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.
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, 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.
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 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.
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.
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. UK-based taxi hailing app Hailo was launched in the Japanese market in Osaka in 2013. Hailo Networks Japan, the local subsidiary of the UK company, has been restructured as a new company called Hail K.K. The new company appointed Ryo Umezawa as CEO and fundraised from Hikari Tsushin (TSE:9435). Coinciding with that, Dai Okui, VP of Business Strategy Department at Hikari Tsushin, will also join the management board. Umezawa is a serial entrepreneur and has been involved in many projects in Sakebii and Accelbeat as well as serving Tokyo-based incubator J-Seed Ventures as a managing director. Details about the amount Hailo K.K. fundraised have not been disclosed but it is likely to be a seed fund injection because the company’s disclosed capital amount is about six million yen ($50,000). What is the key differentiator from their rival Uber and how they can overcome possible conflicts with local taxi operators or drivers’ unions? Umezawa explained that Hailo’s service can be more easily accepted both for taxi drivers and consumers. For instance, taxi hailing services like Uber in Japan charter a local hired-car service and split their working hours to provide the service for each of…
R to L: Hailo K.K. CEO Ryo Umezawa, Dai Okui, VP of Business Strategy Department at Hikari Tsushin
UK-based taxi hailing app Hailo was launched in the Japanese market in Osaka in 2013. Hailo Networks Japan, the local subsidiary of the UK company, has been restructured as a new company called Hail K.K.
The new company appointed Ryo Umezawa as CEO and fundraised from Hikari Tsushin (TSE:9435). Coinciding with that, Dai Okui, VP of Business Strategy Department at Hikari Tsushin, will also join the management board. Umezawa is a serial entrepreneur and has been involved in many projects in Sakebii and Accelbeat as well as serving Tokyo-based incubator J-Seed Ventures as a managing director.
Details about the amount Hailo K.K. fundraised have not been disclosed but it is likely to be a seed fund injection because the company’s disclosed capital amount is about six million yen ($50,000).
What is the key differentiator from their rival Uber and how they can overcome possible conflicts with local taxi operators or drivers’ unions? Umezawa explained that Hailo’s service can be more easily accepted both for taxi drivers and consumers.
For instance, taxi hailing services like Uber in Japan charter a local hired-car service and split their working hours to provide the service for each of their customers.
Hailo was launched in London by three taxi drivers and three entrepreneurs. Originally launched as a social network platform for taxi drivers, it is now driving users to taxi drivers. Umezawa explained:
Our focus on helping taxi drivers earn more revenue is the same in Japan as in the UK. With our app, you can see where they have been picked up or will be picked up by which taxi driver, which gives you relief and trust. That is probably one reason more female costumers use taxis via our app.
Hailo K.K. has partnered with 38 local taxi operators, which proves that their business model is becoming accepted by taxi drivers in Japan.
Dai Okuda, VP of Business Strategy Department at Hikari Tsushin, explained why his company has partnered with and invested in Hailo K.K.:
We can help their user acquisition by promoting the Hailo app at our stores or by letting our customer reps promote it to restaurants we serve. Because we sell telecommunication services, we can also encourage taxi drivers using the Hailo app to buy a smartphone from us.
Upon the establishment of the new business entity, they will soon launch the service in Tokyo. While they are a small team comprised of four persons in Osaka and three in Tokyo, they are hiring a sales manager and an office manager in Tokyo. So if you are interested in their business, it is highly recommended that you contact them.
In Tokyo, taxi apps like Uber and local taxi operator‘s are in fierce competition, so it will be interesting to see how Hailo performs.
A Hailo taxi in Japan. (This photo was taken in Tokyo where the service is still being prepared.)
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based Grooves, the company best known for its engineer recruiting platform called Forkwell, announced today that it has fundraised 220 million yen (about $1.85 million) from Japan Finance Corporation, Nippon Venture Capital, and Mitsui Sumitomo Insuarance Venture Capital. Forkwell was launched as a service by Grooves, a Garbs subsidiary, fundraised an undisclosed sum from CyberAgent Ventures in November of 2011, and subsequently 60 million yen (about $600,000) from Nippon Venture Capital in April of 2012. See also: Japan’s Forkwell launches job search engine for coders, now ready to monetize While Garbs had been operating Crowd Agent, a platform that connects non-engineer job seekers with recruiting agents, Grooves had been operating engineer-focused recruiting site Forkwell. But the two companies thought that these two businesses can be operated under the same roof, and Garbs was merged into Grooves this April upon approvals from their existing investors.
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.
Forkwell was launched as a service by Grooves, a Garbs subsidiary, fundraised an undisclosed sum from CyberAgent Ventures in November of 2011, and subsequently 60 million yen (about $600,000) from Nippon Venture Capital in April of 2012.
While Garbs had been operating Crowd Agent, a platform that connects non-engineer job seekers with recruiting agents, Grooves had been operating engineer-focused recruiting site Forkwell. But the two companies thought that these two businesses can be operated under the same roof, and Garbs was merged into Grooves this April upon approvals from their existing investors.
Masaru Ikeda
Yukari Mitsuhashi
