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Dreche-app-closet

Yukari Mitsuhashi Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.21
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Recent Articles

  • Chat-based marketing platform ChiChat secures series A round for Asia expansion
  • Secai Marche secures $1.6M in series A for Asia’s shared supply chain for fresh foods
  • Japan’s robotic leg prosthesis developer BionicM secures $2.8M in extended series A round
  • On the importance of a Lead VC
  • “Github for Dapps” from Japan gets $4.5M in seed round to ease smart contract dev

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  • US parent company of Japanese manned hoverbike startup to list on NASDAQ via SPAC
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Chat-based marketing platform ChiChat secures series A round for Asia expansion

  • ChiChat
  • HitoBito
  • pickup
Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda 2023.02.03
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Some of our readers may recall that we have covered Tokyo- / Taipei-based HitoBito=人々 (and its Taiwan branch Bande=邦徳), the Japanese/Taiwanese startup behind the ChiChat chat-based marketing platform, when they secured a seed round back in December of 2019. The company was founded in 2015 by Masaya Ishikawa=石川真也, who was involved in launching the digital marketing business at Softbank Mobile and has experience in digital marketing project management for largest distribution companies. In his seed round announcement, Ishikawa said his team was offering chat commerce support via social network services for Japanese mail-order companies in Taiwan and Thailand, and was looking to expand into mainland China with WeChat support. HitoBito was no exception in receiving the impact by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the World Health Organization and Japan’s Health Ministry first reported pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China, in January of 2020, meaning that HitoBito were caught up in the global chaos immediately after secuding the seed round. HitoBito’s sales from the cross-border commerce industry has decreased by 70% as not only human traffic was restricted but also logistics became severely disrupted. Facing such a difficulty, Ishikawa decided to close his Thai subsidiary corporation, settle down in Taipei, and…

The HitoBito team with their investors in this round.
Founder and CEO Masaya Ishikawa sits in the middle of the first row.
Image credit: HitoBito

Some of our readers may recall that we have covered Tokyo- / Taipei-based HitoBito=人々 (and its Taiwan branch Bande=邦徳), the Japanese/Taiwanese startup behind the ChiChat chat-based marketing platform, when they secured a seed round back in December of 2019. The company was founded in 2015 by Masaya Ishikawa=石川真也, who was involved in launching the digital marketing business at Softbank Mobile and has experience in digital marketing project management for largest distribution companies. In his seed round announcement, Ishikawa said his team was offering chat commerce support via social network services for Japanese mail-order companies in Taiwan and Thailand, and was looking to expand into mainland China with WeChat support.

HitoBito was no exception in receiving the impact by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the World Health Organization and Japan’s Health Ministry first reported pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China, in January of 2020, meaning that HitoBito were caught up in the global chaos immediately after secuding the seed round. HitoBito’s sales from the cross-border commerce industry has decreased by 70% as not only human traffic was restricted but also logistics became severely disrupted. Facing such a difficulty, Ishikawa decided to close his Thai subsidiary corporation, settle down in Taipei, and focus his chat marketing business on serving the Taiwanese market.

In the first year (2020) after the decision, the company initially focused on Japanese companies in Taiwan. And then in 2021, they could obtain more clients thanks to partnership with Taiwan’s largest retail conglomerate Uni-President Group (統一集団) which eventually led to having 150 clients to date in Taiwan alone. In 2022, the company started serving companies in Japan from Taiwan-based operations. In addition to the chatbot mechanism, the company also hires Japanese staff in Taiwan to follow up on the chatbots, making it possible to operate the service with one-fourth the man-hours compared to non-AI powered chat marketing tools operated in Japan.

ChiChat Japanese version
Image credit: HitoBito

HitoBito secuerd a Series A round on Friday. Participating investors are GxPartners, Star to Asia (亞星通), MTG Ventures, MicroAd (TSE:9553), XCAPITAL, Globis University’s Graduate School of Management, and AIX Tech Ventures. Star to Asia is also one of the local partners mentioned above while MTG Ventures follows their previous investment in a seed round. The amount secured in this round has not yet been disclosed is estimated to be around 200-300 million Japanese yen (about $1.6-2.3 million US) according to sources. The Series A round appears not to have been closed yet, and more investors may be added later on.

In the future, HitoBito plan to make ChiChat available in English in addition to Chinese and Japanese languages. The company is expanding into Singapore to tap into Southeast Asian companies running chat commerce businesses. In the Japanese market, the company will strengthen sales of the tool in partnership with digital marketing companies, including MicroAd, which has been named as one of the investors in this round. As many browsers have blocked or will do cookies, companies are looking for new online marketing methods, and ChiChat, which helps marketing on Line and other messaging platforms, is a convenient way to engage with users.

Potential competitors to HitoBito in the Japanese market may include Zeals and Chatbook. Zeals postponed its IPO but announced a US expansion with securing 5 billion in debt last year while Chatbook, which was acquired by Monex Group (TSE:8698). HitoBito plans to further enhance its service and competitiveness by advancing its AI-based generative technology, such as a system allowing users to create banners just by specifying target customers and entering description and images.

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Secai Marche secures $1.6M in series A for Asia’s shared supply chain for fresh foods

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  • Secai Marche
The Bridge The Bridge 2023.01.31
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Tokyo- / Kuala Lumpur-based Secai Marche, the Japanese startup behind a shared food supply chain for the Southeast Asian market under the same name, announced on Tuesday that it has secured 210 million yen (about $1.6 million) from Agri-invest, Spiral Ventures Asia, and Beyond Next Ventures. This follows their previous (supposed) seed round securing 150 million yen back in May of 2021. Since its launch back in July of 2018, the company has been offering a cold supply chain connecting farmers and food producers with F&B businesses in the Southeast Asian market, especially optimized for the delivery of low-volume and high-mix orders. Supply chains for fresh produce in the region is usually operated by the supplier side, which are optimized for bulk deliveries and therefore difficult to use it for small restaurants which typically ask for small orders or niche needs. The company wants to solve the problem by building a shared supply chain allowing several different food suppliers to use for delivery. Secai Marche has launched four distribution centers in Malaysia to date, which allows them to offer a one-stop fulfillment service dealing with more than 4,000 fresh foods, including vegetables, fruits, and seafood from producers around the world….

The Secai Marche team
Image credit: Secai Marche

Tokyo- / Kuala Lumpur-based Secai Marche, the Japanese startup behind a shared food supply chain for the Southeast Asian market under the same name, announced on Tuesday that it has secured 210 million yen (about $1.6 million) from Agri-invest, Spiral Ventures Asia, and Beyond Next Ventures. This follows their previous (supposed) seed round securing 150 million yen back in May of 2021.

Since its launch back in July of 2018, the company has been offering a cold supply chain connecting farmers and food producers with F&B businesses in the Southeast Asian market, especially optimized for the delivery of low-volume and high-mix orders.

Supply chains for fresh produce in the region is usually operated by the supplier side, which are optimized for bulk deliveries and therefore difficult to use it for small restaurants which typically ask for small orders or niche needs. The company wants to solve the problem by building a shared supply chain allowing several different food suppliers to use for delivery.

Secai Marche has launched four distribution centers in Malaysia to date, which allows them to offer a one-stop fulfillment service dealing with more than 4,000 fresh foods, including vegetables, fruits, and seafood from producers around the world. Their improvement effort of delivery efficiency could help reducing the waste rate to 1%. The company will use the funds to expand its fulfillment service areas as well as enhancing demand forecast leveraging artificial intelligence technology.

In view of optimized fresh food supply chain startups in the region, Thailand’s Freshket raised $23.5 million in a Series B round in May, Y Combinator Alumni Eden Farm from Indonesia won $13.5 million in a pre-Series B round yesterday, and Singapore-based Glife raised $3 million in the first close of a series A round last year.

via PR Times

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Japan’s robotic leg prosthesis developer BionicM secures $2.8M in extended series A round

  • Bio Leg
  • BionicM
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Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda 2023.01.31
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Tokyo-based BionicM, the Japanese startup developing the Bio Leg robotic leg prosthesis, announced on Tuesday that it has 370 million yen (about $2.8 million) in a extended series A round. Participating investosr are NVenture Capital (a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Capital Solutions), Shinsei Corporate Investment, University of Tokyo Innovation (UTokyo IPC), Kiraboshi Capital, Chibagin Capital, Yoshitsune Ido (former CEO, Anker Japan), AIS Partners, and Hao Yan (Representative Director, EPS Holdings). This brought the startup’s funding sum in its entire series A round up to 920 million yen (over $7 million). Among the investors, UTokyo IPC follows their investment in the first close of the series A round back in September of 2020. They will use the funds to expand sales of the product, research and develop the next model, and elemental technologies such as motion sensing and motion assist technologies as well as hiring talents. In addition to their current markets of Japan and China, the company is looking to expand into the US. Founded by Xiaojun Sun who himself had to have his right leg amputated at the age of 9 due to osteosarcoma, BionicM began research and development in 2015 at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School…

Bio Leg
Image credit: BionicM

Tokyo-based BionicM, the Japanese startup developing the Bio Leg robotic leg prosthesis, announced on Tuesday that it has 370 million yen (about $2.8 million) in a extended series A round. Participating investosr are NVenture Capital (a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Capital Solutions), Shinsei Corporate Investment, University of Tokyo Innovation (UTokyo IPC), Kiraboshi Capital, Chibagin Capital, Yoshitsune Ido (former CEO, Anker Japan), AIS Partners, and Hao Yan (Representative Director, EPS Holdings).

This brought the startup’s funding sum in its entire series A round up to 920 million yen (over $7 million). Among the investors, UTokyo IPC follows their investment in the first close of the series A round back in September of 2020. They will use the funds to expand sales of the product, research and develop the next model, and elemental technologies such as motion sensing and motion assist technologies as well as hiring talents. In addition to their current markets of Japan and China, the company is looking to expand into the US.

Founded by Xiaojun Sun who himself had to have his right leg amputated at the age of 9 due to osteosarcoma, BionicM began research and development in 2015 at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. Of the 10 million potential users of prosthetic legs worldwide, only about 40% actually have access to them because they are expensive or have limited functionality. The company established a corporate entity in 2018 to commercialize the product in order to bring a high-performance prosthetic leg to all those who need it at an affordable price.

Product showcased in in Beijing in October of 2021.
Image credit: BionicM

According to BionicM, more than 99% of the global prosthetic leg market deals with passive type, and has not benefited from the technological advancements that have taken place in recent years with the proliferation of robotic technology. Passive leg prostheses not only place a heavy physical burden on the user, but also place a mental burden on the user, as they are unable to walk naturally or take turns walking up and down stairs in both legs, making them uncomfortable to watch. Robotic prostheses have the potential to solve this problem.

Since the launch of the Bio Leg commercial version in Japan and China last year, the company has been offering the product via a B2B2C model where robotic leg modules are offered to artificial limb factories to be built into sockets for lower-limb amputees. We were told that a typical powered prosthetic leg costs over 10 million yen ($77,000) in contrast with a passive type for about 1 million yen ($7,700). Bio Leg is available for less than one-third the price of a powered one while adopting robotic technology.

Acquisition of gait data with sensors mounted on Bio Leg.
Image credit: BionicM

Given the price tag, government subsidies are likely to be essential for the robotic leg to become widely available. The company is currently testing the product with the aim to apply for such a program next year. Although there are many prosthetic leg users in China, the market for high-end ones is apparently small due to a lack of public support. Therefore, the company is considering expanding into the US market with FDA approval in mind where there is a possibility of obtaining medical insurance coverage.

BionicM intends to explore new possibilities by taking advantage of the product’s ability to acquire gait data as well as its function as a robotic prosthesis. Although prosthetists and physical therapists who assist in the fitting and use of prosthetic limbs are professionals with specialized training, they often rely on their own expertise and knowledge. If the rehabilitation process can be visualized using data, communication with users will become easier and rehabilitation can be expected to become more efficient.

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On the importance of a Lead VC

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The Bridge The Bridge 2023.01.29
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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. For startup founders raising venture funding, securing a commitment from a Lead VC is a critical milestone, arguably the most important, in the fundraising process itself. The Lead VC makes a commitment, they go out on a limb. This reassures other investors to co-invest and thus enables a timely closing. This proves particularly necessary at the earliest stages of a startup, when uncertainty is highest, and when the founder’s vision for their venture appears at its craziest. In my experience with early-stage venture investing over a variety of geographies (first the U.S., then Europe, now Japan), Japan undoubtedly strikes me as the most demonstrative example of the relevance of this principle. The pool of VC funds in Japan willing to…

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.


For startup founders raising venture funding, securing a commitment from a Lead VC is a critical milestone, arguably the most important, in the fundraising process itself. The Lead VC makes a commitment, they go out on a limb. This reassures other investors to co-invest and thus enables a timely closing. This proves particularly necessary at the earliest stages of a startup, when uncertainty is highest, and when the founder’s vision for their venture appears at its craziest.

In my experience with early-stage venture investing over a variety of geographies (first the U.S., then Europe, now Japan), Japan undoubtedly strikes me as the most demonstrative example of the relevance of this principle. The pool of VC funds in Japan willing to invest at the Pre-seed, Seed, and even Series A stages of a startup is far too inadequate relative to the supply of talented entrepreneurs with ambitious projects in this large market.

Moreover, for the limited group of VC funds who are willing to invest at the early stages, scarcely any will volunteer to lead the deal. “Come back once you’ve found a Lead VC,” is an all-too-common refrain, if it’s not the old standby of, “Come back when you’re ready for the Series A…”

What is a Lead VC ?

In nascent startup ecosystems, sometimes the interpretation of the very definition of a Lead VC can be unclear. Here’s how I define it.

The Lead VC in a fundraising round is the VC fund who makes the first firm commitment to invest in the startup. They express their commitment in writing, and they specify the terms and valuation of their proposed investment.

Once agreement with the founders is reached, the Lead VC structures the fundraising round and establishes the schedule for signing and closing. They also generally perform the bulk of the due diligence effort for the investment transaction. The Lead VC does not necessarily represent the largest check in an investment round, but they inevitably serve to catalyze the fundraising process with the commitment and structure they bring.

Why the trepidation?

It is very tempting for prospective investors in a startup to take a wait-and-see approach. Investors love to collect data to comfort their internal decision-making process. VC operators have a fiduciary duty to their own fund’s investors, so it is their obligation to perform sufficient due diligence on any prospective investment.

Making decisions with incomplete information is inherently uncomfortable. This is especially true in a broader historical environment which was unforgiving of mistakes and stigmatized failures. Becoming comfortable to embrace uncertainty, especially when it involves investing other people’s money, takes time. It is perfectly understandable that new VCs — and CVCs for that matter — often defer investment decisions into early-stage companies until substantial validation comes in.

This produces a pair of diverging goals. The founder aspires to close their fundraising round as quickly as possible so that they can return to their core mission of building the business. The investor, on the other hand, prefers to wait for further validation. Phrases like, “Come back for a future round,” or “Come back once you’ve found a Lead VC,” are classic symptoms of an investor waiting for further validation.

However, our belief is that venture investing is impossible to perform successfully without a conviction to pull the trigger on a deal in the context of incomplete information. Innovation involves uncertainty. Early-stage companies do not have all the answers.

Having said this, there is nothing inherently wrong with VC funds whose strategy is to follow, not lead. Some funds, such as CVCs who invest for corporate synergies, prefer to let independent financial VC funds set the terms and valuation. Other funds simply feel more comfortable acting in a follower role, and have established such an expectation with their fund LPs. Finally, for reasons of limited bandwidth at a given time, some VC funds will lead some deals while serving as a follower in others. Serving as the Lead VC in a transaction requires far more effort than merely joining a syndicate as a follower.

Transparency is the key

Because the Lead / Follower disposition of a VC investor is amorphous, not to mention that it is often further obfuscated with misleading marketing statements, I would submit that one of the best questions a founder can ask an investor in their initial discussions is something like the following:

Does your fund generally serve as Lead VC on new investments, or rather as follower?

or

Should our conversations about a prospective investment from your fund progress favorably, would you hypothetically serve in the role of Lead VC or prefer to follow?

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“Github for Dapps” from Japan gets $4.5M in seed round to ease smart contract dev

  • Bunzz
  • pickup
The Bridge The Bridge 2023.01.17
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Singapore-registered Bunzz, the startup behind a development platform focused on Dapps (decentralized applications leveraging blockchain technologies) under the same name, announced on Tuesday that it has secured about 600 million yen (about $4.5 million US) in a seed round. Since its official launch back in January of 2022, the platform has attracted over 8,000 Dapp developers worldwide. Participating investors in this round are: Arriba Studio Coincheck Labs DG Daiwa Ventures gmjp GMO Web3 GREE Ventures Hyperithm Kotaro Tamura Kazutaka Mori mint Spiral Ventures 01Booster Capital Ceres Corporation (TSE: 3696) Bunzz was incorporated in Singapore in May of 2022 by Japanese serial entrepreneur Kenta Akutsu as a spin-off of his Tokyo-based web3 startup LasTrust. Prior to Bunzz, he and his team developed a blockchain certificate issuing service for enterprises, which was later sold to CyberLinks (TSE:3683). Bunzz initially started as a project at LasTrust in 2021. The platform offers an infrastructure for developing smart contracts, which is essential for Dapp development. By making smart contract development processes more secure and easier, it lowers the barrier for developers who do not yet have extensive knowledge or experience in Dapp development. The company claims that more than 2,800 Dapp projects have been deployed…

Image credit: Bunzz

Singapore-registered Bunzz, the startup behind a development platform focused on Dapps (decentralized applications leveraging blockchain technologies) under the same name, announced on Tuesday that it has secured about 600 million yen (about $4.5 million US) in a seed round. Since its official launch back in January of 2022, the platform has attracted over 8,000 Dapp developers worldwide. Participating investors in this round are:

  • Arriba Studio
  • Coincheck Labs
  • DG Daiwa Ventures
  • gmjp
  • GMO Web3
  • GREE Ventures
  • Hyperithm
  • Kotaro Tamura
  • Kazutaka Mori
  • mint
  • Spiral Ventures
  • 01Booster Capital
  • Ceres Corporation (TSE: 3696)

Bunzz was incorporated in Singapore in May of 2022 by Japanese serial entrepreneur Kenta Akutsu as a spin-off of his Tokyo-based web3 startup LasTrust. Prior to Bunzz, he and his team developed a blockchain certificate issuing service for enterprises, which was later sold to CyberLinks (TSE:3683). Bunzz initially started as a project at LasTrust in 2021.

The platform offers an infrastructure for developing smart contracts, which is essential for Dapp development. By making smart contract development processes more secure and easier, it lowers the barrier for developers who do not yet have extensive knowledge or experience in Dapp development.

The company claims that more than 2,800 Dapp projects have been deployed onto the blockchain via the platform, which helps them gain recognition of developers as the “Web3 version of GitHub”. In the future, they plan to introduce token incentives to encourage users to reuse useful smart contract codes developed by other Dapp developers via the platform.

via PR Times

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Japanese rocket developer Interstellar Technologies closes series D round with $30M

  • Interstellar Technologies
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The Bridge The Bridge 2023.01.16
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Headquartered in Hokkaido, Japanese space startup Intersteller Technologies announced on Monday that it has closed a series D round with 3.8 billion yen (about $30 million US) in funding. The round brought the company’s funding sum up to date to over 5.4 billion yen (over $42 million US) as far as we know. Investors participating in the round, including those previously announced, are: SBI Investment Nisso Kosan (TSE: 6569) Satudra Holdings (TSE: 3544) Reiichi Sasaki (President, Ichigo Ventures) De Aardappeleters Norimasa Yamamoto (President, Heiwa Shuzo) Kazunori Asada (Chairman, Howdy) Hiroshi Yamamoto (Representative Director, Smaregi) Suncor Industries CyberAgent (TSE: 4751) Teruyasu Nishino (President, Yuko Kai) INCLUSIVE Makoto Fujita (CEO, Inclusive Seven Stars Capital Onsen Dojo Masaki Yamamoto (CEO, Chatwork) RDS Mizuki Nakajima (CEO, Coly) Anna Nakajima (Co-founder, Coly) IMV (TSE: 7760) Tomoya Nakano (President/CEO,  i-plug) Kadokawa (TSE: 9468) Hagiwara Construction Industries Interstellar Technologies’ MOMO No. 7 and MOMO No. 6 rockets reached space in July of 2021, which let the company mark three successes in terms of reaching space with the MOMO No. 3 rocket launched back in May of 2019. The company is currently in full-scale development of the ZERO rocket which is aimed to be launched in FY2023. The…

The Interstellar Technologies team
Image credit: Interstellar Technologies

Headquartered in Hokkaido, Japanese space startup Intersteller Technologies announced on Monday that it has closed a series D round with 3.8 billion yen (about $30 million US) in funding. The round brought the company’s funding sum up to date to over 5.4 billion yen (over $42 million US) as far as we know. Investors participating in the round, including those previously announced, are:

  • SBI Investment
  • Nisso Kosan (TSE: 6569)
  • Satudra Holdings (TSE: 3544)
  • Reiichi Sasaki (President, Ichigo Ventures)
  • De Aardappeleters
  • Norimasa Yamamoto (President, Heiwa Shuzo)
  • Kazunori Asada (Chairman, Howdy)
  • Hiroshi Yamamoto (Representative Director, Smaregi)
  • Suncor Industries
  • CyberAgent (TSE: 4751)
  • Teruyasu Nishino (President, Yuko Kai)
  • INCLUSIVE
  • Makoto Fujita (CEO, Inclusive
  • Seven Stars Capital
  • Onsen Dojo
  • Masaki Yamamoto (CEO, Chatwork)
  • RDS
  • Mizuki Nakajima (CEO, Coly)
  • Anna Nakajima (Co-founder, Coly)
  • IMV (TSE: 7760)
  • Tomoya Nakano (President/CEO,  i-plug)
  • Kadokawa (TSE: 9468)
  • Hagiwara Construction Industries

Interstellar Technologies’ MOMO No. 7 and MOMO No. 6 rockets reached space in July of 2021, which let the company mark three successes in terms of reaching space with the MOMO No. 3 rocket launched back in May of 2019. The company is currently in full-scale development of the ZERO rocket which is aimed to be launched in FY2023. The funds will be used for research and development, capital investment, hiring talents, and material costs to further accelerate the development of the ZERO rocket.

Interstellar Technologies aims to realize a future in which space is within reach for everyone by providing low-cost, convenient space transportation services. Establishing its satellite development-focused subsidiary Our Stars in early 2021, the company is working on offering rockets and satellites in an one-stop solution. In recent years, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Japan and Western countries have been unable to use Russian rockets, which used to account for about 20% of the world’s space transportation, and Interstellar Technologies sees this situation as a tailwind for its business.

via PR Times

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Japanese sake brewer Wakaze secures $7.6M series B to boost US, China expansion

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  • Wakaze
The Bridge The Bridge 2023.01.12
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Japanese sake brewing startup Wakaze announced on Wednesday that it has secured about 1 billion yen (about $7.5 million) in a series B round. The round was led by Jafco Group (TSE:8595) with participation from Takara Holdings (TSE:2531), DBJ Capital, Egg Forward, SMBC Venture Capital in addition to an unnamed angel investor. This brought their funding sum to date up to about 1.5 billion yen ($11.3 million) as far as disclosed. Jafco Group followed their series A round investment. Wakaze will use the funds to expand its business in Europe, the U.S., and the Asian region centered on China through strenthening advertising, establishing an office and hiring personnel in the U.S. in addition to expanding its production facilities in France. The company has partnered with Takara Holdings, one of the investors in this round, to produce Wakaze’s sake products at the manufacturing facility of Takara’s US subsidiary, and will also consider similar expansion efforts in China. Wakaze aims to bring the wave of craft sake and D2C to the world of sake. Prior to founding the company back in 2016, CEO Takuma Inagawa studied at the École Centrale Paris as a French government scholarship student and then worked as a…

Image credit: Wakaze

Japanese sake brewing startup Wakaze announced on Wednesday that it has secured about 1 billion yen (about $7.5 million) in a series B round. The round was led by Jafco Group (TSE:8595) with participation from Takara Holdings (TSE:2531), DBJ Capital, Egg Forward, SMBC Venture Capital in addition to an unnamed angel investor. This brought their funding sum to date up to about 1.5 billion yen ($11.3 million) as far as disclosed. Jafco Group followed their series A round investment.

Wakaze will use the funds to expand its business in Europe, the U.S., and the Asian region centered on China through strenthening advertising, establishing an office and hiring personnel in the U.S. in addition to expanding its production facilities in France. The company has partnered with Takara Holdings, one of the investors in this round, to produce Wakaze’s sake products at the manufacturing facility of Takara’s US subsidiary, and will also consider similar expansion efforts in China.

Wakaze aims to bring the wave of craft sake and D2C to the world of sake. Prior to founding the company back in 2016, CEO Takuma Inagawa studied at the École Centrale Paris as a French government scholarship student and then worked as a business strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. In addition to developing new sake brewing recipes in Japan’s eastern prefecture of Yamagata, the company established a sake brewery called Kura Grand Paris in Suburban Paris back in November of 2019 to offer locally brewed Japanese sake for the French market.

via PR Times

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In conversation with vice governor Manabu Miyasaka on City-Tech. Tokyo conference

  • City.Tech Tokyo
Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda 2023.01.04
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It has become my New Year’s practice to organize the schedule of startup conferences around the world to take place in the first half of the new year. I have suspended the practice since 2020 because of the cancellation of many conferences due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But I resumed it this holiday season, which made me recognize a few things. First, many conferences have been disappeared since the start of the pandemic (some of them are temporarily suspended but others were bankrupt or completely shut down) while new ones have been created. As livestreaming has become the norm, it’s no longer necessary to make a long-haul flight to take part in a conference if you are to only to hear keynotes. Conference organizers are now required to provide a new value proposition. Another thing is that it no longer makes less sense for each country to compete for the title of the world’s top startup hub each other. It has been a long time since so-called almighty Silicon Valley playbook was debunked while one of the reasons is that hubs for each industry vertical have come to stand out: London for finance, Los Angeles for entertainment, Chicago for Food…

Tokyo’s vice governor Manabu Miyasaka
Photo by Shun Sasaki / Bridge

It has become my New Year’s practice to organize the schedule of startup conferences around the world to take place in the first half of the new year. I have suspended the practice since 2020 because of the cancellation of many conferences due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But I resumed it this holiday season, which made me recognize a few things.

First, many conferences have been disappeared since the start of the pandemic (some of them are temporarily suspended but others were bankrupt or completely shut down) while new ones have been created. As livestreaming has become the norm, it’s no longer necessary to make a long-haul flight to take part in a conference if you are to only to hear keynotes. Conference organizers are now required to provide a new value proposition.

Another thing is that it no longer makes less sense for each country to compete for the title of the world’s top startup hub each other. It has been a long time since so-called almighty Silicon Valley playbook was debunked while one of the reasons is that hubs for each industry vertical have come to stand out: London for finance, Los Angeles for entertainment, Chicago for Food Tech, Boston for life sciences, Zug for web3, Tel Aviv for cybersecurity, and so on.

Entrepreneurs and investors alike are now thinking more critically about the benefits they can expect from attending conferences. After the cancellation of both WebSummit Tokyo and Barkation conferences, Tokyo has now no major international startup conferences. What kind of startup hub can the Japanese capital aspire to be?

It was around last fall when we began to hear the word “SusHiTech Tokyo” from the mouth of Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. The acronym stands for “Sustatinable High City-Tech. Tokyo,” a generic term for a variety of ideas and technologies for overcoming urban challenges. The abbreviation was chosen to stand for sushi, which is needless to say associated with Japan, to make it easier for foreigners to remember the brand.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will hold a startup conference called City-Tech.Tokyo at the International Forum on February 27-28 under the SusHi Tech concept. Since this is the first edition and they are so much focused on attracting foreign startups, the details of the conference have not yet well known to us. So, we could have a a chance to speak with Manabu Miyasaka, Vice Governor of Tokyo. He leads in organizing the conference.

Cities, the next battlefield for tech players

Miyasaka speaks at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, November 2022.
Image credit: Bureau of Digital Services, Tokyo Metropolitan Government

Unlike industry-specific terms such as FinTech or HealthTech, City-Tech is broadly defined as a concept that encourages technology solutions to unique urban issues. The term was perhaps not well received overseas at first for the vagueness, but subsequently it became very well received after Koike began saying SusHiTech and then Miyasaka introduced it at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona.

More than 10,000 people from Japan and abroad are expected to attend City-Tech Tokyo. Keynote speakers will include Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and Kengo Kuma, one of the world’s renowned architects and a special professor at Tokyo University. In addition, 100 cities from 30 countries will participate while two-thirds of the 300 booths will be exhibited by startups coming from overseas.

Miyasaka says,

Various cities are working on climate crisis, energy issues, new transportation systems, and so on. These are issues for each city but also ones common to all humanity in the world. We also need to do more open innovation activities among local governments. The solutions that work in Tokyo may work in other cities, and vice versa.

I believe that cities will be the next battlefield for tech players. Seventy percent of the world’s population lives in cities, so I think the world will start competing in exploring how technologies can change cities. Therefore, not only startups and companies, but also governments will participate there. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has been leading our open innovation activities, but there is no need to limit it to only Japanese startups as long as they can provide stable services.

In parallel with City.Tech Tokyo, the metropolitan government will hold the G-NETS (Global City Network for Sustainability) conference near their office building, which will bring together the heads of local governments from Japan and abroad. Each city may still have a different motivation and intention for their participation because this year’s City-Tech.Tokyo is the first edition but is expected to annually take place from now on.

What the conference aims at?

City-Tech.Tokyo website
Image credit: Tokyo Metropolitan Government

So, what is the goal of City-Tech Tokyo? In a typical startup conference, one of the ultimate goals is for entrepreneurs to find and attract investors, and for investors to find promising startups to invest in. In Web3 conferences, attendees may expect to increase connections with other startups. So what about City-Tech.Tokyo?

Miyasaka says,

On the risk side, the topic includes the climate crisis as mentioned before, but on the upside, I think it is the issue of new employment. There are many jobs that exist today but did not exist 30 years ago. For example, your media business could not have existed 30 years ago. The jobs that exist today were created by startups 30 or 50 years ago.

That’s true for the future too. It is startups that create the jobs for the future. If startups did not create the jobs of the future, we would be forced to just stay on the jobs we have now, which would result in lower wages. If startups can make their business successful, it can lead to creating affluent lifestyles from it and create more jobs. I think that is very important.

Startup Genome annually publishes a ranking of startup-friendly cities, and some of our readers may recall that Tokyo joined the top 10 ranking in 2021 while it dropped to the 12th place last year after being overtaken by Seoul. It is an index published by a private organization, but many officials in local governments are paying attention to the rank. Miyasaka is one such person.

He added,

Of course, we (Tokyo) would like to be ranked higher . But I don’t think there are any cities where only startups are active. Such a city should be vibrant in art, entertainment, and all kinds of things. I don’t think you can start up a business in a city that is culturally stagnant.

Tokyo vice governor MIyasaka speaking with Bridge’s Masaru Ikeda.
Photo by Shun Sasaki / Bridge

Paradoxically, in a society with mature infrastructure like Japan, it may be difficult to bring out a unicorn with a simple service like what we usually see in developing countries. However, since developing countries basically aim to advance themselves into developed economies over time, there could be opportunities for startups from developed countries can leverage the “Time Machine” business model even in emerging markets except for leapfrog phenomenon.

He said,

Ecosystems in developed countries tend to be found in rather affluent cities. I think Tokyo is on that side of them. What such a city needs is a challenger. You can challenge yourself in music, film industry, and whatever. But If you do it in business, it means a startup. Attracting challengers in all genres is an important part of a city.

Last year, the Kishida administration announced the strengthening of the startup policy, while the Tokyo Metropolitan Government also announced a strategy called Global Innovation with Startups. Since the launch of Bridge, we’ve seen neither the Japanese Government nor the Metropolitan Government have put startup support a top priority in their agenda in such a massive way. Miyasaka expressed his aspiration that the conference will give an opportunity to the world to witness such a historical turning point.

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Japan’s P2P lending platform Crowd Credit to be acquired by Bankers Holding

  • Bankers
  • CrowdCredit
The Bridge The Bridge 2022.12.30
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Tokyo-based Crowd Credit, the Japanese startup behind a cross-border peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform under the same name, announced on Thursday that it will be fully acquired by Osaka-based Bankers Holding for an undisclosed amount. Bankers operates a lending platform for business owners in Japan. The Initial startup database estimates Crowd Credit’s market cap is 10.6 billion yen (about $80 million US) when the company secured the last funding round back in April last year. Crowd Credit was founded in 2013 by Tomoyuki Sugiyama who previously managed investments in Japanese government bonds at Daiwa Securities SMBC followed by managing assets with investing in bonds at Lloyds Bank. In the form of funds with set yields, the Tokyo startup offers funds collected from Japan individual investors to businesses in developing countries in the South America and Eastern European regions. Crowd Credit will maintain its current brand name and management structure after the acquisition. Bankers Holding was founded in December of 2019 by Tsuyoshi Shibuya who previously managed several investment companies. The company has been running a P2P lending platform since December of 2020, which offers loans of a total of over 10 billion yen (about $75 million) to businesses in Japan. Bankers…

Image credit: Crowd Credit

Tokyo-based Crowd Credit, the Japanese startup behind a cross-border peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform under the same name, announced on Thursday that it will be fully acquired by Osaka-based Bankers Holding for an undisclosed amount. Bankers operates a lending platform for business owners in Japan. The Initial startup database estimates Crowd Credit’s market cap is 10.6 billion yen (about $80 million US) when the company secured the last funding round back in April last year.

Crowd Credit was founded in 2013 by Tomoyuki Sugiyama who previously managed investments in Japanese government bonds at Daiwa Securities SMBC followed by managing assets with investing in bonds at Lloyds Bank. In the form of funds with set yields, the Tokyo startup offers funds collected from Japan individual investors to businesses in developing countries in the South America and Eastern European regions. Crowd Credit will maintain its current brand name and management structure after the acquisition.

Bankers Holding was founded in December of 2019 by Tsuyoshi Shibuya who previously managed several investment companies. The company has been running a P2P lending platform since December of 2020, which offers loans of a total of over 10 billion yen (about $75 million) to businesses in Japan. Bankers Holding secured 1 billion yen (about $7.5 million) in April of last year in an unknown round followed by 1.5 billion yen (about $11.3 million) in a Series B round closed last month, which brought their total sum of funding up to approximately 2.6 billion yen (about $19.6 million).

See also:

  • Japan’s P2P lending platform Crowdcredit raises $1.7 million from trading giant Itochu
  • Meet Crowdcredit, Japan’s peer-to-peer lending platform for emerging markets

via PR Times

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Neworld to set up shop in Taiwan to help Japanese craftmakers market globally: Nikkei

  • Neworld
The Bridge The Bridge 2022.12.30
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Tokyo-based Neworld, the Japanese startup behind marketing support and an e-commerce platform focused on Japanese craft products, is now planning to develop sales channels by launch campaigns on crowdfunding sites in Taiwan. To strengthen this effort, the company plans to establish a local subsidiary in Taiwan in February next year, Nikkei says. Founded in Fukuoka back in November of 2013, Neworld initially started its business with driving customer traffic to fashion e-commerce sites but subsequently pivoted to an video marketing and e-commerce platform focused on introducing lifestyle products made by local artisans from all across Japan. Neworld has secured several million US dollars through multiple rounds to date from strategic investors including Japanese crowdfunding site Makuake (TSE:4479). Partnerships of crowdfunding and e-commerce sites between Japan and Taiwan have been emerged in recent years. Our readers may recall Japan’s Campfire has recently agreed with mutual listing of crowdfunding projects with Taiwan’s Zeczec (嘖嘖). Makuake has worked with Taiwanese e-commerce platforms such as uDesign (有.設計) and Citiesocial (找 好東西). In October, Taiwanese startup backer iiiNNO (一諾新創) partnered with One More, the Japanese company behind the Green Funding crowdfunding platform to help Taiwanese startups expand into the Japanese market.

Craft Store
Image credit: Neworld

Tokyo-based Neworld, the Japanese startup behind marketing support and an e-commerce platform focused on Japanese craft products, is now planning to develop sales channels by launch campaigns on crowdfunding sites in Taiwan. To strengthen this effort, the company plans to establish a local subsidiary in Taiwan in February next year, Nikkei says.

Founded in Fukuoka back in November of 2013, Neworld initially started its business with driving customer traffic to fashion e-commerce sites but subsequently pivoted to an video marketing and e-commerce platform focused on introducing lifestyle products made by local artisans from all across Japan.

Neworld has secured several million US dollars through multiple rounds to date from strategic investors including Japanese crowdfunding site Makuake (TSE:4479). Partnerships of crowdfunding and e-commerce sites between Japan and Taiwan have been emerged in recent years. Our readers may recall Japan’s Campfire has recently agreed with mutual listing of crowdfunding projects with Taiwan’s Zeczec (嘖嘖).

Makuake has worked with Taiwanese e-commerce platforms such as uDesign (有.設計) and Citiesocial (找 好東西). In October, Taiwanese startup backer iiiNNO (一諾新創) partnered with One More, the Japanese company behind the Green Funding crowdfunding platform to help Taiwanese startups expand into the Japanese market.

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MUFG to acquire 70% stake in Japan’s Kanmu for $150M to foray into BNPL business

  • Kanmu
The Bridge The Bridge 2022.12.26
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See the original story in Japanese. Nikkei reported on Monday that Japanese FinTech startup Kanmu is expected to be acquired by Mitsubishi UFJ Bank next spring. The Japanese megabank will acquire 70% stake in the startup for abouut $20 billion yen (about $150 million US), which means the startup’s valuation has reached over 25 billion yen (over $190 million US). Founded in January of 2011, Kanmu secured 43 million yen (about $440,000 US) in 2013 from East Ventures, ANRI, and others. They launched the Vandle prepaid Visa card in September of 2016, which became a smash hit especially among the Japanese younger generation. Since January of 2018, Kanmu has gradually received funding from Freakout Holdings. Their other shareholders include ISGS, Adways, Kronos Fund (now known as Entrepreneur), TLM, and five angel investors including Nobuhiro Ariyasu and Hiromasa Umeda. They have secured to date about 4.43 billion yen (about $33.4 million) in funding. MUFG aims to incorporate the Vandle card into the bank’s debit card through the acquisition. The Vandle card’s mobile app has marked at least 6 million downloads so far. The FinTech startup is expected to remain its independence in their brand and management. We have reached out to…

Some of the Kanmu team with their founder and CEO Wataru Yamaki standing in the middle.
Image credit: Kanmu

See the original story in Japanese.

Nikkei reported on Monday that Japanese FinTech startup Kanmu is expected to be acquired by Mitsubishi UFJ Bank next spring. The Japanese megabank will acquire 70% stake in the startup for abouut $20 billion yen (about $150 million US), which means the startup’s valuation has reached over 25 billion yen (over $190 million US).

Founded in January of 2011, Kanmu secured 43 million yen (about $440,000 US) in 2013 from East Ventures, ANRI, and others. They launched the Vandle prepaid Visa card in September of 2016, which became a smash hit especially among the Japanese younger generation.

Since January of 2018, Kanmu has gradually received funding from Freakout Holdings. Their other shareholders include ISGS, Adways, Kronos Fund (now known as Entrepreneur), TLM, and five angel investors including Nobuhiro Ariyasu and Hiromasa Umeda. They have secured to date about 4.43 billion yen (about $33.4 million) in funding.

MUFG aims to incorporate the Vandle card into the bank’s debit card through the acquisition. The Vandle card’s mobile app has marked at least 6 million downloads so far. The FinTech startup is expected to remain its independence in their brand and management.

We have reached out to Kanmu founder and CEO Wataru Yamaki for comment.

Some of our readers may recall that MUFG (Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group), the parent company of Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, has recently acquired several BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) startups in the Southeast Asian region such as Akulaku and Home Credit.

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Forecasts for 2023 from five visionary VCs

The Bridge The Bridge 2022.12.20
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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. In many ways, 2022 has been a turbulent year. Accordingly, the timing couldn’t be better to solicit guidance from some insightful venture investors on the year ahead. As usual, I am happy to elevate the voices of VCs beyond the usual Silicon Valley household names. Once again, I am pleased to publish the wisdom of an all-female cast of VCs for this season’s set of predictions, May 2023 bring us further enlightenment. Happy new year ! Miwa Seki – MPower Partners, Japan 2022 saw an increased scrutiny and skepticism around ESG investment. We see a shift of focus from E to S, especially in the areas of human capital engagement. DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is an essential element of…

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.


In many ways, 2022 has been a turbulent year. Accordingly, the timing couldn’t be better to solicit guidance from some insightful venture investors on the year ahead.

As usual, I am happy to elevate the voices of VCs beyond the usual Silicon Valley household names. Once again, I am pleased to publish the wisdom of an all-female cast of VCs for this season’s set of predictions,
May 2023 bring us further enlightenment. Happy new year !

Miwa Seki – MPower Partners, Japan

2022 saw an increased scrutiny and skepticism around ESG investment. We see a shift of focus from E to S, especially in the areas of human capital engagement. DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is an essential element of that and will become a main focus by the ESG focused investment.

We have conducted research on the IPO return gap between male-lead startups and female/minority-lead startups in Japan. The result shows higher return per the money raised at the time of the IPO by female/minority-lead startups.

Our own start-up survey also revealed higher employee engagement in startups which integrated ESG to their management practices. With such evidence, 2023 will see more focus on DEI among the startup and VC community.

Asumi Ota – D4V, Japan

I have high expectations for businesses that aim to globally promote content, technology, and products originating from Japan (such as manga and high-quality “Made in Japan” products). Due to the diversification of human resources working in Japanese venture companies and the growing interest in Japan from global investors, I sense an increase in the number of entrepreneurs who are trying to promote Japan’s high quality goods overseas in various fields.

What we have continued to focus on as of last year are the industries and sectors that had not been able to embark on major digitalization reforms in the past, despite having the needs for such transformations. For example, the healthcare industry has been considered a difficult industry for digitalization due to personal information protection and other regulations. However, it is on the verge of a remarkable evolution, triggered by moves to promote medical device certification of therapeutic apps and the spread of telemedicine.

The pandemic has created a situation where companies and industries that have followed legacy methods have been forced to change, creating room for venture companies that can quickly prototype novel ideas. In these business areas, collaboration with stakeholders such as large companies, governments, and local governments is important. With the support of policies and public policy that promote digitization, openness, and venture investment, the foundations are now in place for startups to make significant progress.

Finally, as the severe economic state continues, each company will continue to be polarized with respect to startup funding procurement. Due to these conditions, we expect that profitable management and ESG initiatives will become even more important in the future. Consumers are placing more emphasis on a company’s mission and story, and large companies are increasing their ESG-related investments. Therefore, funds will be concentrated on companies that not only have ESG initiatives but also have the storytelling skills to communicate these initiatives.

Janneke Niessen – CapitalT, Netherlands

Climate change is hot—no pun intended. Our portfolio companies in climate are doing really well, with much business growth and interest from the VC community.

I expect this trend to strengthen in 2023, which will hopefully help accelerate the reversal of climate change on a global scale.

In addition, hardware companies in this space, for whom it has always been really tough to raise capital, have more fundraising options in the new year due to the accelerated interest in climate tech.

Ayako Miyahara – Genesia Ventures, Japan

New Startup Fundraising: Global market conditions will lead startup investors to be more selective. On the other hand, it is believed that DPI (Distributions to Paid-In Capital) will begin to sprout in the Japanese domestic vintage funds that are gradually maturing, and attention will be paid to the new flow of funds leveraged by such track records.

Impact investing: The startup ecosystem is being restructured in line with the “New Capitalism” of the Kishida administration. In addition to economic return, as the importance of social impact grows, discussions on environmental improvements, including evaluation methods in capital markets, are expected to get underway.

Linkages with Asia: Southeast Asia and India remain promising markets due to their strong economic growth, the expanding future potential of the digital domain, and the abundance of opportunities for Japanese companies to exit. India, in particular, is expected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country by 2023, attracting attention from investors who are avoiding the US-China conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war. Japanese companies are increasingly moving into India, especially in the manufacturing sector, so more focus is expected on the infratech that is developing in this sector.

Haruka Takamori – Strive, Japan

AI Democratization Will Take a Leap

In 2023, we can expect to see even more progress in digital product development overall due to technological advances in AI.
With the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, AI can be easily applied to product development and creation without high-level specialized machine learning knowledge. In other words, it is now possible to create low-code, no-code, generative products that meet any objectives through AI API integration with unprecedented precision and efficiency.

If we categorize output by AI into linguistic and non-linguistic categories, the universalization of programming knowledge in the linguistic analysis domain, and the automation of the elucidation of psycho-cognitive relationships in product design in the non-linguistic analysis domain, is expected to progress further, and therefore increase the demand for personalized products as well.

Last but not least, demand for services that not only streamline and optimize the product creation process but also perform verification of AI-generated products such as QA and UI/UX testing tools is also expected to increase.

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Four common mistakes when pitching startups onstage

The Bridge The Bridge 2022.12.17
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This is a guest post by Sushi Suzuki. Sushi is an associate professor at the Kyoto Institute of Technology, where he teaches design thinking, product innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is also the founder of Kyoto Startup Summer School, Japan’s most intense entrepreneurship program conducted fully in English. Sushi is an active startup-pitching coach who has helped over one hundred startups around the world improve their presentation, on-stage presence, and delivery. Sushi was born in Kyoto, Japan but spent over fifteen years in the US and over five in Europe and has traveled to over sixty countries. He holds a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and B.A. in Studio Arts from Rice University. Over the years, I have had the fortune of listening to a lot of startup pitches as well as coaching at some of the biggest events in the world including Slush Tokyo and Techsauce. While the importance of pitches is universally acknowledged, few entrepreneurs seem to take the time to design a compelling presentation. Through my coaching experiences, I realized that there are common mistakes that entrepreneurs often make. Here are four of them. Mistake 1: Too much information in…

sushi-suzuki
Sushi Suzuki

This is a guest post by Sushi Suzuki.

Sushi is an associate professor at the Kyoto Institute of Technology, where he teaches design thinking, product innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is also the founder of Kyoto Startup Summer School, Japan’s most intense entrepreneurship program conducted fully in English.

Sushi is an active startup-pitching coach who has helped over one hundred startups around the world improve their presentation, on-stage presence, and delivery.

Sushi was born in Kyoto, Japan but spent over fifteen years in the US and over five in Europe and has traveled to over sixty countries. He holds a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and B.A. in Studio Arts from Rice University.


Photo by Flickr user Roger H. Goun, used under a Creative Commons license

Over the years, I have had the fortune of listening to a lot of startup pitches as well as coaching at some of the biggest events in the world including Slush Tokyo and Techsauce. While the importance of pitches is universally acknowledged, few entrepreneurs seem to take the time to design a compelling presentation. Through my coaching experiences, I realized that there are common mistakes that entrepreneurs often make. Here are four of them.

Mistake 1: Too much information in the slides

The pitch deck has become a ubiquitous tool in the startup world for entrepreneurs to explain their startup via a compact set of slides. Google “startup pitch” and there are countless articles and templates for budding entrepreneurs. However, a pitch deck is drastically different from presentation deck.

Comparison between a pitch deck and a presentation deck (click to enlarge)

First and foremost, the pitch deck is a standalone document. It is almost always sent via e-mail, and the entrepreneur is not there to narrate through the slides. Therefore, all the necessary information needs to be contained within the slides so that the content makes sense to first time readers. A lot of advice online for creating a pitch pertain to the standalone pitch deck. Following these advice, however, will lead to a terrible presentation deck with too much text.

Even if the entrepreneur is not using their pitch deck as a presentation deck, more often than not, the slides will contain too much information for the audience. PowerPoint and other presentation softwares, with their standard templates, lead presenters to create outlines with titles and bullet points. I always tell presenters that they should be the primary focus of the presentation, and the slides are supplemental material. If the slides contain too much information, the audience will shift their attention from listening to the presenter to reading and understanding the slides. The best presenters, such as Steve Jobs, have minimal content on the slides which are there to reinforce the key point being made.

Mistake 2: Not having a strong hook

We live in a world where people have increasingly short attention spans. Everyday, we are bombarded with so much information that we have become very good at tuning out. If an entrepreneur is not able to grab the attention of the audience in the first ten to twenty seconds, they will tune out for the rest of the presentation. Therefore, it is important to have a very strong hook at the beginning to draw the audience in for the rest of the pitch.

There are many ways of designing the hook and it should be different for every startup. Often, the best way is to surprise the audience. This could be done through an unexpected fact about your industry or field or a user story that emotionally draws in the audience. Another way could be to engage the audience by asking them a question or having them relate back to a time. This makes the presentation more personal for the audience. The hook should be unique to every startup, but every startup pitch needs a hook.

The worst way to start a presentation is to spend ten to twenty seconds just introducing yourself and the startup and not starting the presentation. This is especially common in Japanese pitch events where entrepreneurs politely and modestly introduce themselves and thank the audience for being there. This is unnecessary and a waste of time.

Mistake 3: Forgetting the call to action

Small pitch competitions bring together dozens of people. The finals for a large pitch competition can have over a thousand people in the audience including countless VCs and journalists. This exposure is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs, but many forget to be direct.

Call to action is an instruction for the audience that almost always comes at the end of a pitch. This could include statements such as “download our demo today and try Pinchako” or “we are looking to raise $500,000 to enter the European market.” Startups are always looking for something and time on stage is the perfect moment to ask, but many forget to do so.

Mistake 4: Being forgettable

There are many, many startups in the world, and most will fail. This is a fact of life. While there may be exceptions, very rarely do startups succeed by blending in. The goal of a startup is to be exceptional, and this is no different on stage at a pitch competition.

Yet I see so many entrepreneurs trying to follow a template or copy pitches they’ve seen. While there are best practices in designing pitches, following a formula often leads to bland and forgettable pitches. An entrepreneur will give one pitch at a competition, but judges sit through a dozen of more, and most will be forgotten by the end of the day.

There is no magic formula for uniqueness. I’ve seen founders rapping, dressing up in ninja costumes , and taking the audience through an emotional journey through a life of a young Indian mother. Every startup is different, and like the hook, there should be a unique angle for every startup to be memorable.

Presenting is one of those things that seem easy but is difficult to do well. Startup pitches are extremely challenging because of short duration and high intensity. There is very little room for mistakes and very little time to recover. I have seen founders with great ideas flounder on stage and fail to get their point across. I have also seen pitches executed perfectly even if the underlying idea seemed pedestrian.

Creating a great pitch is no different from creating a company or a product. It takes thought, planning, practice, and lots of failures. If you are preparing to pitch, in addition to avoiding the four common mistakes above, my advice is to think through what you want to communicate with your pitch and design your presentation accordingly. Don’t start by stitching together information you have in a haphazard way. Also, I highly suggest prototyping and testing. Gather friends and family, ideally people who do not know much about your startup, and try your pitch. See how much they understood about your idea, and if your point is coming through. They say, “practice makes perfect,” and this is very true about startup pitching.


If you are interested in this subject matter, I recently published the book “Riveting: Startup Pitches that Persuade from Storytelling to Design.” In the book I cover the various aspects of an onstage startup pitch including structure, delivery, and modes of presentation. The book contains pointers to many examples and borrows inspiration from fields such as graphic design and advertising. It is now available on paperback and ebook from all Amazon marketplaces ( Japan / US ).

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Shortening feedback loops

SCORE 19,642,110 The Bridge The Bridge 2022.11.26
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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. One of the mindsets which we regularly encourage our portfolio companies to espouse is the pursuit of shortening feedback loops. Shortening feedback loops, or “increasing clock speed,” is fundamental to a startup’s ability to navigate a dynamic market. Accelerating the opportunity for feedback underpins the minimum viable product concept in the Lean Startup philosophy. The opposite strategy to pursuing short feedback loops is to research a topic profoundly before acting, theorize on every aspect of a project in painstaking detail, and prepare contingency plans for every imaginable outcome. This approach might be effective for long-duration projects, and is generally considered compulsory when mistakes have life-threatening consequences. (Even then however, one could argue that hundreds of thousands of lives could have…

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.


One of the mindsets which we regularly encourage our portfolio companies to espouse is the pursuit of shortening feedback loops.

Shortening feedback loops, or “increasing clock speed,” is fundamental to a startup’s ability to navigate a dynamic market. Accelerating the opportunity for feedback underpins the minimum viable product concept in the Lean Startup philosophy.

The opposite strategy to pursuing short feedback loops is to research a topic profoundly before acting, theorize on every aspect of a project in painstaking detail, and prepare contingency plans for every imaginable outcome. This approach might be effective for long-duration projects, and is generally considered compulsory when mistakes have life-threatening consequences. (Even then however, one could argue that hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved in the Covid-19 pandemic had governments allowed for shorter feedback loops on vaccine safety testing among consenting and fully-informed volunteers). Regardless, such an approach is nearly always a handicap in startups

The ability to iterate: design, build an MVP, deploy, collect market feedback, repeat — is crucial for a startup to find product market fit. Testing iterations of its product with real customers is the fastest way to obtain indispensable market insights which will guide the product road map. This is widely considered obvious in most innovation ecosystems today, but I am still surprised to discover corners of the world where this belief is not yet universal.

Beyond the obvious though, a mindset of short feedback loops extends beyond a startup’s initial product-market fit. It should permeate throughout all company operations: sales, human resources, investor relations, vendor management, etc. Operating with short feedback loops fosters agility in a startup and can be a source of competitive advantage by accelerating learning. (Conversely, in crowded or fast-changing markets, failing to do so will be a competitive disadvantage).

Good salespeople, for instance, naturally crave immediate feedback. Moreover, it is human nature to thrive on short feedback loops, starting from our first steps as toddler. Here’s one example of academic research in this area.

Providing fast and frequent feedback to employees is also critical. When employees in a startup are not clear on whether their work meets expectations, or even whether they are working on the right priorities, the collective focus of the organization drifts. This can also undermine motivation. Similarly, it is a startup CEO’s responsibility to create an environment in which subordinates are comfortable and encouraged to provide feedback upward.

Shortening feedback cycles to investors also brings numerous benefits. Frequent business updates will keep a startup at the top of mind among its investors, which makes it easier for the investor to be helpful, be it with client introductions, capital raising, even hiring, for example. It also serves as a preventative mechanism, by keeping investors on alert before a startup’s financial situation becomes dire.

For many entrepreneurs, this behavior comes naturally. We applaud this and encourage all of our founders to embrace it as a core habit.

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