Tokyo-based digital media outlet Wired.jp reported on Wednesday that eight successful entrepreneurs from Japan have joined forces and launched a new startup-focused investment fund called Tokyo Founders Fund. The founding members represent an impressive lineup of the Japanese startup community: Yusuke Asakura (former CEO of Mixi, visiting scholar at Stanford University) Nobuhiro Ariyasu (Coach United CEO) Kiyo Kobayashi (Chanoma CEO) Yusuke Sato (Freakout COO) Yo Shibata (former Spotlight CEO) Kensuke Furukawa (Nanapi CEO) Ayataro Nakagawa (Peroli CEO) Taichi Murakami (Livesense CEO) Inspired by San Francisco-based Founders Fund started in 2005 by the Paypal founders, Kobayashi decided that Japan also needed a similar startup investment founders fund while building a network with local investors and entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area where he is based. According to Kobayshi’s recent post on Facebook, the fund will offer a small amount of investment to pre-seed and seed stage startups around the world. Details of the fund’s activities have not been decided, but the eight-person team will discuss this in a closed Facebook group while looking to give their invested entrepreneurs functions as a knowledge sharing platform around launching businesses and a hub for connecting them with each others. Edited by Kurt Hanson
Tokyo-based digital media outlet Wired.jp reported on Wednesday that eight successful entrepreneurs from Japan have joined forces and launched a new startup-focused investment fund called Tokyo Founders Fund.
The founding members represent an impressive lineup of the Japanese startup community:
Yusuke Asakura (former CEO of Mixi, visiting scholar at Stanford University)
Inspired by San Francisco-based Founders Fund started in 2005 by the Paypal founders, Kobayashi decided that Japan also needed a similar startup investment founders fund while building a network with local investors and entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area where he is based. According to Kobayshi’s recent post on Facebook, the fund will offer a small amount of investment to pre-seed and seed stage startups around the world.
Details of the fund’s activities have not been decided, but the eight-person team will discuss this in a closed Facebook group while looking to give their invested entrepreneurs functions as a knowledge sharing platform around launching businesses and a hub for connecting them with each others.
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Japanese adtech company FreakOut (TSE:6094) announced today that it has invested in EventRegist; the Tokyo-based startup provides event/meetup organizers with an online ticket issuance and management system. Details of the investment have not been disclosed. Upon this funding, EventRegist will strengthen their business operations as well as hiring efforts in Japan and Southeast Asia. The startup fundraised 165 million yen (about $1.6 million) from Japanese newspaper company Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha this April. Taiga Matsuyama, a general partner at East Ventures, had invested in Freak Out in its early days. Through our recent interview with FreakOut COO Yusuke Sato and EventRegist COO Aya Ozasa, we understand that both companies want to see synergy in helping event organizers better promote their events. FreakOut-developed technologies and tactics are to be leveraged for potential attendees. Beyond that, they seek to enable measurement of conversion performance in the real world, upon marketing efforts which were initially generated from online campaigns. Both Sato and Ozasa, as well as EventRegist CEO Kosuke Hirayama, had previously worked at Google Japan, so it seems all they have something common in attitude toward their businesses. They admitted that the fact has influenced their current relations.
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.
Japanese adtech company FreakOut (TSE:6094) announced today that it has invested in EventRegist; the Tokyo-based startup provides event/meetup organizers with an online ticket issuance and management system. Details of the investment have not been disclosed. Upon this funding, EventRegist will strengthen their business operations as well as hiring efforts in Japan and Southeast Asia.
The startup fundraised 165 million yen (about $1.6 million) from Japanese newspaper company Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha this April. Taiga Matsuyama, a general partner at East Ventures, had invested in Freak Out in its early days.
Through our recent interview with FreakOut COO Yusuke Sato and EventRegist COO Aya Ozasa, we understand that both companies want to see synergy in helping event organizers better promote their events. FreakOut-developed technologies and tactics are to be leveraged for potential attendees. Beyond that, they seek to enable measurement of conversion performance in the real world, upon marketing efforts which were initially generated from online campaigns.
Both Sato and Ozasa, as well as EventRegist CEO Kosuke Hirayama, had previously worked at Google Japan, so it seems all they have something common in attitude toward their businesses. They admitted that the fact has influenced their current relations.
From the left: EventRegist COO Aya Ozasa, FreakOut COO Yusuke Sato
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Dely, a food delivery service operating in Tokyo, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese seed investor Anri. This follows their seed funding in July led by Beenos with participation from East Ventures and Party Factory. Dely CEO Yusuke Horie explained his business: Our system is well organized, and we have had no trouble in our delivery service. When we started our service, it is provided only for a lunch time on weekdays but we added a dinner time and Saturday to our operating hours in August. We’ll try to partner with more restaurants and acquire more users from now on. The company sees a steadily growth in acquiring partnering restaurants. Their service is currently available only in Shibuya but plans to add Ebisu and Roppongi to the delivery areas. See also: Japan’s ‘Uber for logistics’ launches food delivery service in central Tokyo Coinciding with the funding, Anri general partner Anri Samata, Beenos managing partner Hiro Maeda, and FreakOut COO Yusuke Sato, who will join the board of Dely as an advisor, spoke on the potential of on-demand delivery services in Japan. Samata explained why his fund has…
From the left: Anri partner Anri Samata, Dely CEO Yusuke Horie, Beenos partner Hiro Maeda, and Dely COO Yusuke Sato in the laptop screen
Tokyo-based startup Dely, a food delivery service operating in Tokyo, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese seed investor Anri. This follows their seed funding in July led by Beenos with participation from East Ventures and Party Factory.
Dely CEO Yusuke Horie explained his business:
Our system is well organized, and we have had no trouble in our delivery service. When we started our service, it is provided only for a lunch time on weekdays but we added a dinner time and Saturday to our operating hours in August. We’ll try to partner with more restaurants and acquire more users from now on.
The company sees a steadily growth in acquiring partnering restaurants. Their service is currently available only in Shibuya but plans to add Ebisu and Roppongi to the delivery areas.
Coinciding with the funding, Anri general partner Anri Samata, Beenos managing partner Hiro Maeda, and FreakOut COO Yusuke Sato, who will join the board of Dely as an advisor, spoke on the potential of on-demand delivery services in Japan.
Samata explained why his fund has invested in Dely:
We have invested in startups providing infrastructure-focused services like Coiney (payments), Raksul (printing), Crowdworks (crowdsouricing), so logistics is also one of our interest. I’ve talked with many logistics startups in Japan. Since Horie is the most interesting man among them, I decided to invest in his startup. We see a market because Japan’s GDP and land area are sufficiently large. Existing logistics services work well but don’t provide on-demand delivery. Disrupting an existing industry structure is my mission. So we expect that they will evolve further.
Beenos has invested in US-based same-day food grocery service Instacart. From that perspective, Beenos managing partner Hiro Maeda predicts that on-demand services will become more common in Japan in five to ten years. He said:
Thanks to mobile technology, delivery services can detect the exact location of their delivery persons in real time, which allows anyone to become a delivery person for these services. In addition to delivery services, it will be inevitable that individuals will be able to provide their personal values as a service.
According to Horie, Maeda’s mentoring was very helpful in developing the product because he is familiar with Instacart through his investment.
Horie said:
Maeda’s feedback on the service was to the point. It was really helpful that he joined our team in a seed round. Thanks to him, we can aim to develop a much better product.
In response to him, Maeda added:
I think we’ll need an on-demand service like Postmates. But it’s not easy so a crazy man should do it. In terms of that, I think Horie is suitable because he is young and beyond our mind and has no prejudice.
Sato analyzed the Japanese logistic industry and explained that it will be impossible for major logistic companies to roll out an on-demand delivery service despite the fact that they have a huge and efficient delivery network system.
He said:
However, thanks to a surge of smartphone users, there is huge potential to build a high cost-performance delivery network comprised of non-professional delivery persons.
I think we can turn the impossible into the possible. That’s what only a crazy man like Horie can do. That’s why I decided to bet on him.
Yusuke Sato 
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Miyako Yoshizawa
