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. ↩
United Inc, the Japanese maker of smartphone customization app Cocoppa, announced today that their flagship app has surpassed 25 million downloads, as of May 16. Cocoppa is a standout Japan success story in that it has quite successfully won fans in overseas markets, with 84% of their users from outside Japan. The service originally started back in July of 2012, averaging just over a million new downloads a month. As for user engagement, Cocoppa has seen 600,000 screen icons contributed to its platform, as well as 130,000 wallpapers. As you can see in the chart below, Cocoppa’s user base skews towards iOS. The Android version of the app has only been around for about a year (launched in May 2013), so expect this to be a more balanced distribution quite soon. Recently Cocoppa was challenged on its home turf by mobile giant Line, which launched its own homescreen customization app, Line Deco. That application is doing respectably well in major Asian markets, so this could be an interesting battle to watch in the coming months.
United Inc, the Japanese maker of smartphone customization app Cocoppa, announced today that their flagship app has surpassed 25 million downloads, as of May 16.
Cocoppa is a standout Japan success story in that it has quite successfully won fans in overseas markets, with 84% of their users from outside Japan. The service originally started back in July of 2012, averaging just over a million new downloads a month. As for user engagement, Cocoppa has seen 600,000 screen icons contributed to its platform, as well as 130,000 wallpapers.
As you can see in the chart below, Cocoppa’s user base skews towards iOS. The Android version of the app has only been around for about a year (launched in May 2013), so expect this to be a more balanced distribution quite soon.
Recently Cocoppa was challenged on its home turf by mobile giant Line, which launched its own homescreen customization app, Line Deco. That application is doing respectably well in major Asian markets, so this could be an interesting battle to watch in the coming months.
Back in February we briefly introduced the eight startups joining Orange Fab Tokyo, one of the regional accelerator programs from the French telecom Orange. Those startups, if you need a refresher, are: Abeja: An insights solution for retail stores that uses image recognition technology to estimate age and gender of customers. Jin-Magic: Internet traffic optimization technology that aims to stabilize TCP sessions. Livepass: Push notification platform for mobile app developers, enabling better contact with users Locarise: Analytics service for retail stores that makes use of wi-fi signals from smartphones (Related) Mashroom: Developing a telecommunications device for touch-screen devices called FlashTouch, which allows the transmission of data using visible light and capacitive touch. NetLED: Network lighting control system, leveraging the cloud to more efficiently use and monitor wirelessly networked lights. Pigmal: Developing PnPkin, an ID for smartphones that users the audio jack. (Related) sMedio: Lets you share photos, videos, music, or applications using Miracast technology. This past week Orange Fab held a demo day where eight of these startups pitched to an audience of about 100. Five of the startups – Abeja, Jin Magic, LivePass, Locarise, and NetLED – were selected (prior to the event) to move on to Orange’s global…
Back in February we briefly introduced the eight startups joining Orange Fab Tokyo, one of the regional accelerator programs from the French telecom Orange. Those startups, if you need a refresher, are:
Abeja: An insights solution for retail stores that uses image recognition technology to estimate age and gender of customers.
Jin-Magic: Internet traffic optimization technology that aims to stabilize TCP sessions.
Livepass: Push notification platform for mobile app developers, enabling better contact with users
Locarise: Analytics service for retail stores that makes use of wi-fi signals from smartphones (Related)
Mashroom: Developing a telecommunications device for touch-screen devices called FlashTouch, which allows the transmission of data using visible light and capacitive touch.
NetLED: Network lighting control system, leveraging the cloud to more efficiently use and monitor wirelessly networked lights.
Pigmal: Developing PnPkin, an ID for smartphones that users the audio jack. (Related)
sMedio: Lets you share photos, videos, music, or applications using Miracast technology.
This past week Orange Fab held a demo day where eight of these startups pitched to an audience of about 100. Five of the startups – Abeja, Jin Magic, LivePass, Locarise, and NetLED – were selected (prior to the event) to move on to Orange’s global demo day in Paris on June 12. They will join other Orange family startups from the US, France, Poland, and Israel.
It will be especially interesting to see Abeja and Locarise get some global exposure, given that they are both retailer metrics solutions, a sector that is more and more popular of late. NetLED will also be one to watch, considering the recent buzz around the Internet of Things and Google’s recent acquisition of smart thermostat startup Nest.
We understand that Orange Fab has already begun accepting applications for its ‘second season’ here in Tokyo, and they are also accepting interested startups for first batches in Seoul and Taipei. To learn more about those programs, more information can be found here.
Masaru Ikeda
Rick Martin
