It has been five years since I first wrote a piece about Wantedly on Penn Olson (now known as Tech in Asia). I remember that I visited the Kayac (TSE:3904) office located in Ebisu to meet CEO Akiko Naka and others.
Since Naka was actively providing lectures at many startup conferences such as RISE or Slush Asia (renamed today as Slush Tokyo), I mistakenly thought that Wantedly had already expanded its business globally, but actually this is the first time it is establishing an office overseas (without local offices, it had expanded into Indonesia with a foreign language version of Wantedly services in March of 2015).
Wantedly Singapore team: (L to R) Weiting Tan (Country Manager), Joelle Pang (Int’l Business Development) Image credit: Wantedly Singapore
Wantedly revealed on Thursday that it will commence full-scale sales and promotion activities in the Singapore market, hiring four local staffs. Weiting Tan, who formerly served the last-minute hotel reservation app HotelQuickly as Marketing Manager, has been appointed Country Manager of the local subsidiary Wantedly Singapore. Its office will be established at the co-working space Spacemob near Orchard Road. In commemoration of the full-scale launch, the firm held a party at Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore from 15:30 (local time) this Thursday.
Coinciding with the announcement, the firm launched the English version of the company visiting app Wantedly Visit for iOS. Although any plan about one for Android is not mentioned at this point, the firm declared that it will accelerate the business development to the Asian countries including Indonesia using the Singapore subsidiary as a hub, so that it seems that the app will also soon become available for Android as it is frequently used in these areas.
The company claims that over 20,000 companies in Japan have registered as users on Wantedly while the number of monthly visiting users have recently reached 1 million.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy, Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Updated on March 6: Dazzle CEO’s first name was corrected. Tokyo-based Dazzle, which develops mobile game apps as well as solution for virtual reality (VR) content developers, announced on Wednesday that they raised a total of 200 million yen (about $1.75 million US) in funds from the major construction/manufacturing engineer dispatch company Yumeshin Holdings (TSE: 2362, hereafter referred to as Yumeshin HD) and their subsidiary Yume Education which conducts training programs for IT engineers. This is in addition to the 150 million (about $1.3 million US) raised from Yumeshin HD in June of last year, bringing the total amount raised to 350 million yen (over $3 million US). Following this funding, the President of Yume Education Norikiyo Sato, and major game developer Acrodea’s (TSE: 3823) Director of Solutions Division and Executive Officer Ariro “Alex” Nagayama will serve as Corporate Auditors of Dazzle. Additionally, former Skymark CEO who currently serves as Representative Director of AirAsia Japan Takashi Ide was appointed as a management advisor. Yasuteru Yamada founded Dazzle in 2011 while still working as a freelance programmer (now, he is the CEO). In addition to Valiant Nights, a mobile game for Android and iOS, they…
Updated on March 6: Dazzle CEO’s first name was corrected.
Tokyo-based Dazzle, which develops mobile game apps as well as solution for virtual reality (VR) content developers, announced on Wednesday that they raised a total of 200 million yen (about $1.75 million US) in funds from the major construction/manufacturing engineer dispatch company Yumeshin Holdings (TSE: 2362, hereafter referred to as Yumeshin HD) and their subsidiary Yume Education which conducts training programs for IT engineers. This is in addition to the 150 million (about $1.3 million US) raised from Yumeshin HD in June of last year, bringing the total amount raised to 350 million yen (over $3 million US).
Following this funding, the President of Yume Education Norikiyo Sato, and major game developer Acrodea’s (TSE: 3823) Director of Solutions Division and Executive Officer Ariro “Alex” Nagayama will serve as Corporate Auditors of Dazzle. Additionally, former Skymark CEO who currently serves as Representative Director of AirAsia Japan Takashi Ide was appointed as a management advisor.
The team members of Dazzle. The second person from the right standing is Dazzle CEO Yasuteru Yamada. Image credit: Dazzle
Yasuteru Yamada founded Dazzle in 2011 while still working as a freelance programmer (now, he is the CEO). In addition to Valiant Nights, a mobile game for Android and iOS, they have released four VR game titles for Gear VR and HTC Vive. In recent years, R&D consultation on VR from companies has been increasing, and as a service for supporting the PDCA cycle of VR game products, they began to develop growth hack tools / middleware AccessiVR since last year.
In the closed beta version of AccessiVR only Microsoft DayDream devices are compatible, but Gear VR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive will be added in the official version. Also, Unity is the only supported language in closed beta, but they plan to add Unreal Engine for the official version, and they are aiming for it to correspond to Amazon Lumberyard in the future. To sequentially add functions required by developers, the company plans to implement budget management and operation plan management functions for setting target budgets and establishing KPI to compare budget forecasts.
AccessiVR’s dashboard Image credit: Dazzle
In the same business sphere, there are conflicts with Unity Analytics and Cognitive VR as overseas forces, but Unity Analytics can only deal with Unity, and because AccessiVR’s component is light, when it is incorporated into a VR game or content the fact that there is less loss to the FPS (frame per second) is said to be its technological merit. Following the participation of as many as 10 developers in closed beta tests, they aim for the official version to be out from June to July, and in partnering with VR Arcades, acquiring vital data through cooperation with IoT startups, they hope to differentiate themselves in terms of actual operation. I was reminded of visiting VR Space in Shibuya awhile back, where Executive Producer Akihito Ninomiya suggested that the VR Arcade could be used as a VR developer’s acquisition of growth hack data and as a marketing base.
Currently Dazzle has not received funding from any VCs. Yamada explained that if they were to receive funds from VC as a VR company, Dazzle would seek to specialize in VR only, and if they pursue funding as a specifically VR company, there is the possibility that their valuation could lower. He elaborated that after evaluating the game business that they were already able to monetize they sought to invest in a new business, and the company that understood that vision was Yumishin HD, leading to the acceptance of the investment.
There are around 40 employees at Dazzle including engineers, and in light of the fact that 2018-2019 the global VR industry is set to become vibrant, the in-house developers of smartphone games will gradually shift to the VR business. Using funds raised this time around, the company is focusing on strengthening the development engineers and support staff of AccessiVR.
See the original story in Japanese. Hong Kong-based Zeroth.ai, the accelerator focused on nurturing startups from Asia in the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) verticals, announced on Friday that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from and partnered with the region’s startup studio Mind Fund. Mind Fund is to invest in selected startups born out of Zeroth’s acceleration program batches. Zeroth.ai was launched back in July by Tak Lo who previously served TechStars, one of world-renowned startup accelerator networks, as director in New York City and London. Upon finishing the first batch program from Zeroth, 10 teams from the cohort recently pitched their final results at the firm’s latest Investor Day. Meanwhile, Mind Fund is a startup studio founded in 2010 by Adam Lindemann who previously served Tokyo-based VC/incubation firm Neoteny as business development manager. Neoteny was launched back in 1999 by MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. In January this year, Mind Fund secured an undisclosed sum in funding from DG Incubation, the investment arm of Japanese internet company Digital Garage (TSE:4819), and the former claimed that it will provide startups in the blockchain, AI, FinTech-based payments fields with added support for expansion into the Asian market…
Hong Kong-based Zeroth.ai, the accelerator focused on nurturing startups from Asia in the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) verticals, announced on Friday that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from and partnered with the region’s startup studio Mind Fund. Mind Fund is to invest in selected startups born out of Zeroth’s acceleration program batches.
Zeroth.ai was launched back in July by Tak Lo who previously served TechStars, one of world-renowned startup accelerator networks, as director in New York City and London. Upon finishing the first batch program from Zeroth, 10 teams from the cohort recently pitched their final results at the firm’s latest Investor Day.
Meanwhile, Mind Fund is a startup studio founded in 2010 by Adam Lindemann who previously served Tokyo-based VC/incubation firm Neoteny as business development manager. Neoteny was launched back in 1999 by MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. In January this year, Mind Fund secured an undisclosed sum in funding from DG Incubation, the investment arm of Japanese internet company Digital Garage (TSE:4819), and the former claimed that it will provide startups in the blockchain, AI, FinTech-based payments fields with added support for expansion into the Asian market in partnership with the Tokyo company (Editor’s note: Joi Ito is also one of Digital Garage’s managing directors.)
Upon Zeroth’s funding from Mind Fund this time around, we can expect that it will help AI startups in which the firm specializes enhance business into the Asian, Japanese and US markets since the funds from Digital Garage could be indirectly brought to Zeroth’s effort through the partnership with Mind Fund.
See the original story in Japanese. Fukuoka City Government and three companies, namely Fukuoka Jisho, Sakura Internet and Apamanshop Holdings (TSE:8889) announced on Monday that they will establish a startup support facility in the public / private cooperative style named Fukuoka Growth Next on 12th April at the site formerly occupied by Daimyo elementary school in Fukuoka. Coinciding with the announcement, they opened applications for startups hoping to move in. The establishment of Fukuoka Growth Next aims, in short, to create future unicorns from Fukuoka. To promote “interactions” between startups and to increase public awareness of startups, co-working space, event space, cafe, standing bar and DIY studio will be set up at the facility. The function of the startup support base Startup Cafe in Tenjin, Fukuoka City will be transferred to Fukuoka Growth Next. It supports initiation or company registration, is equipped with the designer training space Fukuoka Design Hub and an engineer training space called Engineer Lab Fukuoka. Moreover, a dozen venture capital firms will jointly provide mentoring and several partner companies provide server or cloud environment free of charge. This project was based on a plan proposed by Fukuoka Jisho, Sakura Internet and Apamanshop Holdings as business associates…
From a press conference on Monday in Fukuoka Image credit: Fukuoka City
Fukuoka City Government and three companies, namely Fukuoka Jisho, Sakura Internet and Apamanshop Holdings (TSE:8889) announced on Monday that they will establish a startup support facility in the public / private cooperative style named Fukuoka Growth Next on 12th April at the site formerly occupied by Daimyo elementary school in Fukuoka. Coinciding with the announcement, they opened applications for startups hoping to move in.
The establishment of Fukuoka Growth Next aims, in short, to create future unicorns from Fukuoka. To promote “interactions” between startups and to increase public awareness of startups, co-working space, event space, cafe, standing bar and DIY studio will be set up at the facility.
The function of the startup support base Startup Cafe in Tenjin, Fukuoka City will be transferred to Fukuoka Growth Next. It supports initiation or company registration, is equipped with the designer training space Fukuoka Design Hub and an engineer training space called Engineer Lab Fukuoka. Moreover, a dozen venture capital firms will jointly provide mentoring and several partner companies provide server or cloud environment free of charge.
This project was based on a plan proposed by Fukuoka Jisho, Sakura Internet and Apamanshop Holdings as business associates and was adopted at the behest of Fukuoka City Government. It allows startups, prospective entrepreneurs, second founders and existing companies / support companies to cooperate with startups to apply for entry into the facility and applications are being accepted on the official website until 10th March.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Image of entrance part of Fukuoka Growth Next Image credit: Fukuoka City
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Vinclu, the Japanese startup developing a holographic virtual assistant called Gatebox, has announced that it will start co-developing solutions using Clova, the artificial intelligence (AI) platform developed by Japanese messaging company Line and its Korean parent company Naver. Coinciding with this, Line unveiled that it will take a major stake in Vinclu although financial details have not been disclosed. Upon this acquisition, Jun Masuda, CSMO (Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer) of Line, joined the management board of Vinclu on March 1st while Primal Capital’s Hiroshi Sasaki will retain the startup’s strategic advisor position. The Clova AI platform was just unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2017, underway now in Barcelona. Aiming to catch up with competitors like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, the Naver and Line consortium are planning to introduce AI-enabled solutions in Japan and Korea this summer, with products like the Clova app and the Wave smart speaker. See also: Gatebox, holographic virtual assistant, launches pre-orders for geeks in Japan, US Japan’s Vinclu gains $768K in funding to develop hologram assistant for smart living The Clova platform consists of Clova Brain and Clova Interface, each of which is respectively relevant to the…
Tokyo-based Vinclu, the Japanese startup developing a holographic virtual assistant called Gatebox, has announced that it will start co-developing solutions using Clova, the artificial intelligence (AI) platform developed by Japanese messaging company Line and its Korean parent company Naver. Coinciding with this, Line unveiled that it will take a major stake in Vinclu although financial details have not been disclosed.
Upon this acquisition, Jun Masuda, CSMO (Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer) of Line, joined the management board of Vinclu on March 1st while Primal Capital’s Hiroshi Sasaki will retain the startup’s strategic advisor position.
The Clova AI platform was just unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2017, underway now in Barcelona. Aiming to catch up with competitors like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, the Naver and Line consortium are planning to introduce AI-enabled solutions in Japan and Korea this summer, with products like the Clova app and the Wave smart speaker.
The Clova platform consists of Clova Brain and Clova Interface, each of which is respectively relevant to the eyes/mouth and the ears of humans. While a hardware device like the Wave smart speaker secures interfaces that allow the platform to communicate with users, Vinclu’s Gatebox is considered to be defined in that layer.
According to the statement from Line, the company signed a partnership with Sony Mobile Communications in the smart product development and with Takara Tomy (TSE:7867) in the smart toy development, in addition to one with Vinclu in the home robot development. Going forward Vinclu will leverage the Clova platform to develop various applications such
as news updates and calendar-based content offerings, voice command-based home control and Audiobook playback.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
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. This week we have the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Both major technology conferences; both happening at the same time. So difficult to choose… So it’s no surprise then that mobile gaming is on my mind. Truth be told, I was never much of a gamer myself, yet the industry has always fascinated me from an investment perspective. In fact I can only think of three video games which hooked me over the course of my life. Perhaps symbolically, each corresponded to a different stage of my life as well. First there were the Nintendo Game & Watch devices which I collected as a young boy. My favorite was Fire, but I managed to amass games like Octopus, Helmut, Parachute, and then later the double-screened Game &…
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.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
This week we have the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Both major technology conferences; both happening at the same time. So difficult to choose…
So it’s no surprise then that mobile gaming is on my mind. Truth be told, I was never much of a gamer myself, yet the industry has always fascinated me from an investment perspective.
In fact I can only think of three video games which hooked me over the course of my life. Perhaps symbolically, each corresponded to a different stage of my life as well.
First there were the Nintendo Game & Watch devices which I collected as a young boy. My favorite was Fire, but I managed to amass games like Octopus, Helmut, Parachute, and then later the double-screened Game & Watches like Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. My version of Fire still has the dents from when I hurled it across the room in frustration, but the others remain in practically mint condition. That’s how I know that Fire was my favorite. A stroll in Tokyo’s Akihabara district the other day made me realize how valuable these collector’s items have become.
In the modern era, a game consultant in Japan introduced me to GungHo’s Puzzles & Dragons in 2012. This mid-core smartphone game fascinated me in two ways. First, the combination of a Match-3 game with a dragon battle game represented a level of sophistication that I had never seen in the West. Additionally, the innovation around the gacha monetization technique opened my eyes to the business potential of mobile gaming in Japan. Although after five years PazuDora is finally in decline, the game is the most profitable F2P game ever. (Incidentally, I’ve written previously about the present-day threats to the gacha technique).
For the decade in between, i.e. around the turn of the century, the game that hooked me was Snake on my Nokia feature phone. Remember those old Nokia feature phones? A Nokia was my first mobile phone, and I must have cycled through half a dozen of those reliable devices during this period. That was of course before the smartphone revolution, back when we still used mobile phones for talking. Navigating through the memorized key sequence to Snake probably fell second only to checking voicemail among my daily routine.
The union of the snake is on the climb
Two major announcements broke this week for nostalgic fans like me: At MWC, HMD Global (which now owns the rights to make Nokia phones) announced that they are bringing back the classic Nokia 3310 phone. They announced the retro re-launch as a “One More Thing,” underscoring the only three things that matter: its battery lasts a month, it has Snake, and it has the Nokia ringtone.
And on the other side of the world, our portfolio company CoolGames announced that they’re bringing Snake into the new generation. CoolGames is launching Snake on Facebook Messenger’s Instant Games, a harbinger of the next form of disruption in mobile gaming in my opinion.
Perhaps I fit perfectly into the demographic motivated by nostalgia. I for one look forward to the return of Nokia’s 3310, to the return of Snake, and to how this future paradigm of mobile gaming will entertain us while still letting us hold on to the things we cherish.