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Japan’s Cerevo makes Ghost in the Shell’s Tachikoma AI combat vehicle a reality

Masaru Ikeda 2017.03.25

See the original story in Japanese.

It’s not the first time a product inspired by anime has been brought to life in the real world. However, this product is sure to attract more international Japanese anime fans than ever.

Japan startup Cerevo, which has invented a number of smart home electronics and IoT products, announced an eighth-factor model of the multi-legged tank Tachikoma, a popular character from the animated series Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. They have begun accepting pre-orders on their website. The price is $1,799 and shipment is scheduled for June of this year.

The eighth-scale model was born from Cerevo’s project “S2R (From the screen to the real world)”, which seeks to reproduce objects in the real world as closely as possible to how they appear in movies using smart home electronics technology. This product follows their production of Dominator from the animation Psycho-pass. Tachikoma is equipped with speech recognition, so when a user poses a question it answers in the voice of Sakiko Tamagawa, the original voice.

The mobile app display that controls Tachikoma (under development)
Image credit: Cerevo

Tachikoma’s object and speech recognition functions are very interesting. For example, when a user shows an apple to Tachikoma (a camera is installed in the image sensor), and says, “apples are sweet,” the information that “apples are sweet” is uploaded to the cloud and shared among all of Tachikomas owned by other users. As users increase and time goes by, Tachikomas gradually becomes smarter, which is somewhat reminiscent of the world presented in the Ghost in the Shell movie.

Cerevo exhibited the eighth-scale model at their booth at Sensors Ignition 2017, a digital media showcase event held at the Toranomon Hills building complex in Tokyo this week. Due to the noisiness of the exhibition hall and the tendency of the Wi-Fi to be overcrowded, it was too much to ask of Tachikoma to demonstrate the user speech recognition and response via the cloud. Restrictions on space at the exhibition also meant a fixed display area confined to their booth, but Tachikoma’s joints and legs are equipped with 21 motors, and by issuing command movements from a smartphone it is possible to enter the world of anime by playing the role of Tachikoma.

Cerevo will also prepare and release a limited supply of a “Special Edition” Tachikoma’s ⅛ model, with a metallic body created with aluminum scrapings on the bumper and the cover of the gun barrel. The price is set at $1,999 and pre-orders began along with the original version this week.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

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Chinese cancer therapeutics startup reveals global expansion plan at BIOAsia in Tokyo

The Bridge 2017.03.24

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Dr. Jingsong Wang (王劲松), CEO of Harbour BioMed (和铂医药) which was started up in Shanghai last December, spoke at a luncheon at BIOAsia 2017 in Tokyo. Dr. Wang spoke of how his company was conducting research in Europe (in cooperation with Erasmus University in the Netherlands) while being at the U.S. biopharmaceutical business frontline in Massachusetts regarding immuno-oncology platforms. The company holds proprietary transgenetic mouse patents aimed at human cancer therapeutics. Biotechnology Innovation Organization‘s annual biomed-focused confab has been held in Tokyo at the Grand Hyatt in recent years, bringing together many companies from the Asia-Pacific regions. Investment Banking Vice President Oded Spindel of the New York firm Rodman & Renshaw was the interviewer for this year’s luncheon session, the highlight of the American industrial association’s premiere Asia event, organized with help from Japan Bioindustry Association (which will be holding its own event this fall). It was noted by the Chinese medical doctor who also worked at multinational pharma Bristol-Myers Squibb that his startup already had some 30 clients garnered over the past several months, and had obtained backing from…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.

Dr. Jingsong Wang speaks at BIOAsia 2017.
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

Dr. Jingsong Wang (王劲松), CEO of Harbour BioMed (和铂医药) which was started up in Shanghai last December, spoke at a luncheon at BIOAsia 2017 in Tokyo. Dr. Wang spoke of how his company was conducting research in Europe (in cooperation with Erasmus University in the Netherlands) while being at the U.S. biopharmaceutical business frontline in Massachusetts regarding immuno-oncology platforms. The company holds proprietary transgenetic mouse patents aimed at human cancer therapeutics.

Biotechnology Innovation Organization‘s annual biomed-focused confab has been held in Tokyo at the Grand Hyatt in recent years, bringing together many companies from the Asia-Pacific regions. Investment Banking Vice President Oded Spindel of the New York firm Rodman & Renshaw was the interviewer for this year’s luncheon session, the highlight of the American industrial association’s premiere Asia event, organized with help from Japan Bioindustry Association (which will be holding its own event this fall).

It was noted by the Chinese medical doctor who also worked at multinational pharma Bristol-Myers Squibb that his startup already had some 30 clients garnered over the past several months, and had obtained backing from Boston-based VC firm Atlas Venture. Dr. Wang noted as well that the R&D networking from his days at Sanofi was being leveraged fully. Chinese VC firms Advantech Capital, affiliated with Japan’s New Horizon Capital, and Legend Capital Partners (君联资本), a subsidiary of Legend Holdings (of Lenovo fame / 联想控股), backed Harbour BioMed’s launch and expansion last year.

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Eight potential AgriTech startups gain places for May Tokyo AG/SUM event

AG/SUM

The Bridge 2017.03.22

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. The Japanese/Asian edition of AG/SUM, also known as “Harvest” in the US where it originated, is an agriculture-centered “summit” particularly highlighting agricultural technology. A pitch competition for potential startups was held in February in Japan, a country which now faces such problems as aging farmer population and dwindling agricultural operations. Japan’s Nikkei News group backed the Tokyo competition. Technology has today become a mainstay in the agricultural sector, including genetic manipulations and cloning, some twenty years after Dolly the sheep dominated the world headlines. There will be a main AG/SUM meeting again in Tokyo this May and eight startup candidates won the pitch. Among the eight was PPAP (Passionate Productive Agriculture with Pecan-nut) of University of Tokyo, but more on this team later. The requirements for giving the pitch held at the Toranomon Hills meeting room in Minato City were that the teams had to offer tech-related solutions to farming issues and that operations had not been started up at competition time. Interestingly, there were in addition to half a dozen winning pitches covering standard agriculture (including the University of…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.

The Japanese/Asian edition of AG/SUM, also known as “Harvest” in the US where it originated, is an agriculture-centered “summit” particularly highlighting agricultural technology. A pitch competition for potential startups was held in February in Japan, a country which now faces such problems as aging farmer population and dwindling agricultural operations. Japan’s Nikkei News group backed the Tokyo competition.

Technology has today become a mainstay in the agricultural sector, including genetic manipulations and cloning, some twenty years after Dolly the sheep dominated the world headlines. There will be a main AG/SUM meeting again in Tokyo this May and eight startup candidates won the pitch. Among the eight was PPAP (Passionate Productive Agriculture with Pecan-nut) of University of Tokyo, but more on this team later.

The requirements for giving the pitch held at the Toranomon Hills meeting room in Minato City were that the teams had to offer tech-related solutions to farming issues and that operations had not been started up at competition time. Interestingly, there were in addition to half a dozen winning pitches covering standard agriculture (including the University of Tokyo Faculty of Agriculture team).

One pitch was focused on insect ranching for human consumption, by Musshine, and another on fisheries to keep down wasted aquatic ‘harvests’ (as termed at a Japanese agriculture ministry-affiliated research institute), by Tail. However, not all the others were pitching from conventional farming-oriented angles like plantation and soil conditioning, one of the six offering an AR-based farming experience while one more availed a soil-minimal approach with their fintech-applied agrobusiness funding presentation.

Regarding the latest in tech trends, IoT use was offered by Hackerfarm. Yet, most fascinating was the agronomically-soundness and science-based PPAP team effort led by Dr. Hiroyoshi Iwata, looking to use novel technologies to stimulate and make profitable the nut industry in Japan by expanding pecan-nut production. As it happened, coinciding with FOODEX confab in mid-March, an International Symposium on Food Production Technology centered on the now-lucrative cash crop… nuts… was held at the institution where Dr. Iwata is attached to.

The University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences hosted the symposium which brought leading-edge researchers like Dr. G. Barton Beuler and Dr. Jennifer Randall (New Mexico State University) among others. In particular, focus on use of high-tech farming techniques and genetics to realize a profitable and sustainable agrobusiness grounded in the nutritious yield. The scientific basis for promoting production of the versatile foodstuff was even more convincing upon hearing from experts and makes it worth waiting until the for-public May presentation.

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Moneytree, Japanese personal finance app, raises $9M to better serve corporate users

moneytree

SCORE 1,858

Masaru Ikeda 2017.03.22

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Moneytree, the Japanese startup offering an asset managing app / cloud-based accounting soutions, announced on Tuesday that it has raised a total of 1 billion yen (nearly $9 million US) in their latest funding round. This round was led by SBI Investment with participation from Mizuho Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Fukuoka Technology Partners, Hiroshima Venture Capital, Senshu Ikeda Capital, and the UK’s leading asset management company Baillie Gifford. This round follows that of the company’s series A round held in October of 2015. With the funds raised this time, Moneytree plans to roll out new functions for their personal asset management app “Moneytree”, their “Moneytree Work Keihi Seisan (Expense Reimbursement)” that allows users to easily determine their expenses, as well as their “Moneytree Work Houjin Kouza (Corporate Accounts)” that lets users browse their corporate accounts and calculate expenses in mobile. In addition, the cloud-based account management service MT Link, which connects financial institutions with corporations and individuals, and has been in service for more than two years now, has been adopted by 20 companies including megabanks, regional banks, and accounting software industries. Together with this funding, Moneytree has also renewed the…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Moneytree, the Japanese startup offering an asset managing app / cloud-based accounting soutions, announced on Tuesday that it has raised a total of 1 billion yen (nearly $9 million US) in their latest funding round. This round was led by SBI Investment with participation from Mizuho Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Fukuoka Technology Partners, Hiroshima Venture Capital, Senshu Ikeda Capital, and the UK’s leading asset management company Baillie Gifford. This round follows that of the company’s series A round held in October of 2015.

With the funds raised this time, Moneytree plans to roll out new functions for their personal asset management app “Moneytree”, their “Moneytree Work Keihi Seisan (Expense Reimbursement)” that allows users to easily determine their expenses, as well as their “Moneytree Work Houjin Kouza (Corporate Accounts)” that lets users browse their corporate accounts and calculate expenses in mobile.

In addition, the cloud-based account management service MT Link, which connects financial institutions with corporations and individuals, and has been in service for more than two years now, has been adopted by 20 companies including megabanks, regional banks, and accounting software industries. Together with this funding, Moneytree has also renewed the MT Link website, and is aiming to further expand and accelerate the business.

The following is a comment by Moneytree Founder and CEO Paul Chapman.

Thanks to this funding we are pleased Moneytree will be moving on to the next stage of growth. In both Japan and abroad the FinTech industry has significantly expanded. More than ever, we will focus on maintaining the security of our services, protecting privacy, and transparency of information.

In addition, while supporting the conversion of the financial industry to digital banking, and while contributing to the foundation of the accounting industry’s cloud accounting system, we will continue to devote our efforts to constructing an industry-wide ecosystem based on users. Furthermore, we have set our sights on the globalization of our services through deploying Japanese technology overseas.

See also:

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Paul Chapman, Founder & CEO of Moneytree, delivered his pitch at Pioneers Asia (March 2016).
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

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Riding the Startup Wave in Space

The Bridge 2017.03.18

This is a guest post by Naokuni Yoshida. He is a Japanese consultant at Tokyo-based Global Innovations, trying to promote aerospace-related firms including drone startups in the US enter Asian markets. On February 28, 2017 SPACETIDE Association of Japan, with support from the National Space Policy Secretariat of the Japanese Cabinet Office in addition to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as well as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, not to mention the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), held at Keio University’s Fujiwara Hiroshi Hall in Hiyoshi, near Yokohama, its second Private-sector-focused Space Seminar, two years since its first gathering. After the opening speech by the head of SPACETIDE Association Masayasu Ishida, who is also Principal of consulting firm A.T. Kearney, several discussion sessions followed (although unfortunately Spire Global‘s representative was unable to make it for the “global space business” panel). Space startups raised significant funding and made important business alliances in 2016, as this sector has grown in prominence on the global stage. The first and second panel discussions this day are of particular interest to The Bridge readers as it introduced a number of existing and new players from Japanese space startups or…

On February 28, 2017 SPACETIDE Association of Japan, with support from the National Space Policy Secretariat of the Japanese Cabinet Office in addition to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as well as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, not to mention the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), held at Keio University’s Fujiwara Hiroshi Hall in Hiyoshi, near Yokohama, its second Private-sector-focused Space Seminar, two years since its first gathering. After the opening speech by the head of SPACETIDE Association Masayasu Ishida, who is also Principal of consulting firm A.T. Kearney, several discussion sessions followed (although unfortunately Spire Global‘s representative was unable to make it for the “global space business” panel).

Space startups raised significant funding and made important business alliances in 2016, as this sector has grown in prominence on the global stage. The first and second panel discussions this day are of particular interest to The Bridge readers as it introduced a number of existing and new players from Japanese space startups or those working closely with such companies, with the second focused on the role of space as an “enabling” factor upon expanding business opportunities widely. The panelists discussed skill sets and team skills plus the mindsets that are essential for launching and managing a space business. The third was on global space business overall and the last session centered on bigger enterprise activities.

The first panel comprised Dr. Lena Okajima (CEO and Founder, ALE) working to realize “asteroid” art, Shuji Ogawa (CEO and CTO of PD AeroSpace) who was trained in aerospace engineering at Tohoku University, Naruo Kanemoto (CEO of satellite kit provider Space Shift of Japan and Director of Elysium Space in the U.S., which offers memorial space flights), and Yuya Nakamura (President and CEO, Axelspace) running the Japanese microsatellite startup; it was moderated by Nomura Research Institute Senior Consultant Masashi Sato who is a member of the “Committee of Space by ICT” at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication.

The Space as an Enabler session, introduced the forefront of innovation created by space with other industry and discussed the possibility of utilizing space as an enabler. The value of space for enterprises was also discussed by the panelist Kenji Oda who is
Creative Director and Chief of Dentsu Space Lab, Dentsu (TSE:4324) taking the “Space for Everyone” approach (recent work includes award-winning solutions such as an experiment where employees work in Space-like conditions, “kibo360” smartphone app simulating an astronaut life on the International Space Station, and the Google/JAXA “Space Hangout” collaboration where people on earth can video chat with an astronaut in the ISS).

Other panelists of the second session were Satoru Konishi who is Assistant Chief Engineer, Magellan Systems Japan, currently working on the development of the new GNSS receiver with centi-meter accuracy supporting the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System which is to be fully operational around 2018; Managing Director Ken Fujiwara of Umitron, which he co-founded as a data service company for aquaculture including satellite remote sensing; and, Dr. Keiichi Masuya who is Director of biotech startup PeptiDream which is using the microgravity environment in space for new treatment agents development. The session moderator was Japanese VC firm Global Brain‘s Venture Partner Hidetaka Aoki, the “space business evangelist” which is his trademark.

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Triple W Japan, developer of urination predictor, wins $610K grant for clinical research

Masaru Ikeda 2017.03.16

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Triple W Japan, the Japanese startup developing developer of urination predictor device DFree, announced last week that it was selected by NEDO for the corporate alliance program for R&D-focused startups, and will receive a subsidy of up to 70 million yen (about $610K US). The target for the subsidy is joint research with large companies in relation to DFree’s small size and high performance, and since the expenses required for research will be paid up to the maximum amount, it is possible to obtain the full subsidy. The contents of collaborative research with each of five major companies are as follows: Accenture…Collaborative research on nursing care packages combining various sensors and nursing care record data, joint development of algorithms and software, support for overseas development centered on Europe, etc. Itochu Chemical Frontier…Development of a high precision ultrasonic sensor, high accuracy coupled with algorithm development, etc. Itochu Techno Solutions…Feasibility studies, joint development of software, etc. Paramount Head…Improve accuracy through the combination with various sensors, joint solution development, etc. Revamp…Feasibility study at nursing care facilities, sales support, etc. Among these companies, Revamp also participated in the series A funding round that Triple W Japan…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Triple W Japan, the Japanese startup developing developer of urination predictor device DFree, announced last week that it was selected by NEDO for the corporate alliance program for R&D-focused startups, and will receive a subsidy of up to 70 million yen (about $610K US). The target for the subsidy is joint research with large companies in relation to DFree’s small size and high performance, and since the expenses required for research will be paid up to the maximum amount, it is possible to obtain the full subsidy.

The contents of collaborative research with each of five major companies are as follows:

Accenture…Collaborative research on nursing care packages combining various sensors and nursing care record data, joint development of algorithms and software, support for overseas development centered on Europe, etc.
Itochu Chemical Frontier…Development of a high precision ultrasonic sensor, high accuracy coupled with algorithm development, etc.
Itochu Techno Solutions…Feasibility studies, joint development of software, etc.
Paramount Head…Improve accuracy through the combination with various sensors, joint solution development, etc.
Revamp…Feasibility study at nursing care facilities, sales support, etc.

Among these companies, Revamp also participated in the series A funding round that Triple W Japan conducted last July. Also, in February of last year, the company acquired a subsidy of up to 70 million yen from NEDO’s another R&D venture support project (commonly known as the STS grant project).

DFree’s mobile app for nursing care facilities
Image credit: Triple W Japan

Recently, Triple W Japan won Grand Prize at the “Japan Healthcare Business Contest” conducted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on March 3rd. Interest from Europe is also high, and it seems that DFree was exhibited as a use case of Soracom, an IoT-focused mobile network service from Japan, which announced its advance into Europe at the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona earlier this month. They are also scheduled to represent Japan in the Netherlands’ startup conference competition Get in the Ring (which timing-wise overlaps with Tech in Asia Singapore 2017…) from May 17th to the 19th. Moreover, in Kawasaki city, DFree is certified as the Kawasaki Innovation Standard with the city subsidizing expenses for its use in nursing care facilities, which is expected to spur introduction.

Triple W Japan’s CEO Atsushi Nakanishi had the following to say about the future of DFree:

I’d like to work with Kawasaki city to see it implemented for in-home nursing care and rehabilitation. In particular, most patients who have suffered from a stroke undergo a rehabilitation process where they’re forced to wear a catheter after surgery (to compensate for difficulty urinating), which they then have removed and wear diapers, finally graduating from those, in order to fully rehabilitate into society. DFree would be useful in the process of removing the diaper.

Nakanishi continued:

DFree has already begun to be used in French nursing home care facilities, and we will promote trials for full-scale introduction. We’re also in the process of contracting with a German company. We are collaborating in Europe since the structure of nursing care is well established. Regarding areas where nursing care is not easy, I’d like to consider making rehabilitation models and home care support tools and packages. I’d like to partner with insurance companies.

At the beginning of the project, DFree had set a goal of predicting bowel movements, but recently seems to be shifting its focus to urination control. On this, Nakanishi said that the technological development of urination prediction is the priority because urination is more frequent than bowel movements, making it easier to develop data and algorithms; also, throughout the world there are more people who are in need of support for urination rather than defecation. It appears that once they have answered the demand for urination prediction, they will once again return to the development of a solution for defecation prediction.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru IKeda

Japan’s Cerevo makes Ghost in the Shell’s Tachikoma AI combat vehicle a reality

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