This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.
Tokyo-based Connehito, the company behind a mobile Q&A app for female users, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised 150 million yen (about $1.25 million) from B Dash Ventures and Primal Capital. The company will use the funds to strengthen development efforts around the mobile app service.
Connehito provides two services: Mamari, a how-to website for mothers at the time of childbirth or while nursing a child, and MamariQ, a mobile app for questions and answers among mothers. Focused on dealing with female-specific problems, these services have acquired more than 1 million monthly unique visitors and been seeing a 140% MoM growth in the number of articles posted by users.
Shunsuke Oyu, CEO of Connehito, has been known for having developed Creatty, an online portfolio showcase and marketplace for independent product designers. However, the service faced pretty tough going because of flourishing competitors such as Etsy, and subsequently pivoted.
We thought of shutting down our company. However, we changed our minds and started taking on the challenge again in late 2013. Subsequently, we launched a health-focused Q&A site in 2014, where we keep writing stories like how to mitigate pains from stiff shoulders and lumbago. But when the numbers of articles posted reached around 400, we learned that the most trendy topics were about how to call and use a cab for a hospital when the mother feels the beginnings of labor.
Since Oyu also got married when he was 23 years old, he well recognizes many problems around childbirth or childcare. So his team decided to abandon their past and shift to their focus to addressing female-specific problems.
In addition to VC firms participating this funding round, we see many investors in Conehito from young entrepreneurs in Japan, such as Coach United CEO Nobuhiro Ariyasu and seed stage-focused investor Anri Samata.
Connehito CEO Shunsuke Oyu
Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based OpenLogi, a startup that provides an outsourced logistics platform focused on SMEs and freelancers, announced today that it has fundraised about 60 million yen ($500,000) from Japanese investment fund Infinity Venture Partners (IVP) and Kotaro Chiba, executive vice-president of Japanese mobile game company Colopl (TSE:3668). Upon this funding round, Masashi Kobayashi, managing partner at IVP, and Kimiyuki Suda aka Sudax, who has been serving as an auditor for recently-IPOed Japanese companies such as Bengo4.com (legal consulting platform) and Crowdworks (crowdsourcing platform), joined the board of management. The company also invited Star Mica (TSE:3230) Chairman Masashi Mizunaga as an advisor. OpenLogi is an outsourced logistics service offering affordable rates that leverages unused warehouse assets and downtime of logistic facilities. The company plans to use the funds to enlarge their four-person management team and to strengthen system development. In accordance with the company’s business expansion, IVP intends to make an additional investment of several million dollars. OpenLogi was founded in December 2013 by Hidetsugu Ito, who was previously involved in launching Japanese magazine subscription service Fujisan.co.jp. Based on his experience in discussing and negotiating with logistics companies, he founded OpenLogi…
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.
Tokyo-based OpenLogi, a startup that provides an outsourced logistics platform focused on SMEs and freelancers, announced today that it has fundraised about 60 million yen ($500,000) from Japanese investment fund Infinity Venture Partners (IVP) and Kotaro Chiba, executive vice-president of Japanese mobile game company Colopl (TSE:3668).
Upon this funding round, Masashi Kobayashi, managing partner at IVP, and Kimiyuki Suda aka Sudax, who has been serving as an auditor for recently-IPOed Japanese companies such as Bengo4.com (legal consulting platform) and Crowdworks (crowdsourcing platform), joined the board of management. The company also invited Star Mica (TSE:3230) Chairman Masashi Mizunaga as an advisor.
OpenLogi is an outsourced logistics service offering affordable rates that leverages unused warehouse assets and downtime of logistic facilities. The company plans to use the funds to enlarge their four-person management team and to strengthen system development. In accordance with the company’s business expansion, IVP intends to make an additional investment of several million dollars.
OpenLogi was founded in December 2013 by Hidetsugu Ito, who was previously involved in launching Japanese magazine subscription service Fujisan.co.jp. Based on his experience in discussing and negotiating with logistics companies, he founded OpenLogi to address logistics solutions for small e-commerce players.
Looking at the recent upward trend in the C2C business in Japan thanks to instant e-commerce platforms like Base or Stores.jp, as well as resale shopping app Mercari, C2C-based commerce businesses have become more common, so logistics services for professional use lags behind those for small commerce business players in terms of service flexibility.
In view of the fabless business concept, OpenLogi is very similar to online printing startup Raksul or online laundry startup Lenet, where they have no assets to provide services. Upon signing up with OpenLogi platform, it provides management features on a dashboard, such as warehouse inspection, warehouse storage, shipping, and management of returned merchandise at affordable rates.
Since its launch in beta in June 2014, OpenLogi has successfully attracted many SMEs and freelancers because of its price transparency and affordable rates, and is seeing a 400% growth on a month-to-month revenue basis. While planning to expand the service to warehousing of frozen foods and hazardous materials, they are working on the launch of a cross-border shipping service to serve international e-commerce businesses, and is expected to launch in April.
L to R: OpenLogi CEO Hidetsugu Ito and newly-appointed auditor Kimiyuki Suda aka Sudax
See the original story in Japanese. As Nikkei reported last week, Tokyo-based Crowdcredit, a startup behind a peer-to-peer lending platform focused on financing emerging markets under the same name, officially announced on Monday that it has fundraised 200 million yen ($1.7 million) from Japanese trading house Itochu (TSE:8001). According to the Nikkei article, Itochu has taken an 18% stake in the lending company, so the latter’s market cap is valued at over 1 billion yen ($8.4 million). See also: Meet Crowdcredit, Japan’s peer-to-peer lending platform for emerging markets Crowdcredit will use the funds to enhance features on the lending platform, looking to give users currency-hedging options, which will make Japanese users more likely to invest. Having dealt with funding projects for individuals and SMEs in Peru, they will expand the coverage to other countries like Mexico, Italy, Spain, and Finland from April. Crowdcredit fundraised from Femto Startup just after its launch in 2013, and subsequently secured additional funding from Monex Ventures, GCI Capital, and Femto Startup in July. Details of these investments have not been disclosed. With this investment round, Itochu has become the second-largest stockholder for Crowdcredit. Edited by Kurt Hanson
Crowdcredit CEO Tomoyuki Sugiyama visits Peru to study local market conditions. (Photo courtesy of Crowdcredit)
As Nikkei reported last week, Tokyo-based Crowdcredit, a startup behind a peer-to-peer lending platform focused on financing emerging markets under the same name, officially announced on Monday that it has fundraised 200 million yen ($1.7 million) from Japanese trading house Itochu (TSE:8001). According to the Nikkei article, Itochu has taken an 18% stake in the lending company, so the latter’s market cap is valued at over 1 billion yen ($8.4 million).
Crowdcredit will use the funds to enhance features on the lending platform, looking to give users currency-hedging options, which will make Japanese users more likely to invest. Having dealt with funding projects for individuals and SMEs in Peru, they will expand the coverage to other countries like Mexico, Italy, Spain, and Finland from April.
Crowdcredit fundraised from Femto Startup just after its launch in 2013, and subsequently secured additional funding from Monex Ventures, GCI Capital, and Femto Startup in July. Details of these investments have not been disclosed. With this investment round, Itochu has become the second-largest stockholder for Crowdcredit.
See the original story in Japanese. Over the new year’s period, five start-up teams selected for the initial batch of “IBM BlueHub” – the incubation program launched by IBM Japan for the first time – were announced. As befits a program run by a technology-driven company like IBM, the majority of services from those five are tech-driven. Lately, with so many services featuring UI/UX on the startup scene now, the author being a systems engineer on the side cannot but help feel excited upon seeing such services offering exceptional technologies. For this story, let us focus on one of the five firms called Sefuri, the developer of Yamap. User Experience aimed for by Yamap Yamap is a mapping app for mountain climbers, which allows users ascertain their current location even in mountains outside of mobile telephony range, relying solely on GPS signals sent from global positioning satellites. Conventionally mountain climbers in the past would often carry a dedicated GPS device, but almost the same functions are offered now via a generally available smartphone. The system enables a user disclosing his or her climb logging data over Yamap, after regaining internet accessibility, to share with other users in what outfit he…
Over the new year’s period, five start-up teams selected for the initial batch of “IBM BlueHub” – the incubation program launched by IBM Japan for the first time – were announced. As befits a program run by a technology-driven company like IBM, the majority of services from those five are tech-driven.
Lately, with so many services featuring UI/UX on the startup scene now, the author being a systems engineer on the side cannot but help feel excited upon seeing such services offering exceptional technologies. For this story, let us focus on one of the five firms called Sefuri, the developer of Yamap.
User Experience aimed for by Yamap
Yamap is a mapping app for mountain climbers, which allows users ascertain their current location even in mountains outside of mobile telephony range, relying solely on GPS signals sent from global positioning satellites. Conventionally mountain climbers in the past would often carry a dedicated GPS device, but almost the same functions are offered now via a generally available smartphone.
The system enables a user disclosing his or her climb logging data over Yamap, after regaining internet accessibility, to share with other users in what outfit he or she climbed, what kinds of attraction were found on the mountain, etc. In short, it has evolved into a social network for mountain climbers, beyond the domain of mapping application.
What is the user experience aimed for by Yamap? I interviewed Yoshihio Haruyama, founder and CEO of Sefuri, who once edited a travel magazine at an agency specializing in individual trips.
Sefuri CEO Yoshihiko Haruyama
Let’s say, someone takes a trip to Yufuin (sightseeing spot in Kyushu best known for hot springs). We would like the traveler to experience fun not only in center town of the hot-springs resort, but also the overall experience in the area including the neighboring mountains. We would like to support tourism during a resort stay.
If one wishes to record and share a travel itinerary, apps like Korea’s Travelog that let international travelers to ascertain their current location are available. This is done by downloading the map of one’s place of stay in advance, no 3G or 4G roaming service needed.
Technically speaking, while what they’ve developed is the same as other such startups, Haruyama emphasized that Yamap mainly focuses on creating a community around mountain climbing. As the climber’s stories are posted / shared per mountain with photos of the outfits worn, it serves as an extremely supportive source of information for mountain climbers to see the required gear for conquering a mountain for the first time, plus what attractions are available.
He continued:
We would like to establish a service by combining a map and GPS with the tracking data of mountain climbs, similar to that of Trip Advisor. Because we aim to offer services widely accepted by mountain climbers, monetization is not considered part of the mapping apps function.
Community operations and monetization
It is nearly a year since Yamap’s launch last year, but its current membership numbers 75,000. Its monthly page per view is 2.11 million; MAU (monthly active users) in November totaled at 20,000. Although he is not thinking about monetization until the membership volume attains a certain figure between 500,000 and a million, Haruyama shared with me a possible business model.
We’d like to come up with a price comparison website/apps covering products related to mountain climbing/outdoors. Since life and limb depend on mountain-climbing/outdoor goods, everybody wishes to purchase a better product for less. On the other hand, those outdoor brands like Patagonia, The North Face, MontBell and the like are no longer niche. An affiliate that sends customers to such product sales sites will provide them profit.
Haruyama explained:
Corporate advertising is another. There are only a few online communities where users such as mountaineers and outdoor fans gather; Yamap in this field is likely to become an epic platform. If we can develop tourism-related business in the future, such advertisements could be gained as well. However, as far as the tourism business is concerned, I think collaborating with local governing bodies and others would be better rather than going it alone.
Besides Haruyama, Sefuri comprises 3 engineers. Although the number of mobile apps download is 90,000, with the IBM BlueHub program, by improving UI/UX with the mentoring offered by Takayuki Fukatsu the designer and the like, they aim to achieve 150,000 downloads upon program completion.
CC-licenced picture: A line of mountaineers heading toward Mt Blanc (via Flickr by ashokboghani)
Funding and global expansion
So far, this company has fundraised 5 million yen (about $41,800) from Samurai Incubate in a seed round and 1.5 million yen ($12,500) from Japan Finance Corporation. Furthermore, it is exploring a series A round funding for next summer. To launch Android apps development, it is actively hiring Android apps development engineers based out of Sefuri office in Fukuoka.
The “mountain climbing demand” can be found worldwide, so we’d like to carry out overseas development actively. We will offer English services by next Spring. We’d like to do the same as to Korean and Chinese, too. We will first reinforce our (inbound) services for those mountain climbers coming to Japan, followed by (outbound) services for those going abroad
Yamap has won the Samurai Award at “Zenkoku Startup Day (literally meaning “All-Japan Startup Day” held in Fukuoka city recently, and was nominated for the Good Design Award Best 100 in 2014 to receive the Good Design Award of Small and Medium Enterprises.
For those who do not climb mountains on a regular basis, there may be some anxiety about climbing without a guide. But with Yamap, such fear for the climb may be allayed. As this year can expect a mountain-climbing boom hitherto unseen, generated by mountain-climbing visitors from inside Japan and abroad, we look forward to Yamap serving as a “must-have” for mountain climbers around the globe.
Translated by “Tex” Pomeroy Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. HackOsaka 2015, held earlier this month in Osaka, featured a pitch contest where 10 startups pitched their services and products. The event was hosted by Osaka Innovation Hub (OIH) and Osaka Economic Strategy Bureau. I would like to introduce prize winners and other presenting startups. Judges for the competition are: Don Burton (Managing director, Techstars) Tim Romero (Entrepreneur, Investor, Podcaster, and Writer) Airi Horie (CEO, Women’s Startup Lab) Khailee Ng (Managing Partner, 500 Startups) Allen Miner (Chairman, SunBridge Global Ventures) See also: Translation app Waygo wins HackOsaka pitch contest Gold Prize winner (Hack Osaka Award winner): mClinica (Manila, the Philippines) Supplementary prizes: 500,000 yen in cash, 50,000 Bonus Miles for each of 3 persons (presented by by Japan Airlines), Amazon Kindle (presented by Amazon Web Services) mClinica CEO Frouk Meralli is originally from Canada but now based out of Manila, the Philippines. Conventional independent drugstores in the Philippines are not organized with each others, and have neither POS facility nor internet connectivity. So pharmaceutical companies have no access to drugstores for marketing purposes or obtaining sales statistics. mClinica gives users a discount when buying drugs at a drugstore, in exchange for giving their contact…
HackOsaka 2015, held earlier this month in Osaka, featured a pitch contest where 10 startups pitched their services and products. The event was hosted by Osaka Innovation Hub (OIH) and Osaka Economic Strategy Bureau. I would like to introduce prize winners and other presenting startups.
Judges for the competition are:
Don Burton (Managing director, Techstars)
Tim Romero (Entrepreneur, Investor, Podcaster, and Writer)
Gold Prize winner (Hack Osaka Award winner): mClinica (Manila, the Philippines)
Supplementary prizes: 500,000 yen in cash, 50,000 Bonus Miles for each of 3 persons (presented by by Japan Airlines), Amazon Kindle (presented by Amazon Web Services)
From the left: Hack Osaka Award 2015 Chief Judge Allen Miner, MC Diane Kichijitsu, mClinica CEO Farouk Meralli
mClinica CEO Frouk Meralli is originally from Canada but now based out of Manila, the Philippines. Conventional independent drugstores in the Philippines are not organized with each others, and have neither POS facility nor internet connectivity. So pharmaceutical companies have no access to drugstores for marketing purposes or obtaining sales statistics.
mClinica gives users a discount when buying drugs at a drugstore, in exchange for giving their contact numbers to mClinica. This discounted cost will be later reimbursed to the drugstores by the pharmaceutical companies. In this way, while pharmaceutical companies can obtain statical data such as what kind of pharmaceutical products are being sold at which store, pharmaceutical companies and drugstores can market new products or run promotional activities via the platform.
The company has acquired big companies like Roche and Pfizer as clients, in addition to 1,400 drugstores and 20 million patients over the six months since launch. They fundraised an undisclosed sum of investment from 500 Startups, Philippines-based Kickstart Ventures, and Japan’s IMJ Investment Partners in October.
Silver Prize winner: Blaze (London, UK)
Supplementary Prizes: 300,000 yen in cash, 50,000 Bonus Miles for each of 2 persons (presented by Japan Airlines)
Blaze CEO Emily Brooke
Cycling at night is dangerous because of increased risk of collisions caused by lower visibility, so the fact is that the number of accident victims/casualities has been rapidly growing. Blaze has created a laser light for urban cyclists, which projects a cycle lane symbol on the road ahead of the cyclist for calling attention to pedestrians and automobile drivers, aimed at preventing possible traffic accidents.
Blaze has adopted a laser chip from a manufacturer in Tokyo, and its battery has approximately a one-month lifetime upon typical frequency or length of use. The company has successfully fundraised £55,000 through a Kickstarter campaign, followed by securing £1.5 million funds from Index Ventures, the Branson Family, and other investors. Their product is available online in 47 countries while also being available at UK’s biggest bicycle retail chains and the MoMA Store.
Bronze Prize winner: Up Performa (Kyoto, Japan)
Supplementary Prize: 100,000 yen in cash, 50,000 Bonus Miles for 1 person (presented by Japan Airlines)
Up Performa CEO Shuhei Yamada
Born out of Founder Institute Kansai, Up Performa aims to bring data measurement and analytics using wearable devices to the sports scenes, which has been common among professional sports players already. It allows players to playback the transition of their location and movement during the play in a heat map, not to mention seeing the total distance run and the transition of their running speed.
Up Performa plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign for its sports wearable device by the end of this year.
In Europe, property agents or management companies have to make a report upon visual inspection of the condition of properties before renting them out. So they need to take many photographs and sort them out later to prepare a report, which is very time-consuming. SmartCheckups provides various templates and work flow for the photos in preparing the reports according to type of property, so agents or companies can simplify their property inspection and report-preparation processes.
SmartCheckups was initially founded in Berlin but started its business in Belgium. While their targeted markets are European (Germany, UK, Belgium, France and the Netherlands), they are also looking for partner companies in Japan.
SmartCheckups CEO Didier Vermeiren
In addition to these four prize winners, I’d like to introduce more startups that stood out in the competition. $250 in AWS Credit were presented to all prize winners and participating startups.
Cofame (Osaka, Japan)
Cofame COO Kanji Noguchi
Cofame provides users with a new experience for exchanging business cards using a mobile app. When you meet up with multiple people anew at a meeting, you can simultaneously exchange cards with these people using a single action on the app.
It also replicates the scene in the app by showing in which seat who was sitting around the table in a meeting so that you can remember the names of the people associated with their faces. Cofame allows users to export data to various contact management solutions, such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamic CRM.
Cofame founder Kanji Noguchi was selected for the 1st Silicon Valley fellowship program for entrepreneurs by the Osaka City government, and stayed in Silicon Valley while living in a tent to save expenses to network with the local community. He raised funds from several angel investors in the U.S. as well as Japan.
Ingage (Osaka, Japan)
Ingage CEO Tetsuya Wada
In a company, it is said that an annual opportunity loss caused by neglecting e-mail inquiries requiring a response has reached as high as $376,000 on average in Japan. Ingage has developed Re:lation e-mail sharing and response management solution for group working, which keeps company employees from forgetting to respond to each incoming inquiry.
At first glance it is just a web-based e-mail solution. But when some employee starts work on replying to an e-mail, the app shows other employees who were working on it so that users can eliminate the overlap of e-mail response tasks.
If you are requested to get approval from your boss in e-mailing outside of your company, your message draft will be saved once and later sent out upon receiving approval.
Cashboard (Berlin, Germany)
Cashboard CEO Robert Henker
Cashboard is a fintech startup, which lets users start investing at as little as 1,000 euros. Users can ask the platform for automated trading in managing investments in ETF (exchange traded funds) as well as a combination of new and old financial products. By answering several questions, the service creates the best portfolio of financial products for users.
The company raised the first VC funding in 2014, followed by winning a pitch day event at Seven Ventures and 4 million euros in TV ad broadcasts. Leveraging these opportunity, they plan to strengthen marketing efforts in Germany in 2015, secure the second VC funding in 2016 for international expansion in Europe, followed by further expansion to the Middle East and Asian regions after 2017.
M Square (Kobe, Japan)
M Square CEO Jojo Miwa
M Square CEO Jojo Miwa came to Paris to acquire an MBA degree. She was in Paris, hopping around for job interviews. For public transport use the NaviGo IC card for Paris Metro can be counted on, but she had been buying tickets because she didn’t know how to use the IC card.
OysterCard in London, EZ Card in Singapore, Octopus Card in Hong Kong, T-Card in Seoul, and Suica in Tokyo — there are various IC cards on the planet but these have no interoperability. If you have multiple mobile wallets, you have to install many apps supporting these wallets and remember many PINs/passwords. Your mobile device may be stolen.
M Square is developing a biometrics-based payment solution called Depago. They started development last October, and will launch the product in this June.
DigitAddress (Osaka/Tokyo, Japan)
DigitAccess founder Wei Wang
DigitAddress provides encrypted addressing solutions. Instead of a conventional address, users can obtain a DA code substituting the address and provide it to a shipping operator. Then the operator can specify a geographical position using an API to the DigitAddress platform so that an item you ordered will be appropriately delivered.
In view of drone-based delivery systems seen becoming more common in the future, the company aims to provide more detailed geographical data with DA codes, compared to existing addressing systems mainly designed for postal services. This way, even if there are multiple buildings or houses at a single address, DigitAddress enables delivery to the correct recipient using a drone. In a nutshell, while their solution secures user privacy by masking the actual address, it can pinpoint the exact location for API-based delivery requests.
DigitAddress founder Wei Wang came to Osaka from mainland China to study physics. His company won the Tomodachi award at University Venture Grand Prix, a competition sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. We’ve been told that it has secured funding from a major company in the computer security industry.
Stamp (Bangkok, Thailand)
Stamp CEO Opie Lopansri
Stamp has developed a device that lets retailers become more likely to induce potential customers. From a retailer’s perspective, all you need to do is just press the device on a customer’s smartphone, enabling customers rewards point provision as with existing paper-printed customer loyalty cards. Users can use collected points as cryptocurrency at retailers participating in the Stamp platform.
Stamp is available for iOS and Android. In addition, the company has published an SDK (Stamp Development Kit) so that third-party developers can integrate it with their apps so allow their users to benefit also from retailers participating in the Stamp platform.
Often one can’t convert earned points to rewards because the minimum amount no being attained. Obtaining the number of third-party apps and retailers participating in the platform makes earning of reward points more likely, so the company wants to build as well as expand an ecosystem where users can earn or redeem points with partnering apps/retailers.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup-focused investment firm Nippon Venture Capital (NVCC) announced earlier this week that it has formed an investment fund to help Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute International (ATR), a private institute that has developed humanoid robots (see video below), convert their innovative technologies into consumer products. The fund is named Keihanna ATR Fund after a science city in Japan and is valued at 5 billion yen ($41.8 million). Investors include Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), Omron Ventures, Kyoto Bank, KDDI, Kozo Keikaku Engineering, Suncall, Shinsei Bank, and Sumitomo Electric Industries. According to the announcement, this fund targets the following scientific areas: Computational neuroscience, such as brain-machine interface, neuroscientific diagnosis, and medical treatment for people suffering mental disorders Humanoid robots supporting people’s daily activities such as Geminoid, Telenoid (nursing-care robot), and technologies on studying customer behavior at retail stores Wireless technologies such as obtaining electric power from radio waves They will focus on investing in new companies based in Osaka. NVCC will give hands-on support to invested companies on business management, in addition to performing their duties of managing the fund and determining whether to invest. In Japan, other investment or incubation activities focused on…
Kodomoroid, a humanoid robot invented by Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute International (ATR)
According to the announcement, this fund targets the following scientific areas:
Computational neuroscience, such as brain-machine interface, neuroscientific diagnosis, and medical treatment for people suffering mental disorders
Humanoid robots supporting people’s daily activities such as Geminoid, Telenoid (nursing-care robot), and technologies on studying customer behavior at retail stores
Wireless technologies such as obtaining electric power from radio waves
They will focus on investing in new companies based in Osaka. NVCC will give hands-on support to invested companies on business management, in addition to performing their duties of managing the fund and determining whether to invest.
Takeshi Hirano
Masaru Ikeda
