After meeting the funding target for their Danbokko Kitchen crowdfunding campaign on 26 March, Tokyo-based creative agency Kayac is moving forward with a new project called Hikaru Skirt, or “illuminating skirt.” This crowdfunding campaign for a skirt that lights up your Zettai Ryoiki [1] with colorful LED’s, started on 2 April with a funding goal of 3.9 million yen (approximately $32,000).
The Hikaru Skirt is a personalizable fashion item with LED lights built into the skirt. Changing the LED’s color to match your outfit or your mood is easy using the skirt’s companion smartphone app. The skirt’s lights can be turned on or off with the touch of a button, and it can even sync to music at parties or clubs. The previous model of Hikaru Skirt was featured in a video by idol group Moso Calibration and their new song Mahou no Juice (see the video in the bottom).
Lighting under the skirt can be controlled by a dimmer in a mobile app.
While it is uncommon for Kayac to promote a product that has a single creator, the skirt has been getting considerable social media attention leading to the decision to branch out into the manufactured goods market. Kayac Creative Director Kiyoyuki Amano is taking the leadership role in the Hikaru Skirt project.
Along with the cosplay boom, an increasing interest in science fiction and anime fashion is emerging. Is it possible to create something that bridges the gap between cosplay and everyday fashion, takes advantage of technology and looks good, too? This was the question that gave way to the Hikaru Skirt.
Amano explained:
The technology wasn’t the basis for the skirt; it was more the question of how can we make personal style more enjoyable? That lead to its development. In designing the skirt it was really important to me that it look cute whether lit up or not. You can wear it to go with a one-piece or as a skirt; it’s fashion that fits into everyday style.
Supporting the campaign at the 16,000-yen level gets you one medium Hikaru Skirt – delivery set for this October. Supporting projects like these that have single creators reinforces the creative spirit of Kayac’s employees. We look forward to seeing more unique products from Kayac.
Translated by Connor Kirk Edited by Masaru Ikeda and Kurt Hanson
Zettai Ryoiki is originally a term from Japanese anime series Evangelion, “Absolute territory” in English, has come to refer to the section of skin exposed between the hem of a miniskirt and the top of knee high socks. ↩
See the original story in Japanese. Exemplifying “the Science City in Japan” is Keihanna in the west and Tsukuba in the east. At Keihanna, ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International) has its base laboratory which is known for Otonaroid or Kodomoroid. Meanwhile clustered at Tsukuba are numerous robotics ventures including Cyberdyne and startups; moreover, Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City, founded as a center development by Mitsui Fudosan (TSE:8801) for the next-generation urban region, is located right in-between Tsukuba and Tokyo. Fresh in mind also may be a demonstration run of SmartDrive provided by a startup of the same name. Adoption of the smart driving system, here near Tokyo, is on the drawing board. The Asian Entrepreneurship Award (AEA) has been held every year in KOIL (Kashiwa-no-ha Open Innovation Lab), near the Tsukuba Express (TX) railway station located in the center of Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City. See also: Singapore’s wearable vest startup T.Ware wins top Asian Entrepreneurship Award 2014 Those who read the article about this event last year know that AEA differs a bit from other typical conferences for startups in Japan. The candidates of AEA not only focus on IT but also include those covering sectors such as basic technologies or products…
Project manager Ken Matsui (right) and Assistant section chief Kei Kato (left), Mitsui Fudosan Venture Co-Creation Project, a.k.a. 31 Ventures.
Exemplifying “the Science City in Japan” is Keihanna in the west and Tsukuba in the east. At Keihanna, ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International) has its base laboratory which is known for Otonaroid or Kodomoroid. Meanwhile clustered at Tsukuba are numerous robotics ventures including Cyberdyne and startups; moreover, Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City, founded as a center development by Mitsui Fudosan (TSE:8801) for the next-generation urban region, is located right in-between Tsukuba and Tokyo. Fresh in mind also may be a demonstration run of SmartDrive provided by a startup of the same name. Adoption of the smart driving system, here near Tokyo, is on the drawing board.
Those who read the article about this event last year know that AEA differs a bit from other typical conferences for startups in Japan. The candidates of AEA not only focus on IT but also include those covering sectors such as basic technologies or products for heavy industry.
AEA this year will be held from May 24th to 26th. In advance of the event, we interviewed Ken Matsui, Manager of Venture Co-creation Project at Mitsui Fudosan, about the purposes and history of AEA.
How AEA was Born
In 2005, the TX railway line was opened to link Akihabara in Tokyo and Tsukuba Science City. Since then, many technological ventures have been attracted to the area along this line. Mitsui Fudosan had been supporting venture activities since around 2010 due to relations with real estate development around the Kashiwa-no-ha area. Meanwhile, Matsui and his staff are convinced that something needs to be done.
Matsui explained:
We had established a venture support organization, for many technologies were available along the TX railway line. However, these ventures seemed to me that they were only looking to the domestic market, without vision of a larger business expansion and moreover, they were lacking ambition.
While thinking about methods which makes ventures move on to the next stage, Matsui met a person with a similar view. Prof. Shigeo Kagami, of the University of Tokyo, had been looking to bring the passion found in other Asian countries to the Japanese venture community. Kagami and Matsui got together to start preparations over a year, then began AEA by bringing to Kashiwa a dozen or so Asian ventures in the early spring of 2011.
Qualifications to participate in AEA, marking its 4th anniversary this year, are being ventures that deal in industrial engineering or technologies, while being unlisted ventures within five years from establishment.
Although Japanese ventures are strong in the technological sector, unfortunately they are not supported well. AEA hopes to assist in that point.
Matsui continued:
It is not uncommon that ventures in Japan have been sluggish for 7 to 8 years since establishment, while it would already result in success or failure in Asia excluding Japan. I wanted to bring a sense of speed to Japan. Therefore, the entire event is conducted in English, with no simultaneous translation being available even for presentations.
30 ventures from 12 Asian countries and regions which passed preliminaries or were recommended by startup supporters at universities or research institutes in their countries will participate in AEA, competing with their technologies or business model aiming for a higher ranking.
Human network is the biggest treasure
The T.Ware team from Singapore wins AEA 2014.
The 30 teams of the participant ventures will spend almost the same time period in the same building altogether for 4 days from the eve until the final presentation. Not a few teams find great values in the human networks built here, looking ahead to business expansion in the future.
Matsui elaborated:
The prize money of 2 million yen (about $16,500) for the top winner is not a small one. Also the team in 1st to 3rd place are awarded the right to free use of KOIL for two years. However, the human network built here will be the biggest treasure for them.
The biggest motivation of applicant ventures is to try their strength. They want to know their ranking, at what level their technologies or business are located at. Secondly, they are motivated by business expansion to the Japanese market.
The cost for invitation of ventures is covered by money paid by sponsors, so not sure how long wecan continue it, but I talk with Komiyama (supreme advisor of Future Design Center hosting AEA, and board chairman of Mitsubishi Research Institute) that we want to hold it at least until 10th somehow.
Looking at details of prized ventures after AEA, we can get a glance of good influence of this event on startup ecosystems in Asia. Neugent Technoloies (dealing a record technology of security cameras) from Philippine finished second in AEA 2012. David Cruz who is co-founder of this company gained self-confidence by experiences at AEA, has further started other ventures and is now managing them.
The participant teams are supported by the Global Partner Program, a mentor organization of TEP (TX Entrepreneur Partners) based upon KOIL and TX, so that they can be taught about introduction or methodology for market entry into Asian countries including Japan.
Behind the venture investment
Clip Nihonbashi, a co-working space by Mitsui Fudosan (photo courtesy of Mitsui Fudosan)
Last April, Mitsui Fudosan upgraded the office of Venture Co-creation to the department operating investment for ventures or startups, and fully started a project named ‘31 Ventures’. The name of 31 originated in Japanese pronunciation ‘Mitsui’, also this project aims to build 31 offices for venture supporting in the Tokyo Metropolitan area including Nihonbashi or Kasumigaseki.
As reasons behind venture supporting by real estate developer, the demand for their offices is expected when they succeed, also it seems to be a challenge to contribute business creation leveraging real estate. Since no companies do not have their office, every company including large enterprises to SMEs is connected with real estate companies, so the wideness of their network is inestimable. In Hong Kong, a real estate conglomerate Swire Properties acts as an incubator itself, similar movements can be expected in Japan.
The Bridge will report the detail of AEA held next week from the spot. Check it out please.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Viibar, the Japanese startup focused on a crowdsourced video production service, announced on Monday that it has fundraised from 700 million yen (about $5.8 million) from Yahoo Japan, Globis Capital Partners (GCP), and Gree Ventures. GCP and Gree Ventures also participated in the previous funding round. In tandem with the funding, Viibar partnered with Yahoo Japan and invited Osamu Aranami, Corporate Officer and President of Yahoo Japan’s marketing solution company, to its board of management, aiming to develop new services/video advertising businesses by offering video production resources to the top-tier Japanese internet portal. See also: Japanese crowdsourcing platform for video production raises $3M Viibar wins OnLab demo day with crowdsourced video production solution Viibar has acquired over 2,000 crowdsourced video creators to date. According to the company’s CEO Yuta Kamisaka, the main purpose of the funding at this time is to strengthen human resources, planning to enhance their 40-person team to 100 people including contract-based workers. In addition to human resources with prowess in crowdsourced video production services, the company will more focus on hiring data analysts, adtech engineers and other experts who will work on joint efforts with Yahoo Japan. What’s extremely interesting about this funding is that Yahoo Japan didn’t take a large…
Tokyo-based Viibar, the Japanese startup focused on a crowdsourced video production service, announced on Monday that it has fundraised from 700 million yen (about $5.8 million) from Yahoo Japan, Globis Capital Partners (GCP), and Gree Ventures. GCP and Gree Ventures also participated in the previous funding round.
In tandem with the funding, Viibar partnered with Yahoo Japan and invited Osamu Aranami, Corporate Officer and President of Yahoo Japan’s marketing solution company, to its board of management, aiming to develop new services/video advertising businesses by offering video production resources to the top-tier Japanese internet portal.
Viibar has acquired over 2,000 crowdsourced video creators to date. According to the company’s CEO Yuta Kamisaka, the main purpose of the funding at this time is to strengthen human resources, planning to enhance their 40-person team to 100 people including contract-based workers. In addition to human resources with prowess in crowdsourced video production services, the company will more focus on hiring data analysts, adtech engineers and other experts who will work on joint efforts with Yahoo Japan.
From the right: Viibar CEO Yuta Kamisaka and CTO Takeshi Matsuoka. Matsuoka is former CTO of Japanese internet giant Mixi.
What’s extremely interesting about this funding is that Yahoo Japan didn’t take a large stake in Viibar, despite that fact that this kind of minority investment is usually made by YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan, rather than Yahoo Japan itself. Kamisaka said he couldn’t yet disclose details about what the two companies are planning to do but they will hold a press briefing to unveil it in the near future.
However, I would like to make a few predictions concerning what will happen to Viibar, based on our interviews with Kamisaka. His phrase “data-driven video production” provided a clue. He explained:
Since our business has become profitable, we will use up the funds in a relatively short-term – maybe in two years – to establish a structure for an IPO. Details will be announced at a press briefing later on, but we plan to aggregate data from Yahoo Japan and other partners, associating them with video creatives via online dashboard so that advertisers can improve on performance for online promotion campaigns.
Upon hearing of combined data analytics and video, if you come up with the concept of distributed content model, you should be proud to count yourself among the media geeks. Under this concept, content publishers don’t intend to invite readers to their sites but rather measure its influence by consolidating engagements through such leading social media as Facebook and Twitter.
As a result, news media sites focused on the distributed content model are now forced to explore more efficient means of posting a content item instead of a website containing it. They will need to take more care about when to publish a content item, how to write a catchy headline, and how to replace it, such as with a new, more suitable types of content that match each of the multiple social media platforms.
In view of the process exploring the most efficient types of content to attract viewers, I think they need to adopt a similar approach to what typical adtech solution providers have been offering. Like A/B testing in developing an attractive banner ad, the distributed type content sites will need to produce many types of content and test them out.
In addition to crowdsourced video production platforms if Viibar had provided an automated marketing solution that allows media sites to see which social media platforms, when and what visual content should be distributed to attract viewers the most, it would be useful to propose efficient video ads for clients.
If my predictions come true, Yahoo’s intense interest in and high valuation for Viibar now makes good sense. In a recent interview, Kamisaka didn’t explicitly tell us anything about this but provided the following comment:
Until now, video production have been an all-or-nothing bet for companies in terms of what taste attracts users. However, Viibar will open up the world of video productions to the bottom-up approach from the creator side. So our platform will enable companies to implement a rapid PDCA (plan-do-check-action) cycle upon online video campaigning.
See the original article in Japanese. Whenever I attend demo-day events at local incubators in Tokyo, I always find someone working on information services for foreign visitors to Japan. We have seen Tsunagu Japan at the recent Open Network Lab’s Demo Day as well as Odigo at Pioneers Festival’s qualifier event in Tokyo. There was also the March launch of a mobile app called Lifull TraveRing. In view of the increase in foreign tourists leading up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Games, travel-related web services and mobile apps are becoming hot commodities in Japan. A web service called Planetyze launched in April aims to help foreign visitors discover travel spots outside of the major tourist destinations of Tokyo and Kyoto. Planetyze is a sister website of Travelience, a search portal for international visitors coming to Japan. See also: Japan increasingly turning to Facebook to reach potential tourists Travelience CEO Naoki Hashimoto, who operates Planetyze, realized that most visitors are concentrated in the major destinations in Japan because travel information for rural areas has not become easily available to travelers. So the company appointed Kimiko Kasahara as the editor in chief for the new platform to focus on curating useful travel…
Whenever I attend demo-day events at local incubators in Tokyo, I always find someone working on information services for foreign visitors to Japan. We have seen Tsunagu Japan at the recent Open Network Lab’s Demo Day as well as Odigo at Pioneers Festival’s qualifier event in Tokyo. There was also the March launch of a mobile app called Lifull TraveRing. In view of the increase in foreign tourists leading up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Games, travel-related web services and mobile apps are becoming hot commodities in Japan.
A web service called Planetyze launched in April aims to help foreign visitors discover travel spots outside of the major tourist destinations of Tokyo and Kyoto. Planetyze is a sister website of Travelience, a search portal for international visitors coming to Japan.
Travelience CEO Naoki Hashimoto, who operates Planetyze, realized that most visitors are concentrated in the major destinations in Japan because travel information for rural areas has not become easily available to travelers. So the company appointed Kimiko Kasahara as the editor in chief for the new platform to focus on curating useful travel information from around Japan for international visitors. Kasahara is the former chief editor at The Japan Times.
Planetyze allows users to create a travel itinerary, add their travel plans to the app’s calendar menu from any of the articles introducing destinations, and to also ask licensed guides to suggest available travel plans. In contrast to Travelience, which the company has been providing that allows users to buy excursions only, Planetyze enables users to create a custom-made trip.
With the launch of Planetyze, Travelience now has three tourist-related web services, the other two being Travelience and TripleLights. Planetyze could be seen as a pivot for the previous two services. It will be interesting to see what synergy these three services will produce.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Global Brain, a Japanese VC firm focused on investing in startups, signed an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with the Asan Nanum Foundation, a non-profit organization backed by Korea’s leading conglomerate Hyundai to help nourishing startups and entrepreneurship, on Wednesday in Seoul. Based on the partnership, the Japanese firm announced that it has set up a regional office in Campus Seoul, Google’s state-of-the-art incubation facility which was just launched last week in Korea’s startup hub area of Gangnam. The firm recently announced that it has also launched its Singapore office. Collocating resident investors like 500 Startups, Maru180, the incubator of the Asan Nanum Foundation, has an incubation space in Campus Seoul. Upon the launch of the new local office, Global Brain wants to strengthen investments in Korean startups and help with market expansion into the Japanese market as well as encouraging Japanese enterprises to enter the Korean market in partnership with Maru180. Global Brain announced last year that it had appointed Chester Jungseok Roh as chief representative for its Seoul office, however he will step down from the position and become an advisor for the company because he will launch a new startup. To make up for that, the firm’s venture partner Jooil Hong will be…
Global Brain CEO Yasuhiko Yurimoto (left) and the Asan Nanum Foundation’s managing director Hyungjin Lee (right) sign the partnership MoU at Maru180, Seoul.
Tokyo-based Global Brain, a Japanese VC firm focused on investing in startups, signed an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with the Asan Nanum Foundation, a non-profit organization backed by Korea’s leading conglomerate Hyundai to help nourishing startups and entrepreneurship, on Wednesday in Seoul. Based on the partnership, the Japanese firm announced that it has set up a regional office in Campus Seoul, Google’s state-of-the-art incubation facility which was just launched last week in Korea’s startup hub area of Gangnam. The firm recently announced that it has also launched its Singapore office.
Collocating resident investors like 500 Startups, Maru180, the incubator of the Asan Nanum Foundation, has an incubation space in Campus Seoul. Upon the launch of the new local office, Global Brain wants to strengthen investments in Korean startups and help with market expansion into the Japanese market as well as encouraging Japanese enterprises to enter the Korean market in partnership with Maru180.
Global Brain announced last year that it had appointed Chester Jungseok Roh as chief representative for its Seoul office, however he will step down from the position and become an advisor for the company because he will launch a new startup. To make up for that, the firm’s venture partner Jooil Hong will be appointed as the new representative for the Seoul office.
Prior to joining Global Brain, Hong had been previously supervising the growth strategy department of Kakao and Daum Kakao (KOSDAQ:035720), Korea’s leading internet companies, following his founding of several startups. Leveraging a vast network that Maru180, Campus Seoul, Roh, and Hong have realized in the local startup community, the firm looks to explore prominent startups and more investment opportunities in Korea.
This is a combined abridged version of the first article and the second article. Tokyo-based SenSprout has been developing hardware devices and Internet services focused on agriculture. Launching a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo with an initial goal of raising $10,000 on Monday, the company reached the goal in only two days. There are 58 days more to go until the campaign closes, so it will be interesting to see how much more money the team raises. SenSprout is a leaf-shaped sensor that measures rainfall and soil moisture, allowing users to receive metrics with their smartphone or other devices. Sensor systems for agriculture are not a new concept but they are hard for farmers to implement because they require an average of over 10 million yen ($85,000) investment and a network for data acquisition. See also: Japan’s SenSprout wants to save the world from water crisis with BLE-enabled sensors In this campaign, the team provides nine kinds of rewards for backers including the Early Bird Special craft kit for $45 and other more expensive backing options. The campaign is integrated with a recent startup competition hosted by Chivas Regal where SenSprout was chosen as one of 16 finalists out of more…
Tokyo-based SenSprout has been developing hardware devices and Internet services focused on agriculture. Launching a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo with an initial goal of raising $10,000 on Monday, the company reached the goal in only two days. There are 58 days more to go until the campaign closes, so it will be interesting to see how much more money the team raises.
SenSprout is a leaf-shaped sensor that measures rainfall and soil moisture, allowing users to receive metrics with their smartphone or other devices. Sensor systems for agriculture are not a new concept but they are hard for farmers to implement because they require an average of over 10 million yen ($85,000) investment and a network for data acquisition.
In this campaign, the team provides nine kinds of rewards for backers including the Early Bird Special craft kit for $45 and other more expensive backing options. The campaign is integrated with a recent startup competition hosted by Chivas Regal where SenSprout was chosen as one of 16 finalists out of more than 1,000 startup applications. Apart from the campaign, the top prizewinner at the competition will receive a $10,000 cash prize upon voting.
16 finalists from the Chivas Regal startup competition, including the SenSprout team
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
