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Japan’s Mitsui Fudosan launches $45 million investment fund for startups worldwide

Masaru Ikeda 2016.02.23

31-ventures-cvc-fund-yurimoto-sugawara-kitahara — L to R: Yasuhiko Yurimoto (CEO, Global Brain), Yoshikazu Kitahara (Executive Managing Director, Mitsui Fudosan), Akira Sugawara (General Manager, Venture Co-creation Project by Mitsui Fudosan)

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s leading property company Mitsui Fudosan (TSE:8801), also known for its Venture Co-Creation Project, or 31 Ventures, announced at a news briefing today in Tokyo the launch of their first strategic investment fund in association with Tokyo-based investment firm Global Brain, and it is expected to be valued at 5 billion yen ($45 million).

Redeemable in ten years, the fund targets seed-, early-, and middle-stage startups in Japan, North America, Europe, Israel, and Asian countries in all sectors, but excluding biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, with a focus on real-estate, IoT (Internet of Things), security, environment, energy, sharing economy, e-commerce, fintech, robotics, and life sciences.

Mitsui Fudosan plans to invest in 500 Startups and Draper Nexus Ventures through the fund, so we see it has a so-called ‘fund of funds’ structure. To support the global expansion of startups, Mitsui Fudosan has partnered with Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator in New York as well as NUS Enterprise, the startup incubation arm of National University of Singapore.

Mitsui Fudosan has been primarily conducting their open innovation efforts at their startup hubs, such as Kashiwa-no-ha Open Innovation Lab, or KOIL, in a suburb of Tokyo. In addition to having invested in a “real-tech” fund led by Japanese biotech company Euglena, the company annually organizes the Asian Entrepreneurship Award to support startup ecosystems in Japan and the rest of the world.

The company says it will form a community called 31 Ventures Club, allowing participating startups to use four co-working spaces at various locations in Tokyo with a single membership. Furthermore, the company will also establish new startup hubs in two locations in Tokyo, planning to curate life science-focused startups in Nihonbashi near Tokyo Station.

See also:

Edited by Kurt Hanson

news

C Channel, Ookbee join forces to launch video fashion media for girls in Thailand

Junya Mori 2016.02.22

This is part of our coverage of The Bridge Fes 2016. See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based C Channel, a video-based digital fashion media for young women, announced on 19 February that it will launch C Channel Thailand in association with Ookbee, a Thai startup operating e-publication and UGC (user generated content) businesses in Southeast Asia. Launched by Line’s former CEO Akira Morikawa in April 2015, C Channel has been attracting lots of attention because of a unique screen specification adopting vertical video layouts and a content curation system leveraging “clippers,” or aspiring TV stars and fashion models. Their video clips have been played more than 37 million times in the ten months since the launch. Galaxy, the globally renowned smartphone brand from Samsung, was recently appointed as an official sponsor for the C Channel video portal. Known as Amazon in Southeast Asia, Ookbee has been serving 6.5 million users with e-publications, games, apps and others since its launch in 2011. In the C Channel session at The Bridge Fes 2016 event, Ookbee founder and CEO Natavudh Moo Pungcharoenpong spoke before a packed audience: More than half of Ookbee users are teenagers and they are eagerly adopting Japanese make-up…

This is part of our coverage of The Bridge Fes 2016.

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based C Channel, a video-based digital fashion media for young women, announced on 19 February that it will launch C Channel Thailand in association with Ookbee, a Thai startup operating e-publication and UGC (user generated content) businesses in Southeast Asia.

Launched by Line’s former CEO Akira Morikawa in April 2015, C Channel has been attracting lots of attention because of a unique screen specification adopting vertical video layouts and a content curation system leveraging “clippers,” or aspiring TV stars and fashion models.

Their video clips have been played more than 37 million times in the ten months since the launch. Galaxy, the globally renowned smartphone brand from Samsung, was recently appointed as an official sponsor for the C Channel video portal.

Known as Amazon in Southeast Asia, Ookbee has been serving 6.5 million users with e-publications, games, apps and others since its launch in 2011.

In the C Channel session at The Bridge Fes 2016 event, Ookbee founder and CEO Natavudh Moo Pungcharoenpong spoke before a packed audience:

More than half of Ookbee users are teenagers and they are eagerly adopting Japanese make-up and hairstyles. Thailand is the second-largest country following Japan in terms of the population of Line users, which indicates a high affinity for Japanese culture. We would like to grow together with C Channel in the ASEAN market.

Signing with selected local girls in Thailand as “clippers” through Ookbee, C Channel will provide Thai users with original content curated by them in their local language, anticipating to expand to the shopping business using video clips online.

C-Channel_Press5-620x495 — C Channel (desktop version)

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson

news

Misoca, Japan’s invoicing startup, reportedly to be acquired by software giant Yayoi

Junya Mori 2016.02.21

See the original story in Japanese. Yayoi, a Japanese major accounting software developer and a subsidiary of leading Japanese financial services company Orix (TSE:8591), is reportedly to acquire a whole stake in Japanese cloud-based invoicing startup Misoca for 1 billion yen ($8.9 million). The deal may be completed in this month. While Misoca has been offering participial integration with Yayoi’s cloud-based accounting platform since November 2014, the acquisition will accelerate the mutual integration between Misoca’s invoicing platform and Yayoi’s accounting software solutions. The Misoca platform lets a user edit and manage estimates, invoices, statements of delivery using a handy dashboard. A user can even ask the startup to print and mail these items to clients on the user’s behalf. Since their launch in June 2011, Misoca has acquired more than 58,000 corporate users. Previously known as Standfirm, Misoca secured a 30 million yen ($300,000) seed funding from Incubated Fund in September 2013, followed by securing a 70 million yen ($653,000) funding from SMBC Venture Capital and Incubate Fund in October 2014. In the latest funding round in May 2015, the company fundraised 20 million yen ($178,000) from several angel investors. Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by Kurt Hanson

See the original story in Japanese.

Yayoi, a Japanese major accounting software developer and a subsidiary of leading Japanese financial services company Orix (TSE:8591), is reportedly to acquire a whole stake in Japanese cloud-based invoicing startup Misoca for 1 billion yen ($8.9 million).

The deal may be completed in this month. While Misoca has been offering participial integration with Yayoi’s cloud-based accounting platform since November 2014, the acquisition will accelerate the mutual integration between Misoca’s invoicing platform and Yayoi’s accounting software solutions.

The Misoca platform lets a user edit and manage estimates, invoices, statements of delivery using a handy dashboard. A user can even ask the startup to print and mail these items to clients on the user’s behalf. Since their launch in June 2011, Misoca has acquired more than 58,000 corporate users.

Previously known as Standfirm, Misoca secured a 30 million yen ($300,000) seed funding from Incubated Fund in September 2013, followed by securing a 70 million yen ($653,000) funding from SMBC Venture Capital and Incubate Fund in October 2014. In the latest funding round in May 2015, the company fundraised 20 million yen ($178,000) from several angel investors.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson

news

Japan’s Goodpatch snags $3.5M to increase global sales of online prototyping tool

Goodpatch

Junya Mori 2016.02.19

This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. We’ve recently heard many stories making us think about the future form of a design firm. Japanese ad agency Hakuhodo DY Holdings (TSE: 2433) recently took a 30% stake in Ideo, a world-renowned Silicon Valley-based design consulting firm while Japanese video ad network provider Open8 recently acquired The Clip, a Tokyo-based design production startup. See also: 3 Japanese internet companies to launch mobile video ad network targeting females Tokyo-based user experience and interface (UX/UI) design agency Goodpatch announced today that it has fundraised 400 million yen (about $3.5 million) from DG Incubation, Salesforce Ventures, SMBC Venture Capital, SBI Investment, and FiNC. DG Incubation is the investment arm of Japanese internet service giant Digital Garage (TSE:4819) while FiNC is a notable weight-loss advisory startup based in Tokyo. For Goodpatch, this follows their previous $1 million funding from DG Incubation back in December of 2013. After the previous funding, the company launched cloud-based prototyping tool Prott. While the company has about 80 staffers in Tokyo and Berlin with about 20 people out of these being involved in developing the Prott platform. The company claims that the platform has acquired 55,000 users…

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

We’ve recently heard many stories making us think about the future form of a design firm. Japanese ad agency Hakuhodo DY Holdings (TSE: 2433) recently took a 30% stake in Ideo, a world-renowned Silicon Valley-based design consulting firm while Japanese video ad network provider Open8 recently acquired The Clip, a Tokyo-based design production startup.

See also:

3 Japanese internet companies to launch mobile video ad network targeting females

Tokyo-based user experience and interface (UX/UI) design agency Goodpatch announced today that it has fundraised 400 million yen (about $3.5 million) from DG Incubation, Salesforce Ventures, SMBC Venture Capital, SBI Investment, and FiNC. DG Incubation is the investment arm of Japanese internet service giant Digital Garage (TSE:4819) while FiNC is a notable weight-loss advisory startup based in Tokyo.

For Goodpatch, this follows their previous $1 million funding from DG Incubation back in December of 2013. After the previous funding, the company launched cloud-based prototyping tool Prott. While the company has about 80 staffers in Tokyo and Berlin with about 20 people out of these being involved in developing the Prott platform. The company claims that the platform has acquired 55,000 users to date, which though not yet profitable has sales on the increase because more freemium users are being converted to paying users.

Goodpatch founder and CEO Naofumi Tsuchiya says that the funds will be primarily used to further develop the Prott platform, as well as to establish sales offices in Taiwan and North America. In terms of competing globally, it means that Goodpatch will be forced to compete other players like InVision.

We will be tackling the market with a different focus from other prototyping tools. By adding features allowing users to grasp the structure of a prototyping object as well as exporting to UI design and product specification documents, we will make our platform easier integrated with tasks before and after the prototyping.

In addition to Prott, Goodpatch launched a mobile condo/apartment finder app called Talkie last year in association with At Home, a Japanese property information company. In this round, Goodpatch fundraised from two financial companies and a healthcare startup since they expect to explore synergies in the fintech and healthcare sectors respectively.

See also:

Tokyo Office Tour: At new office, Goodpatch preparing official launch of prototyping tool

goodpatch-naofumi-tsuchiya — Goodpatch founder and CEO Naofumi Tsuchiya

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

news

AI-based talent miner Atrae from Japan launches Tinder-like business matching app

Atrae
Yenta

Masaru Ikeda 2016.02.14

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Atrae recently launched a business matching app using an artificial intelligence (AI) system called Yenta. The app is available gratis for iOS via iTunes AppStore but users must pass screening by Atrae to complete the sign-up process. The Yenta app helps users connect with businesspersons upon widening their network through profile registration and repeated swipes on a screen. Our readers may recall that Atrae launched a talent mining platform leveraging AI and big data analysis called TalentBase last February. Leveraging the experience the team has acquired through development of the TalentBase platform, the Yenta app recommends 10 persons the user may be interested in connecting with at noon daily. After choosing which persons the user wants to meet by swiping on the Tinder-like app, the matching result with other users will be sent out later at 8pm on the same day. When both users confirm to meet each other, they can start chatting via the app to make an appointment. Toshiyuki Oka, Atrae director heading the development team, explained: Since our product is targeting a niche segment and intends to help users meet each other on a face-to-face basis, we are currently targeting…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Atrae recently launched a business matching app using an artificial intelligence (AI) system called Yenta. The app is available gratis for iOS via iTunes AppStore but users must pass screening by Atrae to complete the sign-up process.

The Yenta app helps users connect with businesspersons upon widening their network through profile registration and repeated swipes on a screen. Our readers may recall that Atrae launched a talent mining platform leveraging AI and big data analysis called TalentBase last February. Leveraging the experience the team has acquired through development of the TalentBase platform, the Yenta app recommends 10 persons the user may be interested in connecting with at noon daily. After choosing which persons the user wants to meet by swiping on the Tinder-like app, the matching result with other users will be sent out later at 8pm on the same day. When both users confirm to meet each other, they can start chatting via the app to make an appointment.

Toshiyuki Oka, Atrae director heading the development team, explained:

Since our product is targeting a niche segment and intends to help users meet each other on a face-to-face basis, we are currently targeting businesspersons in central Tokyo, not based on GPS data but on registered user profiles. Our users have to pass our screening upon sign-up so that we can pursue our user base both in quality and in quantity by carefully selecting cutting-edge people.

Since the launch of a closed beta version on 10 December last year, we have acquired 350 users to date. Since targeting such a core niche segment, we have moderately set our initial milestone as the acquisition of 100,000 users.

The service initially came up with matchmaking for business purposes in mind, similar to the Coffee Meeting where one has to choose people whom one may be interested in meeting up with. We’ve also recently seen other matchmaking services like Lemon and Join Us start up in Japan although these are not intended for business purposes.

Aiming to help users build and enhance their network, Atrae decided to offer the Yenta app completely for free as a derivative product from the TalentBase platform. The company claims that it will monetize by offering companies with support for their sales and hiring efforts through the app.

See also:

Translated by Minako Ambiru via Mother First
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

news

Japan’s D Free, bowel movement and urination predictor, secures $1 million

Masaru Ikeda 2016.02.14

See the original story in Japanese. Triple W Japan, developer of wearable bowel movement predictor D Free, recently announced that they have been certified by Japanese governmental business promotion agency NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) to join its support program for R&D-oriented startups and venture businesses in the seed stage. With this certification, Triple W Japan can receive up to 70 million yen (about $620,000) in subsidies. They also announced that they have secured 50 million yen ($450,000) from Hack Ventures invested by the City Government of Osaka, Hankyu Corporation, and others. The total amount of the two funds is 120 million yen (about $1 million). This follows their undisclosed sum of funding from Nissay Capital and iSGS Investment Works (formerly iStyle Capital) in April 2015. D Free uses ultrasonic waves to measures the size of excreta in the intestine; it then estimates when the sacrum will be stimulated and when the user will begin to feel the urge to go to toilet. A user will then have sufficient time to find a toilet and be relieved from the stress of bowel incontinence. Parkinson’s disease sufferers, the physically handicapped, or the elderly who have difficulty to go…

See the original story in Japanese.

Triple W Japan, developer of wearable bowel movement predictor D Free, recently announced that they have been certified by Japanese governmental business promotion agency NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) to join its support program for R&D-oriented startups and venture businesses in the seed stage.

With this certification, Triple W Japan can receive up to 70 million yen (about $620,000) in subsidies. They also announced that they have secured 50 million yen ($450,000) from Hack Ventures invested by the City Government of Osaka, Hankyu Corporation, and others. The total amount of the two funds is 120 million yen (about $1 million). This follows their undisclosed sum of funding from Nissay Capital and iSGS Investment Works (formerly iStyle Capital) in April 2015.

D Free uses ultrasonic waves to measures the size of excreta in the intestine; it then estimates when the sacrum will be stimulated and when the user will begin to feel the urge to go to toilet. A user will then have sufficient time to find a toilet and be relieved from the stress of bowel incontinence. Parkinson’s disease sufferers, the physically handicapped, or the elderly who have difficulty to go to toilet will no longer need to use diapers, thus helping people regain their dignity.

Triple W Japan is conducting trials at nursing homes of the D Free Beta version, which predicts urination. Based on the results, they will mass-produce, and they plan to start selling as a package for excretion care service to nursing homes this spring or later.

Last year, the Triple W Japan team participated in the first batch of Heart Catch, the two-month mentoring program for startups to brush up products. During this program, they told that they aim to promote this product to women who take care of their inner body not only outside and suggest them natural way for elimination without laxatives or supplements, in addition to active seniors who have elimination problems.

Last March, Triple W Japan won the Tokyo preliminary round of the Pioneers Festival, a startup conference in Austria. Yusuke Kawada (diagnostic radiology specialist at Japan’s National Center for Global Health and Medicine), Shoji Fukuda (director of Japan’s leading healthcare staffing firm SMS), and Minako Makino (Tokyo metropolitan area bureau chief, Japan Continence Action Society) have taken up posts as advisers to Triple W Japan.

Translated by Minako Ambiru via Mother First
Edited by Kurt Hanson

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