Tokyo-based iStyle (TSE:3360), the company behind Japan’s leading online cosmetics portal @Cosme, announced today that it has invested an undisclosed sum in MiCHi, a startup providing an e-commerce platform focused on handmade nail tips under the same name.
MiCHi was first made available to customers outside of Japan, instead of launching in its home market. The e-commerce site was launched in April 2013, and the Japanese version was unveiled in August of the same year. Leveraging crowdsourced Japanese designers, the company provides high-quality nail tips at affordable prices that are attracting women from around the world with its distinct Japanese “kawaii” style.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Dely, a food delivery service operating in Tokyo, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese seed investor Anri. This follows their seed funding in July led by Beenos with participation from East Ventures and Party Factory. Dely CEO Yusuke Horie explained his business: Our system is well organized, and we have had no trouble in our delivery service. When we started our service, it is provided only for a lunch time on weekdays but we added a dinner time and Saturday to our operating hours in August. We’ll try to partner with more restaurants and acquire more users from now on. The company sees a steadily growth in acquiring partnering restaurants. Their service is currently available only in Shibuya but plans to add Ebisu and Roppongi to the delivery areas. See also: Japan’s ‘Uber for logistics’ launches food delivery service in central Tokyo Coinciding with the funding, Anri general partner Anri Samata, Beenos managing partner Hiro Maeda, and FreakOut COO Yusuke Sato, who will join the board of Dely as an advisor, spoke on the potential of on-demand delivery services in Japan. Samata explained why his fund has…
From the left: Anri partner Anri Samata, Dely CEO Yusuke Horie, Beenos partner Hiro Maeda, and Dely COO Yusuke Sato in the laptop screen
Tokyo-based startup Dely, a food delivery service operating in Tokyo, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese seed investor Anri. This follows their seed funding in July led by Beenos with participation from East Ventures and Party Factory.
Dely CEO Yusuke Horie explained his business:
Our system is well organized, and we have had no trouble in our delivery service. When we started our service, it is provided only for a lunch time on weekdays but we added a dinner time and Saturday to our operating hours in August. We’ll try to partner with more restaurants and acquire more users from now on.
The company sees a steadily growth in acquiring partnering restaurants. Their service is currently available only in Shibuya but plans to add Ebisu and Roppongi to the delivery areas.
Coinciding with the funding, Anri general partner Anri Samata, Beenos managing partner Hiro Maeda, and FreakOut COO Yusuke Sato, who will join the board of Dely as an advisor, spoke on the potential of on-demand delivery services in Japan.
Samata explained why his fund has invested in Dely:
We have invested in startups providing infrastructure-focused services like Coiney (payments), Raksul (printing), Crowdworks (crowdsouricing), so logistics is also one of our interest. I’ve talked with many logistics startups in Japan. Since Horie is the most interesting man among them, I decided to invest in his startup. We see a market because Japan’s GDP and land area are sufficiently large. Existing logistics services work well but don’t provide on-demand delivery. Disrupting an existing industry structure is my mission. So we expect that they will evolve further.
Beenos has invested in US-based same-day food grocery service Instacart. From that perspective, Beenos managing partner Hiro Maeda predicts that on-demand services will become more common in Japan in five to ten years. He said:
Thanks to mobile technology, delivery services can detect the exact location of their delivery persons in real time, which allows anyone to become a delivery person for these services. In addition to delivery services, it will be inevitable that individuals will be able to provide their personal values as a service.
According to Horie, Maeda’s mentoring was very helpful in developing the product because he is familiar with Instacart through his investment.
Horie said:
Maeda’s feedback on the service was to the point. It was really helpful that he joined our team in a seed round. Thanks to him, we can aim to develop a much better product.
In response to him, Maeda added:
I think we’ll need an on-demand service like Postmates. But it’s not easy so a crazy man should do it. In terms of that, I think Horie is suitable because he is young and beyond our mind and has no prejudice.
Sato analyzed the Japanese logistic industry and explained that it will be impossible for major logistic companies to roll out an on-demand delivery service despite the fact that they have a huge and efficient delivery network system.
He said:
However, thanks to a surge of smartphone users, there is huge potential to build a high cost-performance delivery network comprised of non-professional delivery persons.
I think we can turn the impossible into the possible. That’s what only a crazy man like Horie can do. That’s why I decided to bet on him.
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Japan’s peer-to-peer parking lot sharing platform Akippa announced on Friday that it has launched a joint promotion campaign with Uber so that Akippa users can receive a complimentary first ride worth 4,000 yen (about $38) with Uber hired cabs. See also: Japan’s Airbnb for parking spaces ‘Akippa’ fundraises from DeNA and angel investors This campaign aims to give users more options to transport in central Tokyo areas. When you are going to a big event or conference in these areas by car, you may not always easily find an avaiable parking lot near the venue. However, if you alternatively park a car a bit far from the venue, you will need to take time to move from the parking lot to the venue. With the campaign, Uber wants to propose a new user experience where you can park a car at a parking lot using Akippa and then use Uber get to the final destination. As many city dwellers in Japan know, parking a car in the central urban areas may cost as high as more than $10 per hour, which is difficult to use to park over several…
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.
Japan’s peer-to-peer parking lot sharing platform Akippa announced on Friday that it has launched a joint promotion campaign with Uber so that Akippa users can receive a complimentary first ride worth 4,000 yen (about $38) with Uber hired cabs.
This campaign aims to give users more options to transport in central Tokyo areas. When you are going to a big event or conference in these areas by car, you may not always easily find an avaiable parking lot near the venue. However, if you alternatively park a car a bit far from the venue, you will need to take time to move from the parking lot to the venue. With the campaign, Uber wants to propose a new user experience where you can park a car at a parking lot using Akippa and then use Uber get to the final destination.
As many city dwellers in Japan know, parking a car in the central urban areas may cost as high as more than $10 per hour, which is difficult to use to park over several hours. Akippa wants to address parking issues for car owners in the urban areas, so both companies have agreed to launch this promotion campaign together. The campaign is effective until the end of October.
Tokyo-based Loco partners, the startup that operates Japanese luxury inn and hotel booking site Relux, announced today that it has fundraised 330 million yen (about $3.1 million) from Recruit Holdings and others. Using the funds, the company plans to expand recruitment of business development representatives and system engineers. See also: Relux: A satisfaction-guaranteed online marketplace for Japanese inns Coinciding with this funding, the company has enhanced the hotel booking site to meet foreign visitor needs in Japan, enabling their users to find their favorite accommodations and complete online booking in 10 languages, payable in any of 12 different currencies. The website is now available in Japanese, English, Spanish, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Indonesian and French. They accept the following currencies: Japanese yen, US dollars, UK pounds, Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, New Zealand dollars, Euro, Renminbi yuan, Thai baht, Korean won, Vietnamese dong and Indonesian rupiah. Relux lists luxury Japanese inns and hotels carefully selected by company examiners based on their on-site assessments. Since its launch in September of 2013, the website has acquired over 70,000 users, mostly people in their 30s and 40s. While average sales per customer has reached as high as 90,000 yen (or…
Tokyo-based Loco partners, the startup that operates Japanese luxury inn and hotel booking site Relux, announced today that it has fundraised 330 million yen (about $3.1 million) from Recruit Holdings and others. Using the funds, the company plans to expand recruitment of business development representatives and system engineers.
Coinciding with this funding, the company has enhanced the hotel booking site to meet foreign visitor needs in Japan, enabling their users to find their favorite accommodations and complete online booking in 10 languages, payable in any of 12 different currencies.
The website is now available in Japanese, English, Spanish, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Indonesian and French. They accept the following currencies: Japanese yen, US dollars, UK pounds, Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, New Zealand dollars, Euro, Renminbi yuan, Thai baht, Korean won, Vietnamese dong and Indonesian rupiah.
Relux lists luxury Japanese inns and hotels carefully selected by company examiners based on their on-site assessments. Since its launch in September of 2013, the website has acquired over 70,000 users, mostly people in their 30s and 40s. While average sales per customer has reached as high as 90,000 yen (or $900), their recent user growth has become faster than a monthly increase ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 users several months ago, with monthly revenue growing at a pace of 30% per month.
Relux is currently developing an interface for travel agencies in foreign markets. The company has also started talks with those agencies in the South East Asian region, so they can bring more customers to Japanese travel destinations by leveraging this interface.
See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Studio Ousia, a startup developing keyword mining and linking solutions, announced Tuesday that it has fundraised 100 million yen ($1 million) from Tokyo-based system integration company NID (TSE:2349). According to NID, the investor has taken a 33.5% stake in Studio Ousia. Studio Ousia will use the funds to strengthen the development of new apps based on the Entity Linking technology. Studio Ousia is an standout graduate from Keio University SFC’s incubation program. In 2012, the company launched a smartphone browser add-on product called Phroni, and funraised 70 million yen (about $864,000) from Nissay Capital. Studio Ousia’s product portfolio includes Linkify, a keyword linking SDK (software developers kit) for mobile developers, as well as LinkPlaza, an affiliate solution for bloggers launched last year. It’s unclear as to what kind of app they will release as a result of their further development efforts, but we understand that they will emphasize apps development for the advertising sector as well as user real-world connection. For example, these include an app which displays an online reference on the smartglass screen by recognizing what are being looked at through a smartglass device. With the improvement in smart devices, people…
Japan’s Studio Ousia, a startup developing keyword mining and linking solutions, announced Tuesday that it has fundraised 100 million yen ($1 million) from Tokyo-based system integration company NID (TSE:2349). According to NID, the investor has taken a 33.5% stake in Studio Ousia. Studio Ousia will use the funds to strengthen the development of new apps based on the Entity Linking technology.
Studio Ousia is an standout graduate from Keio University SFC’s incubation program. In 2012, the company launched a smartphone browser add-on product called Phroni, and funraised 70 million yen (about $864,000) from Nissay Capital.
Studio Ousia’s product portfolio includes Linkify, a keyword linking SDK (software developers kit) for mobile developers, as well as LinkPlaza, an affiliate solution for bloggers launched last year.
It’s unclear as to what kind of app they will release as a result of their further development efforts, but we understand that they will emphasize apps development for the advertising sector as well as user real-world connection.
For example, these include an app which displays an online reference on the smartglass screen by recognizing what are being looked at through a smartglass device. With the improvement in smart devices, people now want many alternative user interfaces beyond the keyboard. So the company sees a huge potential market out there.
Tokyo-based SEO and content marketing agency Innova announced today that it has fundraised 220 million yen (about $2.1 million) from Salesforce.com, Draper Nexus, and Nippon Venture Capital. Since its 2011 launch, Innova has been providing content marketing solutions, helping companies market their products or services to consumers by assisting them in the management of owned media websites and by publishing SEO-optimized content and articles. As of April, the company had 72 clients from such notable Japanese companies as Yahoo Japan, Rakuten, Sony, DeNA, Opt, and Septeni Holdings. Through their partnership with Salesforce, Innova aims to attract more clients, and Salesforce will add Innovas’ marketing solutions to the Salesforce customer relationship management platform. via TechCrunch Japan
Since its 2011 launch, Innova has been providing content marketing solutions, helping companies market their products or services to consumers by assisting them in the management of owned media websites and by publishing SEO-optimized content and articles. As of April, the company had 72 clients from such notable Japanese companies as Yahoo Japan, Rakuten, Sony, DeNA, Opt, and Septeni Holdings.
Through their partnership with Salesforce, Innova aims to attract more clients, and Salesforce will add Innovas’ marketing solutions to the Salesforce customer relationship management platform.
Masaru Ikeda
Miyako Yoshizawa
Shintaro Eguchi
