Yukari Mitsuhashi
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Startup M&A in Japan: Fasten your seatbelts
The Bridge
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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 key component of our investment thesis at Shizen Capital is our view on exit opportunities for early-stage startups in Japan. We believe that Japan has now reached an inflection point, and that corporate M&A for Japanese startups is poised to go intergalactic. Historically, an IPO has been the most common and viable way for VC-backed startups in Japan to exit. The Mothers market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (now re-branded as TSE Growth) functions so well that even microcap companies in the $10 million valuation range could go public. This has proven to be a double-edged sword, a topic on which I should probably elaborate in a longer post. (TL;DR: The main benefit accrues to VC funds by providing…
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 key component of our investment thesis at Shizen Capital is our view on exit opportunities for early-stage startups in Japan. We believe that Japan has now reached an inflection point, and that corporate M&A for Japanese startups is poised to go intergalactic.
Historically, an IPO has been the most common and viable way for VC-backed startups in Japan to exit. The Mothers market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (now re-branded as TSE Growth) functions so well that even microcap companies in the $10 million valuation range could go public. This has proven to be a double-edged sword, a topic on which I should probably elaborate in a longer post.
(TL;DR: The main benefit accrues to VC funds by providing them a convenient path to exit, but not without drawbacks: such as curtailing ambitions of private companies, creating misalignment risk with IPO preparation service providers, forcing a generation of entrepreneurial founders into becoming public company administrators, and depriving Japan‘s VCs of the opportunity to learn one of the most important skills of being a good VC, which is positioning a startup for M&A).
Paradoxically, all of our exits from our Japan funds have been via M&A, including my own personal career high. Although our particular track record in Japan seems to represent an exception, we believe that M&A transactions of Japanese startups is about to increase exponentially. We see three principal drivers at play here:
1. Shift in sentiment among founders
We’re observing an unmistakable shift in perspective among founders in Japan that selling their company via M&A is no longer an admission of failure. If you’re surprised when reading that last bit, I too was surprised myself. One of my innumerable discoveries upon launching my first fund in Japan was how Japanese founders had been educated to view an IPO as their proof of success, and that selling their company to another firm implied that they couldn’t make it. At minimum, M&A was viewed as a Plan B at best.
Fortunately, this attitude is changing. While it’s impossible to pinpoint the specific reasons for this shift in mindset, I suspect a couple of contributing factors. Japan may well have reached a critical mass of startup founders who have pursued the IPO path. These founders now manage listed companies — with all the accompanying obligations of compliance and investor relations that a public listing entails — and they are unhappy in their newfound managerial roles, with daily responsibilities far removed from life as a startup entrepreneur. Anecdotally, we have spoken with a handful of such individuals who have confided in us that they are miserable, that they reminisce nostalgically for the days when they could simply tinker and build in harmony with their intrinsic motivations as “0-to-1” entrepreneurs.
Another potential contributor to the changing perceptions is the increasing number of foreign entrepreneurs in Japan, who do not carry the same emotional baggage related to M&A and are setting the example.
2. A tax break for corporations that acquire domestic startups
As part and parcel of the Japanese government’s startup nation agenda, a new tax policy will grant Japanese corporations a tax break in acquiring domestic startups. Under this new scheme, corporations will be able to deduct 25% of their acquisition price from their taxable income up to ¥5 billion (~ $40 million) per transaction and up to an aggregate of up to ¥12.5 billion (~ $100 million) in tax deductions every year.
This new tax deduction could help surmount the “not-invented-here” syndrome prevalent in many Japanese corporations, who in reality are desperate to complement their laudable in-house innovation efforts with innovation from outside the corporate walls. This has the potential to shake up internal corporate incentives. Once a few initial corporations take advantage of the tax deduction, others will likely follow suit, and increase their own M&A activities in emulation. [Note: there remains a minor issue related to goodwill depreciation but this is under review.]
3. A new macroeconomic paradigm of inflation
Inflation has arrived in Japan too. Although not quite yet as severe as the other G7 countries, Japan has recently printed a 41-year high in inflation at nearly 4.3%. Accordingly, we are detecting a growing sensitivity among corporate executives to this new inflationary environment. With over $3 trillion worth of cash in aggregate on their balance sheets (yes, that’s trillion with a ‘T’), corporate Japan faces an increasingly obvious choice: ramp up investment in long overdue digital transformation, or dither while inflation erodes their capital.
Taken together, we believe that the above factors will drive a virtuous cycle. Increased M&A for early-stage ventures in turn will provide a new generation of founders with a taste of company-building accompanied by modest wealth creation. If the experience of European ecosystems is any guide, this first step will likely motivate a subset of these successful founders to jump back into entrepreneurship and to aim even higher. Others may become early-stage VCs themselves, another boon to a startup ecosystem in which few VCs today possess startup experience.
In our view, this context augurs well for early-stage venture investing in Japan overall.
Japan’s autonomous mobile robot developer LexxPluss snags $11M for US expansion
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Japanese AMR (autonomous mobile robot) developer LexxPluss announced on Wednesday that it has secured 1.45 billion yen (about $11 million US) in a Series A round. Participating investors are Drone Fund, SBI Investment, DBJ Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Mizuho Lease’s Mirai Sozo Capital, Incubate Fund, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital, Logistics Innovation Fund (operated by Seino Holdings and Spiral Innovation Partners), SMBC Venture Capital, SOSV, and Mizuho Capital. This follows a pre-Series A round in November of 2021. Among these investors, Incubate Fund, MSI Capital, Logistics Innovation Fund, SMBC Venture Capital, SOSV, and Mizuho Capital followed their investment in a previous round. The latest round brought the company’s funding sum up to date to 1.8 billion yen (about $13.5 million) SOSV, one of the investors, operates HAX Tokyo, the Tokyo chapter of the HAX hardware-focused startup accelerator together with Sumitomo Corporation (TSE: 8053) and SCSK (TSE: 9719), while LexxPluss was born out of the second batch of the program in 2020 and was later selected for the HAX Shenzhen program to mass-produce AMRs. After the latest funding, the company is setting up a US subsidiary in Newark, NJ to begin its expansion into the US market. LexxPluss was founded in 2020 by…
Japanese AMR (autonomous mobile robot) developer LexxPluss announced on Wednesday that it has secured 1.45 billion yen (about $11 million US) in a Series A round. Participating investors are Drone Fund, SBI Investment, DBJ Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Mizuho Lease’s Mirai Sozo Capital, Incubate Fund, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital, Logistics Innovation Fund (operated by Seino Holdings and Spiral Innovation Partners), SMBC Venture Capital, SOSV, and Mizuho Capital.
This follows a pre-Series A round in November of 2021. Among these investors, Incubate Fund, MSI Capital, Logistics Innovation Fund, SMBC Venture Capital, SOSV, and Mizuho Capital followed their investment in a previous round. The latest round brought the company’s funding sum up to date to 1.8 billion yen (about $13.5 million)
SOSV, one of the investors, operates HAX Tokyo, the Tokyo chapter of the HAX hardware-focused startup accelerator together with Sumitomo Corporation (TSE: 8053) and SCSK (TSE: 9719), while LexxPluss was born out of the second batch of the program in 2020 and was later selected for the HAX Shenzhen program to mass-produce AMRs. After the latest funding, the company is setting up a US subsidiary in Newark, NJ to begin its expansion into the US market.
LexxPluss was founded in 2020 by Masaya Aso, a former Bosch employee. Besides LexxPluss, he is the president of Deep4Drive, an open mobility development community focused on automated driving and reinforcement learning. In order to remove the obstacles to introducing robots to the Japanese logistics industry, he is differentiating his company by developing robots that can cooperate with humans in both hardware and software in a hybrid form of AGV (automated guided vehicles) and AMR.
LexxPluss plans to expand the production scale of its Hybrid-AMR to 1,500 units per year over the next two years. Some of our readers may recall the company has been selected for the Incubate Camp 13th in 2020. In the fist batch (September 2020 to March 2021) of Hikyaku Labo, the startup accelerator by logistics giant Sagawa Express, LexxPluss won the Jury’s Special Award at the Demo Day.
via PR Times
Tokyo-based Estonian entrepreneur launches mobile neobank for migrant workers in Japan
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Talinn-based G-Bank Technologies OÜ and Tokyo-based GIG-A, the two companies run by Estonian entrepreneur Raul Allikivi, jointly launched a multilingual mobile financial service called GIG-A on Wednesday. GIG-A enables its users to open bank accounts, manage deposits, and money transfer in Japan based on API integration with UI Bank, a subsidiary of Tokyo Kiraboshi Financial Group (TSE:7173) For the time being, it is available only on Android and based on invitation only. The service is available in Vietnamese, English, and Japanese. By appointing an agent, it allow yoou to handle UI Bank’s account opening/closing, deposit/withdrawal, and domestic remittance. In the West, neobanks dealing with financial services for immigrants are gaining momentum. Well-known examples include Y Combinator-backed Moneco in Switzerland (for imigrants from Africa working in Europe), HSBC-backed Monese in the U.K., BNP Paribas-backed Rewire in Israel, and Majority in the U.S. (for imigrants from Latin America working in the U.S.), and Moneytrans in Belgium. Against this backdrop, GIG-A is designed as an optimal banking service for the growing number of foreign workers in Japan. GIG-A was founded in 2021 by Allikivi and his team. Prior to the business, he joined the Estonian Ministry of Economy and Communication after completing his…
Talinn-based G-Bank Technologies OÜ and Tokyo-based GIG-A, the two companies run by Estonian entrepreneur Raul Allikivi, jointly launched a multilingual mobile financial service called GIG-A on Wednesday. GIG-A enables its users to open bank accounts, manage deposits, and money transfer in Japan based on API integration with UI Bank, a subsidiary of Tokyo Kiraboshi Financial Group (TSE:7173)
For the time being, it is available only on Android and based on invitation only. The service is available in Vietnamese, English, and Japanese. By appointing an agent, it allow yoou to handle UI Bank’s account opening/closing, deposit/withdrawal, and domestic remittance.
In the West, neobanks dealing with financial services for immigrants are gaining momentum. Well-known examples include Y Combinator-backed Moneco in Switzerland (for imigrants from Africa working in Europe), HSBC-backed Monese in the U.K., BNP Paribas-backed Rewire in Israel, and Majority in the U.S. (for imigrants from Latin America working in the U.S.), and Moneytrans in Belgium. Against this backdrop, GIG-A is designed as an optimal banking service for the growing number of foreign workers in Japan.
GIG-A was founded in 2021 by Allikivi and his team. Prior to the business, he joined the Estonian Ministry of Economy and Communication after completing his master’s degree at Waseda University in Tokyo in 2005 followed by serving as Deputy Director General of the Estonian Ministry of Economy and Communication from 2007 to 2012.
Subsequently, he was a government-certified auditor for Estonian Airways from 2010 to 2012 to help the airliner’s restructure. Currently living in Japan, he has founded ESTASIA (consulting firm introducing Estonian administrative systems to Asia), BIIRU (Japanese craft beer importer for Europe), and co-founded IoT startup Planetway.
via PR Times
Meet Secondz, Chrome extension to create app guides only by browsing and clicks
Masaru Ikeda
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Tokyo-based startup Adsai officially launched a platform called Secondz, which allows manual creators to make animated manuals for help desks and customer support centers with just a single click. These manuals can be created (recorded) in the form of an operation through the Chrome browser with a Google Chrome extension, and can be viewed on various web browsers for PCs and mobile devices. Manual creators can use a dashboard to see stats such as which pages visitors are viewing, which pages they are dropping off. Adsai was founded in 2019 by CEO Tatsuya Itai and others. Prior to Adsai, Itai has been previously invovled in developing social game titles at Gree (TSE: 3632), business planning and product planning manager at recruiting company En Japan (TSE: 4849), and the launch of natural language processing and B2B SaaS solutions at PKSHA Technology (TSE: 3993). The company has so far developed several products such as an automation tool for programmatic recruitment advertising under the same name as well as a product demo clip creation tool called Selfdemo. Developed based on the Selfdemo tool, the Secondz platform is designed to better fit to the use of help desk and customer support centers. While the…
Image credit: Adsai
Tokyo-based startup Adsai officially launched a platform called Secondz, which allows manual creators to make animated manuals for help desks and customer support centers with just a single click. These manuals can be created (recorded) in the form of an operation through the Chrome browser with a Google Chrome extension, and can be viewed on various web browsers for PCs and mobile devices. Manual creators can use a dashboard to see stats such as which pages visitors are viewing, which pages they are dropping off.
Adsai was founded in 2019 by CEO Tatsuya Itai and others. Prior to Adsai, Itai has been previously invovled in developing social game titles at Gree (TSE: 3632), business planning and product planning manager at recruiting company En Japan (TSE: 4849), and the launch of natural language processing and B2B SaaS solutions at PKSHA Technology (TSE: 3993).
The company has so far developed several products such as an automation tool for programmatic recruitment advertising under the same name as well as a product demo clip creation tool called Selfdemo. Developed based on the Selfdemo tool, the Secondz platform is designed to better fit to the use of help desk and customer support centers.
While the spread of chatbots has led to labor savings and increased efficiency in help desks and customer support centers, more than a few companies are faced with the challenge of not having FAQs or question and answer collections in place to train chatbots. Therefore, Adsai has started developing the platform to easily explain how to use it to users without requiring extensive preparation. Since its launch on Product Hunt on January 8, the Secondz platform has gained paying users from 35 countries around the world. It has been ranked on the third place as a Product of the Day.
Itai created an animated guide for the Bridge website using Secondz in a few seconds.
Following the PLG (Product-Led Growth) strategy, the platform is offered on a freemium basis but the free edition has some restrictions such as logging being limited to the latest version and the quantity of recordable versions. These restrictions can be removed by transferring to the paying menu for $15 a month. The created manuals can be shared via URL and even embedded in websites using Iframe tags (see above). Within the next six months, the company plans to launch a new version that allows you to record operations of desktop apps.
Combined with ChatGPT and other tools, Adsai plans to evolve Seconds into a comprehensive support platform so that users can ask questions interactively. Itai says that by using the generative AI technology, it will be possible to create the equivalent of an FAQ menu by simply recording transitioning screens by mouse clicks with answering a few questions. This new version is expected to complete in few months, and then publish it again on Product Hunt.
According to its post on Japanese social recruiting platform Wantedly, Adsai apparently secured VC funding back in 2021. Prior to that, the company was selected for the 14th batch of the AI.Accelerator program run by Japanese recruiting company DIP (TSE: 2379). Along with the launch of the Secondz Japanese edition at this time, the company announced that it has been selected by Microsoft for Startups.
Japan’s space debris removing startup Astroscale secures $74M in series G round
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Tokyo-based Astroscale Holdings, the Japanese startup offering space debris removal services, has secured approximately 10.1 billion yen (about $74 million) in a Series G round, which brought the startup’s total funding sum up to 43.5 billion yen (about $319 million). This follows their Series F round back in November of 2021. Investors participating in the latest round are: In May, Astroscale successfully demonstrated the guided approach of the ELSA-d debris removal technology demonstration satellite. In addition, for the launch of the EKSA-M actual operation satellite, the company signed a €14.8 million deal with US satellite operator OneWeb, UKSA and ESA (space agencies under the UK and European Union governments). They also secured 1.7 million pounds from UKSA for the removal of two British orbiting satellites in September, Since the Series F round back in November of 2021, the company’s workforce has grown by more than 63 percent, reaching about 400 employees globally. via PR Times
Image credit: Astroscale Holdings
Tokyo-based Astroscale Holdings, the Japanese startup offering space debris removal services, has secured approximately 10.1 billion yen (about $74 million) in a Series G round, which brought the startup’s total funding sum up to 43.5 billion yen (about $319 million). This follows their Series F round back in November of 2021.
Investors participating in the latest round are:
- Mitsubishi Electric (TSE: 6503)
- Yusaku Maezawa
- Mitsubishi UFJ Bank
- Mitsubishi Corporation (TSE: 8058)
- Development Bank of Japan
- FEL
In May, Astroscale successfully demonstrated the guided approach of the ELSA-d debris removal technology demonstration satellite. In addition, for the launch of the EKSA-M actual operation satellite, the company signed a €14.8 million deal with US satellite operator OneWeb, UKSA and ESA (space agencies under the UK and European Union governments). They also secured 1.7 million pounds from UKSA for the removal of two British orbiting satellites in September,
Since the Series F round back in November of 2021, the company’s workforce has grown by more than 63 percent, reaching about 400 employees globally.
via PR Times
Japan’s virtual YouTuber management agency Cover files for IPO valued at $320M
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Takeshi Hirano
Takeshi Hirano
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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Cover, the startup offering management production services of VTubers (short for “virtual YouTubers”), announced on Friday that its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on March 27 with plans to offer 1.5 million shares for public subscription and to sell 1,864,100 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 10,927,400 shares. The underwriting will be co-led by Mizuho Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities while Cover’s ticker code will be 5253. Based on the estimated issue price of 710 yen (about $5.3) and total number of issued shares (61,124,200), the company will be valued at 43 billion yen (about $320 million). Its share price range will be released on March 7 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on March 8 and pricing on March 14. According to the consolidated statement as of March 2022, they posted revenue of 13.6 billion yen (about $101 million) with an ordinary profit of 1.85 billion yen (about $13.7 million). Founded back in June of 2016, Cover started with producing virtual reality content followed by releasing the Ping Pong League game back in…
See the original story in Japanese.
Tokyo-based Cover, the startup offering management production services of VTubers (short for “virtual YouTubers”), announced on Friday that its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on March 27 with plans to offer 1.5 million shares for public subscription and to sell 1,864,100 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 10,927,400 shares. The underwriting will be co-led by Mizuho Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities while Cover’s ticker code will be 5253.
Based on the estimated issue price of 710 yen (about $5.3) and total number of issued shares (61,124,200), the company will be valued at 43 billion yen (about $320 million). Its share price range will be released on March 7 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on March 8 and pricing on March 14. According to the consolidated statement as of March 2022, they posted revenue of 13.6 billion yen (about $101 million) with an ordinary profit of 1.85 billion yen (about $13.7 million).
Founded back in June of 2016, Cover started with producing virtual reality content followed by releasing the Ping Pong League game back in 2017. The company launched Vtuber Tokino Sora in September of 2017, which became later a smash hit.
Subsequenly, Cover launched the Hololive female VTuber group which later led to their Vtuber agency business called Hololive Production. The company now has 71 Vtubers (48 for Japan, 9 for Indonesia, and 14 for English-speaking countries), and 31 out of them have earned over 1 million followers in their YouTube channel. The total number of YouTube Channel followers of all VTubers in the company has exceeded 10 million.
Cover’s monetization hevily depends on Vtuber and its related businesses such as producing livestreaming content, live performance events, merchandising, and licensing and tie-ups. Led by CEO Motoaki Tanigo (38.2%), their major sharholders include Strive (17.3%), Valley (5.5%), CTO Kazuyuki Fukuda (5%), and Mizuho Capital (3.6%).
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Restaurant discovery app SynchroLife to be acquired by Livedoor’s parent company
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Bridge learned that SynchroLife, the AI-powered social restaurant discovery app developed and managed by Ginkan, will be acquired by Minkabu the Infonoid (TSE:4436), the parent company of Japanese news portal site Livedoor. The terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed. Since Livedoor describes the move as a business transfer rather than a company acquisition, it may be possible that Ginkan will explore establishing another business after the deal. Details are unknown at this time but Bridge has reached out to Ginkan for further details. Launched back in October of 2012, SynchroLife has been dedicated to establishing a community leveraging blockchain technology and its SynchroCoin token to prevent arbitrary bias from influencing the posting of restaurant reviews. Originally launched by Tokyo-based startup AI Pacific, the app has been run by Hong Kong-registered Ginkan since 2015 to support crypto-powered functions. In July of 2019, the company started allowing users to earn tokens by dining at partnering restaurants. The app has earned 10,000 monthly restaurant reviews from users to date, which eventually exceeded 400,000 reviews in total as of August. In Japan, more than 1,800 restaurants are using it to help their marketing effort. Companies like credit card services, gas providers and…
Image credit: Ginkan
Bridge learned that SynchroLife, the AI-powered social restaurant discovery app developed and managed by Ginkan, will be acquired by Minkabu the Infonoid (TSE:4436), the parent company of Japanese news portal site Livedoor.
The terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed. Since Livedoor describes the move as a business transfer rather than a company acquisition, it may be possible that Ginkan will explore establishing another business after the deal. Details are unknown at this time but Bridge has reached out to Ginkan for further details.
Launched back in October of 2012, SynchroLife has been dedicated to establishing a community leveraging blockchain technology and its SynchroCoin token to prevent arbitrary bias from influencing the posting of restaurant reviews.
Originally launched by Tokyo-based startup AI Pacific, the app has been run by Hong Kong-registered Ginkan since 2015 to support crypto-powered functions. In July of 2019, the company started allowing users to earn tokens by dining at partnering restaurants.
The app has earned 10,000 monthly restaurant reviews from users to date, which eventually exceeded 400,000 reviews in total as of August. In Japan, more than 1,800 restaurants are using it to help their marketing effort. Companies like credit card services, gas providers and local sports teams are assisting the startup expand the app’s merchant base.
Offering media services such as Livedoor News and Kstyle, Livedoor boasts 70 million monthly active users and 30 million social network followers. By acquiring the social app, the company intends to diversify its media service coverage into gourmet while offering their existing users with new customer experience and the token economy to increase loyalty. In addition, the company wants to enlarge the app’s user base through driving traffic from their conventional services.
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via Livedoor
Japan’s Linda Pesa raises $230K to give financial access to SME owners in Tanzania
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Tokyo- / Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam-based Linda Pesa, the Japanese startup developing a business management app for small businesses in Tanzania, announced on Friday that it has raised approximately 30 million yen (about $230,000) in its first and latest round. Participating investors are East Ventures, Marui Group (TSE: 8252), Skylight Consulting, and 01Booster Capital. The company was founded back in March of 2022 by Ayu Yamaguchi who previously worked at Wassha, the Japanese startup offering power supply and other services for off-grid Africa by harnessing local kiosks, and its joint venture with Daikin offering subscription-based air conditioner rental business focused on the region. In Africa, many small business owners still rely on handwritten notes for business management. The company give small business owners a mobile app to help them digitize their business management proocess. By offering credit histories collected from the app to stakeholders, the company helps these owners access financial markets such as loan and investment services. via PR Times
Tokyo- / Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam-based Linda Pesa, the Japanese startup developing a business management app for small businesses in Tanzania, announced on Friday that it has raised approximately 30 million yen (about $230,000) in its first and latest round. Participating investors are East Ventures, Marui Group (TSE: 8252), Skylight Consulting, and 01Booster Capital.
The company was founded back in March of 2022 by Ayu Yamaguchi who previously worked at Wassha, the Japanese startup offering power supply and other services for off-grid Africa by harnessing local kiosks, and its joint venture with Daikin offering subscription-based air conditioner rental business focused on the region.
In Africa, many small business owners still rely on handwritten notes for business management. The company give small business owners a mobile app to help them digitize their business management proocess. By offering credit histories collected from the app to stakeholders, the company helps these owners access financial markets such as loan and investment services.
via PR Times
Japan Lead VC Radar – A glance of the most active lead VCs in 2022 (Infographic)
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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. As is customary, we are publishing once again our annual VC Radar for Japan. The VC Radar reflects Japan’s most active Lead VCs. For the 2022 edition, this infographic depicts the number of new investments led by Japan’s independent venture capital funds into domestic startups last year. Only investments in which the VC served as Lead investor for a startup that was not already in their portfolio are counted here. We believe this is an important tool for Japan’s growing startup ecosystem. You can read more about our rationale here (special thanks to Kanako for compiling this data !). [One additional note: we strive for full accuracy on this infographic and apologize for any mistakes. Feel free to direct any…
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.
As is customary, we are publishing once again our annual VC Radar for Japan. The VC Radar reflects Japan’s most active Lead VCs.
For the 2022 edition, this infographic depicts the number of new investments led by Japan’s independent venture capital funds into domestic startups last year. Only investments in which the VC served as Lead investor for a startup that was not already in their portfolio are counted here.
We believe this is an important tool for Japan’s growing startup ecosystem. You can read more about our rationale here (special thanks to Kanako for compiling this data !).
[One additional note: we strive for full accuracy on this infographic and apologize for any mistakes. Feel free to direct any requested corrections to [email protected]].
Chat-based marketing platform ChiChat secures series A round for Asia expansion
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Updated on 4pm, Feb 9th: Adding Zeal’s funding method, as colored in red. 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-based marketing support on social network services for Japanese e-commerce 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 securing the seed round. HitoBito’s sales from the cross-border commerce sector has decreased by 70% as not only human traffic was restricted but also logistics became severely disrupted. Facing such a difficulty,…
Founder and CEO Masaya Ishikawa sits in the middle of the first row.
Image credit: HitoBito
Updated on 4pm, Feb 9th: Adding Zeal’s funding method, as colored in red.
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-based marketing support on social network services for Japanese e-commerce 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 securing the seed round. HitoBito’s sales from the cross-border commerce sector has decreased by 70% as not only human traffic was restricted but also logistics became severely disrupted. Facing such a difficulty, Ishikawa decided to shut down his company’s Thai subsidiary and settle down in Taipei to 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.
Image credit: HitoBito
HitoBito announced on Friday that it has secured a series A round. 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 but is supposedly 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 Japanese yen (over $38 million US) in equity and debt in May while Chatbook was acquired by Monex Group (TSE:8698) in July. 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.
Secai Marche secures $1.6M in series A for Asia’s shared supply chain for fresh foods
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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….
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
Japan’s robotic leg prosthesis developer BionicM secures $2.8M in extended series A round
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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…
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.
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.
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.
On the importance of a Lead VC
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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…
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?
“Github for Dapps” from Japan gets $4.5M in seed round to ease smart contract dev
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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…
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
