Tokyo-based Cluster, the Japanese startup behind the social VR (virtual reality) app under the same name supporting several thousand people-scale events in VR space, announced on Wednesday that it has secured 200 million yen (about $1.8 million) in a series A round. The participating investors in this round include Avex Ventures (the investment arm of Japanese showbiz giant Avex Holdings Group), United (TSE:2497), DeNA (TSE:2432) and Skyland Ventures, plus undisclosed individual investors.
This funding succeeds the one with the total of 50 million yen (about $450,000) from Skyland Ventures, East Ventures and unnamed individual investors in its angel round in April of last year.
Along with this, Cluster and Avex Holdings Group (TSE:7860) announced they have agreed to a business partnership.
With this money, Cluster is going to advance business collaborations with enterprises having popular contents, as well as improve its product including the multi-device support covering smartphone or mobile VR.
Cluster had taken part in the Demo Day of Avex Enter-Tech Pitch 1st batch and made a pitch there. Unlike typical accelerator Demo Days, this event was held in the semi-closed style with only Avex staffers and invited guests such as people concerned in the startup ecosystem, in order to explore opportunities of the open innovation between Avex and startups. At the Demo Day, Cluster won the Masato Matsuura Award and the prize winning led the financial / business partnership this time.
Naoto Kato (CEO of Cluster, right) is awarded the prize from Masato Matsuura (CEO of Avex Holdings Group, left) at Avex Enter-Tech Pitch in April. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
The detail of this business partnership is not disclosed yet, but Kato’s pitch and the conversation with the judges at the Demo Day suggest that Avex had held various real events all around Japan featuring artists belonging to Avex and it is considered that Avex will look for a way to offer these kinds of performances in VR with Cluster. In addition, an Avex-affiliated company Avex Pictures owns major animation titles such as Yuri on Ice or Osomatsu-san, the business tie-up leveraging VR is expected also in this field.
According to Cluster CEO Naoto Kato, a function enabling to sell tickets only to limited users to participate in closed-style VR events is already implemented to the Cluster app. Kato said the app matches Asian culture or animation voice actors well and he is expecting a lot from the partnership with Avex also as to this point.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Japanese leading telco KDDI (TSE:9433) held a Demo Day for its incubation program KDDI Mugendai Labo last week. Among the four teams newly allowed to participate in the three months-long program, AMI developing smart stethoscope won the KDDI Mugen Labo Award, and Warrantee won the Audience Award (refer to this article for details about Warrantee). The following introduces the content of the pitch competition by the four teams that joined the program from the 11th batch. Watcha Korea-based Watcha, supported by Toppan Printing (TSE:7911) and KDDI, is tackling the problems of the content search system. For conventional search methods, in particular for entertainment content, recommended information, advertising, review and query are provided with the search results. On the other hand, Watcha provides better recommendation utilizing machine learning and tag analyses. Analyzing the degree of each user’s preference based on rating data, it constructs patterns for machine learning. By combining tags extracted from content outlines and the results of user analysis, Watcha realized the high-accuracy recommendation. Due to joining the program, Watcha obtained a good result in development; the number of posts with important rating was increased six-fold. Watcha’s rating data is going to be…
Japanese leading telco KDDI (TSE:9433) held a Demo Day for its incubation program KDDI Mugendai Labo last week. Among the four teams newly allowed to participate in the three months-long program, AMI developing smart stethoscope won the KDDI Mugen Labo Award, and Warrantee won the Audience Award (refer to this article for details about Warrantee). The following introduces the content of the pitch competition by the four teams that joined the program from the 11th batch.
Watcha
Watcha’s Jaeok Lee Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
Korea-based Watcha, supported by Toppan Printing (TSE:7911) and KDDI, is tackling the problems of the content search system.
For conventional search methods, in particular for entertainment content, recommended information, advertising, review and query are provided with the search results. On the other hand, Watcha provides better recommendation utilizing machine learning and tag analyses. Analyzing the degree of each user’s preference based on rating data, it constructs patterns for machine learning. By combining tags extracted from content outlines and the results of user analysis, Watcha realized the high-accuracy recommendation.
Due to joining the program, Watcha obtained a good result in development; the number of posts with important rating was increased six-fold. Watcha’s rating data is going to be introduced in a video streaming service Videopass provided by KDDI from June 1st.
Smart Stethoscope by AMI
Shimpei Ogawa, CEO of AMI Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
AMI, behind a smart stethoscope Cho-Choshinki (literally meaning ‘super-stethoscope’ in Japanese) supported by Toppan Printing and KDDI, won KDDI Mugen Labo Award. Shimpei Ogawa, CEO of AMI, is a practicing medical doctor. The firm developed a stethoscope having an auto-assist function for diagnosis, aiming to find out particular heart diseases by analyzing digitalized heart sounds and combining this data with electrocardiogram.
There is no advanced medical instrument in medical care at disaster sites or remote places. Stethoscopes are useful medical devices especially in these situations, seen everywhere and remaining unchanged since invented in France 200 years ago. The firm focused on this point and aims to establish a device-linked type medical service in order to support home, remote and preventive medicine. The firm has been carrying out verification tests for the device and negotiating with medical organizations.
TeNKYU
Hideki Kan, CEO of TeNKYU Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
The TeNKYU team has been supported by Softfront Holdings (TSE:2321), Dentsu (TSE:4324), Hitachi (TSE:6521) and KDDI during the program.
TeNKYU is a light bulb-shaped IoT device capable of automatically notifying online information such as weather forecasts by blinking the light; the device shows whether it will rain or not by the color tone of the light using its motion sensor and color LED. The device can also cover pollen information, rate of exchange, garbage day or lucky color, and is switchable via app, so that users will no longer need to search these information with internet communication devices like smartphone.
VRize
Hideyuki Shoda, CEO of VRize Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
VRize has been supported by Supership, Dai Nippon Printing (TSE:7912), Microsoft Japan and KDDI. The firm offers CMS (content management system) under the same name for development of apps available for VR (virtual reality) platform, enabling distribution of 360-degree videos or 2D videos optimized for VR. This system improves work efficiency of VR app development, shortening a process requiring three months into one-tenth of that.
The firm carried out a test operation of VR videos at lounges in an airport and obtained positive feedbacks in which more than 90% of users answered they would like to use this service again. The firm will commence sales of the product via sales agents and plans to develop its business along with its advertising platform which will also be launched soon.
Participant startups graduated from the previous 10th batch
Katsunori Shimomura, CEO of Enowa Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
As for participant startups of the previous 10th batch, namely, Axelspace, Xshell, Enowa and Mamorio, they have been continuously supported and been performing verification tests with partnered companies over half a year.
Axelspace, which is behind a satellite image service, conducted various demonstration tests jointly with KDDI, aiming to turn satellite images into meaningful data available for business utilizing deep learning. For example, the firm has been carrying out tests analyzing images of parking spaces photographed by satellites and utilizing the data for research activities required for setting parking charges, in collaboration with Mitsui Fudosan (TSE:8801).
Xshell, behind an IoT (internet of things) device development / management platform enabling web service-like management, succeeded in funding and it is the first case to succeed in doing so during program participation.
Makoto Takahashi, Executive Vice President of KDDI Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
Adding TDK (TSE:6762) and Seibu Railway (TSE:9002), the number of partner companies to jointly develop business with startups will reach 36 from the next 12th batch. The 12th batch will be held over one year from this August to the end of July 2018 and accepts primary applications to entry the program from 18th May to 19th June. It can accept applications after this period but the support term may be shortened.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Serial entrepreneur, traveling entrepreneur, Yukimaru (to reference the Japanese anime series Naruto) — Yuki Naruse is a man of many names. It has been nearly six years since we met for the first time and since then he has published works such as “Jibun no shigoto wo tsukuru tabi” (Making travel your work) and “Tabi no houshuu” (Getting paid to travel), always making travel the center of the projects he works on. Four years ago he co-founded Tabi Labo, a media site specializing in travel. Last year Naruse entrusted Tabi Labo to his co-founder and left his position with the company. It appears his following movements stem from that decision. He is introducing a new service with travel at its core and hoping to attract people’s attention by changing how travel is experienced. “On The Trip” is an iOS app that turns your iPhone into an GPS-enabled audio travel guide. It was launched last week and is now available on the iTunes AppStore. Art and history museums around the world often provide audio guides in multiple languages for tourists. Of course, the exhibits have explanations written in the local language and English, but I…
Serial entrepreneur, traveling entrepreneur, Yukimaru (to reference the Japanese anime series Naruto) — Yuki Naruse is a man of many names. It has been nearly six years since we met for the first time and since then he has published works such as “Jibun no shigoto wo tsukuru tabi” (Making travel your work) and “Tabi no houshuu” (Getting paid to travel), always making travel the center of the projects he works on. Four years ago he co-founded Tabi Labo, a media site specializing in travel.
Last year Naruse entrusted Tabi Labo to his co-founder and left his position with the company. It appears his following movements stem from that decision. He is introducing a new service with travel at its core and hoping to attract people’s attention by changing how travel is experienced. “On The Trip” is an iOS app that turns your iPhone into an GPS-enabled audio travel guide. It was launched last week and is now available on the iTunes AppStore.
Art and history museums around the world often provide audio guides in multiple languages for tourists. Of course, the exhibits have explanations written in the local language and English, but I can’t be the only one who has experienced my depth of understanding deepen with the use of an audio guide. On The Trip takes the experience of viewing museum exhibits with an audio guide and applies it to sightseeing spots regardless of whether users are indoors or out.
The price of each audio content starts at 120 yen (about $1 US). For now you can buy and download content via in-app purchase, but in the future one example of an idea put forward is to sell it as a set with the admission fees to shrines and temples and then share the revenue. The content corresponds to a maximum of 5 languages (Japanese, English, Korean, Mandarin, and Cantonese), so there is no doubt of their ability to capture the demand of inbound tourists. They are currently working on content production with Niigata Prefecture’s “The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial” and the Nara City Tourism Association.
It’s not only an audio guide for sightseeing spots, but also the one that can convey the spiritual culture of Japan.
As far as audio guide apps for art and history museums, MyGuide exists in Japan and MyTours can be used overseas, though there has not been much thought on bringing this experience out of buildings. In the future, On The Trip is contemplating developing audio guides using AR (augmented reality). It may become possible to add a time-transcending experience to your journey when you visit historic buildings, sites and ruins.
L to R: Akihito Shiga (Creative Director), Yuki Naruse (Founder and CEO), Kohei Morishita (CTO)
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Taiga Tamura of Tamura Shashinkan. February was a busy time for Makers Boot Camp. Just one day after HackOsaka, when we supported Monozukuri Hardware Cup 2017, the first pitch contest for hardware startups in Japan, we also had the opportunity to invite special guest speakers from three different hubs of the world. After a very busy schedule in Osaka, some of them had the chance to stop by and bring their personal insights to our Monozukuri Hub in Kyoto. I was in charge of introducing the meetup topic and its relevance for students – a considerable amount of the population in Kyoto and the highest concentration in Japan – to engage in startup communities, share their ideas, learn about experiences and question the status quo. There were many new faces in the audience, as the idea was to focus on young people considering their next life choices. The first question I raised at the event was…
Sabrina Sasaki
This is a guest post by Sabrina Sasaki, a marketing representative of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.
Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Taiga Tamura of Tamura Shashinkan.
February was a busy time for Makers Boot Camp. Just one day after HackOsaka, when we supported Monozukuri Hardware Cup 2017, the first pitch contest for hardware startups in Japan, we also had the opportunity to invite special guest speakers from three different hubs of the world. After a very busy schedule in Osaka, some of them had the chance to stop by and bring their personal insights to our Monozukuri Hub in Kyoto.
I was in charge of introducing the meetup topic and its relevance for students – a considerable amount of the population in Kyoto and the highest concentration in Japan – to engage in startup communities, share their ideas, learn about experiences and question the status quo. There were many new faces in the audience, as the idea was to focus on young people considering their next life choices.
The first question I raised at the event was “Why Kyoto?”. There’re so many unique things about the city that it’s hard to define its industry in a few words, specially considering the diversity in terms of Art, Design and Architecture. Kyoto is a dynamic spot where innovation and creativity have been part of all sectors, and we’re lucky to be able to benefit from all those ventures that still impact our daily life.
A city where modern & famous companies like Nintendo, Kyocera and Omron coexist with an intensive and traditional craftsmanship activity, reference in industrialized countries for best practices, as in pottery, textile and culinary. Kyoto yearly hosts many visitors and Foreign Exchange students interested to get inspired and collaborate with the local ecosystem for creation and renovation. In that sense, connecting students from different universities to outsiders can facilitate our dialogues to promote alternative ways of making new things.
Sam Lai, Taiwan-based Managing Director of Yushan Ventures joined the audience as our special guest.
Our city has been a great environment for us! Makers Boot Camp shares the Japanese worldwide know-how with industrial best practices that come from this background, as our Co-Founders met thanks to this ecosystem. With our mentors and manufacturers, we provide startups the support they need to build the basis for a new business.We also have young professionals as part of our network and we’d like to get to know more student’s projects. We can start helping with some basic advise for the ones considering building a new product.
But in terms of requirements, how could we define a “right” person to become a maker or join a startup? There’s no such thing as the “right personality” or a specific expertise needed to join a startup, as you can always improve your skills. First of all, makers are all about discovering, trying new things and finding what they’re passionate about. In the end, what makes the difference is not an individual skill but the team work results, so sharing is part of our routine as a startup.
Looking at the steps of a hardware startup, represented as in a videogame with different stages, in order to move to the next one, you must achieve a certain level in the current one. In this sense, the part where most makers struggle to continue “playing the game” is when they have to make a professional prototype, a stage we call “Design for Manufacturing” (DFM). That’s the part we can support startups with our prototype experts and we’d like to invite all students to experiment new things within our hub.
Ajay Revels, Polite Machines
Our first guest speaker was Ajay Revels (Polite Machines– NYC), who introduced her current work at as a researcher trained in design thinking, helping different teams uncover and develop products and services that people will love. She’s an anthropologist for business, daily analysing systems like universities, homes, offices, and even hospitals, observing and interviewing people to understand and validate possible problems. Then she maps all problems (like in a subway map) and provides insights for entire teams to see a holistic picture of a specific problem, as an example. She pointed out they’re three key questions to start with, when you have an idea for a new project:
Do I have a real problem to solve?
Can I make a product to solve this problem?
If so, what kind of value does my product add? (Proposition)
With startups, Ajay runs experiments to test if there is a product solving a real problem, and if people are willing to pay for this product. She applied some of her recent examples after observing people interacting in Kyoto.
Some startups work for traditional charity, just solving a problem without making money out of it. Others are part of a professional business, so there must be a profit to be given in return to investors. And there’s also the area of social entrepreneurship, that is a hybrid right in between the other two, when both making money and supporting the community are part of the core goals.
There’re many models that can be used to measure a startup achievement – a broad concept of success could be applied in different ways, depending on the specific purpose defined by its stakeholders.
Jeffrey McDaniel, Innovation Works
The second speaker was Jeffrey McDaniel (Innovation Works) who came from Pittsburgh (PA, US) to take part in Monozukuri Hardware Cup as the head of the Judges. He represents one of the main hardware startup ecosystems in the world, part of Alphalab Gear Hardware Cup. His role as Executive in Residence consists of spending a lot of time with early stage companies, as a mentor for founders and entrepreneurs.
Like Ajay, Jeff clarified the two basic things you need to start a company: a good idea that is able to solve a problem and find out who’s willing to pay for it.
Pittsburgh used to be known as the “Steel City”: 80% of the total amount of the metal in US used to be from the region, but nowadays it represents only 5%. The area has been an important hub for the American industry and the city managed to survive thanks to its qualities of reinventing itself. Combining natural resources with people’s talents and technologies, Pittsburgh could complete a triangle that allows ways to redefine success in its own way. Locals had to learn how to adapt to the economic changes and develop innovative skills with available resources, a survival skill very similar to what happened in Japan.
There are also many universities in Pittsburgh, thanks to its prosper history – and a lot of money stayed there, helping new entrepreneurs to get support in order to take risks and start new projects. In this sense, the local ecosystem played a key role in the development of innovative initiatives, and the city is now a strategic hub for high tech companies like Google and Uber, who’s testing its self-drive pilot cars there.
Adrien Sedaka, Timescope
As the main purpose of our events is always giving visibility to startups, we also had two French entrepeneurs representing the diversity of one of the main global hubs for IoT startups.
Adrien Sedaka (Timescope) from Paris, studied business at ESCP Europe, where he began his career in consulting. During 5 years, he assisted C-level managers of SMEs and large groups on business and marketing issues.
In 2010, he visited Pompeii with Basile Segalen, his childhood friend. The tour took place in the high season, when the historical place becomes full of crowds, and they couldn’t have an experience as they had dreamt about. They ended up frustrated, realizing the difficulties of projecting themselves into the magic of such a historical place. The idea of developing an immersive tool designed for outdoor public places was born there, after their own frustration.
In 2014, after the new progress of VR technologies, they decided to develop Timescope: the first self-service virtual reality terminal. After a year of development, the time machine was tested at the Bastille, one the most powerful historical sites in French history. Adrien and his team are now scaling-up the company, preparing new installations in 2017, and considering how they could implement this new service into Japanese historical sites.
Adrian wrote a few notes to share with the students interested to join a startup:
Choose careful who you want to work with, as a partnership is like a wedding.
Work with people who are really motivated and do care for them.
Try to execute your idea as fast as possible.
Don’t minimize the skills you don’t have: either work on those skills or partner with someone who can assist you with what you need.
Régis Duhot, Parkisseo
Régis Duhot, Parkisseo Founder & CEO, defines himself as a “fifty years old « young » start-upper”, who started his company after 25 years in finance and accounting areas, working for several multinationals, mostly in electronics.
As most of urban citizens in the world, Régis wastes a significant part of his days looking for a place to park his car. This is how he decided to focus on this issue with a new solution: a clever car system that helps drivers to find available parking spots easily, without wasting time.
Parkisseo offers a complete solution, with a connected device that will allow cities to be smarter, facilitating the routine of its citizens. Easy to use, simple to instal (wireless), the startup offers advantages for both drivers and car park owners.
Sushi Suzuki, Associate Professor at Kyoto D-Lab and Makers Boot Camp Adviser
We invited Eiji Takahashi to present his student startup project: Untilet.
Eiji studies polymeric glass transition at Kyoto Institute of Technology, and at the same time he is also interested in data science. Leading the development as a CTO, from early stage into the IoT device development team, he recently helped to create an entrepreneurial department within his university.
His first project, Untiled, consists of a device that can recognize unpleasant odor and recommend users who suffer from stuffy nose to change their daily habits. Connected to the mobile app, the sensors can capture specific substances in the air.
Eiji gave a demo trial about his device, which was under development.
In the end, he joined a panel discussion with other students and professors who explained the challenges to develop a startup project as a university student.
Ajay also invited the International guests, both startups and Jeff, for a panel discussion about their next steps and insights.
We had a Q&A session when the audience had the chance to ask questions to students, startups and experts.
Before the end, there was a special closing message from our first supporter Allen Minner, Chairman and Group CEO of Sunbridge. He is a serial-entrepreneur, known for being a mentor and also angel investor for Japan-based startups, including Makers Boot Camp.
Makers Boot Camp’s Narimasa Makino (left), Sunbridge’s Allen Miner (right)
Allen highlighted the potential of our local community and Monozukuri Hub current achievements lead by a generation of new entrepreneurs like our CEO Narimasa Makino, encouraging more students to learn English and try new projects.
ConnectFree’s Chris Tate (front left), FabFoundry’s Nobuhiro Seki (front right)
There was a networking session, where attendees & speakers could interact and test the startups devices.
L to R: Sushi Suzuki, Tatsuya Tsubuki, Shohei Nakamura
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Clip Nihonbashi, managed by 31 Ventures which is backed by Mitsui Fudosan, has opened up a new structure housing itself as well as the satellite venture Axelspace (the latter on upper floors of the premises). The collaboration/meeting place was formerly located at CM Building in Nihonbashi nearby, albeit on the sixth floor in addition to being in a building shuttered after 6pm. The modern glass-covered facilities including a reception, conference rooms and locker space, along with a small cafe-esque operation run by a “socially-aware” startup, is conveniently placed adjacent to a major thoroughfare road. Some 90 seats are available for member use, and about a hundred people can be held in case a large event needs to be held. Mitsui Fudosan is supporting other similar establishment in the Tokyo area, including central Kamiyacho and Kasumigaseki areas within the city proper, not to the KOIL facilities in Kashiwanoha on the Tsukuba Express (TX) train line running from Tokyo’s Akihabara to Tsukuba, the science city sited to the northeast. Actually, Axelspace was first headquartered along TX. There is also a “Life Science…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
Clip Nihonbashi, managed by 31 Ventures which is backed by Mitsui Fudosan, has opened up a new structure housing itself as well as the satellite venture Axelspace (the latter on upper floors of the premises). The collaboration/meeting place was formerly located at CM Building in Nihonbashi nearby, albeit on the sixth floor in addition to being in a building shuttered after 6pm.
The modern glass-covered facilities including a reception, conference rooms and locker space, along with a small cafe-esque operation run by a “socially-aware” startup, is conveniently placed adjacent to a major thoroughfare road. Some 90 seats are available for member use, and about a hundred people can be held in case a large event needs to be held.
Mitsui Fudosan is supporting other similar establishment in the Tokyo area, including central Kamiyacho and Kasumigaseki areas within the city proper, not to the KOIL facilities in Kashiwanoha on the Tsukuba Express (TX) train line running from Tokyo’s Akihabara to Tsukuba, the science city sited to the northeast. Actually, Axelspace was first headquartered along TX.
There is also a “Life Science Hub” building not far from Clip Nihonbashi since the locality is replete with major pharmaceutical concerns, like Astellas and Daiichi Sankyo plus popular medicament providers such as Kowa and Zeria. In fact, Takeda is now constructing its new Tokyo building right down the street to Clip Nihonbashi.
In terms of Clip Nihonbashi access, it is situated right above the Japan Railway Shin-Nihonbashi Station, a single stop away from the Tokyo terminal, in addition to being near Mitsukoshimae Station on the Ginza and Hanzomon Metro subway lines. It is also in hiking distance to other railway stations like JR Kanda and subway Nihonbashi stations.
See the original story in Japanese. IBM Japan held the Demo Day event for their BlueHub open innovation program last week. The latest batch features startups focused on inbound travel businesses. A number of companies offering inbound travel services participated, with four big corporates: NTT Docomo, Zenrin, Zenrin DataCom, and Softbank, and eight startups: Andeco, Crea Japan, Fesbase, Pretia, Mybase, Metro Engines, Rich Table, and Realista. Presented services and companies were: Fesbase: chatbot platform focused on serving Chinese visitors to Japan (by Crea Japan) Quippy for Restaurants: Marketing and product development support tool for restaurants (by Rich Table) Sakevel: Sake brewery tourism and personal sake sommelier service (by Mybase) SnapGo: AR(augmented reality)-based navigation service (by Pretia) Miccossy: Mobile app curating Japanese local festivals (by Andeco) Travel experience sharing platform (by NTT Docomo) 1Minute Japan: Video-based service for helping foreign visitors to Japan solve problems (by Realista) Metro Engines: AI (artificial intelligence) tool that helps hotels determine competitive pricing In late February, teams composed of a mix of the companies carried out kick-off meetings and held six workshops throughout the three month planning phase. Following the Demo Day they will begin to work on firm plans for commercialization. In the spirit…
IBM Japan held the Demo Day event for their BlueHub open innovation program last week. The latest batch features startups focused on inbound travel businesses.
A number of companies offering inbound travel services participated, with four big corporates: NTT Docomo, Zenrin, Zenrin DataCom, and Softbank, and eight startups: Andeco, Crea Japan, Fesbase, Pretia, Mybase, Metro Engines, Rich Table, and Realista.
Presented services and companies were:
Fesbase: chatbot platform focused on serving Chinese visitors to Japan (by Crea Japan)
Quippy for Restaurants: Marketing and product development support tool for restaurants (by Rich Table)
Sakevel: Sake brewery tourism and personal sake sommelier service (by Mybase)
SnapGo: AR(augmented reality)-based navigation service (by Pretia)
Miccossy: Mobile app curating Japanese local festivals (by Andeco)
1Minute Japan: Video-based service for helping foreign visitors to Japan solve problems (by Realista)
Metro Engines: AI (artificial intelligence) tool that helps hotels determine competitive pricing
In late February, teams composed of a mix of the companies carried out kick-off meetings and held six workshops throughout the three month planning phase. Following the Demo Day they will begin to work on firm plans for commercialization. In the spirit of full disclosure, I was asked to participate in this event as a judge. The following are introductions of the seven services that gave presentations.
Fesbase: chatbot platform focused on serving Chinese visitors to Japan (by Crea Japan)
When planning vacations overseas you may often rely on TripAdvisor and Yelp, but it is hard to tell the atmosphere of a place and whether it is suitable for kids or not. It is easy to imagine the same situation occurring during the expected boom in inbound tourism to Japan. Many tourists from China come to Japan for the cuisine. They may be left wondering how to make a reservation in such situations. That’s where the Yoyaku app uses chatbot and AI to come to the rescue.
Users select the category of restaurant they want to reserve and input details like the area they hope to go to. The app supports voice input so it is easy for travelers to use, and recommended information is delivered leveraging IBM Watson.
Since Fesbase already has an existing project that offers a human concierge, there is a large amount of training data, so it is possible to provide accurate recommendations. If, due to the contents of the question, the bot cannot answer, it is possible for AI to sort and select a human concierge who can. They are currently in negotiations with the Chinese media and also looking into acquiring users before their arrival in Japan.
In terms of business, they are thinking to charge a fee to restaurants based on driving user traffic to them, and in the future, once the number of users increases, they are planning to offer a platform for restaurant searching services to businesses.
Quippy for Restaurants: Marketing and product development support tool for restaurants (by Rich Table)
The Quippy app
Quippy provides a restaraunt searching tool on Instagram. It offers users with the chance to discover (even the unexpected) restaurants via searching. When the user launches the app, information linked to the location information of the restaurant and the picture pulled from Instagram is displayed. Since the app will learn what content the user has browsed, it will recommend additional restaurants later on.
For the service geared at restaurants, the tool will show them posts in English on social network sites and restaurant review sites as negative or positive. If a specific dish receives a negative review, it can recommend Instragram examples from another shop to the restaurant to improve. The searching service is free, while the service for restaurants will be offered based on a monthly subscription model.
Sakevel: Sake brewery tourism and personal sake sommelier service (by Mybase)
Takashi Kageyama, CEO of Mybase
88 of the 100 foreigners questioned at Narita International Airport said they want to drink Japanese sake. On the flipside, they don’t really have any information about sake breweries. Moreover, more than 99% of such breweries are mid-sized or family run so they may not be able to fully support foreigners who show up unannounced, but even before that 60% of consumption by foreigners visiting Japan is in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The idea behind Sakevel is to utilize tourism resources to awaken the small sake breweries that sleep in unknown areas, thus promoting regional development.
The Sakevel app
As for the sake itself, the Sakevel app recognizes the images on labels and provides that information in multiple languages. It also introduces personalized sake recommendations for tourists based on information gathered from past posts on social media sites. Since breweries cannot attract customers alone, Mybase plans to offer sake brewery tours along the same lines as a winery tour. Services are set to begin in October this year.
SnapGo will take you where you want to go without GPS by specifying your location with a mobile picture. This solves the problem of the numbers of foreign tourists who get lost due to lack of multilingual signage in Japan.
The company receives a photo of the place from its premise owner, creates an algorithm from it, and makes it possible to identify places from photographs taken by users through machine learning. As a result, users without GPS on their devices or who experience language difficulties can get to their destination by simply taking pictures.
In order to develop the algorithm it appears they need about forty 360-degree images. Additionally, it is assumed that the destination is input using images or text.
Miccossy: Mobile app curating Japanese local festivals (by Andeco)
Simply put, it is a festival information service for foreign tourists in Japan. It is difficult for users to acquire real-time festival information even if they refer to guide books, etc. People outside of Japan search for “matsuri (literally festivals in Japanese)” on YouTube as much as “Mt. Fuji” so there is a demand. Moreover, the company expects that there are 310,000 festivals all over Japan.
The Micossy app displays festival information in the surrounding area and provides related information like how to participate, and so on, in multiple languages. Their business model is the sale of “happi” or traditional clothing to be worn at the festival. Initially they plan to start by offering information on 100 festivals.
1Minute Japan: Video-based service for helping foreign visitors to Japan solve problems (by Realista)
1Minute Japan is designed for travelers to Japan who come on their own, not as a tour. It provides help to travelers before departure on topics like SIM cards and Wifi in Japan, and once they begin their journey, the company offers transportation and ticket information, as well as a restaurant reservation service. Using Watson to analyze the information learned from these tasks, it can analyze sentiments and classify what kind of problems people in various countries experience. Then they release video content to solve these problems.
The service can be used in this way: the example that, “an American traveler in their 20’s doesn’t know how to eat at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant”, guides them to create video content to help this person. They started test marketing in April and have acquired around 5,000 followers on their Facebook page.
Metro Engines: AI tool that helps hotels determine competitive pricing
Metro Engine
Metro Engines can optimize revenue for hotels and inns. The tool targets the 35,000 facilities throughout Japan, with 1.2 million rooms. Many of the rooms were priced using an individual’s expertise. Some chains use tools, but set their prices based on past performance and competing room prices. However, it can be said that this method will become ineffective as the supply-demand balance collapses due to access to private residences, etc.
That is where Metro Engines comes in. It predicts the reservation behavior of guests, and then set room prices through data analysis peppered with budget information, reviews, and furthermore, information on renting private homes and rooms, as well as guest room photos. In addition, It has also visualized human behavior based on mobile behavior data from NTT Docomo, Zenrin, and Softbank and included it.
Based on the big data obtained through these measures, they can tangibly present how a room should be priced. The service was announced on the 25th of last month and is currently under evaluation at 50 facilities. When they link up with the individual systems of hotels and inns, they can verify that the price setting was appropriate.
Watson’s unique open innovation program and future issues
Yuta Hagiwara, CEO of Prevent. His team won the previous program batch last year.
Followed by the previous batch focused on automotive and healthcare verticals, this was the second edition of the IBM BlueHub open innovation program. Prevent, one of the grads from the previous program batch last year, is a startup spun off from Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine. The team presented a solution preventing lifestyle diseases, which was collaboratively developed with a health insurance company.
Based on his research experience having succeeded in lowering the recurrence rate of high blood pressure, diabetes, cerebrovascular disease and other symptoms to less than 30%, he has developed an online consultation service. He claims that they will aim to gain the consultation efficiency by implementing the Watson technology into a chat-based consultation service.
In the latest batch focused on the inbound travel topic, participating companies were trying to create new values by combining with the unique strength of the services, technologies and resources that they have had.
Metro Engines was highly evaluated because of not only telling hotels optimized room pricing leveraging big data analysis but also predicting details and suggesting ideas about how to improve. The team is outstanding with having already 50 companies as potential clients.
Regarding aforementioned Predict and Metro Engines, they could unveil clear results through the program, however, the ideas of other teams were still “small” in the potential about their technologies and services or their ideas are still rough and unclear in the potential merit to come out of a collaboration work.
Moreover, we saw some projects which had probably managed to adjust their ideas into Watson in the program, meaning that they have turned a means into a purpose there.
It might sound good if we say a collaboration between resourceful corporates and game-changing startups with technologies. However, if the collaboration become a purpose, I assume that it will not bring a good result because of the gap in expectations and cultures on both sides, or the program host’s egotism.
Where is the problem to solve? Does it require any technology? What kind of businesses should be get together to speed it up? Open Innovation is now trending in Japan, that’s especially why I think these well-considered preparation may be more important.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
The Bridge
