Tokyo-based Cerevo, the Japanese startup behind a variety of smart consumer electronics devices, unveiled a smart key switch called Hackey on Wednesday. The product is available for 9,980 yen (about $82) on their website. In conjunction with the announcement, the company just started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo where backers can pre-order it for $59 plus shipping charge.
Hackey is a Wi-Fi-connected, palm-sized “key” switch. It is compatible with IFTTT and allows users to control various internet services via API by turning the key. Some examples of possible use cases include:
Allowing children to tell their parents working at office via Twitter message when these children return home by letting them turn the key
Controlling home security system by turning the key
Allowing users to hail a cab by turning the key
Allowing office employees to record the time on their company’s time clock card system when they start work or leave the office
In addition to allowing trigger signal transmissions to IFTTT Maker Channel, Hackey can also receive requests from other web services so Hackey’s side LED indicators will flash in accordance with a user’s settings. The product will be also compatible with myThings, Yahoo Japan’s mobile app enabling users to integrate various web services with IoT (Internet of Things) products.
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based Open8, the Japanese startup behind a women-targeted video ad network for smartphone users called Videotap, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised about 800 million yen (about $6.6 million) from Jafco, TBS Innovation Partners, iStyle and Excite Japan. [1] The exact details of the funding were not disclosed but the company wants to use the latest funds to strengthen human resources. See also: 3 Japanese internet companies to launch mobile video ad network targeting females Open8 is an ad network platform specifically focused on the F1 layer in Japan, women aged from 25 to 34, now reaching 40 million unique users on a monthly basis, leveraging existing user bases from iStyle and Excite Japan. Coinciding with the latest funding, the company announced that it is developing new businesses based on video ads, mail-order and video media in association with Tokyo Broadcasting System, the parent company of TBS Innovation Partners. As the first attempt at these efforts, Open8 is trying to integrate their mobile video ad platform with TV spot commercials. In addition, Open8 will launch a native video ad scheme on @Cosme and Women Excite in late November. @Cosme…
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.
Tokyo-based Open8, the Japanese startup behind a women-targeted video ad network for smartphone users called Videotap, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised about 800 million yen (about $6.6 million) from Jafco, TBS Innovation Partners, iStyle and Excite Japan. [1] The exact details of the funding were not disclosed but the company wants to use the latest funds to strengthen human resources.
Open8 is an ad network platform specifically focused on the F1 layer in Japan, women aged from 25 to 34, now reaching 40 million unique users on a monthly basis, leveraging existing user bases from iStyle and Excite Japan.
Coinciding with the latest funding, the company announced that it is developing new businesses based on video ads, mail-order and video media in association with Tokyo Broadcasting System, the parent company of TBS Innovation Partners. As the first attempt at these efforts, Open8 is trying to integrate their mobile video ad platform with TV spot commercials.
In addition, Open8 will launch a native video ad scheme on @Cosme and Women Excite in late November. @Cosme is a Japan’s leading cosmetic portal site by iStyle while Woman Excite is a women-focused portal site by Excite Japan. Based on the scheme of these partnerships, Open8 will explore partnerships with other online media sites.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Jafco is a leading Japanese VC firm. TBS Innovation Partners is the investment arm of Tokyo Broadcasting System. ↩
See the original story in Japanese. Nowadays, when there are countless recipes shared on the web, for someone who enjoys cooking, kitchen tips are scattered all over the place, but what about when it comes to making bentos (Japanese style lunch boxes). A bento is something that get’s carried, so it’s important that it’s made in such a way that the arrangement of ingredients doesn’t get messed up and that everything fits nicely inside the box. Making a bento requires a special kind of ingenuity that regular home cooking doesn’t. Ladies in their 40s and 50s who make bentos for their families and use Instagram Obento Park is a website that specializes in bentos, bringing together bento recipes and pictures. Released on the 10th of July this year, there are now roughly 800 recipes posted to the website. For many ladies in Japan, making bentos for their kids and husbands is something that is done every morning. Just like moms worry about what to make for dinner, what kind of bento to make is also a common concern. With Obento Park, visitors to the site can browse pictures of beautifully arranged bentos to gather inspiration and find out which ingredients…
Nowadays, when there are countless recipes shared on the web, for someone who enjoys cooking, kitchen tips are scattered all over the place, but what about when it comes to making bentos (Japanese style lunch boxes). A bento is something that get’s carried, so it’s important that it’s made in such a way that the arrangement of ingredients doesn’t get messed up and that everything fits nicely inside the box. Making a bento requires a special kind of ingenuity that regular home cooking doesn’t.
Ladies in their 40s and 50s who make bentos for their families and use Instagram
The Obento Park website
Obento Park is a website that specializes in bentos, bringing together bento recipes and pictures. Released on the 10th of July this year, there are now roughly 800 recipes posted to the website.
For many ladies in Japan, making bentos for their kids and husbands is something that is done every morning. Just like moms worry about what to make for dinner, what kind of bento to make is also a common concern. With Obento Park, visitors to the site can browse pictures of beautifully arranged bentos to gather inspiration and find out which ingredients are best suited for bento making.
In contrast with typical CGM (consumer generated media) websites where the quality of pictures always seems to be somewhat inconsistent, every single bento picture looks delicious on Obento Park. Of course all of these pictures are uploaded by users. It appears that new users are flowing in via Obento Park’s Instagram account.
When you hear “Instagram users” you probably imagine young people, but actually Obento Park is focusing on the 40 to 60 year old female crowd. This includes a lot of people who make bentos every weekday, so after posting their first bento on Obento Park, users check the site every day and post a picture of that day’s bento.
ObentoPark was founded by operating company Career Woman CEO, Yukie Kikuchi. She explained:
The age range of people posting to Obento Park is quite broad, but there are a lot of people who are making bentos for their husbands and their high school aged children. It seems like, while also using Ameba Blog (a blogging platform in Japan), Instagram, and other services, users want to share the bentos they’ve made with an even bigger audience.
Creating a world free of bento worries
Career Woman CEO Yukie Kikuchi
Kikuchi gathered some bento making experience during her time as an office worker, but struggled with ingredient arrangement, so while remembering the difficulties of making bentos that don’t apply to regular cooking, she began developing ObentoPark.
Kikuchi added:
I could cook just fine, but I wasn’t very good at making bentos. At work I’d open my bento while being careful that no one saw. Thinking back on those experiences, I did some research and listened to the opinions of some of my friends who are moms, and I realized everyone has these kinds of concerns when it comes to bentos.
For Kikuchi, ObentoPark is the second business she has started. As for her first business, the site still exists but, as it didn’t end up scaling largely, has ended operation. One thing she learned from that, Kikuchi said, was to be more honest and frank about what she wants and what she wants to use when creating a service.
Kikuchi continued:
All around me were investors, CEOs, and other well experienced people. When I first started my business I was very aware of my inexperience, so I foolishly assumed that the opinions I was hearing from other people must be correct. While I do think referring to people’s opinions is very important, I learned at that time that your own original vision and trusting your intuition is just as important.
Aiming at 10,000 uploaded recipes by March next year
Kikuchi’s bento, made after referring to a bento published on ObentoPark
It’s not uncommon for women (and sometimes men) to wake up at 5 or 6 in the morning to make bentos. This is because making bentos means making enough food to fill several people’s stomachs. For these early risers, it would be nice to save even 10 minutes of their time every morning. For that reason Kikuchi is committed to increasing the number of “pre-made” recipes.
These “pre-made” recipes consist of various side dishes which can be made ahead of time. The side dishes feature mostly just one ingredient, and can be made quickly and stocked in the fridge. Many of these side dishes will keep for several days, so just by keeping them in the fridge, you can arrange them as needed to easily add more variety to your bento.
Kikuchi elaborated:
I want to save ladies ten minutes every morning when they’re making bentos. In that extra ten minutes, maybe they will spend more time on their makeup, or read the newspaper a little more relaxed. Make your side dishes on the weekends and make the weekdays easier. We will be publishing more recipes for pre-made side dishes to support making bentos easier and faster.
Often when people have their bentos made for them every day, they start to take it for granted and forget to say thanks. The service Kikuchi has made might not only be a savior for bento maker’s block, it may help to make up for all of those missing thank you’s. Touting a vision of a world free of bento worries, ObentoPark’s first goal is to gather 10,000 recipes by March next year.
See the original story in Japanese. Once-in-a-blue-moon news of a product which excites me is unveiled today. Japan’s Soracom, which offers mobile data communication over its platform, on 30th September announced it had commenced Soracom Air and Soracom Beam platform services. The firm has entered into business agreement with Japanese mobile network operator NTT docomo for wholesale (L2 classification) as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) and provides mobile network service using NTT docomo’s mobile base stations. Soracom Air features a core network (packet switches, line management, band limits) and a support system (customer management or charge billing) that are proprietary developments as implemented on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, unlike conventional MVNOs who had to invest heavily upon starting up operations. As such a drastic reduction in the initial cost was wrought; moreover, the firm opening up its platform to a third party realized more attentive mobile data communication services compared with other operators. Upon purchasing the SIM (subscriber identity module) cards from Soracom, third-party operators can use Soracom Air at a set rate, charging a minimum of 10 yen (about 8 cents) per day. The set-up enables such operators to uniformly manage the SIM like changing the…
Once-in-a-blue-moon news of a product which excites me is unveiled today.
Japan’s Soracom, which offers mobile data communication over its platform, on 30th September announced it had commenced Soracom Air and Soracom Beam platform services. The firm has entered into business agreement with Japanese mobile network operator NTT docomo for wholesale (L2 classification) as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) and provides mobile network service using NTT docomo’s mobile base stations.
Soracom Air features a core network (packet switches, line management, band limits) and a support system (customer management or charge billing) that are proprietary developments as implemented on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, unlike conventional MVNOs who had to invest heavily upon starting up operations.
As such a drastic reduction in the initial cost was wrought; moreover, the firm opening up its platform to a third party realized more attentive mobile data communication services compared with other operators.
Upon purchasing the SIM (subscriber identity module) cards from Soracom, third-party operators can use Soracom Air at a set rate, charging a minimum of 10 yen (about 8 cents) per day. The set-up enables such operators to uniformly manage the SIM like changing the communication speed, halting and monitoring communication, or configuring the process via web or API.
Furthermore, the operators can also resell the SIM to their users and determine retail prices. Soracom Air’s SIM card is available for purchase on Amazon or its website (console screen). As for Soracom Beam, offering added functions for the platform including security and such, it is described later.
B2B2C model enabling IoT operators to provide/control their SIM cards
The outline of the Soracom platform is as above.
In a nutshell, while conventional MVNOs offer their services by utilizing ready-made core network and system, Soracom developed these on its own to allow service control to be handed over to other operators.
For example if I wanted to launch a “smart lock” business, when door operations are to be controlled from remote places over the mobile network, each smart lock would require the SIM to be inserted. Conventionally, users need an up-front contract with an MVNO for the SIM, with perhaps further costs or altered contractual terms in the offing.
In contrast, by using the Soracom Air SIM only 580 yen (about $4.8) is charged as a basic charge per line with a daily rate of 10 yen (8 cents) [or 5 yen (4 cents) if before starting use]. Moreover, data communication charges are at a metered rate of 0.2 yen/MB (0.17 cent/MB); in other words, services like smart lock – which rarely needs data communication to be performed – entail very little cost.
Additionally, the most exceptional feature of Soracom Air is being able to control all SIMs via web, so that the smart lock operator can control a SIM such as suspending use of one’s own service. Since this can also be done via API, one can use an embedded system for control such as turning on a smart lock for example.
With this it can be more appropriately referred to as the operators’ own service.
Incidentally, the Soracom SIMs are provided in two categories, either as nano, micro or standard SIM types with only data communication or as having SMS functions, respectively.
Soracom given “scalability” by Soracom Beam
As it is Soracom is quite comprehensive, yet the firm simultaneously announced the launch of an optional service called Beam.
As mentioned above, Soracom runs on the B2B2C model. Therefore, some user operators may possibly want to offer their service for corporate customers with a closed network. In such cases, the method of ensuring security processes like encryption or authentication will certainly become an issue.
On the other hand most IoT devices which Soracom is applicable to are small-sized with problematical CPU and batteries. If carrying out encryption at the device side, a high-performance CPU would be needed and the consumption of batteries would increase. A concept behind Beam is to solve these problems using the cloud.
With Beam, encryption, protocol conversion and data transfer to on-premise or cloud servers will be conducted at the Soracom side. All these processes run on AWS so that a highly secured network will be guaranteed. As for connection to the user operators’ services, currently cases of private line are at the testing stage.
Challenging global expansion, cultivating partnerships
There are various forecasts as to growth of the IoT market. For example, according to a research report by Business Insider, the total number of devices accessible to network (e.g., smartphone, PC, tablet or connected car) is predicted to double and the shipment will reach 67 billion by 2019 at a compound annual growth rate of 61%. If the researched items are not limited to only devices for short-range communication (e.g., Wifi or Bluetooth) but include that for mobile communication such as Soracom, these numbers are most likely to increase further.
Soracom’s approach is indeed an outstanding idea, however, they need to negotiate with carriers in each country, so as to develop the global market, or there is the possibility that other developers might develop it by themselves. Soracom CEO Ken Tamagawa also points out the importance of early global development.
Frankly speaking, I cannot read the future growth in number of IoT devices although various research reports about this have been produced. The current number of devices that one person has is about ten, and hence it is most likely to increase further in the future. As for service overseas, our main policy is negotiating with carriers in each country because adoption of roaming may mean excessive costs for users. Soracom’s core business is on AWS so we think we can expand our business in any country. We are now examining which market is suitable.
We should not classify Soracom with other cheap SIMs.
It indeed has the merit as to pricing; however, if widespread recognition is granted to it as a platform equipped with mobile data communication available for new business, ostensibly many startups may be spawned here.
Soracom will in fact start up a partnership program called Soracom Partner Space (SPS), to support the business launch on their platform. We look forward with high expectations to products or business that will be nurtured under this ecosystem.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy and Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup ZoooG recently released an iOS beta version of their new social network app for sharing your voice called Voice. This release comes after the launch of the Android beta version last month, and the company will now be moving forward with marketing expansion throughout Japan, China, and Taiwan. With Voice users can post clips of their own voices, follow users they like and also get followers in a similar fashion to Twitter. For some time now ZoooG has had a fairly large network with over 100 popular “twitcasters”, literally meaning users of the popular Japanese mobile livecasting app TwitCasting, with total followers reaching 1.9 million. Chisato Tezuka, ZoooG’s founder and CEO, in Fall of last year launched another app from a different company called Fancy Call ( Android / iOS ) which allows users to receive fake phone calls from popular twitcasters. That app had a recorded 80,000 downloads. Struck by the possibility of demand for apps that deal with voice interactions, Tezuka responded by releasing the Voice app. Tezuka explained his intention, On the Showroom app (provided by DeNA, there are a lot of people twitcasting and broadcasting on the radio,…
Tokyo-based startup ZoooG recently released an iOS beta version of their new social network app for sharing your voice called Voice. This release comes after the launch of the Android beta version last month, and the company will now be moving forward with marketing expansion throughout Japan, China, and Taiwan. With Voice users can post clips of their own voices, follow users they like and also get followers in a similar fashion to Twitter.
For some time now ZoooG has had a fairly large network with over 100 popular “twitcasters”, literally meaning users of the popular Japanese mobile livecasting app TwitCasting, with total followers reaching 1.9 million. Chisato Tezuka, ZoooG’s founder and CEO, in Fall of last year launched another app from a different company called Fancy Call ( Android / iOS ) which allows users to receive fake phone calls from popular twitcasters. That app had a recorded 80,000 downloads. Struck by the possibility of demand for apps that deal with voice interactions, Tezuka responded by releasing the Voice app.
Tezuka explained his intention,
On the Showroom app (provided by DeNA, there are a lot of people twitcasting and broadcasting on the radio, but there wasn’t a service that specialized in broadcasting individual’s voices to audiences; that’s why I made Voice. In China and Taiwan too, there are many people who post voice contents online casually, so I think the demand for this is big.
Chisato Tezuka
With their immediate goal to reach 20,000 downloads in Japan using their information disseminating power of their company’s popular twitcasters, and 10,000 downloads in Taiwan through Facebook promotions. With the market in China being a somewhat unique one, ZoooG will be making use of the popular Chinese video uploading site Bilibili (comparable to Japan’s Nico Nico Douga) among other sites, as well as partnering with Japanese firms proficient in on-site marketing as parts of their business expansion plan.
The Voice app is free to use, but posts will disappear from the service after 24 hours. If a user wants to save a post of his/her own or from someone they are following, the app will request that you upgrade to a paid account in order to use the save feature. In the future ZoooG is considering employing a celebrity endorsement business model similar to the social game monetization.
Other than the Voice app, it may be noted that there was another well known precedent of voice-based social networking, Singapore-based Bubbly (formerly Bubble Motion). Bubbly was acquired by Indian telecom enterprise Altruist Group in August of last year and ended up becoming a platform for posting Indian parody songs. Tezuka sees this as why it never became an app that could be adopted in the global market. He explained that moving forward the Voice app, starting with China and Taiwan, will be expanding into the global markets that Bubbly wasn’t able to reach, including southeast Asian countries with large youth population such as Malaysia and Indonesia.
The Voice development team at ZoooG is comprised of about 10 people, including app developers and collaborators. The team, until now having raised only a couple hundred thousand dollars from private investors, is now considering next round funding as they prepare to expand internationally.
See the original story in Japanese. AlpacaDB (hereafter called ‘Alpaca’) is based out of San Mateo (Silicon Valley) and Tokyo, developing web services and apps leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The company announced today that it has fundraised US$1 million from NEC Capital Solution, SMBC Venture Capital, Archetype Ventures (investment arm of Archetype), Shinji Kimura (noted Japanese serial entrepreneur and angel investor) and Bip Systems (Tokyo-based system integration company). Alpaca will use the latest funds to develop a trading platform using the deep learning technology called Capitalico. The platform started its beta testing in early October aiming for public release in January next year. Our readers may recall that the company launched an image recognition and labeling platform called Labellio back in June, where their team told us that they have developed Labellio as a sort of MVP (minimum viable product), and are currently developing another monetizable service based on the technology that Labellio uses. So Capitalico is that product. Alpaca is the successor to Ikkyo Technology, which had developed image filtering and matching service Categorific, a startup born out of Movida Japan’s 5th batch incubation program in 2014. They subsequently incorporated Alpaca in the US to better serve the…
AlpacaDB (hereafter called ‘Alpaca’) is based out of San Mateo (Silicon Valley) and Tokyo, developing web services and apps leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The company announced today that it has fundraised US$1 million from NEC Capital Solution, SMBC Venture Capital, Archetype Ventures (investment arm of Archetype), Shinji Kimura (noted Japanese serial entrepreneur and angel investor) and Bip Systems (Tokyo-based system integration company).
Alpaca will use the latest funds to develop a trading platform using the deep learning technology called Capitalico. The platform started its beta testing in early October aiming for public release in January next year. Our readers may recall that the company launched an image recognition and labeling platform called Labellio back in June, where their team told us that they have developed Labellio as a sort of MVP (minimum viable product), and are currently developing another monetizable service based on the technology that Labellio uses. So Capitalico is that product.
Alpaca is the successor to Ikkyo Technology, which had developed image filtering and matching service Categorific, a startup born out of Movida Japan’s 5th batch incubation program in 2014. They subsequently incorporated Alpaca in the US to better serve the global market.
Prior to founding Ikkyo Technology, Alpaca co-founder and CEO Tsuyoshi Yokokawa worked for Lehman Brothers as a trader where he was in charge of marketing and structuring financial products in the capital markets team. It seems his experience at that time is the basis of the new service development.
Yokokawa explained:
Forex traders typically use a software to analyze buying and selling decisions. However, MetaTrader, one of major softwares for us, is only compatible with Windows and requires programming in MQL (MetaQuotes Language) to operate.
It is said that only 1% of all traders can write codes in the language, so most traders need to ask someone else to program the codes to use the software. Other SaaS (software as a service) platforms such as Quantopian and QuantConnect also require users to program their algorithm. I wanted to change this situation.
Based upon image recognition deep learning technology, the Capitalico platform allows users to easily find a forex chart from an archive since 2001 as well as a live forex chart which is similar to what you have on hand. We have been told that image recognition deep learning technology can be efficiently adopted into fintech services as well as medical image analysis. I assume that the Alpaca team intends to level the forex trading field through this platform so that not only experienced trading professionals like investment bankers but also everyone can use it.
A snapshot of the Capitalico platform under development (click to enlarge)
When deep learning-based chart matching or analysis of forex charts are available for everyone, it will allow you to adopt the experience of star traders, who are now succeeding in investment, your trading operations, sort of like renowned chefs sharing their secret recipes with housewives online.
Yokokawa added:
There have been star traders. But in order to help them pop up, we need a scheme like business development or funding to support them regardless of however good their trading performance or reputation is. When ordinary people can gain access to investment criteria or a decision-making algorithm of star traders, we will be able to create a marketplace which will be like selling cooking recipes.
Under this scheme, if you make a profit using an algorithm developed by star traders, you would be able to pay a commission to them so that they would be pleased to open up their secrets to users. It would enable even amateurs to trade in a professional manner from day one.
There are 50 million forex accounts are being used for all 300 million retail investment accounts around the world. That’s why Capitalico is focused on forex trading first, before expanding to stocks, futures, ETFs (exchange traded funds) and other investment products.
In order to perform smooth service development, Matt Luckett, former general partner at a US hedge fund, joined Alpaca as advisor, while Masakazu Masujima (Mori Hamada & Matsumoto law firm), an attorney who is familiar with the fintech industry, was appointed a legal advisor. The Alpaca team is planning to attend Finance Magnates London on November 2nd and 3rd, which is an annual fintech-focused conference taking place in the global fintech hub.
To my knowledge, there are some startups with similar ideas in Israel and Europe in this sector. But I’d like to take another occasion to discuss their potential competitiveness.
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Yukari Mitsuhashi
