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Japanese online printing startup Raksul fundraises $14.3 million

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Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, announced today that it has raised 1.45 billion yen (approximately $14.3 million) from WiL (World Innovation Lab), Global Brain, Itochu Technology Ventures, Plus (an office stationary company), GMO Venture Partners, and Mixi. Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,600 printing facilities across Japan (as of November of 2013). Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the company takes advantage of downtime at participating printers to complete those orders. According to Nikkei Business, Raksul will use the funds raised this time to prepare for global service operations, and to launch a new service that allows merchants to distribute their flyers via newspapers to consumers for affordable rates. By making the most of the internet and removing middleman costs, their flyer distribution service gives local merchants a better chance to promote their services for less than 10% of the price usually seen in this sector. Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total of 230 million yen ($2.4 million) during the last year from Nissay Capital, Yahoo Japan, and Anri.

raksul-team
From their Facebook page

Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, announced today that it has raised 1.45 billion yen (approximately $14.3 million) from WiL (World Innovation Lab), Global Brain, Itochu Technology Ventures, Plus (an office stationary company), GMO Venture Partners, and Mixi.

Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,600 printing facilities across Japan (as of November of 2013). Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the company takes advantage of downtime at participating printers to complete those orders.

According to Nikkei Business, Raksul will use the funds raised this time to prepare for global service operations, and to launch a new service that allows merchants to distribute their flyers via newspapers to consumers for affordable rates. By making the most of the internet and removing middleman costs, their flyer distribution service gives local merchants a better chance to promote their services for less than 10% of the price usually seen in this sector.

Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total of 230 million yen ($2.4 million) during the last year from Nissay Capital, Yahoo Japan, and Anri.

Japanese CEOs from Mixi, Livesense on developing new businesses

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See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013. On day one of B Dash Camp 2013 in Osaka, the first session featured a discussion, moderated by Hiroyuki Watanabe of B Dash Ventures, with two representatives of leading Japanese leading internet companies: Yusuke Asakura, CEO of Mixi; and Taichi Murakami, CEO of Livesense Mixi has revised its fiscal year performance forecast ending March of 2014, down from 13.5 billion yen ($139 million) to 8 billion ($82.4 million), forcing their executives into a hard spot. Meanwhile Livesense, while not well recognized by many outside Japan, but is performing well. We’re forecasting an operating profit worth 1.5 billion yen ($15.5 million). Currently we are exploring the launch of a new monetization model like a buzz marketing site. The both companies need to think about their future business strategy in their respective business environments. Coinciding with a new acquisition just announced today (they’ll acquire speed-dating organizer Confianza to launch a match-making business), Mixi’s Asakura spoke about his company’s future potential for in-house service development and M&A. Our readers may recall that to date Mixi has launched mobile testing environment DeployGate, photobook service Nohana,…

B Dash Ventures' Hiroyuki Watanabe, Livesense's Taichi Murakami, Mixi's Yusuke Asakura
From the left: B Dash Ventures’ Hiroyuki Watanabe, Livesense’s Taichi Murakami, Mixi’s Yusuke Asakura

See the original story in Japanese.

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013.

On day one of B Dash Camp 2013 in Osaka, the first session featured a discussion, moderated by Hiroyuki Watanabe of B Dash Ventures, with two representatives of leading Japanese leading internet companies: Yusuke Asakura, CEO of Mixi; and Taichi Murakami, CEO of Livesense

Mixi has revised its fiscal year performance forecast ending March of 2014, down from 13.5 billion yen ($139 million) to 8 billion ($82.4 million), forcing their executives into a hard spot. Meanwhile Livesense, while not well recognized by many outside Japan, but is performing well.

We’re forecasting an operating profit worth 1.5 billion yen ($15.5 million). Currently we are exploring the launch of a new monetization model like a buzz marketing site.

mixi livesense

The both companies need to think about their future business strategy in their respective business environments. Coinciding with a new acquisition just announced today (they’ll acquire speed-dating organizer Confianza to launch a match-making business), Mixi’s Asakura spoke about his company’s future potential for in-house service development and M&A. Our readers may recall that to date Mixi has launched mobile testing environment DeployGate, photobook service Nohana, a business research service, and a match-making business.

Watanabe asked how such new businesses can be synergized with their conventional businesses. Asakura replied:

We don’t need to pursue immediate synergy with our services. By making the most of the knowledge we have, we will keep acquiring new services and development ones in house. For example, the match-making business will be treated as separate from our main business.

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Livesense’s Murakami unveiled they have four different business development efforts: internal service development, investment in startups, M&A, and partnerships. When pressed by the moderator, he confessed that he had hoped to invest in private lesson marketplace Cyta.jp, recently acquired by Japanese recipe site Cookpad. This prompted a big laugh from the audience.

Since Livesense has been developing a database business from the scratch, it helps them build up knowledge on how to better develop a new business. He said this will also work even in a business that is entirely different from their own existing businesses.

Japanese service matches novice hairdressers with those who need a cut

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Early in September, we wrote about Japanese social giant Mixi and its suddenly aggressive mobile strategy. One app in its growing portfolio is Minimo, an application used to match hairdresses-in-training and models. But recently I stumbled across a similar service called Cuttaloca, produced by Japanese internet service provider Side Tail. Cuttaloca wants to shorten the time novice hairdressers spend to cut 100 models from 3 years just to half a year. Cuttaloca was initially launched in October of last year as a service that provides haircuts for only 500 yen (about $5). Many hairdressers from across 18 Japanese prefectures registered on the site and there were over 2,000 haircut requests within a year. The site was recently overhauled and it now provides features that let users view hairdressers’ work schedule, thus making the request process easier. Cuttaloca can be used without a credit card, as payment processing is possible at local convenience stores. The site uses Facebook authentication to registrated, providing a secure environment for both hair professionals and users looking for a cheap hair cut. Hair professionals used to spend much time looking for haircut models in the streets. Interestingly, this is an important part of becoming a skilled…

Cuttaloca

Early in September, we wrote about Japanese social giant Mixi and its suddenly aggressive mobile strategy. One app in its growing portfolio is Minimo, an application used to match hairdresses-in-training and models. But recently I stumbled across a similar service called Cuttaloca, produced by Japanese internet service provider Side Tail.

Cuttaloca wants to shorten the time novice hairdressers spend to cut 100 models from 3 years just to half a year.

Cuttaloca was initially launched in October of last year as a service that provides haircuts for only 500 yen (about $5). Many hairdressers from across 18 Japanese prefectures registered on the site and there were over 2,000 haircut requests within a year.

The site was recently overhauled and it now provides features that let users view hairdressers’ work schedule, thus making the request process easier. Cuttaloca can be used without a credit card, as payment processing is possible at local convenience stores. The site uses Facebook authentication to registrated, providing a secure environment for both hair professionals and users looking for a cheap hair cut.

Hair professionals used to spend much time looking for haircut models in the streets. Interestingly, this is an important part of becoming a skilled hairdresser since it requires communication skill and the ability to make judgements about people. Cuttaloca hopes that these professionals can leverage the service on top of their offline activities, so that they can shorten the time spent to cut 100 models from three years just to half a year.

If users wish for additional services like hair coloring or a perm, they can schedule that as well by paying an extra fee at the time of their haircut. Since all haircuts are for training purposes, they will start after 7pm when the store is actually closed.

Cuttaloca is a direct competitor to Mixi’s Minimo, but is presented as a website service in contrast to the Minimo app. It will be exciting to see which community fares better in reaching the masses.

cuttaloca-photo

Japan’s Mixi acquires Line’s match-making subsidiary for $10.9M

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Japanese social networking giant Mixi has acquired Line’s subsidiary Diverse, a company focusing on the marriage business and match-matching, for 1.07 billion yen (about 10.9 million dollars). Diverse is an entity that has been around since 2000, perhaps best known for running its match-making site YouBride.jp, which currently has more than 780,000 members, with 66% men and 34% women [1]. According to YouBride’s own figures, their female membership skews a little younger than their male membership (see chart below). Mixi will acquire all shares of Diverse, which will officially split off from Line in December. But Diverse will proceed with further development on its own independently. For Mixi, this acquisition means that its business portfolio is growing increasingly diverse in recent months. Readers may recall that back in September we featured six of their mobile applications, including Nohana, which was spun off by the company in August. [Via Livedoor News] Checked at the time of writing.  ↩

youbride

Japanese social networking giant Mixi has acquired Line’s subsidiary Diverse, a company focusing on the marriage business and match-matching, for 1.07 billion yen (about 10.9 million dollars).

Diverse is an entity that has been around since 2000, perhaps best known for running its match-making site YouBride.jp, which currently has more than 780,000 members, with 66% men and 34% women [1]. According to YouBride’s own figures, their female membership skews a little younger than their male membership (see chart below).

Mixi will acquire all shares of Diverse, which will officially split off from Line in December. But Diverse will proceed with further development on its own independently.

For Mixi, this acquisition means that its business portfolio is growing increasingly diverse in recent months. Readers may recall that back in September we featured six of their mobile applications, including Nohana, which was spun off by the company in August.

[Via Livedoor News]


  1. Checked at the time of writing.  ↩

Mixi Marketing launches a new mobile monetization platform

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Mixi Marketing recently announced the release of a new mobile monetization platform called Coudec. The platform displays advertisements, including coupons, to targeted consumers at the most effective times. At the time of launch, popular mobile apps such as CocoPPa (whose progress we have closely covered) and Mixi’s own mobile app (with a total of over 30 million downloads) have deployed Coudec. Coudec uses a pay-for-performance model, allowing advertisers to display their ads at the most engaging moment when users are in certain apps. Mobile app developers can use Coudec on top of the advertising networks already in use, since Coudec only displays ads at a selected time, giving developers an extra source of income. Mixi went through big organizational changes back in May when the former CEO stepped down, leaving Yusuke Asakura to steer the company. Mixi Marketing was founded back in July in order to handle advertisements and promotional business for the giant social network, as well as other social marketing campaigns. The company hopes Coudec can become the largest smartphone app monetization platform by encouraging more apps to participate in the future.

Coudec-mixi

Mixi Marketing recently announced the release of a new mobile monetization platform called Coudec. The platform displays advertisements, including coupons, to targeted consumers at the most effective times. At the time of launch, popular mobile apps such as CocoPPa (whose progress we have closely covered) and Mixi’s own mobile app (with a total of over 30 million downloads) have deployed Coudec.

Coudec uses a pay-for-performance model, allowing advertisers to display their ads at the most engaging moment when users are in certain apps. Mobile app developers can use Coudec on top of the advertising networks already in use, since Coudec only displays ads at a selected time, giving developers an extra source of income.

Mixi went through big organizational changes back in May when the former CEO stepped down, leaving Yusuke Asakura to steer the company. Mixi Marketing was founded back in July in order to handle advertisements and promotional business for the giant social network, as well as other social marketing campaigns.

The company hopes Coudec can become the largest smartphone app monetization platform by encouraging more apps to participate in the future.

Japan’s Mixi motivated for mobile with these 6 apps

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Back in August, we wrote about Japanese social network Mixi and its Nohana photobook app. The service has seen rapid growth and was recently spun off as a wholly-owned subsidiary.When it comes to mobile apps, Mixi is taking a somewhat experimental approach with its Mixi Lab initiative. So we thought that it might be fun to take a look at the list of apps that the company has in line for us. At first glance, the following list of mobile apps doesn’t seem to indicate any unifying strategy. But having been the dominant social network in Japan for so long before Facebook and Twitter came along, Mixi really has lots of information about online communities. And thus, Mixi is now in a unique position to create many apps around those long established communities. In fact, there are over 2.7 million such communities registered on the social network, and some of its mobile apps can be thought of as being natural extensions of these. Read on to learn more about them! Nohana Nohana is a photo booklet printing service. Users receive one photo booklet for free (90 yen shipping cost not included) every month, and a second booklet on can be…

Back in August, we wrote about Japanese social network Mixi and its Nohana photobook app. The service has seen rapid growth and was recently spun off as a wholly-owned subsidiary.When it comes to mobile apps, Mixi is taking a somewhat experimental approach with its Mixi Lab initiative. So we thought that it might be fun to take a look at the list of apps that the company has in line for us.

At first glance, the following list of mobile apps doesn’t seem to indicate any unifying strategy. But having been the dominant social network in Japan for so long before Facebook and Twitter came along, Mixi really has lots of information about online communities. And thus, Mixi is now in a unique position to create many apps around those long established communities. In fact, there are over 2.7 million such communities registered on the social network, and some of its mobile apps can be thought of as being natural extensions of these. Read on to learn more about them!

Nohana

NohanaNohana is a photo booklet printing service. Users receive one photo booklet for free (90 yen shipping cost not included) every month, and a second booklet on can be purchased for 500 yen per book. Last month, Mixi revealed that the total number of uploaded photos amounts to 3.8 million, and there have been 100,000 photobooks published by 200,000 people.

Spinan

Spinan is the very first game app by Mixi, hitting the market today. It is a simple card game that works very similar to solitaire. In the given time of 90 seconds, your goal is to get rid of as many cards as possible. The results are not measured just by wins and losses, but it calculates the number of mistouches and the amount of time left, making the game more complex and addictive.

Plannah

PlannaThe most common place that mobile users go to look back on their photos is their photo library. But the more photos you take, more of a mess you make. Plannah can be a convenient app because it allows you to see your photos in albums. They can be organized by dates or themes, or be shared with selected friends.

PiqCole

PiqColePiqCole is a neat iOS app that lets you create photo albums as folders on your mobile home screen. The idea here was to create a service for moms that can be used daily. Just tap on the icon on your home screen and you can access your kids photos instantly. You can see how simple the app is in the video below.

Cheering

CheeringCheering is an app that — as the name suggests — encourages you by cheering. Users can chose a photo and a phrase, and every time they open the app, perhaps your dog or a friend or significant other will cheer you up. This was a little playful item that the team at Mixi created, and it was later made into this app. You can learn more about it in this interview on the Mixi blog.

Coscam

CoscamConsidering that there are many young people on Mixi, it’s only natural for the company to have a large community dedicated to cosplay culture. Coscam is an app made especially for this segment that lets users print name cards on their mobile phones. There are over 30 design themes available and you can print ten cards for 300 yen. The app can be used without user registration.

Minimo

Minimo is Mixi’s most recent app planned for release this fall, serving to match up hairdressers with models. Many hairdressers needs to practice haircutting with real people. Back in the old days, they used to find their models in the streets, since lots of regular people might be willing to get a hair cut for free. This activity of searching for ‘Cut models’ is one of the most actively used communities on Mixi – so popular that it seems that the company decided to spin it off as a standalone app.

Minimo

Mixi spins off popular photobook printing service as wholly-owned subsidiary

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One of my favorite made-in-Japan mobile applications is Mixi’s Nohana photobook printing service. Of course, being a new dad I’m somewhat biased towards applications like this. But still, the service has enjoyed some popularity in Japan lately, briefly becoming the number one free iOS app having been recently featured on national television. And now it looks like Nohana is being granted a little bit of room to maneuver from its parent company Mixi, as was announced today that it is being spun off as a wholly-owned subsidiary this coming September, to be known as Nohana Co., Ltd.. Mixi noted in its announcement that because Nohana has many customers right now, this change was made to ensure that the venture can operate and make decisions rapidly as it continues to grow. The incorporation will also mean that Nohana’s staff will expand from its current total of four to 10 or 15 [1]. For those not familiar with the service, the Nohana app lets you upload photos from your smartphone, assembling them into 20-page photo-booklets which are then printed and sent to your door. The first book you order in a month is free (except a shipping fee of 90 yen, or…

nohana-wide

One of my favorite made-in-Japan mobile applications is Mixi’s Nohana photobook printing service. Of course, being a new dad I’m somewhat biased towards applications like this. But still, the service has enjoyed some popularity in Japan lately, briefly becoming the number one free iOS app having been recently featured on national television.

And now it looks like Nohana is being granted a little bit of room to maneuver from its parent company Mixi, as was announced today that it is being spun off as a wholly-owned subsidiary this coming September, to be known as Nohana Co., Ltd..

Mixi noted in its announcement that because Nohana has many customers right now, this change was made to ensure that the venture can operate and make decisions rapidly as it continues to grow. The incorporation will also mean that Nohana’s staff will expand from its current total of four to 10 or 15 [1].

For those not familiar with the service, the Nohana app lets you upload photos from your smartphone, assembling them into 20-page photo-booklets which are then printed and sent to your door. The first book you order in a month is free (except a shipping fee of 90 yen, or about $1), but subsequent copies cost 525 yen. It seems the company is hoping that many parents will input their grandparents address as place to send second and maybe even third copies [2].

Mixi noted in the announcement that to date there have been more than 100,000 photobooks published by over 200,000 people, with a total of 3.8 million photos uploaded.

Nohana was originally launched back in February of this year as a product of Mixi’s internal Innovation Center.


  1. I had a chance to pop my head into their office when I visited the DeployGate team over at Mixi. It’s not a big room, so I expect they’ll be given a little more space as well.  ↩

  2. As a new parent, this is a feature I plan to use frequently.  ↩

Japan’s Mixi unveils a mobile photo sharing app — but what’s so special about it?

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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese social networking giant Mixi recently unveiled a mobile photo sharing app called Plannah. It is available for iOS in Japanese, English, and Korean, and an Android version will follow soon. The app is the forth production from the company’s innovation initiative, which has previously developed mobile app testing environment DeployGate and photobook printing service Nohana. Plannah allows you to share photos with your friends as albums. It shows you photos on calendar and helps you remember where and what you are doing and with whom. When I heard about the app for the first time, I had many questions – not about how to use the app or its concept, but rather, why bring out the app now when there are so many established alternatives? Our readers may recall a similar mobile photo app called my365. It allows you to see photos in a calendar view, but there’s no feature for sharing photos with friends. Beyond Japan, New York-based startup Kaptur has acquired 250 million photos from 60 million users and fundraised $2 million — but it is still figuring out how to monetize. Other similar apps include Linea, Albumatic, Familio and Cluster…

The Plannah development team at Mixi's Innovation Center
The Plannah development team at Mixi’s Innovation Center

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese social networking giant Mixi recently unveiled a mobile photo sharing app called Plannah. It is available for iOS in Japanese, English, and Korean, and an Android version will follow soon. The app is the forth production from the company’s innovation initiative, which has previously developed mobile app testing environment DeployGate and photobook printing service Nohana.

Plannah allows you to share photos with your friends as albums. It shows you photos on calendar and helps you remember where and what you are doing and with whom.

When I heard about the app for the first time, I had many questions – not about how to use the app or its concept, but rather, why bring out the app now when there are so many established alternatives?

Our readers may recall a similar mobile photo app called my365. It allows you to see photos in a calendar view, but there’s no feature for sharing photos with friends. Beyond Japan, New York-based startup Kaptur has acquired 250 million photos from 60 million users and fundraised $2 million — but it is still figuring out how to monetize. Other similar apps include Linea, Albumatic, Familio and Cluster — but none of these seem to be particularly hot according to my own research.

The team’s hypothesis is that the smartphone shift has reached not only tech-savvy users but the average consumer. One team member explained:

Since smartphones are now wide spread in the Japanese market, users now have more chances to shoot casual photos. But they are typically forced to use various apps for multiple purposes.

Some smartphone users these days have thousands of photos stores on their smartphones. For Mixi, if it can provide a service very much focused on sharing photos, it might cause a market disruption since the space currently has no dominant app right now.

We’re curious to see how they will fare moving forward. The team understands that the business model will be hard to nail down, but the key factor will be how long the app can ride the smartphone wave.

plannah_screenshot1

plannah_screenshot2

Mixi’s photobook service gets the TV bump, is now Japan’s top app

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I’ve been pretty fascinated with Mixi’s efforts this year, in particular with those of its internal innovation team. This is the team that developed the Nohana photobook creation app, which initially launched back in February. Interestingly it has just become the number one free iOS app in Japan. I was curious this morning to know exactly why Nohana saw this sudden surge. Some quick Twitter research shows that the application received a big boost last night when it was featured on popular television show ‘A deep, life-changing story in one minute‘. Although it has been said before, this really underscores the value that television represents to any app or game in Japan [1]. Coincidentally, I had a Nohana photobook order delivered to me just yesterday, and the package included a handy little growth chart about the services first few months which you can see below. So far over 40,000 photobooks have been ordered, with 9860 printed in June. I’m still unsure as to whether Nohana can turn a profit with its “your first book is free, the second one is paid” model. But given Japan’s aging demographic, I’m sure that there are lots of customers who send second and third…

nohana-wide

I’ve been pretty fascinated with Mixi’s efforts this year, in particular with those of its internal innovation team. This is the team that developed the Nohana photobook creation app, which initially launched back in February. Interestingly it has just become the number one free iOS app in Japan.

I was curious this morning to know exactly why Nohana saw this sudden surge. Some quick Twitter research shows that the application received a big boost last night when it was featured on popular television show ‘A deep, life-changing story in one minute‘. Although it has been said before, this really underscores the value that television represents to any app or game in Japan [1].

Coincidentally, I had a Nohana photobook order delivered to me just yesterday, and the package included a handy little growth chart about the services first few months which you can see below. So far over 40,000 photobooks have been ordered, with 9860 printed in June.

I’m still unsure as to whether Nohana can turn a profit with its “your first book is free, the second one is paid” model. But given Japan’s aging demographic, I’m sure that there are lots of customers who send second and third copies directly to grandparents when they place an order [2].

Nohana also launched on Android earlier this month, so ostensibly that’s a sign that things are still going well enough to continue its efforts.

If you live in Japan and you still haven’t tried Nohana, do give it a try.

nohana-photo-books-sold
Photobooks sold, February to June

  1. For example, it played a huge part in the early success of Line, as well as popular games like Rage of Bahamut and Puzzle & Dragons. Serkan Toto explored this a little further in a post last year, specific to the social gaming industry.  ↩

  2. The app lets you save multiple addresses, making the process of sending a book to other family members very easy.  ↩

Mixi’s Nohana photobook service now available on Android

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Over the past year Japan’s Mixi has offered up a few interesting services coming from its innovation team, including its mobile photobook printing service Nohana. I’ve used the service a few times, and the books always turn out well [1]. And now the service, which initially launched on iOS back in February, is available for Android. Nohana lets you upload photos from your smartphone, creating a photobook which is then printed and sent to your doorstep. Or if you prefer, it could be sent another family member far away, like a grandparent for example. Users get to print one booklet (of 20 pictures) each month for free, paying a minimal shipping fee of 90 yen (almost a dollar). Subsequent orders cost 500 yen. According to Gamebiz.jp, over 40,000 users have uploaded more than 1.3 million photos to date, publishing 46,000 photobooks. And reportedly 12,000 people pre-registered for the Android app, which is certainly promising. The Android app went online quietly late last week, and is gradually climbing the photo app charts. It will be interesting to see if Nohana can afford to keep offering one free book per month if it becomes more popular later. But for now, I think…

nohana_photobook

Over the past year Japan’s Mixi has offered up a few interesting services coming from its innovation team, including its mobile photobook printing service Nohana. I’ve used the service a few times, and the books always turn out well [1]. And now the service, which initially launched on iOS back in February, is available for Android.

Nohana lets you upload photos from your smartphone, creating a photobook which is then printed and sent to your doorstep. Or if you prefer, it could be sent another family member far away, like a grandparent for example. Users get to print one booklet (of 20 pictures) each month for free, paying a minimal shipping fee of 90 yen (almost a dollar). Subsequent orders cost 500 yen.

According to Gamebiz.jp, over 40,000 users have uploaded more than 1.3 million photos to date, publishing 46,000 photobooks. And reportedly 12,000 people pre-registered for the Android app, which is certainly promising.

The Android app went online quietly late last week, and is gradually climbing the photo app charts. It will be interesting to see if Nohana can afford to keep offering one free book per month if it becomes more popular later. But for now, I think it’s still under the radar, so if you’re in Japan and you take lots of smartphone photos, it’s a pretty sweet deal and I recommend trying it out.

For now it appears as if the company is trying to grow a very targeted user base, even reaching out to local kindergarden schools back in May to promote its services, donating some Nohana credit to selected schools who can then use it to order books.


  1. As long as your photos are of a decent quality, your books will be about as good.  ↩