This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.
Osaka-based Galaxy Agency, the startup that operates online peer-to-peer parking lot sharing platform Akippa and several online job sites, announced today it has fundraised from DeNA (TSE:2432) and several angel investors including Shokei Suda, co-founder of Japanese internet service company Enigmo (TSE:3665). Details of the investment have not yet been disclosed but it’s likely be several hundred thousand US dollars. This follows their previous funding of 65 million yen (about $650,000) from Japanese investment firm Jafco back in September 2012.
Akippa helps customers find an available parking space online. When you book a time slot for it using your desktop or smartphone, you will be allowed to park your car there by paying up to 500 yen ($5) a day. It also allows parking lot owners to easily manage their venues via the platform as well.
At the time of its launch back in April, Akippa started offering over 30,000 available parking lots nationwide. Using the funds raised at this time, the company plans to intensify efforts to acquire new users, such as by offering discount codes to their existing users when their friends sign up for the service.
Galaxy Agency CEO Genki Kanaya explained how they will proceed with the business:
We’ll be focused on providing more parking lots in areas in high demand as well as user acquisition. […] Our platform is a web app for now, but we’re planning to hire several engineers to develop native apps for mobile. We’ll introduce an iOS app early next month, and an Android version will also follow soon.
The company is planning to partner with car-rental and car-sharing companies because their typical users have no parking space at home but frequently use rental or sharing services for short outings. It will be interesting to see how they will fare in the shared-economy industry.
Bloomberg reported earlier today that Tokyo-based Gunosy, the company behind the curation news app under the same name, has secured funds worth 1.2 billion yen ($12 million) from Japanese telco KDDI (TSE:9433), investment firm Jafco, and B Dash Ventures. This follows their previous funds worth $12 million from KDDI back in March. Regarding the money raised back in March, the company used over 80% of it to broadcast a TV commercial to increase penetration of their news app among Japanese consumers. They recently launched the app in the US and UK markets over the last few months, and it is told that they plan to use the funds raised at this time to intensify their global promotion efforts. In this sector of the Japanese market, we’ve seen a number of competitors like SmartNews, NewsPick, Antenna, and Kamelio. In the US market, we’ve also seen that Flipboard surpassed 85 million users last year and acquired news reader app Zite from CNN back in March. In our recent interview with the company’s co-CEO Shinji Kimura, he told us that they are targeting 80 million installs outside of Japan, and 100 million worldwide in three years.
Bloomberg reported earlier today that Tokyo-based Gunosy, the company behind the curation news app under the same name, has secured funds worth 1.2 billion yen ($12 million) from Japanese telco KDDI (TSE:9433), investment firm Jafco, and B Dash Ventures. This follows their previous funds worth $12 million from KDDI back in March.
Regarding the money raised back in March, the company used over 80% of it to broadcast a TV commercial to increase penetration of their news app among Japanese consumers. They recently launched the app in the US and UK markets over the last few months, and it is told that they plan to use the funds raised at this time to intensify their global promotion efforts.
In our recent interview with the company’s co-CEO Shinji Kimura, he told us that they are targeting 80 million installs outside of Japan, and 100 million worldwide in three years.
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Aratana, the startup that provides most solutions needed to launch an e-commerce site, announced earlier this week that it has acquired security solution startup Gehirn (named after ‘brain’ in German) and logistics company Terminal. Since its launch back in 2007, Aratana has been serving over 5,000 companies with e-commerce solutions such as Cagolab (customizable e-commerce suite) and Sketch Page (e-commerce site design tool). Some of our readers may recall that the company fundraised 550 million yen (about $5.5 million) from Japan’s Docomo Ventures and recruiting company LiveSense (TSE:6054) last year. Using the funds raised at that time, they took over Japanese fashion and culture news publishing company Honeyee.com last year. With the acquisition at this time, they aim to solidify their edge and provide a more flexible but secured platform for their users. Coinciding with the acquisition, Gehirn’s CEO Daiki Ishimori joined the board of Aratana Group as CTO and will focus on increasing the skill level of engineers at Aratana as well as managing the security business at Gehirn. Born in 1990, Ishimori started running his own server at home when he was attending an elementary school. Subsequently…
From the left: Aratana CEO Shinji Hamauzu, Gehirn CEO Daiki Ishimori
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.
Aratana, the startup that provides most solutions needed to launch an e-commerce site, announced earlier this week that it has acquired security solution startup Gehirn (named after ‘brain’ in German) and logistics company Terminal.
Since its launch back in 2007, Aratana has been serving over 5,000 companies with e-commerce solutions such as Cagolab (customizable e-commerce suite) and Sketch Page (e-commerce site design tool). Some of our readers may recall that the company fundraised 550 million yen (about $5.5 million) from Japan’s Docomo Ventures and recruiting company LiveSense (TSE:6054) last year. Using the funds raised at that time, they took over Japanese fashion and culture news publishing company Honeyee.com last year.
With the acquisition at this time, they aim to solidify their edge and provide a more flexible but secured platform for their users. Coinciding with the acquisition, Gehirn’s CEO Daiki Ishimori joined the board of Aratana Group as CTO and will focus on increasing the skill level of engineers at Aratana as well as managing the security business at Gehirn.
Born in 1990, Ishimori started running his own server at home when he was attending an elementary school. Subsequently he attended the Security Camp training program run by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, where he got huge knowledge and experience about the server security.
In 2008, he moved into limelight since he pointed out mistakes in the hacking scene in Japanese TV drama series Bloody Monday, and later was hired by Japanese computer security company Cyber Defense Institute at his age of 18. He’s been providing consulting services in the computer security field to governmental institutions and major corporations in Japan, and subsequently established his own company Gehirn back in 2010.
When I visited Gehirn’s office, they were displaying the earthquake early warning (EEW) system that they have developed.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Clear, the startup best known for promoting subscription-based Japanese sake service Sakelife and acting as a consultant for a Japanese sake restaurant in Shibuya, launched a news site focused on Japanese sake called Saketimes today. Japan is receiving more attention from the world because Japanese cuisine has been added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list as well as the country is hosting the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The Japanese government’s cabinet office launched a project called ‘Enjoy Japanese Kokushu‘ last year and started promoting export of Japanese sake products to the global market. The company aims to give people a more enjoyable drinking experience by sharing useful tips and interesting stories about the products. Since Japanese sake products are made at local breweries around the country, we may expect the company to partner with them and provide increased opportunities to taste many different local flavors.
Tokyo-based Clear, the startup best known for promoting subscription-based Japanese sake service Sakelife and acting as a consultant for a Japanese sake restaurant in Shibuya, launched a news site focused on Japanese sake called Saketimes today.
The company aims to give people a more enjoyable drinking experience by sharing useful tips and interesting stories about the products. Since Japanese sake products are made at local breweries around the country, we may expect the company to partner with them and provide increased opportunities to taste many different local flavors.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Astamuse, the company behind the online platform for researchers and workers in the intellectual property field, announced today it has launched the English edition of the service for the global audience. The platform is serving over 1 million users in Japan with: Patent application data which have been filed over the last 20 years in Japan Over 10.5 million cases of technical information categorized in more than 38 different technical fields Analysis of about 300,000 Japanese companies in their technological strength These have been available only in Japanese until today, but the company launched the global edition to promote Open Innovation activities in developed countries and Reverse Innovation activities in developing countries using Japanese advanced technologies. It is understood that the company aims to help workers worldwide involved in intellectual property connect with each other by providing Japanese users with a translation of intellectual property-related documents from the US and European countries, and vice versa for Western users. From my perspective, I often see many cases where I need technological expertise. So I think the platform of intelligence like Astamuse.com will definitely contribute to business people and reporters as well as workers in…
Tokyo-based Astamuse, the company behind the online platform for researchers and workers in the intellectual property field, announced today it has launched the English edition of the service for the global audience. The platform is serving over 1 million users in Japan with:
Patent application data which have been filed over the last 20 years in Japan
Over 10.5 million cases of technical information categorized in more than 38 different technical fields
Analysis of about 300,000 Japanese companies in their technological strength
These have been available only in Japanese until today, but the company launched the global edition to promote Open Innovation activities in developed countries and Reverse Innovation activities in developing countries using Japanese advanced technologies.
It is understood that the company aims to help workers worldwide involved in intellectual property connect with each other by providing Japanese users with a translation of intellectual property-related documents from the US and European countries, and vice versa for Western users.
From my perspective, I often see many cases where I need technological expertise. So I think the platform of intelligence like Astamuse.com will definitely contribute to business people and reporters as well as workers in the R&D industry.
See the original story in Japanese. ZenFotomatic is a cloud-based automated photo cropping and enhancement tool and was recently introduced by an Osaka-based startup called Glams. Since its beta launch back in September 2013, the service has acquired more than 1,200 accounts from Japan as well as over 600 accounts from abroad. Photos often need to be color corrected or trimmed before uploading to a website, regardless of how much carefully you consider camera settings like resolution or white balance when you take a photo. It is not difficult to enhance one or two photos manually. But for apparel e-commerce sites that list a number of item photos this task can be very time-consuming and even hinder their regular business operations. Glams has also its own online store in Japan’s largest online shopping mall Rakuten. In suffering from busy, yet non-productive, routine tasks every day, the Osaka outfit came up with the idea developing ZenFotomatic to improve the situation. The company’s co-founder and CEO Daisuke Miura told us a bit about it. Unlike big fashion e-commerce sites, in-mall online stores have to list a new item as soon as it arrives. Because the earlier you can list it, the higher…
ZenFotomatic is a cloud-based automated photo cropping and enhancement tool and was recently introduced by an Osaka-based startup called Glams. Since its beta launch back in September 2013, the service has acquired more than 1,200 accounts from Japan as well as over 600 accounts from abroad.
Photos often need to be color corrected or trimmed before uploading to a website, regardless of how much carefully you consider camera settings like resolution or white balance when you take a photo. It is not difficult to enhance one or two photos manually. But for apparel e-commerce sites that list a number of item photos this task can be very time-consuming and even hinder their regular business operations.
Glams has also its own online store in Japan’s largest online shopping mall Rakuten. In suffering from busy, yet non-productive, routine tasks every day, the Osaka outfit came up with the idea developing ZenFotomatic to improve the situation. The company’s co-founder and CEO Daisuke Miura told us a bit about it.
Daisuke Miura
Unlike big fashion e-commerce sites, in-mall online stores have to list a new item as soon as it arrives. Because the earlier you can list it, the higher rank in a search result your item will be listed in. So it’s more likely for you to acquire potential buyers.
However, the photo enhancement process is very tough for online stores, especially for the ones with a small team like us. We are a five-person team but were often forced to work overnight for enhancing photos. We thought that more than a few online merchants have the same problem. To address it, I was jestingly discussing with New Zealander engineer Blain Hosford in my team, and he subsequently completed ZenFotomatic.
If you set a certain threshold in the app, it can automatically detect the boundary of a object and its background in a photo using a proprietary algorithm, which is obviously the core technology. It has no feature yet to learn user preference, but if you claim that your picture is inappropriately processed, it will be transferred to the Glams engineering team and they will analyze it to optimize the algorithm.
Their service prices start from 2,500 yen (almost $25) for enhancing 100 photos. The service is originally designed for small-sized and shorthanded online stores, but now even several big e-commerce companies are using it as well, so it seems like they also have a monthly flat rate pricing plan for such heavy users.
We understand that they maintain its focus on the Japanese market for now but wants to begin global expansion as money can be raised while an appropriate operating officer in addition to good engineers can be hired. The Glams CEO added:
The e-commerce ratio in Japan is as low as 3%, which is obviously lower than that of the US (5 to 7%) and UK (9%). I think there will be more opportunities available outside the country. Our service is non-verbal so we really want to reach out to the global market in the future.
Image composite feature
The company recently added a new feature that allows you to composite your preferred images very easily. For online store owners, it makes you easier to add stickers or logos to a number of your existing photos in a batch operation.
When I heard about this feature for the first time, I couldn’t understand why there is a need for it because from the developer’s perspective, I thought these image composite features are usually supported on the e-commerce platform side. In a response to my question, Miura explained:
Our potential users are small and medium-sized online store owners. Many of their stores are located in a big online mall, where they have no way to generate composited images dynamically. They usually complete processing images on their desktops and upload such completed static images to the website. So we added the feature and enabled users to complete these processes in a batch operation on the ZenFotomatic cloud.
Talking about e-commerce solutions, we like to imagine big ones designed for big e-commerce players. But I think Glams added this feature in order to provide more convenience to in-mall store owners.
I often hear from Japanese e-commerce company NetPrice.com’s CEO Teruhide Sato, who’s best known for having invested in payments processors and logistics operators in Turkey, India, and Indonesia, that there’s a common pattern for the e-commerce industry in the process of spreading in any country. Now we see several fulfillment services for e-commerce operators in developing countries, so we may probably expect ZenFotomatic to become one of the standards and an essential item for all e-commerce players around the world soon.
Shintaro Eguchi
Masaru Ikeda
Junya Mori
