Yasuhiro Horiuchi, an evangelist at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Japan, recently stepped down; it has been said that many startups or companies have been keen to invite him into their boards. It was unveiled at an AWS user group event last night that he will join Japanese fintech startup Money Forward as a technical advisor. Horiuchi is also known as the former CTO of Japanese game developer Gumi.
According to those in the know, he will not join them on a full-time basis. Yet his move is seen impacting future trends in careers of engineers in the Japanese startup scene, with fintech startups in particular gaining greater attention from now on.
Born in 1978, Horiuchi joined teleconferencing solution company V-cube after graduating from Keio University. In 2005, he was involved in developing a video sharing site called Flipclip (shut down in 2012), then later joined Gumi and served as CTO.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based incubator Samurai Incubate held its periodical startup showcase event called Samurai Venture Summit Vol. 10 at the Microsoft Japan headquarters in Tokyo last week. Despite the fact that there were a number of startup events like SF Japan Night and the Infogr.am meetup taking place on the same day, it seemed they had a larger crowd of attendees than past editions of the event. Let’s have a quick rundown of some interesting teams showcased as always. Virtual mountain climbing by Yama Reco Yama Reco is an online community for mountain-climbing afficianados. They showcased what is called a virtual mountain-climbing system using a head-mounted display. Their users have collected and shared 360-degree pictures online of shots from famous mountaintops. So if you download any of these image data from the website, you can virtually experience the feeling when you take in the vista from the top of these mountains. Because their photos are limited only to ones from the top, it is unlikely to be called virtual mountain-climbing. If they can collect sequential pictures on the way to the top in the way similar to Google StreetView, it may provide a more realistic virtual experience using a head-mounted display as well as an exercise machine. Zugyuuun! There are some companies…
Tokyo-based incubator Samurai Incubate held its periodical startup showcase event called Samurai Venture Summit Vol. 10 at the Microsoft Japan headquarters in Tokyo last week. Despite the fact that there were a number of startup events like SF Japan Night and the Infogr.am meetup taking place on the same day, it seemed they had a larger crowd of attendees than past editions of the event.
Let’s have a quick rundown of some interesting teams showcased as always.
Virtual mountain climbing by Yama Reco
Yama Reco is an online community for mountain-climbing afficianados. They showcased what is called a virtual mountain-climbing system using a head-mounted display. Their users have collected and shared 360-degree pictures online of shots from famous mountaintops. So if you download any of these image data from the website, you can virtually experience the feeling when you take in the vista from the top of these mountains.
Because their photos are limited only to ones from the top, it is unlikely to be called virtual mountain-climbing. If they can collect sequential pictures on the way to the top in the way similar to Google StreetView, it may provide a more realistic virtual experience using a head-mounted display as well as an exercise machine.
Unclear because this captured the screen of a head-mounted display. But you can see Mt. Fuji far off over multiple ridges in this frame.
Zugyuuun!
There are some companies that want to allow people to develop ‘connected’ hardware products with software engineering skills only. Some of these examples include Berg in London and Connect Free in Kyoto. Zugyuun is also pursuing the potential that helps people develop hardware products as easily as possible.
Raspberry Pi is used as a platform, and you can use it by inserting an SD card having the company’s operating system Zugyuuun OS. You can write source codes in HTML or JavaScript to command the device, which has to be stored in a repository like GitHub in advance. When you start up your hardware product, it will connect to your Zugyuuun account and operate in accordance with your source codes.
There may be some concerns about security and operational stability. In fact, the Zugyuuun team had been struggling to stabilize the internet connectivity for their demonstration because their booth was located on a very high floor which makes it difficult to catch cellphone signals. But it is certain that their solution lowers technical barriers in making ‘connected’ hardware products. Even elementary school students can develop something using this for their holiday research projects.
Astero
We featured a Korean startup called Notivo in our Japanese edition before, which was showcased at Korea’s annual startup competition beLAUNCH 2014. It is a mobile app that notifies you about updates or alerts if you register topics you wouldn’t like to miss out such as flash sales, flight delays, ticket sales start and suchlike.
The concept of Astero is very similar to that of Notivo. The app’s engine keeps scouring multiple news source websites or monitoring updates via APIs so that it would let you know as soon as any event you want to know happens.
Scuel
Photo courtesy: Moneyless Hareyama
Scuel is an online database of medical organizations and pharmacies launched in early September. In addition to providing iOS and Android apps, it publicizes an API so that third-party developers can create their information services using the Scuel database. It has partnered with Japanese medical news site CareNet, fitness club operator Renascence, Goo Healthcare, disabled jobseekers’ community Welbe, atopic dermatitis patients’ community Untikle, poop-logging app Unlog and kidney disease patients’ community Jinlab.
I often keep my eyes on the intensity of information about medical organizations in the world for my own business reasons. We are lucky to have easy access to this kind of information in Japan because there’s no list or phone directory of medical organizations in some countries. However, even in Japan, some resources are not up-to-date or provide no semantic information. So it will be interesting to see how they set up a hub and provide medical information in a form that people can use easily.
KiSSonix
KiSSonix is a sound-encoding service that lets you experience a 3D sound effect with only two speakers. When you record sounds, you don’t require stereo or surround recordings. Their technology is compatible with two of any type of speakers from any brands.
If you give them your sound, they will encode it and give you back the output in 3D. Their booth staff said, “Your brain will play a decoder role in understanding the encoded sound when you listen to it.”
While Occulus-like head-mounted display products or smart glasses devices are trendy, there will be increased needs for technologies to enable 3D hearing. I forgot to ask them whether or not it’s possible but if their technology does it may have a great potential in application since it will enable live encoding that lets you hear a sound in accordance with the direction you are headed.
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Translations startups like Shibuya-headquartered Gengo and anydooR, the Conyac crowdsourced translations operator, took part in Tokyo Business Summit 2014 held late last week at the waterfront Big Sight convention facilities. This year’s event had more tech-related firms showcasing their wares than ever before, including those related to use of the space environment. This was the first time for Gengo to set up a booth at the event, which in the past brought together non- and low-tech Japanese small and medium-sized Enterprises for the most part. Gengo’s marketing manager Nozomi Umenai said, Gengo is expanding to mass market, as exemplified by Tokyo Business Summit participants. We wanted to showcase how easy and affordable it is to use Gengo API. Many of the participants are currently looking to expand overseas business dealings, both outbound as well as inbound (especially those related to the free trade agreement with Australia, as exemplified by meat products, and Trans-Pacific Partnership), so the venue provided a ready pool of Japanese SMEs for contact by translations outfits. Conyac — whose operation is based in Kanda, Tokyo known for…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
Image credit: Tokyo Business Summit
Translations startups like Shibuya-headquartered Gengo and anydooR, the Conyac crowdsourced translations operator, took part in Tokyo Business Summit 2014 held late last week at the waterfront Big Sight convention facilities. This year’s event had more tech-related firms showcasing their wares than ever before, including those related to use of the space environment.
This was the first time for Gengo to set up a booth at the event, which in the past brought together non- and low-tech Japanese small and medium-sized Enterprises for the most part. Gengo’s marketing manager Nozomi Umenai said,
Gengo is expanding to mass market, as exemplified by Tokyo Business Summit participants. We wanted to showcase how easy and affordable it is to use Gengo API.
Many of the participants are currently looking to expand overseas business dealings, both outbound as well as inbound (especially those related to the free trade agreement with Australia, as exemplified by meat products, and Trans-Pacific Partnership), so the venue provided a ready pool of Japanese SMEs for contact by translations outfits.
Conyac — whose operation is based in Kanda, Tokyo known for its many low-tech SMEs — also had a booth out at the event, which was held for the 28th time since 1988.
The Conyac booth staff also noted,
We just released a website translation management tool called ‘Conyac Front‘ last month. At the summit, we’re looking for the testers for the Conyac Front(β).
Other firms of interest this year were those focused on Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and other emergency-related businesses.
See the original story in Japanese. Finland’s annual startup conference Slush held a pitch competition for a number of startups at the Goodpatch office in Tokyo on Friday. CAPTCHA startup Capy won first prize and advances to Slush 2014 to be held in Helsinki, Finland, on November 18 and 19. (These dates incidentally coincide with TechCrunch Tokyo). Capy is a Delaware-registered and Tokyo-based startup that is developing an alternative security technology to replace CAPTCHA. The company was recently selected by Microsoft Ventures as one of 11 startups that will join its fifth batch of incubation program in Tel Aviv, Israel. They also attended last year’s Slush preliminary competition in Tokyo. See also: Capy offers text-free, mobile-friendly captchas Here is a quick rundown of the pitch competition. Yocondo Yocondo is a semantic product search engine that helps users find products when they do not quite know what they are looking for. For instance, a user can find a product by entering a phrase like “gift for girlfriend.” Okuyuki Okuyuki is a crowdfunding platform focused on 3D printing of character figures. (See also: Japanese service brings manga characters to life with 3D printing) Navvi (a project by Rosette Research) Navvi is a…
Click to enlarge. (photo courtesy: Boris Friedrich Milkowski, Goodpatch)
Finland’s annual startup conference Slush held a pitch competition for a number of startups at the Goodpatch office in Tokyo on Friday. CAPTCHA startup Capy won first prize and advances to Slush 2014 to be held in Helsinki, Finland, on November 18 and 19. (These dates incidentally coincide with TechCrunch Tokyo).
Capy is a Delaware-registered and Tokyo-based startup that is developing an alternative security technology to replace CAPTCHA. The company was recently selected by Microsoft Ventures as one of 11 startups that will join its fifth batch of incubation program in Tel Aviv, Israel. They also attended last year’s Slush preliminary competition in Tokyo.
Yocondo
Yocondo is a semantic product search engine that helps users find products when they do not quite know what they are looking for. For instance, a user can find a product by entering a phrase like “gift for girlfriend.”
Navvi (a project by Rosette Research)
Navvi is a navigation platform for those who can read maps. Instead of presenting a map image, this app guides users by showing arrow signs in 3D over an actual image through a smartphone camera so that a user will be able to reach their destination without getting lost.
Anicool
Anicool is an anime production-focused crowdfunding platform. It is available in Japanese, Chinese, English, French, and Korean. Campaign backers can watch outcomes from their supporting projects via DVD or online. Anipipo is a competitor.
Mobingi
Mobingi is an automated cloud environment set-up tool that allows users to create and launch a server instance on Amazon Web Services with just three mouse clicks.
Matcha Latte Media
Matcha Latte Media delivers Japanese culture to global consumers. As the first of these efforts, this startup launched an e-commerce marketplace called Yunomi.us that gives the global tea market access to Japanese tea producers and farmers.
(photo courtesy: Boris Friedrich Milkowski, Goodpatch)
Japanese footwear e-commerce company Locondo announced last week that it had raised 500 million yen (or $4.6 million) in a series C round from Japanese investment firm Jafco. The company uses the funds to fulfill their logistics needs and relocate their headquarters to Shibuya, Tokyo. Locondo was launched in October 2010 with 76 million yen ($760,000) funding from Rocket Internet. Since its launch in February 2011, their e-commerce site has acquired 600,000 users and over 40% of their users buy at least one pair of footwear a year via the platform. Annual shipping revenue reached 5 billion yen ($50 million) last year. Locondo fundraised 700 million (or $7 million) from Lead Capital Management (LCM), and Itochu Technology Ventures (ITV). in October 2011, and subsequently fundraised 600 million ($6.3 million) from Mizuho Capital, Neostella Capital, Excite Japan, in addition again from LCM and ITV. Beginning October, the company started diversifying its lineups beyond footwear to sportswear and home interiors as well as enhancing its promotional efforts, including setting up an official Line account. Via Venture Now
Japanese footwear e-commerce company Locondo announced last week that it had raised 500 million yen (or $4.6 million) in a series C round from Japanese investment firm Jafco. The company uses the funds to fulfill their logistics needs and relocate their headquarters to Shibuya, Tokyo.
Locondo was launched in October 2010 with 76 million yen ($760,000) funding from Rocket Internet. Since its launch in February 2011, their e-commerce site has acquired 600,000 users and over 40% of their users buy at least one pair of footwear a year via the platform. Annual shipping revenue reached 5 billion yen ($50 million) last year.
Beginning October, the company started diversifying its lineups beyond footwear to sportswear and home interiors as well as enhancing its promotional efforts, including setting up an official Line account.
See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Goodpatch has been providing rapid prototyping tool Prott in beta since April, but it was officially launched on Wednesday. Coinciding with this, they introduced an iOS app for prototyping as well as existing web apps for Macintosh and Windows. This newly introduced version is integrated with internal communication tools such as Slack and Hipchat, which allows the sharing of updates on prototyping using the Prott app in an engineering team. Goodpatch also announced that the Prott app has been adopted by global design consulting firm Ideo, Yahoo Japan, DeNA for their internal app development. See also: Tokyo Office Tour: At new office, Goodpatch preparing official launch of prototyping tool Upon the official launch, Goodpatch also unveiled pricing plans for Prott. The price is determined by the number of prototyping projects a user has developed using the platform; one project is free, three projects cost $14 yen a month (Starter plan), unlimited projects costs $25 yen a month (Pro plan), and $99 yen a month (Team plan). According to Goodpatch founder and CEO Naofumi Tsuchiya, Prott has acquired about 7,000 users in about eight months since the launch of its beta version. Taiwan-based Pop,…
Japan’s Goodpatch has been providing rapid prototyping tool Prott in beta since April, but it was officially launched on Wednesday. Coinciding with this, they introduced an iOS app for prototyping as well as existing web apps for Macintosh and Windows. This newly introduced version is integrated with internal communication tools such as Slack and Hipchat, which allows the sharing of updates on prototyping using the Prott app in an engineering team.
Goodpatch also announced that the Prott app has been adopted by global design consulting firm Ideo, Yahoo Japan, DeNA for their internal app development.
Upon the official launch, Goodpatch also unveiled pricing plans for Prott. The price is determined by the number of prototyping projects a user has developed using the platform; one project is free, three projects cost $14 yen a month (Starter plan), unlimited projects costs $25 yen a month (Pro plan), and $99 yen a month (Team plan).
Prott iOS app
According to Goodpatch founder and CEO Naofumi Tsuchiya, Prott has acquired about 7,000 users in about eight months since the launch of its beta version. Taiwan-based Pop, a competitor, has acquired about 300,000 users in two years since its launch in late 2012. Prott’s figure shows a good start because Goodpatch has not done any promotion.
In the global trends in this space, US-based popular prototyping tool Invision has fundraised about $35 million in total, as well as Axure, US-based wireframe tool for enterprise users, is generating about $200 million annual revenue, so there is huge potential in this market.
Tsuchiya explained the Prott app advantages:
Anyone can start using Prott without preliminary knowledge, which is obviously our strength. Users tell us they love Prott because they can start prototyping in a few seconds after using the app for the first time.
Tsuchiya outlined his growth strategy:
We can develop more services beyond the prototyping tool. But we are not interested in integrating Prott with other crowdsourced platforms because crowdsourcing may cause decreased wages for skilled designers. Nevertheless we may create an online community that matches idea owners with developers because the Prott app allows idea owners to present their ideas about an app regardless of whether they have any engineering skills or not. App developers can leverage outcomes from the platform to hire new people by presenting images of services they want to create.
Goodpatch sets UX/UI design as their core competence and aims to launch more services in this space. With loyal support from the startup and app developer community, the company is aiming for an IPO in the near future.
Takeshi Hirano
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
