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Online variety store Iroya launches deals on “Japanese-colored” household items

Iroya

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2014.12.06

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.

Iroya is an e-commerce site that specializes in selling items selected from a color-oriented perspective. They launched a time-limited storefront called Cool Japan Store today, focused on selling Japanese traditional colored handcrafted items. This campaign is available from December 6th to the 28th.

The campaign is being offered in partnership with 100Tokyo, a website that delivers Tokyo’s unique items and visiting spots to a global audience, as well as Discover Japan, a magazine that aims to re-discover attractions in Japan. Cool Japan Store sells Japanese handcrafted items from 14 brands, which were carefully selected by Iroya, 100Tokyo, and Discover Japan.

You can also follow 100Tokyo’s event page or Google+ account for updates and details. Iroya has a store in Cat Street, a Japanese indie fashion street in Harajuku, Tokyo, where items introduced in this campaign are for sale.

Aritayaki-e1417733696547 — Aritayaki Porcelain (See this link for details about Aritayaki)

Banshu-Hamono-e1417733711179 — Banshu Hamoto scissors (See this link for details about Banshu Hamono)

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Fuji Startup Ventures invests in US-based animation technology company Plumzi

Shintaro Eguchi 2014.12.05

See the original story in Japanese. Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment firm of Tokyo-based broadcaster Fuji TV’s stock holding company, announced on Thursday that it has invest in Plumzi, a US-based entertainment technology company. Funding details have not been disclosed but it’s likely worth around a six-digit number in US dollars. Plumzi is a platform for animation studios, allowing them to adapt TV anime series into other formats suitable for tablets or smartphones, by restructuring videos, graphics, and audios from an original format in an easy way. With the platform, animation studios can quickly create a variety of content for smart devices as well as provide reproduced content back to their original rights owners for their secondary use. Fuji Startup Ventures recently launched a game-focused crowdfunding platform in partnership with Sega Networks and Goopa, called Crowdrive. Through the partnership with Plumzi, Fuji wants to strengthen edutainment app developments leveraging their huge visual content library. This investment round was led by US-based Quest Venture Partners with participation from Walt Disney and Turner New Media Investments, which proves that the animation technology company draws great attention in the US. Starting with this investment, Fuji Startup Ventures aims to build an alliance across…

See the original story in Japanese.

Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment firm of Tokyo-based broadcaster Fuji TV’s stock holding company, announced on Thursday that it has invest in Plumzi, a US-based entertainment technology company. Funding details have not been disclosed but it’s likely worth around a six-digit number in US dollars.

Plumzi is a platform for animation studios, allowing them to adapt TV anime series into other formats suitable for tablets or smartphones, by restructuring videos, graphics, and audios from an original format in an easy way. With the platform, animation studios can quickly create a variety of content for smart devices as well as provide reproduced content back to their original rights owners for their secondary use.

Fuji Startup Ventures recently launched a game-focused crowdfunding platform in partnership with Sega Networks and Goopa, called Crowdrive. Through the partnership with Plumzi, Fuji wants to strengthen edutainment app developments leveraging their huge visual content library.

This investment round was led by US-based Quest Venture Partners with participation from Walt Disney and Turner New Media Investments, which proves that the animation technology company draws great attention in the US. Starting with this investment, Fuji Startup Ventures aims to build an alliance across media companies in Japan and the US.

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Softbank invests $250 million in GrabTaxi, popular taxi hailing app in Southeast Asia

Masaru Ikeda 2014.12.04

The Bridge learned earlier today that Japanese Internet and mobile company SoftBank has agreed to invest about 30 billion yen ($250 million) in GrabTaxi, the company behind taxi hailing mobile app for the Southeast Asian region. SoftBank will take a 40% stake in the mobile company. GrabTaxi operates n six Asian countries; Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. Since its launch back in 2012, the company has acquired over 2.5 million app downloads and over 500,000 monthly active users. SoftBank has been recently strengthening its investment activities in the Southeast Asian region, where they invested in India’s e-commerce site SnapDeal and Indonesia’s Tokopedia back in October. In November, Softbank invested in Ola, a taxi hailing service in India.

GrabTaxi operates n six Asian countries; Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. Since its launch back in 2012, the company has acquired over 2.5 million app downloads and over 500,000 monthly active users.

SoftBank has been recently strengthening its investment activities in the Southeast Asian region, where they invested in India’s e-commerce site SnapDeal and Indonesia’s Tokopedia back in October. In November, Softbank invested in Ola, a taxi hailing service in India.

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Japanese restaurant finder app Retty surpasses 5M monthly visitors

retty

Masaru Ikeda 2014.12.03

See the original story in Japanese. Retty, a Tokyo-based startup providing social restaurant recommendations, announced that it has surpassed 5 million monthly unique visitors in November. Last year, the company announced that it had surpassed 1 million monthly unique visitors in October 2013. This is a quintupling of the user base in little over a year. Users have posted more than 1.2 million restaurant reviews to date, nearly a doubling of reviews from one year ago. Retty has been hiring more staff this year. They invited former Google engineer Masato Taruichi as CTO as well as Hiroyuki Honda, former executive at Japanese human resource firm Recruit, as an advisor. Retty CEO Kazuya Takeda spoke on their achievements: The main reason we have surpassed 5 million visitors is because we built a platform that delivers good user reviews and restaurant profiles. While taking care of these users, we want to achieve milestones of 10 million, 30 million, and 50 million visitors as soon as possible. I think we will release an announcement of 100 million visitors soon. In addition, we will start a full-scale global expansion in 2015, which will be based on our vision to make people in the world…

retty_featuredimage — Retty CEO Kazuya Takeda

See the original story in Japanese.

Retty, a Tokyo-based startup providing social restaurant recommendations, announced that it has surpassed 5 million monthly unique visitors in November. Last year, the company announced that it had surpassed 1 million monthly unique visitors in October 2013. This is a quintupling of the user base in little over a year. Users have posted more than 1.2 million restaurant reviews to date, nearly a doubling of reviews from one year ago.

Retty has been hiring more staff this year. They invited former Google engineer Masato Taruichi as CTO as well as Hiroyuki Honda, former executive at Japanese human resource firm Recruit, as an advisor.

Retty CEO Kazuya Takeda spoke on their achievements:

The main reason we have surpassed 5 million visitors is because we built a platform that delivers good user reviews and restaurant profiles. While taking care of these users, we want to achieve milestones of 10 million, 30 million, and 50 million visitors as soon as possible. I think we will release an announcement of 100 million visitors soon.

In addition, we will start a full-scale global expansion in 2015, which will be based on our vision to make people in the world happier through better dining experiences.

The diagram below shows Retty’s sustainable user growth in recent months. Since its launch, the company has been showing a great interest in global expansion. Now that they have acquired experienced talent and a solid user base, we hope to tell you more about their expansion strategy in the near future.

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Japanese crowdsourcing startup Lancers raises $8.5 million from KDDI, others

Lancers

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2014.12.02

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based crowdsourcing startup Lancers was launched in December 2008. It has since acquired over 100,000 companies and 410,000 crowdsourced users. Lancers announced today that it has fundraised about 1 billion yen (or about $8.45 million) from KDDI (telco), Intelligence Holdings (employment service), Colopl (gaming company), Gree Ventures, Globis Capital Partners, and GMO Venture Partners. The company will use the funds to cultivate crowdsourceing needs in the market, support freelancers using the crowdsourcing platform, hire new people, and strengthen their system development efforts. Coinciding with the funds, Lancers has partnered with KDDI, Intelligence, and Gree, and will help these companies use crowdsourced forces for their content production activities. See also: Japanese crowdsourcing startup Lancers launches matchmaking platform for regional businesses Lancers CEO Yosuke Akiyoshi on obstacles facing crowdsourcing in Japan Japanese crowdsourcing marketplace Lancers raises $2.9 million Can crowdsourcing startups change Japan’s employment landscape?

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.

Tokyo-based crowdsourcing startup Lancers was launched in December 2008. It has since acquired over 100,000 companies and 410,000 crowdsourced users.

Lancers announced today that it has fundraised about 1 billion yen (or about $8.45 million) from KDDI (telco), Intelligence Holdings (employment service), Colopl (gaming company), Gree Ventures, Globis Capital Partners, and GMO Venture Partners. The company will use the funds to cultivate crowdsourceing needs in the market, support freelancers using the crowdsourcing platform, hire new people, and strengthen their system development efforts.

Coinciding with the funds, Lancers has partnered with KDDI, Intelligence, and Gree, and will help these companies use crowdsourced forces for their content production activities.

See also:

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Japan’s Kadinche launches panoramic movie sharing platform

Masaru Ikeda 2014.12.01

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Kadinche launched a spherical panorama video-sharing platform today, called Pano Plaza Movie. Users can upload panoramic videos to the platform and share them with other users through social network platforms. Video clips set to “open to the public” will be listed in the portal page of the platform. See also: Japanese cafe and restaurant portal makes use of Panoplaza to virtualize local spaces Tokyo Office Tour: Panoplaza has a 360-degree view of the world Conventional video platforms do not allow rotation of panoramic video clips or they have a file upload limit, but Kadiche’s platform addresses these issues. Kadiche has introduced a virtualization service of real stores in partnership with e-commerce platform provider Stores.jp as well as panoramic video creation platform PanoMovie. You can record panoramic video clips with cameras like Ricoh’s THETA m15. But in view of the recent trend of selfie sticks, many smartphones will have features allowing users to record panoramic video clips sooner or later.

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Kadinche launched a spherical panorama video-sharing platform today, called Pano Plaza Movie. Users can upload panoramic videos to the platform and share them with other users through social network platforms. Video clips set to “open to the public” will be listed in the portal page of the platform.

See also:

Conventional video platforms do not allow rotation of panoramic video clips or they have a file upload limit, but Kadiche’s platform addresses these issues.

Kadiche has introduced a virtualization service of real stores in partnership with e-commerce platform provider Stores.jp as well as panoramic video creation platform PanoMovie. You can record panoramic video clips with cameras like Ricoh’s THETA m15. But in view of the recent trend of selfie sticks, many smartphones will have features allowing users to record panoramic video clips sooner or later.

Online variety store Iroya launches deals on “Japanese-colored” household items

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