Tokyo-based Metaps, the company behind the app monetization platform of the same name, announced yesterday that it has acquired app ranking and analytics site App Data Bank.
Since its launch back in 2011, App Data Bank has been publishing reports about app ranking and market analytics for mobile app developers. Through the acquisition, Metaps expects to create synergy with their primary business that helps developers monetize their apps in over 200 countries worldwide.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based PrimeAgain, the startup best known for its mobile apps DecoAlbum and DrawChat, introduced a video chat app called Winker today. The app is available for iOS in English and Japanese. It allows you to take a video clip or a snapshot in a limited time you choose from one to ten seconds for sharing with other users. A user receiving your clip can play or view it just once. The company’s co-founder and CEO Nobuhiro Abe told us what they expect from the app: When you upload a video clip to a social network platform, you will carefully decorate or edit it prior to uploading, since it will remain permanently. Some people appeared in the clip may feel uncomfortable if you publish it to the public. However, you will have less reluctance to upload it if it’s an ephemeral and short-time one. I think this our concept is pretty similar to human memory system where we typically forget past events as time goes by. According to Abe, the SnapChat app has surpassed 70 or 80 million downloads, most of which come from the US market. So there’s no key player in this space…
Tokyo-based PrimeAgain, the startup best known for its mobile apps DecoAlbum and DrawChat, introduced a video chat app called Winker today. The app is available for iOS in English and Japanese. It allows you to take a video clip or a snapshot in a limited time you choose from one to ten seconds for sharing with other users. A user receiving your clip can play or view it just once.
The company’s co-founder and CEO Nobuhiro Abe told us what they expect from the app:
When you upload a video clip to a social network platform, you will carefully decorate or edit it prior to uploading, since it will remain permanently. Some people appeared in the clip may feel uncomfortable if you publish it to the public. However, you will have less reluctance to upload it if it’s an ephemeral and short-time one. I think this our concept is pretty similar to human memory system where we typically forget past events as time goes by.
According to Abe, the SnapChat app has surpassed 70 or 80 million downloads, most of which come from the US market. So there’s no key player in this space especially in the Asian regions. As many of our readers can agree, the Line app dominates the Asian markets while WhatsApp does in Western countries. In a similar way, the company wants to position Winker as the ephemeral video sharing app for Asia while SnapChat mainly serving American users. Abe explained a bit about the app’s uniqueness:
You can invite your friends to Winker using Facebook, Twitter and Line. However, your clips posted on the app will be never shared via these social network platforms. If you link your Winker account to your Twitter account, your Twitter friends and you can follow on Winker each other.
In this space, we’ve seen competitors like Muuk (by Mixi), 5sec snaps (by DeNA), PicChat (by Cinnamon), and Commu Camera (by Yahoo Japan). PrimeAgain plans to differentiate the Winker app from these competitors by adding new functions in the near future. Furthermore, they want to explore a potential monetization model by giving their corporate users an API (application program interface) to allow them to gain access to their official Winker accounts.
Recruit Technologies, the IT company operating under Japanese human resources company Recruit Holdings, held an event called Berlin Innovation Meetup in Tokyo this week. Several entrepreneurs from Berlin presented about services they are developing and related aspects of their own startup scene back in Germany. Berlin is one of the world’s major tech hub, and Recruit Technologies has started a collaboration project with the startup community there last year, sending its engineers to work together with startups in Berlin. Through this experience, those engineers can understand more about the entrepreneurial mindset, perhaps becoming more inventive and innovative themselves in the future. The presentation session started with Xyo’s CEO Zoe Adamovicz. Her startup has developed an app discovery platform which gives users a new way to find mobile apps they like. HeadWave CEO Sophie Willborm presented her helmet loudspeaker device, which lets users listen to music while motorbiking, cycling, skiing, or snowboarding [1]. Peter Bihr introduced his Berlin-based hardware accelerator Hardware.co and IoT-focused conference Thingscon. Kiwi.ki is a startup that has developed a keyless entry solution using a small dongle and a smartsphone. Currently Recruit Technologies’ developer Yugo Kuzuhara is collaboratively working with the team. New York-born Leah Stuhltrager introduced her…
HeadWave CEO Sophie Willborm
Recruit Technologies, the IT company operating under Japanese human resources company Recruit Holdings, held an event called Berlin Innovation Meetup in Tokyo this week. Several entrepreneurs from Berlin presented about services they are developing and related aspects of their own startup scene back in Germany.
Berlin is one of the world’s major tech hub, and Recruit Technologies has started a collaboration project with the startup community there last year, sending its engineers to work together with startups in Berlin. Through this experience, those engineers can understand more about the entrepreneurial mindset, perhaps becoming more inventive and innovative themselves in the future.
Xyo’s CEO Zoe Adamovicz
The presentation session started with Xyo’s CEO Zoe Adamovicz. Her startup has developed an app discovery platform which gives users a new way to find mobile apps they like. HeadWave CEO Sophie Willborm presented her helmet loudspeaker device, which lets users listen to music while motorbiking, cycling, skiing, or snowboarding [1]. Peter Bihr introduced his Berlin-based hardware accelerator Hardware.co and IoT-focused conference Thingscon.
The Wye’s founder Leah Stuhltrager
Kiwi.ki is a startup that has developed a keyless entry solution using a small dongle and a smartsphone. Currently Recruit Technologies’ developer Yugo Kuzuhara is collaboratively working with the team. New York-born Leah Stuhltrager introduced her co-working space called The Wye, renovated from a historic post office in the heart of Berlin.
It will be interesting to see how this effort will bring something of value to the the startup communities in Berlin and Tokyo. If you missed out on this event but are interested, delegates will hold another meetup event at Samurai Startup Island on Monday, so please check it out.
I’m a little concerned that listening while on a street or in a public space may cause possible dangers. ↩
Here’s a fun free web tool from Japan that lets you create websites using nothing more than your smartphone’s browser. Dino (Dino.vc) is a freemium service from the folks at Revolver Inc. which has been in beta since early this month. According to the folks over at VentureNow.jp, the company has plans to roll out Dino throughout Asia. Currently it is available in Japanese only. Below is a quick walkthrough of how site creation works on a smartphone, as I just took a few minutes to test it out for myself. First fix a title and description for your site. Browse the back-end administration settings (Japanese only currently): Add one of the pre-set photos as your background (left), or upload your own background, as I did (right): Add some content (News updates, or fill our your profile): Publish, and check out the end result! Overall it’s not a bad little service. And assuming that their beta test here in Japan goes well, I think expanding around Asia would be a wise idea. In countries where PC ownership is high, I’m not sure that there’s really much of a need for a smartphone website creation solution. But in regions where people’s…
Here’s a fun free web tool from Japan that lets you create websites using nothing more than your smartphone’s browser. Dino (Dino.vc) is a freemium service from the folks at Revolver Inc. which has been in beta since early this month.
According to the folks over at VentureNow.jp, the company has plans to roll out Dino throughout Asia. Currently it is available in Japanese only.
Below is a quick walkthrough of how site creation works on a smartphone, as I just took a few minutes to test it out for myself.
First fix a title and description for your site. Browse the back-end administration settings (Japanese only currently):
Add one of the pre-set photos as your background (left), or upload your own background, as I did (right):
Add some content (News updates, or fill our your profile):
Publish, and check out the end result!
Overall it’s not a bad little service. And assuming that their beta test here in Japan goes well, I think expanding around Asia would be a wise idea. In countries where PC ownership is high, I’m not sure that there’s really much of a need for a smartphone website creation solution. But in regions where people’s only computer might be a low-cost smartphone, then a service like Dino would be very much welcome.
As for monetization, you can create your own smartphone optimized site for free as a subdomain of Dino.vc. If you’d to roll your own domain, ad free, with support for multiple admins and Google Analytics, you can enroll in their pro plan which costs 1000 yen (about $10) per month. A business plan is also available for 3000 yen per month, supporting as many as ten administrators.
Tokyo-based Voyage Group, the internet company best known for the e-commerce and shopping portal EC Navi, has announced that it has been approved for an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers market today. The company will be listed on July 2nd. Formerly known as Axiv.com, the company was initially launched back in 1999 as the online marketing arm of Japanese internet giant CyberAgent. But CEO Shinsuke Usami bought the majority of their shares from CyberAgent and made the company an independent business entity. The aforementioned EC Navi is a shopping portal where you can earn rewards by purchasing an item at a tenant’s online shop or by answering an online survey. On a related note, the company has started broadcasting TV commercials here in Japan (see an example below) in order to improve consumer awareness in selected regions in the country.
Tokyo-based Voyage Group, the internet company best known for the e-commerce and shopping portal EC Navi, has announced that it has been approved for an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers market today. The company will be listed on July 2nd.
Formerly known as Axiv.com, the company was initially launched back in 1999 as the online marketing arm of Japanese internet giant CyberAgent. But CEO Shinsuke Usami bought the majority of their shares from CyberAgent and made the company an independent business entity.
The aforementioned EC Navi is a shopping portal where you can earn rewards by purchasing an item at a tenant’s online shop or by answering an online survey.
On a related note, the company has started broadcasting TV commercials here in Japan (see an example below) in order to improve consumer awareness in selected regions in the country.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Compath.me, the startup behind family photo sharing platform Kiddy, announced today that it has raised 50 million yen (about $492,000) from Japanese internet company United. The company was originally launched back in 2011, graduating from Tokyo-based startup incubator Open Network Lab. This latest news follows its previous seed funding from DG Incubation, Architype, and Netprice.com [1]. Low birth rate, high potential business The company launched its photo sharing platform in December of 2012, and subsequently started printing and delivering photo postcards and photobooks last year. So far Kiddy has acquired 50,000 households (or families) as users and over 3 million photo and comment entries on the platform. The company’s founder and CEO Hiromichi Ando explained a little more about the funding this time around: Our service allows users to deliver printed postcards or photobooks to as many as three different locations. We learned that many customers chose three locations, typically printing photos of their children and delivering them to both sets of grandparents. As for the photobooks, we are providing a premium version (3,100 yen per photo book, excluding shipping) using silver-halide prints in addition to the lower priced offering (1,550 yen per…
Tokyo-based Compath.me, the startup behind family photo sharing platform Kiddy, announced today that it has raised 50 million yen (about $492,000) from Japanese internet company United.
The company was originally launched back in 2011, graduating from Tokyo-based startup incubator Open Network Lab. This latest news follows its previous seed funding from DG Incubation, Architype, and Netprice.com[1].
Low birth rate, high potential business
The company launched its photo sharing platform in December of 2012, and subsequently started printing and delivering photo postcards and photobooks last year. So far Kiddy has acquired 50,000 households (or families) as users and over 3 million photo and comment entries on the platform. The company’s founder and CEO Hiromichi Ando explained a little more about the funding this time around:
CEO Hiromichi Ando
Our service allows users to deliver printed postcards or photobooks to as many as three different locations. We learned that many customers chose three locations, typically printing photos of their children and delivering them to both sets of grandparents. As for the photobooks, we are providing a premium version (3,100 yen per photo book, excluding shipping) using silver-halide prints in addition to the lower priced offering (1,550 yen per book). The premium option is costly, but it’s selling well. Grandparents want to see how their grandchildren are growing even if they live far away. This motivation helps us increase our sales per customer.
In a low-birth rate society like Japan, it is said that every child has six money streams, if you count parents and grandparents. This concept helps the company be more profitable despite the fact that its user base is not as much as is typically needed for monetization.
Becoming an information platform
The startup intends to shift its platform from family photo storage to a comprehensive information platform where users learn what others family members are doing in their daily lives. Ando explained:
Three or four family members are typically connected to each other on our platform. A couple may divorce or remarry after having their child, so we’ll add a feature that allows users to control privacy about their photo or messages.
He plans to use these latest funds to hire new people and enhance the platform’s features. They are currently a four-person team, but they’ll add a COO and several engineers to accelerate system development efforts.
Global expansion
So far the company has about 20% of users, or about 10,000 families, accessing Kiddy from outside Japan. Considering this demand, they have to think about the internationalization of the platform. Ando explained how they will address the problem:
International shipping has been available only for postcards but not for our photo album products. But considering that as many as 20% of users are from outside Japan, we asked our printing and shipping companies to enable international shipping of photo album products, starting in the first week of June. Shipping charges will be higher than domestic delivery, but I think there’s a huge demand from users out there.
The service is currently available in English and Japanese. But in order to better serve its global user base, they will add French and German interfaces this July. The company has already exhibited and presented at several startup conferences in Europe, such as LeWeb in Paris and WebSummit in Dublin. Ando feels that these promotional activities has helped them build brand awareness in those regions.
In this space we’ve already seen many competitors, including Kazoc, Nicori, BabyDays, Ikumemo, and Wellnote (See this article for details). But Kiddy fares better than these competitors on the App Store in terms of number of reviews and average rating.
Moving forward Kiddy will focus on improving user satisfaction, with the end goal of having the top market share in Japan and the rest of the world. They hope to surpass a million households worldwide by the end of 2015.
Open Network Lab is the incubation arm of Japanese internet company Digital Garage. DG Incubation is the startup-focused investment arm of Digital Garage. The investment arm of NetPrice.com has been rebranded to Beenos. ↩
Junya Mori
Masaru Ikeda
Rick Martin
