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Japanese MOOC startup raises $1.5 million from investors

Takeshi Hirano 2013.07.02

See the original story in Japanese. Schoo is a Tokyo-based MOOC (massive open online course) startup providing livestreamed lectures on the internet. The startup announced today that it has raised 152 million yen (approximately $1.52 million) from Itochu Technology Ventures, Incubate Fund, and Anri. This follows its previous funding from Incubate Fund and Anri back in October of 2012. Schoo was launched back in January 2012 under the mission of “ridding the world of graduations” [1]. It provides more than 130 different online courses, and to date it has more than 40,000 users, mostly office workers in their late 20s and early 30s. With these funds the startup plans to hire an engineer and content director, and develop a system for giving lectures to other schools or companies. In the last several months, we’ve seen more than a few MOOC startups raising funds in Japan, including Smart Education, Mana.bo, and Street Academy. We heard from the startup’s CEO Kenshiro Mori regarding their business model: With our service concept, we aim to earn money by making the most of livecast programming and interaction with users, and also generating revenue streams from other sources including e-commerce services. […] We’re aiming to make…

See the original story in Japanese.

Schoo is a Tokyo-based MOOC (massive open online course) startup providing livestreamed lectures on the internet. The startup announced today that it has raised 152 million yen (approximately $1.52 million) from Itochu Technology Ventures, Incubate Fund, and Anri. This follows its previous funding from Incubate Fund and Anri back in October of 2012.

Schoo was launched back in January 2012 under the mission of “ridding the world of graduations” [1]. It provides more than 130 different online courses, and to date it has more than 40,000 users, mostly office workers in their late 20s and early 30s.

With these funds the startup plans to hire an engineer and content director, and develop a system for giving lectures to other schools or companies.

In the last several months, we’ve seen more than a few MOOC startups raising funds in Japan, including Smart Education, Mana.bo, and Street Academy.

We heard from the startup’s CEO Kenshiro Mori regarding their business model:

With our service concept, we aim to earn money by making the most of livecast programming and interaction with users, and also generating revenue streams from other sources including e-commerce services. […] We’re aiming to make our service into a platform, where we can consider possible monetization models such as charging a commission fee for item sales.

We need to adopt a progressive business model. We’ll add more attractive features for our paying users, and focus on acquiring more users, and improve our conversion and retention rates.

Schoo is expecting to surpass a million users by this December. Stay tuned to see whether the startup can disrupt the conventional concepts in this space in Japan.

That’s a translation, and obviously not really very catchy in English. ↩

news

Former Zynga Japan GM launches ambitious new flea market app

Takeshi Hirano 2013.07.02

See also the original story in Japanese. Shintaro Yamada is a Japanese entrepreneur who previously sold his startup Unoh to Zynga back in August of 2010. The company subsequently became Zynga Japan, and he was named general manager. But in January of 2012, he suddenly quit and started traveling around the world. He returned from his travels this past February, and has now founded a new startup called Kouzoh. The idea has finally been unveiled to the public, a mobile flea market app for Android called Mercari. The app allows you to take a picture of what you want to sell, and publish it to the marketplace. The buy and sell process happens entirely on your smartphone, and the successful bid is payable via credit card, bank teller, or even at a convenience store counter. An iOS app will be live in a few weeks, we’re told. The service takes a 10% commission for selling your item. And in order to prevent possible user disputes over money transfers, the startup stands in middle of every single trade between a buyer and a seller. In this space, we’ve already seen many flea market apps like Fril, Pashaoku, and Listor. Shintaro explained…

Shintaro Yamada is a Japanese entrepreneur who previously sold his startup Unoh to Zynga back in August of 2010. The company subsequently became Zynga Japan, and he was named general manager. But in January of 2012, he suddenly quit and started traveling around the world. He returned from his travels this past February, and has now founded a new startup called Kouzoh. The idea has finally been unveiled to the public, a mobile flea market app for Android called Mercari.

The app allows you to take a picture of what you want to sell, and publish it to the marketplace. The buy and sell process happens entirely on your smartphone, and the successful bid is payable via credit card, bank teller, or even at a convenience store counter. An iOS app will be live in a few weeks, we’re told.

The service takes a 10% commission for selling your item. And in order to prevent possible user disputes over money transfers, the startup stands in middle of every single trade between a buyer and a seller.

shintaro_yamada — Kouzoh’s Shintaro Yamada

In this space, we’ve already seen many flea market apps like Fril, Pashaoku, and Listor. Shintaro explained how he expects to differentiate this from existing competitors:

For now, there’s no dominant player in this space. We’d like to present our app as a place where users can buy and sell things with their smartphones safely. We still have many things to do from now, but we have an awesome team, so please stay tuned.

They have not yet set any specific target revenue volume, but the company aspires to transact a total in the range of 50 billion yen to 600 billion yen ($500 million to $6 billion).

But why would Yamada operate a mobile marketplace following his previous experience in the gaming business? He explained that nothing has been changed in terms of his strategy:

My interest is C2C (consumer-consumer) business in a broad sense. It’s one of the leaps that the internet has enabled. I really want to make something innovative in this space. Our company’s mission is to make internet services widely used in the world, and that’s the same goal as my previous company Unoh. It was mobile gaming at that time, but now we’re focusing on a flea market app.

Yamada was born in 1977, and he’s seen as a new-generation serial entrepreneur in Japan, as well as an angel investor. We will keep our eyes on how he progresses from here.

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Top 5: Japanese Online Dating Sites

SCORE 93,118

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.07.02

Online dating sites like Match.com don’t really have clear equivalents in Japan, at least not ones that people talk about using openly. Online dating is still less common here and even a little frowned upon. But thanks to the rise of social networks, especially Facebook, more people feel safe about meeting someone new online. Here are just a few social online dating services that leverage Facebook, in no particular order. My-Qpit ¶ The company behind a site called 81 just announced that its total of registered users has exceeded 10,000, this just two months after release. My-Qpit lets users search for partners by age, occupation, and even by hobbies. By liking each other’s profile, two people can start exchanging messages on the app. After going back and forth twice, they can then check out each other’s real Facebook profiles. The site is popular with young women, and is free to use — but for men, it requires a monthly fee of 2,500 yen. MatchAlarm ¶ By looking at your Facebook social graph, MatchAlarm recommends a new person for you every morning at 8am. If individuals find each other attractive, they can start chatting within the app. Many online matchmaking services…

Online dating sites like Match.com don’t really have clear equivalents in Japan, at least not ones that people talk about using openly. Online dating is still less common here and even a little frowned upon. But thanks to the rise of social networks, especially Facebook, more people feel safe about meeting someone new online. Here are just a few social online dating services that leverage Facebook, in no particular order.

My-Qpit ¶

The company behind a site called 81 just announced that its total of registered users has exceeded 10,000, this just two months after release. My-Qpit lets users search for partners by age, occupation, and even by hobbies. By liking each other’s profile, two people can start exchanging messages on the app. After going back and forth twice, they can then check out each other’s real Facebook profiles. The site is popular with young women, and is free to use — but for men, it requires a monthly fee of 2,500 yen.

MatchAlarm ¶

By looking at your Facebook social graph, MatchAlarm recommends a new person for you every morning at 8am. If individuals find each other attractive, they can start chatting within the app. Many online matchmaking services requires users to do the searching, but MatchAlarm takes away the hassle by doing the work for users. Users can check each other’s profile for a limited time, just until the end of the day (for 16 hours). It takes three coins (one coin is roughly $1) to tap on the ‘I might like you’ button.

MatchAlarm is backed by CyberAgent Ventures.

Omiai ¶

The word ‘Omiai’ refers to a Japanese custom where individuals are introduced to each other as potential marriage material. According to Omiai-jp.com’s Facebook app page, it is the biggest online dating service in Japan to leverage the Facebook social network. You can search for your ideal partner using 24 criteria, including age, nationality, income, personality, and more.

As with other sites, users can hide their Facebook identity until they feel comfortable enough to share with the other person. Omiai is free for women to use, and for men it costs 1,980 yen per month. Omiai is also available as an app on iOS and Android.

Frigg ¶

This one is also for individuals who are serious about finding a marriage partner. But Frigg takes a somewhat passive approach. After answering over 100 questions about personality, lifestyle, hobby, etc, the site recommends a match once per day. The site also allows users to choose non-negotiable criterias, such as no excess gambling or drinking. Instead of clicking through profile photos, the limited number of recommendations makes individuals extra cautious when before saying yes or no. Men can use premium service starting from 980 yen per month.

Pairs ¶

Pairs is an online dating site with over 150,000 members. With 950,000 Facebook likes, the site is very aggressive in its online marketing. Judging by the posts on its Facebook page, they appear to target men more than women. All identities are displayed by initials only, and nothing will be posted on people’s Facebook pages. You can set your preferences for your partner, and click through the options displayed.

On a related note, US-based dating site for people already in a relationship, Ashley Madison, recently made its official launch in Japan. It’s off to a good start too, acquiring 75,000 users in its first four days according to News on Japan. It will be interesting to see if that website will be accepted among Japanese people.

(Lead photo via Omiai)

news

Next in Line: Japanese messaging app makes a push for India

Rick Martin 2013.07.02

Yesterday Japan’s Line Corporation rolled out a Hindi version of its website (line.naver.jp/hi) as well as two new television commercials targeting the Indian market. This echoes the company’s previous strategy of winning new users in countries like Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Spain. Now with 180 million users, 45 million of which are in Japan, India represents an area of great potential for Line. According to figures from IDC, the nation’s smartphone market grew 74% from Q1 2012 to Q1 2013. That market is overwhelmingly dominated by Android, with budget handsets proving popular. Line’s expansion to date has been fascinating to watch. Back in April we heard the company’s CEO Akira Morikawa explain that their localization strategy does not involve establishing a series of regional offices. They are trying to be a sort of borderless company, in a way. Line will visit a region to do business of course, but the company does not feel a need to be there perpetually. You can check out Line’s new television commercials for India below. It remains to be seen how effective these will be, but based on the company’s track record and India’s growing love of smartphones, I expect things will go very…

line-website-hindi — Line’s website available in Hindi

Yesterday Japan’s Line Corporation rolled out a Hindi version of its website (line.naver.jp/hi) as well as two new television commercials targeting the Indian market. This echoes the company’s previous strategy of winning new users in countries like Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Spain.

Now with 180 million users, 45 million of which are in Japan, India represents an area of great potential for Line. According to figures from IDC, the nation’s smartphone market grew 74% from Q1 2012 to Q1 2013. That market is overwhelmingly dominated by Android, with budget handsets proving popular.

Line’s expansion to date has been fascinating to watch. Back in April we heard the company’s CEO Akira Morikawa explain that their localization strategy does not involve establishing a series of regional offices. They are trying to be a sort of borderless company, in a way. Line will visit a region to do business of course, but the company does not feel a need to be there perpetually.

You can check out Line’s new television commercials for India below. It remains to be seen how effective these will be, but based on the company’s track record and India’s growing love of smartphones, I expect things will go very smoothly.

For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

news

CyberAgent Ventures now accepting startups to pitch at Rising Expo 2013

Masaru Ikeda 2013.07.02

Japanese VC firm CyberAgent Ventures announced on Monday that it would hold this year’s edition of the Rising Expo, the company’s annual startup conference, on September 6th. At last year’s edition, 51 other VC firms and 21 companies were invited to attend conference, where a number of outstanding startups and entrepreneurs pitched their ideas to the crowd. Smartphone-based credit card payment provider Coiney won the top prize of 2 million yen (about $20,000), and the startup subsequently raised 100 million yen ($1 million) from CyberAgent Ventures, East Ventures, and an individual angel investor. CyberAgent Ventures just started accepting applications for those who want to pitch at this year’s event. Applicants must meet the criteria listed below: Your business must be IT- or internet-related. Your service is already live, and has acquired some userbase or revenue. You should be exploring funding worth more than 100 million yen ($1 million) There will be preliminary screening process prior to the event. Applying companies do not need to be registered in Japan. As many of our readers may know, CyberAgent Ventures has many offices and representatives all around Asia, so that if you have an idea that you want to develop in the region,…

Japanese VC firm CyberAgent Ventures announced on Monday that it would hold this year’s edition of the Rising Expo, the company’s annual startup conference, on September 6th.

At last year’s edition, 51 other VC firms and 21 companies were invited to attend conference, where a number of outstanding startups and entrepreneurs pitched their ideas to the crowd. Smartphone-based credit card payment provider Coiney won the top prize of 2 million yen (about $20,000), and the startup subsequently raised 100 million yen ($1 million) from CyberAgent Ventures, East Ventures, and an individual angel investor.

CyberAgent Ventures just started accepting applications for those who want to pitch at this year’s event. Applicants must meet the criteria listed below:

Your business must be IT- or internet-related.
Your service is already live, and has acquired some userbase or revenue.
You should be exploring funding worth more than 100 million yen ($1 million)

There will be preliminary screening process prior to the event. Applying companies do not need to be registered in Japan.

As many of our readers may know, CyberAgent Ventures has many offices and representatives all around Asia, so that if you have an idea that you want to develop in the region, they are one of the best teams that you could work with.

If you’re interested, you can apply here. The deadline is July 29th at 11am, Japan Standard Time.

news

Augmented reality t-shirts stand out in Japan

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.07.01

Japanese fashion retailer Beams is experimenting with AR technology to create some truly amazing t-shirts. They’re called Asoberu-T (Asoberu means ‘to play with’ in Japanese) and by viewing these shirts with your mobile camera, a very cool, unique design will emerge. The company collaborated with a popular manga Gintama to mark the release of its movie, set to hit theaters on July 6th, and the t-shirt went on sale online for a limited time of less than a week. The shirts have famous quotes from the manga characters, and cost 4,200 yen each (or about $42). In order to play with the t-shirt, you need to download a dedicated app which will be released on July 5th. Users can take photos of the pop-out designs and share them with friends on different social networks. The app will be available for both iOS and Android. You can check out Asoberu-T over on the Beams online shop.

Japanese fashion retailer Beams is experimenting with AR technology to create some truly amazing t-shirts. They’re called Asoberu-T (Asoberu means ‘to play with’ in Japanese) and by viewing these shirts with your mobile camera, a very cool, unique design will emerge.

The company collaborated with a popular manga Gintama to mark the release of its movie, set to hit theaters on July 6th, and the t-shirt went on sale online for a limited time of less than a week. The shirts have famous quotes from the manga characters, and cost 4,200 yen each (or about $42).

In order to play with the t-shirt, you need to download a dedicated app which will be released on July 5th. Users can take photos of the pop-out designs and share them with friends on different social networks. The app will be available for both iOS and Android.

You can check out Asoberu-T over on the Beams online shop.

news

Aqush gives Japanese lenders access to US personal loan market

Masaru Ikeda 2013.07.01

Aqush, a prominent Japanese social lending service, announced today that it has partnered with US-based Lending Club to form a new fund, giving Japanese lenders easier access to fundraising projects in America. For Japanese users interested in investing in US-based projects, you usually need to set up a local banking account there. As a result of this new partnership, Japanese lenders can invest in such projects by paying an additional 1.5% surcharge. Lending Club was launched back in 2007, and has handled personal loans worth a total of more than $1.9 million. The company raised $125 million from Google back in May. Exchange Corporation (or ExCo for short) is the company behind Aqush. It was launched by former investment banker Russel Cummer back in 2008, and subsequently received an undisclosed amount of investment from Silicon Valley-based startup fund 500 Startups back in 2010. He also founded another startup called MyCredit.jp which provides consumers with a credibility report of their finances, a sort of Japanese version of Experian or Equifax.

Aqush, a prominent Japanese social lending service, announced today that it has partnered with US-based Lending Club to form a new fund, giving Japanese lenders easier access to fundraising projects in America. For Japanese users interested in investing in US-based projects, you usually need to set up a local banking account there. As a result of this new partnership, Japanese lenders can invest in such projects by paying an additional 1.5% surcharge.

Lending Club was launched back in 2007, and has handled personal loans worth a total of more than $1.9 million. The company raised $125 million from Google back in May.

Exchange Corporation (or ExCo for short) is the company behind Aqush. It was launched by former investment banker Russel Cummer back in 2008, and subsequently received an undisclosed amount of investment from Silicon Valley-based startup fund 500 Startups back in 2010.

He also founded another startup called MyCredit.jp which provides consumers with a credibility report of their finances, a sort of Japanese version of Experian or Equifax.

news

Cat-on-roomba iPhone game from Japan may have just won the internet

Rick Martin 2013.07.01

One of the first computer games that I remember playing as a kid is Breakout. Since then there have been many re-imaginings of the iconic game, but I recently stumbled upon a unique one over on App Bank. It’s called Cat with Rumba (‘Neko no Rumba’ in Japanese), and by combining computer game nostalgia and the power of cute cats, this game may very well have just won the internet. If you’ve played Breakout before, the simple mechanics will be familiar to you. You simply move the paddle in the bottom of the screen to bounce your Roomba-riding cat around a very messy room. The cat-and-Roomba combo are actually a pretty hard target to miss, but the difficult part is cleaning up all the garbage before the 60-second timer runs out. In the process you can snatch up valuable treasure items too, adding to your collection as you go. When you completely clean the room, the cat does a really awesome dance as well! It is still just available to play in Japanese, but it’s simple enough to play even if you can’t read the text. If you’d like to give it a try, you can download it for free…

One of the first computer games that I remember playing as a kid is Breakout. Since then there have been many re-imaginings of the iconic game, but I recently stumbled upon a unique one over on App Bank. It’s called Cat with Rumba (‘Neko no Rumba’ in Japanese), and by combining computer game nostalgia and the power of cute cats, this game may very well have just won the internet.

If you’ve played Breakout before, the simple mechanics will be familiar to you. You simply move the paddle in the bottom of the screen to bounce your Roomba-riding cat around a very messy room.

The cat-and-Roomba combo are actually a pretty hard target to miss, but the difficult part is cleaning up all the garbage before the 60-second timer runs out. In the process you can snatch up valuable treasure items too, adding to your collection as you go. When you completely clean the room, the cat does a really awesome dance as well!

It is still just available to play in Japanese, but it’s simple enough to play even if you can’t read the text. If you’d like to give it a try, you can download it for free over on the App Store [1]. Even though it has yet to really catch on, even in Japan, it’s a super fun game and I really recommend you check it out!

I should note that this app did crash a few times for me when I installed it. So you may or may not experience the same thing. Good luck! ↩

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Japan-based Phroni introduces smart add-ons for Dolphin and Sleipnir mobile browsers

Masaru Ikeda 2013.07.01

Phroni is a FireFox add-on that scan whatever website you’re browsing and augment keywords with links to useful information resources. It uses artificial intelligence-based technology and a database of keyword-to-link mappings. Studio Ousia, the Japanese startup behind the technology, has now also introduced new add-ons for two smartphone web browsers: Dolphin Browser and Sleipnir Mobile (for iOS / Android). Dolphin Browser was developed by SF-based startup Mobotap, originally born from a Startup Weekend Beijing event. It is an alternative mobile browser for iOS and Android devices, and allows users to browse websites with gesture or sonar controls. Slepinir Mobile is the mobile version of the Sleipnir browser, created by Japanese startup Fenrir. The browser is known for its bold steps in user interface design and browsing experience. We reviewed Sleipnir for Mac back in February, if you’d like to learn more. Phroni technology adds helpful links on keywords, offering you a way to easily get to other resources you may be interested in. The technology is currently patent pending in the US and Japan. Studio Ousia is an standout graduate from Keio University SFC‘s incubation program. The startup raised 70 million yen (about $864,000) from Nissay Capital back in February of last…

phroni_on_dolphin-browser — Browsing the SD Japan website with the Phroni-enabled Dolphin Browser

Phroni is a FireFox add-on that scan whatever website you’re browsing and augment keywords with links to useful information resources. It uses artificial intelligence-based technology and a database of keyword-to-link mappings. Studio Ousia, the Japanese startup behind the technology, has now also introduced new add-ons for two smartphone web browsers: Dolphin Browser and Sleipnir Mobile (for iOS / Android).

Dolphin Browser was developed by SF-based startup Mobotap, originally born from a Startup Weekend Beijing event. It is an alternative mobile browser for iOS and Android devices, and allows users to browse websites with gesture or sonar controls.

Slepinir Mobile is the mobile version of the Sleipnir browser, created by Japanese startup Fenrir. The browser is known for its bold steps in user interface design and browsing experience. We reviewed Sleipnir for Mac back in February, if you’d like to learn more.

Phroni technology adds helpful links on keywords, offering you a way to easily get to other resources you may be interested in. The technology is currently patent pending in the US and Japan.

Studio Ousia is an standout graduate from Keio University SFC‘s incubation program. The startup raised 70 million yen (about $864,000) from Nissay Capital back in February of last year. It recently set up a satellite studio in Tokyo’s Harajuku district, where they expect to intensify software development and promotional activities.

You can learn more about Phroni in its promo video below.

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Pitapat announces public release of Q＆A service Qixil

Masaru Ikeda 2013.07.01

Tokyo-based startup Pitapat was founded back in 2011, a subsidiary of Japanese web giant CyberAgent (TYO:4751). Some of our readers may recall that it launched Qixil an invitation-only Q&A app back in April. Now the startup is announcing today that the service has been fully opened to the public, and anyone can now join the Q&A forums without an invitation. Qixil is somewhat similar to Quora, and has acquired more than 1,000 users from a wide range of profession like lawyers, politicians, and investors. According to the company, if you post a question on the app, there’s about a 92% chance that you’ll get an answer back from someone. It originally focused on startup-related topics, mainly exchanging questions and answers between entrepreneurs and investors. However, upon this public release, the service is allowing users to discuss all kinds of topics. On the app, a user can post a question in the category of his or her choosing. If you answer the question and other users evaluate your feedback, you’ll win a point for that particular category. By accumulating points, you subsequently might be qualified as a professional or expert in that category.

Tokyo-based startup Pitapat was founded back in 2011, a subsidiary of Japanese web giant CyberAgent (TYO:4751). Some of our readers may recall that it launched Qixil an invitation-only Q&A app back in April. Now the startup is announcing today that the service has been fully opened to the public, and anyone can now join the Q&A forums without an invitation.

Qixil is somewhat similar to Quora, and has acquired more than 1,000 users from a wide range of profession like lawyers, politicians, and investors. According to the company, if you post a question on the app, there’s about a 92% chance that you’ll get an answer back from someone.

It originally focused on startup-related topics, mainly exchanging questions and answers between entrepreneurs and investors. However, upon this public release, the service is allowing users to discuss all kinds of topics.

On the app, a user can post a question in the category of his or her choosing. If you answer the question and other users evaluate your feedback, you’ll win a point for that particular category. By accumulating points, you subsequently might be qualified as a professional or expert in that category.

Archive

Japanese MOOC startup raises $1.5 million from investors

Former Zynga Japan GM launches ambitious new flea market app

Next in Line: Japanese messaging app makes a push for India

CyberAgent Ventures now accepting startups to pitch at Rising Expo 2013

Augmented reality t-shirts stand out in Japan

Cat-on-roomba iPhone game from Japan may have just won the internet

Japan-based Phroni introduces smart add-ons for Dolphin and Sleipnir mobile browsers

Pitapat announces public release of Q＆A service Qixil

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