahasa Indonesia as well. The story is actually set in futuristic Jakarta, after ‘mysterious enemies’ have invaded the city. The Kotagames platform is growing fast, with 2.5 million users to date, and it’s interesting to see a Japanese game developer reaching out to Southeast Asian users by leveraging the platform. Konami also operates its Hisho Collection title on Kotagames, having launched in October of last year.

legend-of-fantasia

Japanese game developer Nijibox has launched a new title in its Fantasia series, Legend of Fantasia, on the Kotagames platform, targeting South- and Southeast Asia audiences. It will also soon be launching on the mig33 platform as well.

Legend of Fantasia is a card battle game, and is not only available for feature phones (Kotagames is primarily a feature phone gaming platform), but is also optimized for smartphones as well. We’re told that the previous Fantasia titles on Kotagames, Costume Fantasia and Monster Fantasia, saw about 10 percent of revenue coming from smartphones. The folks at Nijibox expect this share to increase rapidly as smartphone adoption increases in the region.

Interestingly, Legend has been especially localized for Indonesia, as it is available in not only English but in Bahasa Indonesia as well. The story is actually set in futuristic Jakarta, after ‘mysterious enemies’ have invaded the city.

The Kotagames platform is growing fast, with 2.5 million users to date, and it’s interesting to see a Japanese game developer reaching out to Southeast Asian users by leveraging the platform.

Konami also operates its Hisho Collection title on Kotagames, having launched in October of last year.

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