Tokyo-based Monstar Lab, the company providing crowdsourced offshore app development service Sekai Lab, announced on Friday that it has secured 250 million yen (about $2.5 million) from Gogin Capital (investment arm of San-in Gogo Bank headquartered in Japan’s Shimane Prefecture) and Resona Capital in addition to existing shareholders. This follows their previous $3.3 million funding from Pasonatech and DG Incubation. We have not confirmed which funding round this is.
Monstar Lab now offers app development in 17 countries worldwide including China, Bangladesh and Vietnam but still busies themselves in further expanding markets. The company’s CEO Hiroki Inagawa visited Jordan in October, which hints at the possibility of expansion into the Middle East from Asia where they now have multiple development locations. The funds raised this time will be used for such market expansion efforts.
Getting Gogin Capital onboard as a shareholder may have something to do with the fact that Monstar Lab has a development location in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture. While offering existing offshore app development services as well, the company plans to invite more engineers from overseas to these locations within Japan, looking to help improve the situation in and around Shimane where companies still struggle with lack of system engineers.
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike attended the unveiling of the brand-new addition to the Big Sight international convention center where the 12th edition of the largest trade show for small and medium-sized businesses in Japan was started October 31. East Hall 7 was venue to the new Business Frontier Fair annex to the exhibition. Several selected startups were among those handpicked for the fair, encompassing the Going-Global Innovations Competitions Zone. Many firms were looking to partner with foreign companies in advance of the Olympiad slated for Korea (2018) and Japan (2020), not to mention 2019 Rugby World Cup to which Tokyo is playing host. The main sponsor, the Tokyo Small and Medium Enterprise Support Center, had last May tied up with the Thai Ministry of Industry and set up a Bangkok office, resulting in many companies from Thailand showing up at this year’s event. There have been other moves by the Japanese side, such as Japanese entrepreneur Takeshi Izuka looking to establish the Kirirom Institute of Technology in Cambodia and Taito City of Tokyo working closely with Hanoi for software development…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
Image credit: Tokyo Big Sight
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike attended the unveiling of the brand-new addition to the Big Sight international convention center where the 12th edition of the largest trade show for small and medium-sized businesses in Japan was started October 31. East Hall 7 was venue to the new Business Frontier Fair annex to the exhibition. Several selected startups were among those handpicked for the fair, encompassing the Going-Global Innovations Competitions Zone.
Tokyo Big Sight’s East Hall 7 Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy
Jinzai Solution’s booth, connecting Tokyo and Hanoi for software development cooperation Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy
There have been other moves by the Japanese side, such as Japanese entrepreneur Takeshi Izuka looking to establish the Kirirom Institute of Technology in Cambodia and Taito City of Tokyo working closely with Hanoi for software development cooperation deals between companies located in their two cities. Gridmark, which took part in TechCrunch Disrupt SF, is promoting its language teaching-use voice-pen. There’s also a group closely linked to Japan setting up a hotel management school in Myanmar.
But getting back to activities in the Tokyo area, there were several startups such as E3 Enterprise and Growtac offering athlete monitoring devices. Although not a startup per se, a Chiba outfit called Imedex (as President Makoto Ichida puts it, some companies could surely “re-startup”) – which was a Japanese delegation member at Disrupt SF exhibition too under its corporate banner of THINK INNOVATION – exhibited as well its cardiac monitoring system with the athlete in mind.
Imedex’s booth Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy
Meanwhile others took a wider perspective like safety. Whill the all-terrain wheelchair had its rider safety system on show at the main hall. A perennial startup favorite of this writer’s, Challenge, had its earthquake sensor network as well as the campus safety system on display not only at the invited Business Frontier Fair Security/Safety/Disaster Preparation area but in the Information exhibition section too, looking to find as many overseas partners as possible.
Finally, there were Pi Photonics, a venture business from Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture which is now looking to set up a presence in Tokyo before the year is out, highlighting its LED lighting systems including for wave display-art use in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture and Mirai Labo of Hachioji, a venture business also looking to light up night-time construction work locations and such in addition to developing an innovative inverter for solar cell use.
The event’s international booth section Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Acquia Labs’ establishment was announced just last week, while Dries Buytaert, the man in the spotlight, visited Tokyo. The purpose of his trip was to attend “Young Global Leaders” – a branch community of World Economic Forum for business leaders under the age of 40, which was held at Roppongi Hills – in addition to Drupal Summit Tokyo which was hosted by digital business consulting firm CI&T, known for its utilization of Drupal. Before leaving for San Francisco, Buytaert was interviewed by The Bridge together with David Peterson, in charge of the Asia-Pacific region. He spoke passionately about the future outlook and what he hopes to accomplish through Drupal and the newly established Acquia Labs. Acquia upholds the phrase “moving beyond the page” to surpass conventional web technologies and show its determination to attain the next stage. The New York subway system has adopted Drupal as a backend to collect all kinds of information regarding train operations and to provide these via open API, to produce over 80 native apps. It uses Drupal for the display system in the subway station-yard based on information acquired from sensors onboard trains and beacons inside stations. Tesla…
Acquia Labs’ establishment was announced just last week, while Dries Buytaert, the man in the spotlight, visited Tokyo. The purpose of his trip was to attend “Young Global Leaders” – a branch community of World Economic Forum for business leaders under the age of 40, which was held at Roppongi Hills – in addition to Drupal Summit Tokyo which was hosted by digital business consulting firm CI&T, known for its utilization of Drupal.
Before leaving for San Francisco, Buytaert was interviewed by The Bridge together with David Peterson, in charge of the Asia-Pacific region. He spoke passionately about the future outlook and what he hopes to accomplish through Drupal and the newly established Acquia Labs.
Acquia upholds the phrase “moving beyond the page” to surpass conventional web technologies and show its determination to attain the next stage. The New York subway system has adopted Drupal as a backend to collect all kinds of information regarding train operations and to provide these via open API, to produce over 80 native apps. It uses Drupal for the display system in the subway station-yard based on information acquired from sensors onboard trains and beacons inside stations. Tesla adopted Drupal for its e-commerce website, dashboards or mobile apps. Nike plans a new experience with smart shoes, although it is still a prototype; by linking with sensors embedded in the soles, users can buy new shoes simply by swiping the smartphone screen after running a certain distance and their shoes start wearing out. Nike’s backend uses Drupal too.
It indeed seems a new attempt beyond the original Drupal CMS (content management system) coverage, but the abovementioned examples can be realized by scratch development using conventional technologies. According to Buytaert, Acquia Labs is considering more complicated concepts to differentiate Drupal, and one of its ultimate purposes is “contextual experiences” which is to provide experiences optimized according to content.
Buytaert says,
For instance, imagine a situation where I visit an airline company’s website. Generally, airline companies seek to sell tickets to visitors. But if I just have lost my baggage or have missed a connecting flight, I am not looking to reserve another flight then. I want them to help me. So, I have to say that current websites are still uncontextual.
He continued:
We provide a product called Acquia Lift for the publishing industry. By learning about the website visitors and their behaviors, it creates profiles for each user based on inflows from cross channels: re:read/not read, which channels they came from… other websites, mailing lists or push notification. It understands user preferences, for example if one is interested in startups but not in politics, and provides better experiences after the next visit.
There are some cooperative cases with Amazon Echo which is lately much discussed. On a website of the grocery chain Gourmet Market, users can enjoy an interactive purchase experience. Although this chain store doesn’t actually exist and is just there for demonstration, a technology to realize interactions between the website and Amazon Echo with only a few lines of code has already been brought forth.
Hints for information provision via web that differs from conventional ones are scattered all over daily life. In case a grocery chain publishes 2,000 cooking recipes on its website, most accesses to the website are not from users at home but from those visiting retailers. That was unexpected even for the grocery chain; most consumers do not purchase ingredients after checking recipes but searches recipes while checking ingredients at retailers. After realizing this, the grocery chain set beacons at the food section of retailers linked with the web, and then became able to provide better experiences to visitors.
Buytaert says:
35,000 users actively contribute to the Drupal community. A very large community. I am sure that they will quickly adapt to new products, and I want them to get excited with new things.
Drupal Summit Tokyo 2016 held at Shibuya Dots, on October 21 Image credit: CI&T
Drupal’s local events like this one held in Tokyo have gathered from 100 to 2,000 visitors in several places the world over almost every weekend, resulting in about 100 events being held annually. Through collaboration with developers such as CI&T which invited Buytaert and Peterson to Tokyo this time, Drupal has strengthened ties with local communities all over the world and seeks cooperative relationships with large enterprises or startups under the Acquia Lab scheme which has commenced anew.
It is an interesting concept under which developers who have been participating in the CMS community can “automatically adapt” to advanced technologies including AI (artificial intelligence), interactive UI (user experience) or IoT (Internet of Things) due to the evolution of core platforms. A few years later, the expression of “web developer” might disappear as a type of engineer occupation for job offers on recruitment websites.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Acquia/Drupal and CI&T teams From the left: Hiroaki Kawabuchi (Marketing & Communications, CI&T), Alencar Koga (Operation Director, CI&T), Dries Buytaert (Founder, Drupal / Co-founder, Acquia Labs), Yoshiyuki Ueda (General Manager, CI&T), and David Peterson (Solution Architect, Acquia Asia-Pacific) Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. For a Japanese person in his 20s, it is not an exaggeration to say that Yusuke Obinata, a.k.a. Obi, is one of the most well-known players on the Asian startup scene. His history includes time as a student at Waseda University, working as an intern for startups, and until the beginning of this year he served as the international director for East Ventures. Over the last year he has toured local startup hubs around Southeast Asia looking for areas with a potential for vertical growth, with no one surpassing his ability to network and power to act. Finally his relentless efforts have begun to take shape. On Tuesday, Obinata and his team launched Upstay, a high-end vacation rentals service for Southeast Asia. Initially, they will be serving accommodations in three locations: Bangkok (including Pattaya), Phuket, and Bali. The service is available in Japanese and English, with plans to encourage broad use throughout Southeast Asia by supporting the languages of the various Asian countries in the near future. With the rise of Airbnb, HomeAway, and so on, vacation rentals have become a vibrant market over the past several years. On the other hand, as a…
Yusuke Obinata a.k.a. Obi, co-founder and CEO of Upstay
For a Japanese person in his 20s, it is not an exaggeration to say that Yusuke Obinata, a.k.a. Obi, is one of the most well-known players on the Asian startup scene. His history includes time as a student at Waseda University, working as an intern for startups, and until the beginning of this year he served as the international director for East Ventures. Over the last year he has toured local startup hubs around Southeast Asia looking for areas with a potential for vertical growth, with no one surpassing his ability to network and power to act. Finally his relentless efforts have begun to take shape.
On Tuesday, Obinata and his team launched Upstay, a high-end vacation rentals service for Southeast Asia. Initially, they will be serving accommodations in three locations: Bangkok (including Pattaya), Phuket, and Bali. The service is available in Japanese and English, with plans to encourage broad use throughout Southeast Asia by supporting the languages of the various Asian countries in the near future.
With the rise of Airbnb, HomeAway, and so on, vacation rentals have become a vibrant market over the past several years. On the other hand, as a new trend among travelers, rather than staying in nice hotels at their destination, an increasing number of millennials are choosing to stay in luxury serviced accomodations with pools and gyms for the same price. However, Obinata’s diagnosis is that, in the past, with demand for accommodations less than the available supply on the marketplace for vacation rentals, high-end, good quality properties often got buried in the search results.
He says:
In the beginning EC (e-commerce sites) was like eBay, connecting sellers and buyers in a pure C2C model. Now, sites with a bunch of useful, accompanying services have become mainstream. I thought, for the vacation rental world, something that introduces high-end properties in the same way should enter the picture.
Upstay
Upstay has agreements with suppliers who manage serviced accommodations in Bangkok, Phuket, and Bali, specializes in high-end properties, and in focusing on high-quality related services, aims to incorporate the middle-upper stratum of travelers as opposed to backpackers and the like. To ensure the quality of services, Upstay has limited the suppliers who provide listings to those that have cleared certain criteria and are property management companies. As for individual suppliers, they have narrowed it down to professionals skilled in providing accomodations only.
He added:
Since Asian people traditionally do not have the custom of staying in other people’s homes, (vacation rentals, from high-end to low-end) could be difficult to get the mass to use. (The original concept of a vacation rental) is alternative accommodation, without renting a large room at a hotel, the idea that you can stay in a cheap room and use the space freely is revolutionary.
Obinata will make Southeast Asia the stage for this new business. Incorporated in Singapore, Upstay plans to have their operating base in Bangkok. In all of Japan the inbound tourists total 20 million, and since in Bangkok alone (just one city in Thailand) they see as many as 21 million inbound travelers in just one year, it is an easy environment to connect with suppliers of serviced accommodations, making it easier for Upstay to do business there. A quick look at Upstay’s employee lineup reveals Takuya Teshima, who had a hand in the development of a variety of platforms for Line and is now serving as Upstay’s CTO.
In Asia, a new form of hotel services has appeared with NIDA Rooms,Zenrooms, RedDoorz, AiryRooms, Oyorooms, etc., but there is no such service in Japan. Although the social system has matured, a side effect of which being low volatility, and even from such a standpoint, if the aim is to change the world with startups, there may be a great deal of importance in spreading roots throughout Asia.
In an angel round Upstay received funds from East Ventures and several unnamed individual investors from Japan and Singapore. In the vertical of high-end vacation rentals, OneFineStay, OwnersDirect, and HouseTrip under jurisdiction from TripAdvisor focus on Europe and the US, but there is no possible competitor in Asia so far.
This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. Bloomberg published an article last week on the failed Pepper program, the emotionally intelligent robot originally developed by French company Aldebaran Robotics which was largely acquired in 2012 by Japan’s SoftBank for approximately $100 million. The demise of Pepper has long been rumored (in fact The Rude Baguette originally broke the story nearly two years ago), though only recently is it becoming acknowledged more openly in Japan. On a recent visit to a business meeting in Tokyo, I was warmly welcomed at the interphone (despite my poorly accented Japanese), directed into a elevator, escorted to a conference room and offered coffee, all by a charmingly hospitable Pepper receptionist. Although the Rude Baguette post‘s comments go deeper in speculation and entertaining mud-slinging, one part of the Bloomberg piece in particular resonated with me: Aldebaran and SoftBank’s…
This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.
Bloomberg published an article last week on the failed Pepper program, the emotionally intelligent robot originally developed by French company Aldebaran Robotics which was largely acquired in 2012 by Japan’s SoftBank for approximately $100 million.
The demise of Pepper has long been rumored (in fact The Rude Baguette originally broke the story nearly two years ago), though only recently is it becoming acknowledged more openly in Japan. On a recent visit to a business meeting in Tokyo, I was warmly welcomed at the interphone (despite my poorly accented Japanese), directed into a elevator, escorted to a conference room and offered coffee, all by a charmingly hospitable Pepper receptionist.
Although the Rude Baguette post‘s comments go deeper in speculation and entertaining mud-slinging, one part of the Bloomberg piece in particular resonated with me:
Aldebaran and SoftBank’s cultures didn’t mesh well. Engineers in Japan fumed when their French counterparts disappeared for weeks on vacation.
Aldebaran employees, accustomed to a flat structure, suddenly found many of their decisions second-guessed by an army of managers in Tokyo.
The Japanese parent created SoftBank Robotics Corp. to oversee the business and sell Pepper. It named Fumihide Tomizawa, a business manager who doesn’t speak English or French, to oversee development. Son put Takashi Tsutsui, a close ally and a veteran network engineer, in charge of technology.
So here are a few lessons from the unfortunate and probably avoidable demise of Pepper.
Acquisitions don’t magically solve organizational dysfunction. I understand from some of the firm’s early investors that Aldebaran faced internal lack of cohesion in the period prior to the SoftBank’s rescue, with allegedly some investors reaching the limits of their patience with Aldebaran management. Cleaning up personnel challenges in French companies is already difficult enough for shareholders locally, let alone a foreign acquirer.
Cross-cultural training is critical in transcontinental acquisitions like this one. The company cultures of SoftBank and Aldebaran fell in stark contrast: a hierarchical organization vs. a flat one; structured vs. chaotic; a work environment where office face time is valued vs. one in which the minimum 5 weeks vacation plus RTT days are prized.
Employees with an affinity to bridge the cultural divide — be it thanks to their languages skills, international experience, etc. — should be empowered to play a prominent role in such partnerships. Even among those who are not viewed as sufficiently senior in the hierarchy or as sufficiently expert in the domain, any individuals who can help facilitate the interpersonal connections are valuable during the initial critical phase of a merger.
Finally, perhaps the Aldebaran / SoftBank experiment shines light on a need that efforts like #LaFrenchTech might address: with its access to a pool of resources who are versed in political relations and diplomacy, a government initiative like #LaFrenchTech could provide guidance to startups in finding their way in unfamiliar territory.
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. October has seen many confabs where startups have been able to appeal their products and services, beginning with CEATEC which however was not held in Tokyo. Instead there were several others that attracted much attention. One was the Edo/Tokyo crafts & technology fair at the Tokyo International Forum. Last year it had robots such as those provided a startup by Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University as well as Tokyo startup Ex Machina displayed at center stage, with participants like YRP IoT which is actually based in Yokosuka, in Kanagawa Prefecture. This year it appears the only startup there was Shannon Lab, a Tokyo firm researching Artificial Intelligence applications. More prominent were the Security & Safety Trade Expo (RISCON 2016) and Special Equipment Exhibition & Conference for Anti-Terrorism (SEECAT 2016) gatherings held concurrently at the Tokyo International Convention Center “Big Sight” in mid-October. Within RISCON there also was the new section dubbed “Cyber-security World” that focused on cyberspace, gathering companies ranging from Kaspersky the computer vaccine provider to PSI, a Japanese outfit working together with U.S. UK startup Darktrace. As…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
Image credit: Wikimedia
October has seen many confabs where startups have been able to appeal their products and services, beginning with CEATEC which however was not held in Tokyo. Instead there were several others that attracted much attention. One was the Edo/Tokyo crafts & technology fair at the Tokyo International Forum. Last year it had robots such as those provided a startup by Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University as well as Tokyo startup Ex Machina displayed at center stage, with participants like YRP IoT which is actually based in Yokosuka, in Kanagawa Prefecture. This year it appears the only startup there was Shannon Lab, a Tokyo firm researching Artificial Intelligence applications.
As for SEECAT this year using two floors, had drones showcased in use during all types of emergencies upstairs, while lime-lighting the latest measures on the ground floor as to access restrictions for dealing with the heighted risks from terrorists organizations, not to mention startups involved in enhancing surveillance generally. It was noted that there would be increased need in Tokyo over the next few years, with both the Rugby World Cup (although this will be a nationwide event including a new stadium in the Tohoku region which was hit by the 2011 Tsunami disaster) in 2019 and the Olympics/Paralympics in 2020 being centered on the games to be hosted by the capital of Japan.
The Challenge team at their booth
At RISCON seminars covering crowd control, disaster countermeasures and public health threats were held as well. This year, University of Electro-Communications Prof. Masashi Hayakawa who had established a spin-off venture from school ventured that earthquakes may be predictable, unfortunately not scientifically proven at this time. Other startups such as Cybozu Startups exhibited measures to mitigate post-disaster effects quickly by use of expedited information-gathering from the Japan Meteorological Agency, which provides Early Earthquake Warning among other alerts related to natural including non-weather-emanating disasters.
Cybozu Startups’ booth
There were earthquake sensor maker on exhibit by Challenge, whose latest version of early temblor alert network EQguard-III could be checked alongside the SchoolGuard panic-button system for teachers. CEO Kazuo Sasaki noted that all these items are aimed at reducing casualty. The latest EQguard allows for 10 foreign languages to be used in announcing an impending major quake in enough time to increase the survival rate by 80%, with an eye to use at the Olympics. Digital signage and portable devices will also become linked to the EQGuard network. Challenge is said to be providing EQGuard anew in the Los Angeles area, near Caltech, too.
Renowned geophysicist & Caltech Prof. Emeritus Hiroo Kanamori (right) with Challenge CEO Kazuo Sasaki (left)
Sensor use was also focused on at ITpro Expo 2016 sponsored by Nikkei BP. Here also the emphasis was on Artificial Intelligence as well as security. Startups running the gamut from Abeja to Uhuru were talking Deep Learning and Internet of Things. Soracom had a large booth covering their solutions while other startups were offering Virtual Reality-related solutions. It is expected that more ventures will be honing in on such products and services over the coming years.
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
More prominent were the 
