This past March saw the three year anniversary of the tragic 3.11 earthquake here in Japan. At the time, Line Corporation released a set of stickers to sell on its platform, drawn by kids from the affected regions. The set of 24 stickers, pictured below, were to be sold for 100 yen (or about $1) with proceeds going towards ongoing recovery efforts.
According to japan.internet.com this evening, that set of stickers has now raised over 38 million yen (about $370,000) in the six short weeks that they have been available for purchase. Line apparently doesn’t make any money from this, taking only what it needs to handle transaction fees on Apple and Google app stores.
The stickers can still be purchased if you’d like to do so, as they’ll be available until September 10 of this year.
Line did something similar to assist with Typhoon Haiyan relief in the Philippines last year, raising over $500,000 in that effort.
Line released its mobile game Sonic Dash S, developed by Sega, back in late January. The title was made available in a number of Asian countries, but it hadn’t performed very well until a recent 1.1 update gave it a boost in most of its app markets. Still, this is perhaps the most famous IP that Line has featured in a game to date, and I’d expected it to perform far better. I hadn’t given the game a serious look until recently, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts here. Sonic Dash is, as has been pointed out before, more or less a Temple Run clone, requiring you to swipe up/down/left/right to avoid enemies and treacherous obstacles. You can gather and use items you collect, as well as use supporting characters (or Chaos [1]). With the exception of a number of surprising app crashes, I found the gameplay pretty straightforward, with much of the Line integration that we have from the company’s other mobile games. You can get rewards by sharing information to your friends on Line, and even borrow Chao characters from them if you wish. The problem for me is that only one of my 162 Line…
Line released its mobile game Sonic Dash S, developed by Sega, back in late January. The title was made available in a number of Asian countries, but it hadn’t performed very well until a recent 1.1 update gave it a boost in most of its app markets. Still, this is perhaps the most famous IP that Line has featured in a game to date, and I’d expected it to perform far better.
I hadn’t given the game a serious look until recently, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts here. Sonic Dash is, as has been pointed out before, more or less a Temple Run clone, requiring you to swipe up/down/left/right to avoid enemies and treacherous obstacles. You can gather and use items you collect, as well as use supporting characters (or Chaos [1]).
With the exception of a number of surprising app crashes, I found the gameplay pretty straightforward, with much of the Line integration that we have from the company’s other mobile games. You can get rewards by sharing information to your friends on Line, and even borrow Chao characters from them if you wish. The problem for me is that only one of my 162 Line friends is actually playing Sonic Dash – not a good number in comparison to other Line games I’ve played.
With the new 1.1 update a number of changes have been made to the game, with stages shortened and a new character, Blaze (pictured below), added to the list of playable characters [2]. A new beach course has been added to the game as well.
If you’d like to give Line Sonic Dash S a try, you can get it as a free download for iOS or Android. Let us know in the comments if you find it a tad crashy as well!
By ‘Chaos’ I don’t mean the word ‘chaos’ but rather plural of the word ‘Chao’. ↩
You need to spend rings to upgrade to Blaze of course, so it will take a little while before you can unlock her. ↩
The Tokyo incarnation of Startup Weekend has been ongoing for quite some time now [1]. And while the most recent Startup Weekends are held mostly in Japanese to encourage more local involvement, we’re glad to see that this weekend (Friday, April 25th to Sunday, April 27th) will mark the first international-themed event, appropriately dubbed Startup Weekend Tokyo International. We spoke briefly with one of the organizers who explained that even though the regular Startup Weekend Tokyo events have become rather homogenous, there are still many Japanese people interested in international business who would like to meet a more diverse range of people. Similarly, having an international themed event encourages people from other countries who might be here in Tokyo to come out and participate. While the event will be conducted in English, and for anyone here in Tokyo it could be a good opportunity to pitch in English and meet some fun people as well. If you’d like to sign up for this one, you can do so over on Doorkeeper. One of our earliest postings about the event dates all the way back to 2010. ↩
The Tokyo incarnation of Startup Weekend has been ongoing for quite some time now [1]. And while the most recent Startup Weekends are held mostly in Japanese to encourage more local involvement, we’re glad to see that this weekend (Friday, April 25th to Sunday, April 27th) will mark the first international-themed event, appropriately dubbed Startup Weekend Tokyo International.
We spoke briefly with one of the organizers who explained that even though the regular Startup Weekend Tokyo events have become rather homogenous, there are still many Japanese people interested in international business who would like to meet a more diverse range of people. Similarly, having an international themed event encourages people from other countries who might be here in Tokyo to come out and participate.
While the event will be conducted in English, and for anyone here in Tokyo it could be a good opportunity to pitch in English and meet some fun people as well.
If you’d like to sign up for this one, you can do so over on Doorkeeper.
One of our earliest postings about the event dates all the way back to 2010. ↩
Tokyo-based Allied Architects(TSE:6081) announced yesterday it has set up a subsidiary in Singapore. It’s called Allied Asia Pacific, and it will administrate operations around the company’s marketing services in the region, including the ‘Monipla for Facebook’ marketing platform in Vietnam and Taiwan. Our readers may recall that the company recently partnered with Silicon Valley-based growth hacking startup AppSocially. So I expect this expansion is intended to assist such partner services in reaching out to local businesses in the region. via Venture Now
Tokyo-based Allied Architects(TSE:6081) announced yesterday it has set up a subsidiary in Singapore. It’s called Allied Asia Pacific, and it will administrate operations around the company’s marketing services in the region, including the ‘Monipla for Facebook’ marketing platform in Vietnam and Taiwan.
Our readers may recall that the company recently partnered with Silicon Valley-based growth hacking startup AppSocially. So I expect this expansion is intended to assist such partner services in reaching out to local businesses in the region.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Freee, the operator of a cloud-based accounting solution of the same name, has raised $8 million from two venture capital firms, including DCM and Infinity Venture Partners. This is according to a Nikkei reported earlier this morning. Prior to this funding, the company secured a $500,000 in seed round funding from DCM back in March of last year, and a $2.7 million series A round of funding from DCM and Infinity Venture Partners back in July. The total amount of funding to date has reached $11.2 million since the company’s launch back in July of 2012. For more information about the company, check out our brief interview below with their execs from back in October. In this space, their competitor Money Forward also raised $5 million from Jafco back in October.
Tokyo-based Freee, the operator of a cloud-based accounting solution of the same name, has raised $8 million from two venture capital firms, including DCM and Infinity Venture Partners. This is according to a Nikkei reported earlier this morning.
Prior to this funding, the company secured a $500,000 in seed round funding from DCM back in March of last year, and a $2.7 million series A round of funding from DCM and Infinity Venture Partners back in July. The total amount of funding to date has reached $11.2 million since the company’s launch back in July of 2012. For more information about the company, check out our brief interview below with their execs from back in October.
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based Chintai Joho Co., the startup behind apartment search portal Cashback Chintai, announced today that it has fundraised 100 million yen (about $975,300) from Japanese investment firm Global Brain. Their portal allows property agents to list apartments on a pay-per-performance basis, which doesn’t require them to pay any adverting fee until a contract is made with a tenant. If you agree on a contract for an apartment via the website, some ‘housewarming’ reward money will be given to you. At this time, the property company can be notified that a deal was been made via the website, because they are billed at this time. Since its beta launch back in November of last year, they have been rapidly growing, with over 1.2 million apartments listed during the busy relocation season last month. They plan to use the new funds to step up system development and marketing, as well as enrich the content on their website. The smartphone-optimized interface for the site will be launched early next month. Shifting an industry Some of our readers may aware that entrepreneur Shoji Endo is on the company’s board of directors. He launched…
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.
Tokyo-based Chintai Joho Co., the startup behind apartment search portal Cashback Chintai, announced today that it has fundraised 100 million yen (about $975,300) from Japanese investment firm Global Brain.
Their portal allows property agents to list apartments on a pay-per-performance basis, which doesn’t require them to pay any adverting fee until a contract is made with a tenant. If you agree on a contract for an apartment via the website, some ‘housewarming’ reward money will be given to you. At this time, the property company can be notified that a deal was been made via the website, because they are billed at this time.
Since its beta launch back in November of last year, they have been rapidly growing, with over 1.2 million apartments listed during the busy relocation season last month. They plan to use the new funds to step up system development and marketing, as well as enrich the content on their website. The smartphone-optimized interface for the site will be launched early next month.
Shifting an industry
Shoji Endo
Some of our readers may aware that entrepreneur Shoji Endo is on the company’s board of directors. He launched his first business while attending university, and subsequently joined Japanese job search company Livesense (TSE:6054) as director in its early stages. You may recall we reported last year about the acquisition of his previous startup DreamPass.
At Livesense, he deployed the concept giving users congratulatory money when they were hired through the company’s job search portal. It subsequently helped Livesense defeat many other job sites. Now he is bringing this idea to the property business.
Unique apartment portal model?
A performance-based revenue model using the concept giving users congratulatory money is not new. So why has no one tried it in the property business industry? According to the company’s CEO Isshin Kaneuji, it’s likely just how the industry works. Considering things from an accounting perspective, typical property agents have specific figures for how much they pay for each apartment search sites, regardless of whether that effort results in contracts. He explained:
Some estate agent franchisers buy and book ad spaces for affiliated stores. In some cases, this cost is included in a franchise fee that the stores will pay every month. Conversion-based billing is cost-effective for agents when listing their apartment ads, but it may be difficult for small stores to request their affiliating franchiser to change the fee scheme.
It will be interesting to see how their website evolves this space where other two big players (Recruit’s Suumo and Homes) still dominate.
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
