Japanese startup Smart Education, best known as a developer of educational smartphone apps for kids, announced today that it has raised 75.32 million yen (approximately $748,000) from Shinsei Corporate Investment, the investment arm of Japan’s Shinsei Bank.
Prior to this funding, the startup raised 200 million yen (about $2 million) from Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and Infinity Venture Partners back in December of 2012, and 75 million yen ($750,000) from Fuji Startup Ventures[1] and CyberAgent Ventures back in April. Thus far, the consolidated amount in its seed B funding is now a total of 350 million yen ($3.5 million).
Kindergarten students using the Smart Education apps. The startup is testing the apps at many kindergartens using 25 tablet devices.
The combination of smart devices and kids education is attracting lots of expectations among investors recently. Smart Education itself has developed nine such apps, which have racked up more than 3.7 million downloads and 800,000 monthly active users. The company points out that almost 50% of all mothers who own smart devices in Japan use these apps.
Smart Education’s growth: app downloads (gray), monthly active users (red), and revenue (green).
The company’s monetization model is based on selling picture-book or music content via in-app purchasing. For Android users, you can choose a subscription-based membership which charges on a monthly basis. They have already started overseas business expansion, and the startup’s managing director Yusuke Kusakabe explains their localization efforts in Korea is showing good numbers. As mentioned I recently mentioned, there are few competitors in this space, when you compare it to other app categories.
The startup’s directors include members who previously worked at CA Mobile, the mobile-focused subsidiary of CyberAgent. With this funding, the startup will accelerate its overseas expansions and bring in some new employees to help with that effort.
In addition to developing smart device apps, they are developing something like a platform where knowledge regarding kids education can be shared among users.
Fuji Startup Ventures is the investment arm of Japan’s largest private TV network Fuji Television. ↩
A few days ago I wrote about five iOS writing apps that I like these days. I have a bit of a weakness for such apps, and finding the best setup for writing on a mobile device can be a very deep rabbit hole, and lots of such apps (Markdown apps in particular) have sprung up in recent years. Oddly I have yet to see many people here in Japan get behind Markdown [1]. But a recent web app called Wri.pe is a promising example of made-in-Japan note-taking service that has some potential. At first glance Wri.pe looks something like Draft, another recent in-browser writing service. While Wri.pe isn’t so full featured, there’s still lots to like about it. Most notable perhaps is the fact that it can be used on mobile browsers (pictured right), which is good news for Android users who don’t have nearly the selection of native writing apps that iOS users have. Wri.pe also offers Dropbox integration, which will help with versioning if you need to revert to a previous state. There’s also a handy calendar area, which will feature any note that has a date written in it. Old notes can be archived if you’d…
A few days ago I wrote about five iOS writing apps that I like these days. I have a bit of a weakness for such apps, and finding the best setup for writing on a mobile device can be a very deep rabbit hole, and lots of such apps (Markdown apps in particular) have sprung up in recent years. Oddly I have yet to see many people here in Japan get behind Markdown [1]. But a recent web app called Wri.pe is a promising example of made-in-Japan note-taking service that has some potential.
Wri.pe on Android
At first glance Wri.pe looks something like Draft, another recent in-browser writing service. While Wri.pe isn’t so full featured, there’s still lots to like about it. Most notable perhaps is the fact that it can be used on mobile browsers (pictured right), which is good news for Android users who don’t have nearly the selection of native writing apps that iOS users have.
Wri.pe also offers Dropbox integration, which will help with versioning if you need to revert to a previous state. There’s also a handy calendar area, which will feature any note that has a date written in it. Old notes can be archived if you’d like to move them out of the way. I understand there are more features coming later, so stay tuned for updates.
Interestingly Wri.pe came about as a sort of hobby project from Yuichiro Masui, the CTO of FrogApps. He tells me that he was more or less scratching his own itch with Wri.pe, creating a note-taking app for his own use that he wished existed. Personally I was pretty impressed by his effort – even if it is just a side project – and I hope he continues to maintain it. Given that it already supports MultiMarkdown tables, I’d also like to see footnote support too [2], and maybe some popular export options beyond Dropbox.
If you’d like a preview of how Wri.pe works, check out out video demo below. There’s also a discussion of Wri.pe ongoing over on Hacker News if you’d like to check it out.
At least, not beyond Github readme files, anyway. ↩
We’ve had another fun week here at SD, doing our best to bring you interesting tech stories going down in Japan. If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here. Features 5 great mobile writing apps for iOS, and how to use them [Video] 05/31 As the race for high-skilled immigrants begins, does Japan want to compete? 05/30 Building a new business from snapshots of old Japan 05/30 Ready? Fight! A summary of 6 fierce Japanese startup rivalries 05/29 How do you create a strong management team? Japanese internet execs discuss. 05/28 Business Gyao and GREE establish investment fund to develop anime film business 05/31 Japanese data analysis startup pLucky raises funds from CyberAgent Ventures 05/30 Japanese website translation startup World Jumper raises $1.1M 05/29 Design More iPhone underwear coming soon from Bandai due to popular demand 06/02 Presentations just got even more zen with Kokuyo’s ring remote 05/30 Apps New Japanese app helps you collect and organize your personal health data 05/31 5 cute Japanese apps that let you customize your mobile’s homescreen 05/31 After becoming Japan’s top iPhone app, ReceReco sees download surge 05/29 Top…
We’ve had another fun week here at SD, doing our best to bring you interesting tech stories going down in Japan. If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here.
Photo via LikeCool There are lots of iPhone covers out there, but most of them protect everything except your homescreen button. But never fear, as toy manufacturer Bandai has the answer. It’s called Smart Pants, the world’s first underwear for your smartphone. The product first became available in March as a sort of plastic ball prize (or gashapon) in vending machines. It got lots of buzz online and the company plans to sell more this coming June. The Gashapon balls are sold for 200 yen (or about $2) each. These Smart Pants are made out of silicon, and are available in eight different designs including men’s briefs, leopard print thongs, and strawberry-patterned panties. One Japanese blogger has written a post showing his iPhone modeling all the different looks, if you’d like to see more. Gashapon is where the social games mechanic ‘Kompu Gacha’ comes from, which was famously regulated by the Japanese govenment last May. Kompu comes from the word ‘complete,’ referring to the act of completing a set of items. Bandai’s Gashapon vending machine was first released way back in 1977, and it is still popular among young children — although almost all Japanese adults are familiar with the…
There are lots of iPhone covers out there, but most of them protect everything except your homescreen button. But never fear, as toy manufacturer Bandai has the answer. It’s called Smart Pants, the world’s first underwear for your smartphone.
The product first became available in March as a sort of plastic ball prize (or gashapon) in vending machines. It got lots of buzz online and the company plans to sell more this coming June. The Gashapon balls are sold for 200 yen (or about $2) each.
These Smart Pants are made out of silicon, and are available in eight different designs including men’s briefs, leopard print thongs, and strawberry-patterned panties. One Japanese blogger has written a post showing his iPhone modeling all the different looks, if you’d like to see more.
Gashapon is where the social games mechanic ‘Kompu Gacha’ comes from, which was famously regulated by the Japanese govenment last May. Kompu comes from the word ‘complete,’ referring to the act of completing a set of items. Bandai’s Gashapon vending machine was first released way back in 1977, and it is still popular among young children — although almost all Japanese adults are familiar with the game.
There are over 40,000 Gashapon vending machines throughout Japan, so if you’re lucky you might be able to finally find some underwear in one of them for your mobile phone.
Smart Pants is another “weird Japan” idea. But weird or not, it’s always refreshing to see this kind of creativity, even if it’s a little on the strange side.
This is part of our series of articles (RSS) where we share some of our favorite technology tools. Like you, we’re pretty enthusiastic about new ways to geek out, and we hope to share some of that here. Let us know what you think. If you live here in Japan, you probably know what it’s like to be standing on a crowded train. Most of us spend that time with some mobile games, or messaging with friends. But you can get a lot of work done too if you try, and I’m finding lately that there are more apps available than ever before that can enable you to write on a mobile with ease. Since my work is primarily writing and editing, this is a wonderful thing! Many of these apps use a text format called Markdown. If you’re not familiar with it, don’t worry. It is just a plain text markup language that is easily converted to HTML. But trust me when I say that if you write for the web (i.e. if your final output is HTML), you should be writing in Markdown. It’s far more readable, and from an editor’s point of view that’s invaluable. It’s also…
This is part of our series of articles (RSS) where we share some of our favorite technology tools. Like you, we’re pretty enthusiastic about new ways to geek out, and we hope to share some of that here. Let us know what you think.
If you live here in Japan, you probably know what it’s like to be standing on a crowded train. Most of us spend that time with some mobile games, or messaging with friends. But you can get a lot of work done too if you try, and I’m finding lately that there are more apps available than ever before that can enable you to write on a mobile with ease. Since my work is primarily writing and editing, this is a wonderful thing!
Many of these apps use a text format called Markdown. If you’re not familiar with it, don’t worry. It is just a plain text markup language that is easilyconvertedto HTML. But trust me when I say that if you write for the web (i.e. if your final output is HTML), you should be writing in Markdown. It’s far more readable, and from an editor’s point of view that’s invaluable. It’s also really great if you happen to be writing on a mobile device. Have a look at the two documents below. HTML is on the right and the Markdown equivalent is on the left. Which is easier to read/write/edit? Which would be easier to read/write/edit on a mobile device?
Markdown vs HTML
I’m going to give an overview of some of my favorite mobile writing tools here. They all cost a couple of dollars each, but when I consider the benefits they have for work, they’re well worth it. Plus, it’s always fun to learn new tools!
As you can see in the picture above, even though Markdown is far simpler to type than HTML, it could still be made a little easier. In iOS for example, getting at the “[“ and ”]” keys can be awkward. TextExpander Touch (as well as TextExpander for Mac allows you to get around this in many ways. The app can be used for any kind of text expansion, but here are just a few of the ways in which I use it [1]:
Create tag links for common keyword on our blog
Create a regular Markdown links from a URL on the clipboard
Make a blockquote with an ID and permalink
Add an abbreviation tag with help/hover text for things like Japanese words
Check my video demo below to see how these work. If you want the snippet bundle used here, you can download it and mod it for your own purposes. But there are lots freely available out on the interwebs, and you can always whip up your own too!
I actually used Drafts to write this post, so naturally it is going to make my list (and it’s also the editor you see in the demo video above). Drafts is a useful text editor when you need to write something quick. Just open it up and there’s a blank page just waiting for input.
Once you’re finished writing, you can send your note to just about any destination you wish: Facebook, Twitter, Email, Evernote, Dropbox, or a different text editor. I often use this last option, but there is a wide range of Draft Actions that you can perform on your text. You can even write your own, as I did for my recent ‘data diet’ hack. This app might be my favorite on this entire list because it is so versatile.
Another powerful text editing tool is Nebulous Notes. I first discovered the power of what Nebulous could do be watching what Federico Viticci has done with it. Among my favorite features is the app’s ability to create a custom macros, which can be added as new keys on your software keyboard. Want a single button that will type you name? Can do. But there are functions far better than that of course, such as undo and redo, find text, and select text assist functions. Naturally, I use the macros functions to assist with Markdown input, but really you can use it however you wish.
Check out my video demo below for a quick and dirty overview.
While Text Expander, Drafts, and Nebulous are your workhorse text editors, sometimes you just want to feel pretty. Byword is for just those times. This app is available for both iOS and Mac, and syncs them both up using iCloud or Dropbox – so if you are the type who spends time on both desktop and mobile, Byword is a great way to make sure you have the same work everywhere.
The beauty if Byword for Mac lies in its Markdown syntax highlighting, which darkens elements like your headings or bold text, and lightens/hides things like URLs in Markdown links (see below). And while that syntax highlighting doesn’t display on an iPhone or iPod Touch, Byword is still an essential mobile tool for me, since I use the Mac version so frequently. If you haven’t written on Byword in full screen yet, you simply haven’t lived. Ok perhaps I’m exaggerating a little, but it’s pretty damn nice.
For anyone who publishes with WordPress, as we do here on SD, you’re probably aware that it’s not the friendliest system to work with on a mobile device. But invariably I’ll need to access our site from mobile, sometimes to edit a post when I’m on the train or maybe just to make a late night edit when my MacBook isn’t nearby.
Poster is a great interface to WordPress, and it accepts Markdown input too which is pretty great. But I really just like it mostly because of its clean layout and design. Of course having access to custom fields is a big help too, as is the ability to add tags, categories, edit the permalink, and save as draft rather than publish live.
I think this is a must if you use WordPress, but there’s a made-in-Japan alternative called PressSync Pro that does much the same thing. It’s also a quality app, in my view.
You can also use it for things as simple as canned email templates, which is especially helpful on mobile. I even use it for live blogging events to automatically insert linked time stamps. Note that Text Expander Touch 2.0’s fill in feature is not yet supported by all text editors. But Drafts supports it, which is a good reason to get it. ↩
See the original story in Japanese. Gyao, a broadband video distribution company and a subsidiary of Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689), and Japanese social gaming giant GREE (TYO:3632) announced today that they have established a company to invest in animation content development. The team-up was first announced back in February with a tentative company name. Making the most of IT and information systems, the new company will be called AnimatiC (which they say is a combo of animation and systematic) and its goal will be to develop fresh new animation films and content that audiences have never seen before. AnimatiC’s portfolio films will be distributed via video distribution platforms including Gyao, and it is expected that business will extend beyond developing social gaming apps or collectible card game products derivative from anime. Accordingly, for film producers, if you receive investment from the fund, you can easily get a distribution channel for your film, and have an easy access to related businesses. On a bit of a side note, Japanese smash-hit mobile gaming app Puzzle & Dragons has recently partnered with animated film series Evangelion to offered a limited time promotion where users can win character items from the series. Similarly, a film…
Gyao, a broadband video distribution company and a subsidiary of Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689), and Japanese social gaming giant GREE (TYO:3632) announced today that they have established a company to invest in animation content development. The team-up was first announced back in February with a tentative company name.
Making the most of IT and information systems, the new company will be called AnimatiC (which they say is a combo of animation and systematic) and its goal will be to develop fresh new animation films and content that audiences have never seen before.
AnimatiC’s portfolio films will be distributed via video distribution platforms including Gyao, and it is expected that business will extend beyond developing social gaming apps or collectible card game products derivative from anime. Accordingly, for film producers, if you receive investment from the fund, you can easily get a distribution channel for your film, and have an easy access to related businesses.
On a bit of a side note, Japanese smash-hit mobile gaming app Puzzle & Dragons has recently partnered with animated film series Evangelion to offered a limited time promotion where users can win character items from the series. Similarly, a film distributor planning to release the anime Time of Eve with English subtitles on Blu-ray raised more than 7 million dollars in about four weeks on crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter. These results indicate there is much potential in anime content distribution over the internet.
I believe it is possible to empower many anime creators using IT and information systems. As seen in the recently launch of anime-focused crowdfunding site Anipopo, this space is the focus of very high expectations from the market.
Takeshi Hirano
Rick Martin
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Junya Mori
