Tokyo-based Grood, the startup best known for its crowdsourcing platform for voice actors, announced today that it has launched a new platform called Tabikul. This service helps you arrange travel itineraries by capitalizing on crowdsourced information.
Based on your request, crowdsourced users living in certain destinations will help you arrange a travel itinerary. You can select your preference for mode of transportation or accommodations from five options, depending on your price requirements. You can receive proposals from crowdsourced users in 72 hours from the submission of your request, and even can ask for minor changes by interacting over the platform.
If you like the proposed itinerary, you can order the tickets needed on the website, without having to go to another booking site. When you order, the user who arranged your itinerary can receive 10,000 yen (about $100) as a reward from the platform.
At the time of launch, Tabikul is still limited to accepting travel itinerary requests to France, the UK, and Italy. They plan to expand it as they acquire more crowdsourced users from other regions.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Hatch is developing a hiring platform that uses machine learning and big data solutions. The company announced today that it has raised seed funding of 75 million yen (approximately $750,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and Anri. They will use these funds to intensify development and marketing efforts for their hiring support platform, which will be called Talentio. The company was launched last August by Akihito Nihomiya (CEO), Ichiro Sadahira (COO and CFO), and Yoshinobu Kinugasa (CTO). They initially thought they would launch a business in the edutech space by analyzing behavior, but when they found it will take time to make that area monetizable, then shifted their target to exploring opportunities in hiring. They have been developing their platform for almost half an year in stealth mode. Growth hacking for hiring The issues that the company wants to address with the new platform can be summarized in two points: First, the process of managing applicants profiles is still being handled manually at most companies, often with profiles stored in an Excel file. It can be difficult to find out who among your colleagues interviewed an applicant or what kind of jobs the person…
Tokyo-based startup Hatch is developing a hiring platform that uses machine learning and big data solutions. The company announced today that it has raised seed funding of 75 million yen (approximately $750,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and Anri. They will use these funds to intensify development and marketing efforts for their hiring support platform, which will be called Talentio.
The company was launched last August by Akihito Nihomiya (CEO), Ichiro Sadahira (COO and CFO), and Yoshinobu Kinugasa (CTO). They initially thought they would launch a business in the edutech space by analyzing behavior, but when they found it will take time to make that area monetizable, then shifted their target to exploring opportunities in hiring. They have been developing their platform for almost half an year in stealth mode.
Hatch management From the left: Akihito Ninoymiya (CEO), Ichiro Sadahira (COO and CFO), Yoshinobu Kinugasa (CTO)
Growth hacking for hiring
The issues that the company wants to address with the new platform can be summarized in two points:
First, the process of managing applicants profiles is still being handled manually at most companies, often with profiles stored in an Excel file. It can be difficult to find out who among your colleagues interviewed an applicant or what kind of jobs the person has experienced before.
Conversely, job seekers find it difficult to identify what kind of skills are needed or the amount of salary they can receive in a given industry.
We understand the company wants to implement a growth hack concept (often seen in the gaming industry these days) in the hiring and job seeking processes. They are planning to hold a ‘Secret Release Party’ soon, where they will showcase their products to selected potential users, so we encourage you to visit there if you want to check it out.
Companies have many options to streamline the hiring process using executive search provided by big companies and hiring support platforms operated by startups. And recruiting personnel are keen to find promising talent by making the most of such services. We’re told that Hatch doesn’t intend to compete with other operators or platform developers. As far as I can tell, their solution will be able to integrate with third-party hiring platforms, in the same way that many financial aggregation tools scrape updates from multiple online banking services. In this way, the platform lets you see information from multiple sources using a single interface.
While we’ve already seen Silicon Valley-based startup Jobvite in this space, Hatch is exploring global expansion opportunities from Asia, with initial plans to expand the business to Taiwan and Korea.
Kyoto-based mobile game publisher Ponos has announced that its popular tower defense title Battle Cats has surpassed 9 million downloads as of May 3rd. At the same time, the company is announcing that its repertoire of smartphone apps have now seen over 33 million downloads in total. That total surprises me, because while the company has a lot of games, Battle Cats is the only one that has ever really gotten my attention. While it has been a while since we’ve looked in on this title (the English version was retired last year, much to our despair), the most recent million downloads have come in 110 days, quicker than the previous million, which required 137 days. Ponos has recently started airing a series of commercials here in Japan for Battle Cats starring singer Sachiko Kobayashi. They’re pretty strange little promos, which is perhaps fitting, given how strange the game actually is. They ran from April 28th until May 4th, and likely were a big help in giving the game a push in the past few weeks. I’m still a big fan of this game, and if you don’t mind venturing into a Japanese-language title, I encourage you to check it…
Kyoto-based mobile game publisher Ponos has announced that its popular tower defense title Battle Cats has surpassed 9 million downloads as of May 3rd.
At the same time, the company is announcing that its repertoire of smartphone apps have now seen over 33 million downloads in total. That total surprises me, because while the company has a lot of games, Battle Cats is the only one that has ever really gotten my attention.
While it has been a while since we’ve looked in on this title (the English version was retired last year, much to our despair), the most recent million downloads have come in 110 days, quicker than the previous million, which required 137 days.
Ponos has recently started airing a series of commercials here in Japan for Battle Cats starring singer Sachiko Kobayashi. They’re pretty strange little promos, which is perhaps fitting, given how strange the game actually is. They ran from April 28th until May 4th, and likely were a big help in giving the game a push in the past few weeks.
I’m still a big fan of this game, and if you don’t mind venturing into a Japanese-language title, I encourage you to check it out.
Line Corporation’s latest entry in the mobile gaming space is a rehashed version of the jousting game Shake Spears from Russian developer Alawar Entertainment. The original Shake Spears title first hit app stores way back in mid–2011. Line announced this game was coming to its platform last year, and now this past week it has finally gone live on both iOS and Android. Like most of Line’s casual titles, Shake Spears lets you connect with your friends on the popular messaging platform. But here, in what Line calls its first ever real-time battle game, you can joust against your friends if they are online at the same time. You can also play against other players beyond your Line friends, or against the ‘environment’ (ostensibly meaning computer players [1]). There are a number of in-game purchases available too (surprise, surprise!), including upgraded weaponry and equipment, as well as magic that can be used in matches. In order to joust, you need to use one finger/thumb on the right to move your spear up or down, and likewise you need you use a finger/thumb on the left to defend with your shield. The action turns to a slow motion view as you…
Line Corporation’s latest entry in the mobile gaming space is a rehashed version of the jousting game Shake Spears from Russian developer Alawar Entertainment. The original Shake Spears title first hit app stores way back in mid–2011. Line announced this game was coming to its platform last year, and now this past week it has finally gone live on both iOS and Android.
Like most of Line’s casual titles, Shake Spears lets you connect with your friends on the popular messaging platform. But here, in what Line calls its first ever real-time battle game, you can joust against your friends if they are online at the same time. You can also play against other players beyond your Line friends, or against the ‘environment’ (ostensibly meaning computer players [1]). There are a number of in-game purchases available too (surprise, surprise!), including upgraded weaponry and equipment, as well as magic that can be used in matches.
In order to joust, you need to use one finger/thumb on the right to move your spear up or down, and likewise you need you use a finger/thumb on the left to defend with your shield. The action turns to a slow motion view as you approach the opposing knight, and you can even feint a low hit and then hit high above your opponent’s shield. Check out our video demo above for a quick walkthough of how jousting looks.
Dehorsing an unidentified knight
Line’s chief strategy and marketing officer Jun Masuda said in his company’s announcement that he hopes the game will “appeal to and attract both casual and core gamers alike.”
Personally I think it’s optimistic to think that a game like this will attract anything other than casual gamers. But Alawar will definitely benefit from the reach of the Line platform, which now extends to 420 million users globally.
Overall I think this is a fun game that would appeal to Western/European users of Line, and maybe it might be an asset for the company if and when it can win some popularity in those markets [2]. As for Line’s core markets here in the Asia region, I’d be surprised if any of them are receptive to Shake Spears.
It’s a little tricky to tell whether you’re playing against someone in real time or not. I took on a friend in duel mode, but I’m not certain whether or not we were logged in at once. ↩
Line has seen some popularity in Spain, but not that much elsewhere in Europe. ↩
We’ve seen many Japanese services that try to help travelers enjoy travel plans or experiences that you can’t find at travel agencies. But most of them target short-term visitors. So what about solutions for international travelers who want to stay for longer periods, or even relocate to a new city? To meet that need, Tokyo-based Korean entrepreneur Yuna Kim recently launched a plan matching site called Locaruu. It helps users enjoy an unfamiliar city as locals do, by connecting them with locals over the platform. The concept for platform stems from Yuna’s own experience. She studied in Japan, and then graduated from the University of Toronto. Every time she moved to a new city, she really wanted to connect with locals, but she couldn’t find any easy way to do so. She explains the kind of demographic she wants to target with this service: Our service mainly targets people going abroad for study, especially Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean women in their 30s. As for how the platform actually works, it collects excursion plans from people from all around the world, and lets you pick one for your next visit. If you purchase a plan, you pay a transaction fee via…
We’ve seen many Japanese services that try to help travelers enjoy travel plans or experiences that you can’t find at travel agencies. But most of them target short-term visitors. So what about solutions for international travelers who want to stay for longer periods, or even relocate to a new city?
Yuna Kim, founder of Locaruu
To meet that need, Tokyo-based Korean entrepreneur Yuna Kim recently launched a plan matching site called Locaruu. It helps users enjoy an unfamiliar city as locals do, by connecting them with locals over the platform.
The concept for platform stems from Yuna’s own experience. She studied in Japan, and then graduated from the University of Toronto. Every time she moved to a new city, she really wanted to connect with locals, but she couldn’t find any easy way to do so. She explains the kind of demographic she wants to target with this service:
Our service mainly targets people going abroad for study, especially Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean women in their 30s.
As for how the platform actually works, it collects excursion plans from people from all around the world, and lets you pick one for your next visit. If you purchase a plan, you pay a transaction fee via PayPal, and Locaruu takes 20% as a commission fee before connecting you with the person who posted that plan. You can browse plans without user registration, but you are asked to log in when ordering.
In an effort to explore an additional monetization stream, they are in talks with several language learning schools that might be interested in using Locaruu as a marketing channel to attract student applicants from the aforementioned Asian countries.
Because many internet solutions let you keep working regardless of location, many people these days can live anywhere or even relocate. It will be interesting to see how Locaruu can help these people live better.
Back in December we met with the folks from Cooliris, who at the time were making big efforts to push their photo sharing service in Asia. That initiative included bringing a localized version of their iOS app to Japan. And this past week Cooliris has doubled down on its Asia push, with a new Android app (see video demo here) that will certainly help its cause in a number of markets around Asia. The new app, we’re told, also features Japanese localization, so if you’re on an Android handset in Japan, do check it out. Japan is already one of Cooliris’s top markets, so this effort should help solidify that. The company is hoping to achieve a broader reach in China as well, with a partnership with app search platform Wandoujia, and it is exploring possibilities in Korea as well. For more on Cooliris, check out our brief chat with the company’s VP of business development Sebastian Blum when we met with him back around Christmas time.
Back in December we met with the folks from Cooliris, who at the time were making big efforts to push their photo sharing service in Asia. That initiative included bringing a localized version of their iOS app to Japan. And this past week Cooliris has doubled down on its Asia push, with a new Android app (see video demo here) that will certainly help its cause in a number of markets around Asia.
The new app, we’re told, also features Japanese localization, so if you’re on an Android handset in Japan, do check it out. Japan is already one of Cooliris’s top markets, so this effort should help solidify that.
The company is hoping to achieve a broader reach in China as well, with a partnership with app search platform Wandoujia, and it is exploring possibilities in Korea as well.
For more on Cooliris, check out our brief chat with the company’s VP of business development Sebastian Blum when we met with him back around Christmas time.
Junya Mori
Masaru Ikeda
Rick Martin
