From the left: Hisashi Katsuya, CEO Genki Shiota, COO Tetsuro Koda, Fumiaki Koizumi (Photo: Akatsuki’s website)
Tokyo-based mobile app developer Akatsuki announced today that it has raised 1.4 billion yen (or about $14 million) from Globis and Link and Motivation. The company plans to accelerate its international business expansion using these new funds.
Since its launch back in June of 2010, the company has been responsible for games like Thousand Memories and Tails of Links, both of which have shown rapid growth.
Akatsuki will establish a Taiwanese subsidiary called Akatsuki Taiwan in June, where it will start developing games targeting Chinese-speaking markets.
Coinciding with this funding, the company has announced that former partner at IBM Venture Capital Group, Hisashi Katsuya, and former Mixi CFO, Fumiaki Koizumi, are joining the management board. Koizumi is involved with many startups, including Japanese mobile flea market startup Mercari and travel startup Trippiece.
Back in January we reported that Tokyo-based digital advertising network and game publisher Adways has invested in and partnered with Korean growth hacking startup 5Rocks. At the time we mentioned that Adways planned to integrate 5Rocks segment-specific user behavior analytics into its own app tracking tool Party Track, in an effort to make it a one-stop analytics solution for marketing attribution and insights into in-app user behavior. According to a brief announcement today, that integration has now finally begun. Adways CEO Haruhisa Okamura made a brief statement: Adways is always seeking the way to support our clients to maximize the profit by using our service – last year we released Party Track and realized the need to focus on not only ad-analysis but more detailed analysis on user basis. I believe this business tie-up with 5Rocks will help app developers to solve more issues.
Back in January we reported that Tokyo-based digital advertising network and game publisher Adways has invested in and partnered with Korean growth hacking startup 5Rocks. At the time we mentioned that Adways planned to integrate 5Rocks segment-specific user behavior analytics into its own app tracking tool Party Track, in an effort to make it a one-stop analytics solution for marketing attribution and insights into in-app user behavior.
According to a brief announcement today, that integration has now finally begun. Adways CEO Haruhisa Okamura made a brief statement:
Adways is always seeking the way to support our clients to maximize the profit by using our service – last year we released Party Track and realized the need to focus on not only ad-analysis but more detailed analysis on user basis. I believe this business tie-up with 5Rocks will help app developers to solve more issues.
Singapore-based Yoyo Holdings, the startup behind online rewards platform Candy, announced today that it has raised about $130 million yen (or $1.3 million) from Gree Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures, and Incubate Fund. Yoyo plans to use these funds to step up its marketing efforts and solidify back-end infrastructure. The company was launched back in October of 2012 by Yosuke Fukada (see video below) and Yoshiki Okazaki, both of whom previously worked with Japanese internet company DeNA. Their solution rewards users for performing micro-tasks by giving them prepaid phone credit. The service is currently operating in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, with more than 250,000 users acquired across these regions. In this space, we’ve already seen Japanese internet company United has roll out a similar service called DreamGiver, primarily targeting smartphone users in the Philippines.
Singapore-based Yoyo Holdings, the startup behind online rewards platform Candy, announced today that it has raised about $130 million yen (or $1.3 million) from Gree Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures, and Incubate Fund. Yoyo plans to use these funds to step up its marketing efforts and solidify back-end infrastructure.
The company was launched back in October of 2012 by Yosuke Fukada (see video below) and Yoshiki Okazaki, both of whom previously worked with Japanese internet company DeNA. Their solution rewards users for performing micro-tasks by giving them prepaid phone credit. The service is currently operating in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, with more than 250,000 users acquired across these regions.
In this space, we’ve already seen Japanese internet company United has roll out a similar service called DreamGiver, primarily targeting smartphone users in the Philippines.
Cloud storage company Box (box.com) announced its entry into the Japanese market at an event here in Tokyo yesterday. In addition to opening an office with ten staffers here in the Japanese capital, the company also announced a number of local companies that have committed to using their secure file sharing and collaboration solution. These companies include DeNA, famima.com (Family Mart’s online presence), JGC (a global engineering contractor), Mitsubishi Estate (real estate), Sanrio Entertainment Co Ltd, and Waseda University. Box also announced Konica Minolta, NTT Communications, and Cybozu as new platform integration partners joining the Box Partner Network. Box Japan, or K.K. Box Japan, will be led by newly appointed president and managing director Katsunori Furuichi, who previously served as president and CEO of Verisign Japan. It’s good to see such a high profile cloud player moving into Japan and partnering with so many major companies. Thus far Japan has been relatively slow to adopt cloud solutions on the enterprise level, and a step like this one should help accelerate change.
Aaron Lavie, Box co-founder and CEO
Cloud storage company Box (box.com) announced its entry into the Japanese market at an event here in Tokyo yesterday.
In addition to opening an office with ten staffers here in the Japanese capital, the company also announced a number of local companies that have committed to using their secure file sharing and collaboration solution. These companies include DeNA, famima.com (Family Mart’s online presence), JGC (a global engineering contractor), Mitsubishi Estate (real estate), Sanrio Entertainment Co Ltd, and Waseda University. Box also announced Konica Minolta, NTT Communications, and Cybozu as new platform integration partners joining the Box Partner Network.
Box Japan, or K.K. Box Japan, will be led by newly appointed president and managing director Katsunori Furuichi, who previously served as president and CEO of Verisign Japan.
It’s good to see such a high profile cloud player moving into Japan and partnering with so many major companies. Thus far Japan has been relatively slow to adopt cloud solutions on the enterprise level, and a step like this one should help accelerate change.
Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo started a new service earlier this week called UTme. It allows you to design and order a shirt you design yourself using their UT (Uniqlo t-shirt) line-up. You can complete your design using their smartphone app (for both iOS and Android), and order it online if you like. You can also try out the UTme experience at the company’s flagship store in Tokyo’s Ginza district. If all goes well, your t-shirt will be printed and delivered on the next day. Shirts are available in sizes XS to XL for 1,990 yen (about $20) plus shipping. The service is currently only available in Japan. The iOS app is off to an especially good start, currently ranked as the top free app in the Japanese app store. On a somewhat related note, our readers may recall that Uniqlo recently started offering Line Character branded t-shirts, another interesting initiative that might appeal to many smartphone users in Japan. via Mobile & Apps
Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo started a new service earlier this week called UTme. It allows you to design and order a shirt you design yourself using their UT (Uniqlo t-shirt) line-up.
You can complete your design using their smartphone app (for both iOS and Android), and order it online if you like. You can also try out the UTme experience at the company’s flagship store in Tokyo’s Ginza district.
If all goes well, your t-shirt will be printed and delivered on the next day. Shirts are available in sizes XS to XL for 1,990 yen (about $20) plus shipping. The service is currently only available in Japan.
The iOS app is off to an especially good start, currently ranked as the top free app in the Japanese app store.
On a somewhat related note, our readers may recall that Uniqlo recently started offering Line Character branded t-shirts, another interesting initiative that might appeal to many smartphone users in Japan.
Hong Kong-based online brokerage 8 Securities has officially launched its localized Japanese website just a few hours ago (8securities.co.jp), which will support its services for Japan when they launch in the coming weeks. The company’s Wealth Management service is scheduled to launch in early June, and its Social Trading Portal will follow in July. With intentions to expand from Hong Kong to cover both Japan and the Greater China area, this step into Japan represents a bold move for the company which looks to be growing well. I understand that currently 8 Securities will be operating profitably in 2014, with its bottom line increasing $4 million from 2012 to 2013. It boasts about 50,000 customers [1], with the average customer holding about $40,000 of investments. About 8% of their users access trading on mobile (the portal is web-based), and that approach will certainly serve them well in Japan where smartphone usage is relatively high. Unique to Japan Regarding the Wealth Management offering, the company’s CEO, Mikaal Abdulla, elaborates on how it works: We are offering Japan customers a simple way to invest in a global portfolio of up to 17 exchange traded funds. Customers complete a 3 minute online survey…
8 Securities’ Japanese page
Hong Kong-based online brokerage 8 Securities has officially launched its localized Japanese website just a few hours ago (8securities.co.jp), which will support its services for Japan when they launch in the coming weeks. The company’s Wealth Management service is scheduled to launch in early June, and its Social Trading Portal will follow in July.
With intentions to expand from Hong Kong to cover both Japan and the Greater China area, this step into Japan represents a bold move for the company which looks to be growing well. I understand that currently 8 Securities will be operating profitably in 2014, with its bottom line increasing $4 million from 2012 to 2013. It boasts about 50,000 customers [1], with the average customer holding about $40,000 of investments.
About 8% of their users access trading on mobile (the portal is web-based), and that approach will certainly serve them well in Japan where smartphone usage is relatively high.
Unique to Japan
Regarding the Wealth Management offering, the company’s CEO, Mikaal Abdulla, elaborates on how it works:
We are offering Japan customers a simple way to invest in a global portfolio of up to 17 exchange traded funds. Customers complete a 3 minute online survey to assess their risk profile and time horizon and we deliver a global portfolio that matches their goals. Its that simple.
8 Securities’ Social Trading Portal is, in my view, its most intriguing technology, a peer-to-peer service that lets users view how the community is trading as a whole, and even get push notifications for activity on watched stocks, traders, geographies, or times. Mikaal adds, “Unlike social trading mobile apps or bulletin boards, we have combined the social interaction and the actual trade. This has not been done before.”
Interestingly, 8 Securities is aiming to eventually offer this particular service via the web at no cost, with the goal of attaining 1 million registered users. That could serve as a great way to bring potential customers in the door who might then might begin investing with a brokerage account. That’s really clever.
Mikaal explains that they are also planning to launch the Social Trading Platform in Mainland China in late 2014. He explains that they develop all their products in English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and Japanese, so expansion of the tech itself will be more or less a turn-key process.
These services promise to help Japanese individuals to invest in global markets more easily, and Mikaal notes that both product lines “are totally unique in Japan and solve real customer problems.”
To learn more about 8 Securities and its push into Japan, do check out the company’s YouTube Channel which has a number of informative new videos in Japanese, including this brief introduction to the service.
Mikaal explains that this is 50,000 active accounts with assets, which differs slightly from some previous reports (like this one) about 8 Securities because of a redefinition of ‘active’, which I understand is now in line with industry norms. ↩
Masaru Ikeda
Rick Martin
