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Rick Martin Rick Martin 2013.08.19
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Recent Articles

  • “Github for Dapps” from Japan gets $4.5M in seed round to ease smart contract dev
  • Japanese rocket developer Interstellar Technologies closes series D round with $30M
  • Japanese sake brewer Wakaze secures $7.6M series B to boost US, China expansion
  • In conversation with vice governor Manabu Miyasaka on City-Tech. Tokyo conference
  • Japan’s P2P lending platform Crowd Credit to be acquired by Bankers Holding

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

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

Image credit: Bunzz

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

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

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

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

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

via PR Times

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

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

The Interstellar Technologies team
Image credit: Interstellar Technologies

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

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

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

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

via PR Times

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

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

Image credit: Wakaze

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

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

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

via PR Times

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cities, the next battlefield for tech players

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

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

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

Miyasaka says,

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

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

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

What the conference aims at?

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

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

Miyasaka says,

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

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

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

He added,

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

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

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

He said,

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

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

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

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

Image credit: Crowd Credit

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

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

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

See also:

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

via PR Times

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

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

Craft Store
Image credit: Neworld

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

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

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

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

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  • news

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

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

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

See the original story in Japanese.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Forecasts for 2023 from five visionary VCs

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

mark-bivens_portrait

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

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


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

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

Miwa Seki – MPower Partners, Japan

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

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

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

Asumi Ota – D4V, Japan

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

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

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

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

Janneke Niessen – CapitalT, Netherlands

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

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

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

Ayako Miyahara – Genesia Ventures, Japan

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

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

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

Haruka Takamori – Strive, Japan

AI Democratization Will Take a Leap

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

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

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

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Four common mistakes when pitching startups onstage

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

sushi-suzuki
Sushi Suzuki

This is a guest post by Sushi Suzuki.

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

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

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


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

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

Mistake 1: Too much information in the slides

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

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

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

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

Mistake 2: Not having a strong hook

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

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

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

Mistake 3: Forgetting the call to action

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

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

Mistake 4: Being forgettable

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

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

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

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

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


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

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Shortening feedback loops

SCORE 19,642,106 The Bridge The Bridge 2022.11.26
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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. One of the mindsets which we regularly encourage our portfolio companies to espouse is the pursuit of shortening feedback loops. Shortening feedback loops, or “increasing clock speed,” is fundamental to a startup’s ability to navigate a dynamic market. Accelerating the opportunity for feedback underpins the minimum viable product concept in the Lean Startup philosophy. The opposite strategy to pursuing short feedback loops is to research a topic profoundly before acting, theorize on every aspect of a project in painstaking detail, and prepare contingency plans for every imaginable outcome. This approach might be effective for long-duration projects, and is generally considered compulsory when mistakes have life-threatening consequences. (Even then however, one could argue that hundreds of thousands of lives could have…

mark-bivens_portrait

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Japanese founder-led employee benefit platform Venteny files for IPO in Indonesia

  • Venteny
SCORE 19,299,744 Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda 2022.11.24
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Jakarta, Indonesia-based VENTENY Fortuna International announced on Thursday that its application to list on the Indonesia Stock Exchange has been approved. The company will be the first Japanese founder-led startup to be listed in the Southeast Asia region. It secured seed round funding back in February of 2017 followed by series A round funding from SV-FINTECH Fund managed by Voyage Group (now known as Carta Holdings, TSE:3688) and SV Frontier in December of 2017. It subsequently became an equity-method affiliate of Carta Holdings. In Southeast Asian countries, the lack of educational endowment insurance and health insurance systems means that many employees do not have the means to pay for their family’s higher education, medical care, or other needs. On the other hand, there are no financial services available for individuals to easily obtain loans, and corporate employees often tend to change jobs based simply on the amount of money they are paid, not on job content or job satisfaction. Financial inclusion, which aims to solve these money pains, is a bustling business area where fintech startups in the region are jostling for ideas. Venteny was founded in April of 2015 by Japanese entrepreneur Junichiro Waide, with headquarters in Singapore. Initially,…

Venteny founder and CEO Junichiro Waide

Jakarta, Indonesia-based VENTENY Fortuna International announced on Thursday that its application to list on the Indonesia Stock Exchange has been approved. The company will be the first Japanese founder-led startup to be listed in the Southeast Asia region. It secured seed round funding back in February of 2017 followed by series A round funding from SV-FINTECH Fund managed by Voyage Group (now known as Carta Holdings, TSE:3688) and SV Frontier in December of 2017. It subsequently became an equity-method affiliate of Carta Holdings.

In Southeast Asian countries, the lack of educational endowment insurance and health insurance systems means that many employees do not have the means to pay for their family’s higher education, medical care, or other needs. On the other hand, there are no financial services available for individuals to easily obtain loans, and corporate employees often tend to change jobs based simply on the amount of money they are paid, not on job content or job satisfaction. Financial inclusion, which aims to solve these money pains, is a bustling business area where fintech startups in the region are jostling for ideas.

Venteny was founded in April of 2015 by Japanese entrepreneur Junichiro Waide, with headquarters in Singapore. Initially, the company launched a corporate benefits outsourcing service business in the Philippines, which had grown to include more than 200 companies thanks to successful partnerships with major local banks and other organizations in the country. User companies allow their employees to receive benefits and discounts at city facilities and stores, as well as short-term loans in advance of their payday. Needless to say, this is an effective way for companies to motivate their employees to keep working as long as possible.

Venteny’s Super App
Image credit: Venteny

Just when all was going well, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic hit them. With all companies forced to either shut down or slow down thei business, Waide decided to close his Philippine operations out of sheer desperation, as he saw no growth potential. He rebuilt Venteny’s business from scratch in Indonesia and expanded the business by serving local companies. The company was eventually permitted to go public, approximately as early as three and a half years after taking the helm in the new market (the headquarters was officially moved to Indonesia in January of 2021).

This service was made possible by allowing Venteny’s client companies to provide loans to their employees as long as the company’s creditworthiness could be verified. In Indonesia, the company has launched an unsecured low-interest loan service not only for individuals, but also for small and micro businesses. Having four offices in Indonesia, the company plans to increase it to 15 next year as well as reactivating in the Philippines and expansion into Thailand and Vietnam.

Added at 6pm J.S.T., Nov.24.:

According to the prospectus, Venteny plans to sell 939 million shares, or a 15% stake, through the IPO at a price of Rp350-450 per share (about $0.022-0.029 US), with a target maximum raise of Rp423 billion ($27 million US). The company’s market cap, based on these values, is assumed to be Rp2.8 trillion rupiah (approximately $180 million US).

Revised at 6pm J.S.T., Nov. 25.:

Led by Carta Holdings (TSE:3688, 24.77%), the company’s main shareholders include CEO Waide (24.51%), Ocean Capital (13.06%), SBI Holdings (TSE:8473, 11.62%), KK Fund (10.37%), Relo Club (8.83%), SV-FINTECH (2.91%), Karya Bersama Bangsa (1.22%), Makoto Takano (0.39%), and Mamoru Taniya (0.39%).

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Japan’s social publishing platform Note files for IPO

  • Note
SCORE 19,465,205 The Bridge The Bridge 2022.11.19
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Tokyo-based Note, the Japanese startup behind a social publishing platform under the same name, announced on Friday that its initial listing application on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on December 21 with plans to offer 210,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 191,800 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 1,069,300 shares. The underwriting will be led by Daiwa Securities while Note’s ticker code will be 5243. Based on the company’s estimated issue price is 300 yen (about $2.1) per share, its market cap is approximately 4.4 billion yen (about $31 million). The company apparently decided to have a down-round IPO, a steep discount from its private valuation of 33.8 billion yen (about $260 million in the currency exchange rate then) confirmed in a pre-IPO round back in May. Its share price range will be released on December 5 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on December 6 and pricing on December 12. The final public offering price will be determined on December 13. According to its consolidated statement as of December of 2021, the company posted revenue of 1.88 billion yen ($13.4 million) with an ordinary…

Image credit: Note

Tokyo-based Note, the Japanese startup behind a social publishing platform under the same name, announced on Friday that its initial listing application on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on December 21 with plans to offer 210,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 191,800 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 1,069,300 shares. The underwriting will be led by Daiwa Securities while Note’s ticker code will be 5243.

Based on the company’s estimated issue price is 300 yen (about $2.1) per share, its market cap is approximately 4.4 billion yen (about $31 million). The company apparently decided to have a down-round IPO, a steep discount from its private valuation of 33.8 billion yen (about $260 million in the currency exchange rate then) confirmed in a pre-IPO round back in May.

Its share price range will be released on December 5 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on December 6 and pricing on December 12. The final public offering price will be determined on December 13. According to its consolidated statement as of December of 2021, the company posted revenue of 1.88 billion yen ($13.4 million) with an ordinary loss of 434.5 million yen ($3.1 million).

Under its previous name of Piece of Cake, Note was founded in December of 2011 by Sadaaki Kato, previously a book editor at Japanese publishers like Ascii and Diamond. The company initially launched a service called Cakes, which had been providing users with content created by multiple authors on a subscription basis, but it terminated in 2022. The company then launched the Note platform, which allows users to sell user-generated content to readers in what’s called C2C (consumer-to-consumer) format.

The platform is often compared to Medium because of its appearance, but Medium asks readers to pay for good content while Note charges readers and also collects fees from content writers. In March of 2019, the company launched a service called Note Pro, which makes it easy for companies to create their owned media.

Led by founder and CEO Sadaaki Kato (34.87%), the company’s main shareholders include Femto Growth Capital holds (13.11% through two funds), Nikkei (6.07%), Tencent’s Image Frame Investment (5.94%), Jafco (5.82%), CyberAgent Capital (4.35%), UUUM (TSE: 3990, 2.51%), TV Tokyo Holdings (TSE: 9413, 2.51%), and SMBC Venture Capital (2.02%).

via JPX

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Japan’s brand enablement platform AnyMind Group files for IPO

  • AnyMind Group (previously AdAsia Holdings)
The Bridge The Bridge 2022.11.16
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Tokyo-headquartered AnyMind Group, running its business mainly in Japan and other Asian countries, announced on Tuessday that its IPO application to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on December 15 with plans to offer 885,300 shares for public subscription and to sell 403,400 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 1,804,200 shares. The underwriting will be led by Mizuho Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities while AnyMind’s ticker code will be 5027. Based on the company’s estimated issue price is 970 yen (about $7) per share, its market cap is approximately 55.3 billion yen (about $400 million). Its share price range will be released on November 29 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on November 30 and pricing on December 6. The final public offering price will be determined on December 7. According to its consolidated statement as of December of 2021, the company posted revenue of 19.3 billion yen ($138 million) with an ordinary loss of 53.1 million yen ($381,000). AnyMind was founded in Singapore in 2016 by Kosuke Ufuka (CEO) and Yukihiko Komutsumi (Chief Commercial Officer) under its original name of AdAsia Holdings. The…

Image credit: AnyMind Group

Tokyo-headquartered AnyMind Group, running its business mainly in Japan and other Asian countries, announced on Tuessday that its IPO application to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on December 15 with plans to offer 885,300 shares for public subscription and to sell 403,400 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 1,804,200 shares. The underwriting will be led by Mizuho Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities while AnyMind’s ticker code will be 5027.

Based on the company’s estimated issue price is 970 yen (about $7) per share, its market cap is approximately 55.3 billion yen (about $400 million). Its share price range will be released on November 29 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on November 30 and pricing on December 6. The final public offering price will be determined on December 7. According to its consolidated statement as of December of 2021, the company posted revenue of 19.3 billion yen ($138 million) with an ordinary loss of 53.1 million yen ($381,000).

AnyMind was founded in Singapore in 2016 by Kosuke Ufuka (CEO) and Yukihiko Komutsumi (Chief Commercial Officer) under its original name of AdAsia Holdings. The company provides brands with a one-stop platform supporting production management, e-commerce, marketing, and logistics management, and currently has 19 offices in 13 countries and regions, mainly in Asia.

The company’s IPO application to the Mothers market was approved by the Tokyo Stock Exchange in February, but the listing was later postponed due to cooling investor sentiment in the wake of Russia’s invasion to Ukraine.

Led by co-founder and CEO Kosuke Sogo (37.21%), the company’s major shareholders include co-founder and CCO Otohiko Kozutsumi (9.54%), SMBC Trust Bank (6.77%), JATF VI (6.63%), JAFCO Asia (4.81%), JIC Venture Growth (3.92%), JP Investment (2.86%), Japan Growth Capital Investment (managed by Nomura Sparx Investment, 2.42%).

See also:

  • AnyMind Group acquires Tokyo-based cross-border marketing firm Engawa
  • AdAsia Holdings raises $12M from Jafco to expand ad and marketing platform into Japan, Korea
  • AdAsia unveils ad network and management tool, enables programmatic buying for Asia

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Japan’s FinTech unicorn Opn acquires US payments startup MerchantE

  • Opn
The Bridge The Bridge 2022.11.16
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Tokyo-based payments startup Opn (formerly Omise, formerly Synqa) just announced that it has acquired acquired MerchaneE, the startup running the same business based out of Georgia, US. The deal is reportedly worth 50 billion yen (about $360 million). Nikkei says this is one of the largest acquisitions of a foreign company by a Japanese startup. While Opn has many clients in Japan and Southeast Asia, it aims to expand into the US and Europe with the acquisition. This will make Opn’s client base, including MerchantE, reach over 20,000 clients and help them hit over US$19 billion in total payment processing. Opn (formerly Omise, formerly Synqa) was founded in 2013 by CEO Jun Hasegawa and COO Ezra Don Harinsut. The company secured $120 million US in a Series C+ round in May, which made them become Japan’s 5th unicorn (excluding those which have already made exit). Their clients include Toyota Motor and Thai duty-free giant King Power. The company claims that it serves more than 7,000 merchants, mainly in Japan and Southeast Asia, including McDonald’s and Toyota Motor.

Image credit: Opn

Tokyo-based payments startup Opn (formerly Omise, formerly Synqa) just announced that it has acquired acquired MerchaneE, the startup running the same business based out of Georgia, US. The deal is reportedly worth 50 billion yen (about $360 million). Nikkei says this is one of the largest acquisitions of a foreign company by a Japanese startup. While Opn has many clients in Japan and Southeast Asia, it aims to expand into the US and Europe with the acquisition. This will make Opn’s client base, including MerchantE, reach over 20,000 clients and help them hit over US$19 billion in total payment processing.

Opn (formerly Omise, formerly Synqa) was founded in 2013 by CEO Jun Hasegawa and COO Ezra Don Harinsut. The company secured $120 million US in a Series C+ round in May, which made them become Japan’s 5th unicorn (excluding those which have already made exit). Their clients include Toyota Motor and Thai duty-free giant King Power. The company claims that it serves more than 7,000 merchants, mainly in Japan and Southeast Asia, including McDonald’s and Toyota Motor.

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