Several news websites reported on Friday that Tokyo-based Z-Works, the Japanese startup developing IoT (Internet of Things) healthcare monitoring solutions especially for elderly care, has secured 400 million yen (about $3.6 million) in a series A round. Participating investors in this round are Spiral Ventures, Canon Marketing Japan (CMJ for short, TSE:8060), Infocom (TSE:4348), Lixil (TSE:5938), Kokusai Kogyo, plus the KSP Venture Investment Funds by Kanagawa Science Park. Coinciding with this funding, Spiral Ventures’ partner Hiroshi Oka, Infocom’s Open Innovation Center chief Yoichi Shirono and someone from CMJ will join Z-Works’ management board as external directors.
Z-Works has developed an IoT-based platform called Life Engine, aiming to reduce the burden of professionals and family members caring for elderly people, by leveraging a variety of sensors and a cloud-based platform to remotely watch over the elderly without possible invasion of their privacy. It intends to prevent the elderly from becoming bedridden, especially during the period between life expectancy and health expectancy — 9 years for men, 12 years for women on average each. Using a heart rate monitoring sensor, motion sensors and other sensors which are not required to be attached to the elderly people’s bodies so that they are unlikely to feel uncomfortable, the system can remotely monitor their heart rate, breath rate, getting out of bed, turning over in bed or taking an extra-long bathroom break so that caregivers will be notified when necessary or something unusual.
The company won Runways to Tech in Asia Singapore 2016 at Tokyo, subsequently became the runner-up at the Tech in Asia Singapore 2016 arena finals, as well as winning a pitch competition in Tokyo by Aging 2.0, a startup accelerating focused on elderly healthcare. Moreover, the team was selected for I-Challenge!, the ICT Innovation encouragement program hosted by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications back in 2016.
Among the investors participating in this round, Z-Works has been partnering with CMJ to develop a system that enables remotely monitoring elderly people’s rooms, planning to deploy it into 115 care homes in Japan run by Japanese nursery care provider Sompo Care Next. Alongside this, CMJ will also set up a new department specifically focused on an elderly care business. Meanwhile, another investor, Kokusai Kogyo, is supporting Z-Works by offering an indoor location detection technology which works without GPS (global positioning system).
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Tatsuya Takahashi, co-CEO/co-founder of Z-Works, delivered their pitch at the Tech in Asia Singapore conference back in 2016. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
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. A recent conversation with my friend Shin Iwata from Atomico inspired me to reflect on the choices facing young people nowadays as they embark on their professional careers. Shin penned a poignant post discussing the difference between stability and security in the professional context in Japan, concepts denoted by the same Japanese word of antei. I cannot possibly do justice to Shin’s elegant piece, but one of his key arguments is that Japanese youth need to consciously choose which version of antei represents their ultimate goal, because stability and security can diverge. Traditionally, the Japanese educational system conditioned young people to pursue professional security. Work hard in elementary school, participate in after-hours juku (cram school) in order to gain admission into a top university, and subsequently enter the pool of fresh graduates recruited by large…
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.
A recent conversation with my friend Shin Iwata from Atomico inspired me to reflect on the choices facing young people nowadays as they embark on their professional careers.
Shin penned a poignant post discussing the difference between stability and security in the professional context in Japan, concepts denoted by the same Japanese word of antei. I cannot possibly do justice to Shin’s elegant piece, but one of his key arguments is that Japanese youth need to consciously choose which version of antei represents their ultimate goal, because stability and security can diverge.
Traditionally, the Japanese educational system conditioned young people to pursue professional security. Work hard in elementary school, participate in after-hours juku (cram school) in order to gain admission into a top university, and subsequently enter the pool of fresh graduates recruited by large corporations. Traditionally, the young graduate would join one of these large firms or conglomerates and work their butt off for several years with the implicit promise of a guaranteed job for life. I contend that this phenomenon was not limited to Japan.
The social pact of lifetime employment afforded workers full job security, and simultaneously a high degree of stability, so the two concepts became intertwined in people’s minds. Globalization ushered in the first wedge between the two by fostering conditions in which an employee might be expatriated to another geography for 2 to 5 years. I grew up as an expat child and derived nothing but benefit in bouncing around internationally in my youth. However, I also witnessed firsthand the dependency my father had on his firm. When the company asked us to relocate, my father was, at minimum, strongly discouraged from declining their request. In a Japanese corporation, such a refusal would be unthinkable.
I submit that stability and security have fallen even deeper into contradiction over the past decade, and that this trend is accelerating. The main driver is the second information technology revolution, i.e. the internet.
Large companies ≠ stable. Innovative companies = stable.
I’ve heard convincing arguments that the first IT revolution — the invention of the semiconductor and its ensuing proliferation of computing resources — represented sustainable innovation. In other words, the innovation of the silicon revolution was dramatic, but it was sustaining rather than disruptive. This innovation wave disproportionately benefited large companies by enabling them to leverage new efficiencies into their economies of scale.
In contrast, the subsequent wave of innovation, ushered in by the internet, is radically disruptive. The first ripple of this wave appeared in the technology sector (look what Slack means for Microsoft, or MongoDB means for Oracle, or AWS means for Cisco, etc.). Now technology startups conceived in the paradigm of the internet and unshackled by legacy baggage are going after large, non-tech industries, whether it be transportation (Lyft), consumer products (Dollar Shave Club), finance (TransferWise), agriculture (The Climate Corporation), etc. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the increasing connectivity to the physical world is enabling us to close the loop in industry, agriculture, and the environment.
Accordingly, large companies may still be able to offer workers a certain degree of security by force of their sheer size, inertia, and a protective labor regulatory context. However, stability in such firms is far from assured.
My message to newly-minted college graduates: Think about your ultimate goal as you embark on your career. The path that worked well for your parents is not necessarily an effective one anymore to achieve the same goal because times have changed. Finally, don’t feel you have to follow the same track as everyone else because conventional wisdom says so. There is more than one track.
This is a guest post by Takumi Ishii, an intern 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 Kyoko Sunahiro, a wedding dress designer at Atelier 2du Monto. See the original article in Japanese. The Monozukuri Hub Meet Up was held for the 11th time on May 18th at MTRL Kyoto. This edition’s theme was “Online Platforms for Startups”. As opposed to startups dealing with software, issues unique to hardware startups were raised. One of the major themes of this gathering was “partnership, not competition.” Additionally, actual entrepreneurs of hardware startups took to the podium to share their stories, adding a degree of realness to the event. In order to solve the problem of mass production, which is akin to the “Valley of Death” for hardware startups, Makers Boot Camp recalled joining forces with Kyoto Shisaku to support the process startups must follow in mass-producing products. Makers Boot Camp has been collaborating with investors, start-ups and key institutions both in Japan and abroad, but concluded by emphasizing that there is a need to further strengthen this area….
This is a guest post by Takumi Ishii, an intern 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 Kyoko Sunahiro, a wedding dress designer at Atelier 2du Monto.
The Monozukuri Hub Meet Up was held for the 11th time on May 18th at MTRL Kyoto. This edition’s theme was “Online Platforms for Startups”.
As opposed to startups dealing with software, issues unique to hardware startups were raised. One of the major themes of this gathering was “partnership, not competition.” Additionally, actual entrepreneurs of hardware startups took to the podium to share their stories, adding a degree of realness to the event.
In order to solve the problem of mass production, which is akin to the “Valley of Death” for hardware startups, Makers Boot Camp recalled joining forces with Kyoto Shisaku to support the process startups must follow in mass-producing products. Makers Boot Camp has been collaborating with investors, start-ups and key institutions both in Japan and abroad, but concluded by emphasizing that there is a need to further strengthen this area.
Presenting hardware startup ecosystems by three gurus
Greg Fisher of Hardware Massive began his presentation by asking the question, “Are there any among you who are developing a product for mass production, or anyone planning to?”
He related that mass-production by hardware startups has many problems, and emphasized that they are aiming to solve them through partnerships, that is to say collaborations rather than competition. Fisher then took up the problem of the enormous cost of engineering and introduced what Hardware Massive is doing to create an environment where startups can overcome it.
Greg Fisher, Founder of Hardware Massive
Fisher redefined hardware startups as, “a startup whose goal is to put physical products into full-scale distribution.” With that in mind, Hardware Massive listed the following as its missions:
Networking
Education
Access to Resources
The company has branches around the world, with information on the branch, staff, and events available on their website. They also offer various resources including those about news and events, which shows that they have realized a global platform accessible to hardware startups.
Karlos Ishac, LifeChair
Next to take the stage was Lifechair’s Karlos Ishac, who is also a graduate student at the University of Tsukuba. Lifechair is the second startup begun by Ishac and they develop a product to solve problems such as physical ailments caused by long-term use of smartphones, computers, and desk work, as well as the problem of productivity deterioration. The product features a function to improve the posture of users by checking their posture and directing them to the correct posture using vibrations.
Ishac recalled his interest in inventing since childhood and how he was managing an informal business by the age of 14. He looked for a job after graduating from Sydney University but in his home country of Australia the majority of opportunities were in agriculture and maritime affairs which did not interest him. That is when he came across Tsukuba University’s OMECHA program, and decided to make the leap to Japan, where he has indulged his entrepreneurial spirit by inventing various products, including a medical robot.
He continuously emphasizes to his current team members, “Do not stick to just one product.” He believes that maintaining flexibility in creating numerous products is an important point for hard tech startups to survive.
Kentaro Yamamoto, Nain
Kentaro Yamamoto of Nain, a Japanese startup, rounded out the first half of the gathering. After studying complex systems engineering at Hokkaido University, he gained experience working for the Pioneer Corporation planning and developing car navigation systems and related materials.
He related that, personally, it is extremely bothersome to have to pick up his smartphone every time he needs to check it leading him to develop APlay, an eyes-free internet device. The company is interested in audio that can cooperate with smartphones, and they are looking to mass produce a device that is wireless and capable of voice recognition.
“You should break free from your isolation, open up, and challenge the world!”
The gathering has two panel discussions.
In the first panel, Hardware Massive Founder Greg Fisher and Narimasa Makino, CEO of Makers Boot Camp, sitting down to relay their viewpoints on assisting hardware startups. In comparison to software startups, they elaborated on the difficulties faced by hardware startups, such as funding and networks, and talked mutually about the importance of online platforms. Fisher emphasized,
A lot of pitch and other events are taking place, but I wanted to create a continuous community, not just a one-time event, so I started Hardware Massive. I believe in collaboration, not competition, and greatly value an open attitude.
Currently, there are all sorts of online platforms flooding the market, but the open attitude of Hardware Massive seems to be indispensable for the future of hardware startups. In the end, Fisher had this message for Japanese startups:
You should break free from your isolation, open up, and challenge the world without fear of failing.
Prior to the second panel discussion, Atsuhiko Tomita of PLENGoer presented their miniature robot PLENCube.
Tomita related,
I don’t believe technology will replace humans. I believe it will enrich our lives.”
He developed the assistant robot PLENCube that fits in the palm of a user’s hand and captures the important moments in their lives that they want to record and share. His team is looking to develop products that will make the lives of users more enjoyable.
With that, the final panel discussion titled “Challenges for Hardware Startups” was delivered. Tomokazu Morisawa of The Deck, a co-working space in Osaka, facilitated, and Kentaro Yamamoto of Nain, Karlos Ishac of LifeChair, and Atsuhiko Tomita of PLENGoer talked about their startup efforts and future prospects. In this session, they also accepted questions from the audience using the service sli.do, which manages questions from online.
Upon Morisawa asking a question related to crowdfunding, PLENGoer’s Tomita had an innovative and very interesting response,
Although it is a great effort, there’s the danger that the team will become satisfied by the number of their supporters, which would interfere in future projects.
Following this, an audience member made the request, “Do you have any advice for what I should be doing while I’m still a student?” To which Lifechair’s Ishac, who is currently a student, replied, “You should get involved in the startup community as early as possible.” Regarding the question, “What are you doing to motivate your team?”
Nain’s Yamamoto had this unique answer,
Everyone on our team is lazy, so because of that we wanted to develop a product that is useful.
The panel discussion was especially interesting as there was a wide variety of opinions and the characteristics of each startup shone through. Wrapping up the second session and the end of the panel discussion, each startup stated what is necessary for their next step, what they need for financing and crowdfunding, as well as completing their final product.
Makino ended by remarking that they have created a significant hardware ecosystem, and he is determined to continue activities to support it, including meetups such as this. In the subsequent network sessions participants and presenters exchanged opinions and it became a place to talk about future projects and ideas in a relaxed atmosphere while drinking.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS) 2017 Spring in Kobe. During the 10th edition of Infinity Venture Summit in Kobe, a semi-annual conference hosted by renowned startup-focused investment fund Infinity Venture Partners (IVP), the LaunchPad startup pitch competition was held on June 7th, where Tokyo-based Cluster developing the VR social room app won the top prize. here’s a quick rundown of the competition finals. Judges in the finals were as follows: Syogo Kawata (Advisor, DeNA) Takuya Kitagawa (Executive Officer, Rakuten) Yoshihiko Kinoshita (General Partner, Skyland Ventures) Hironao Kunimitsu (CEO, Gumi) Koki Sato (CEO, Septeni Holdings) Tetsuya Sanada (CEO, Klab) Ken Suzuki (CEO, SmartNews) Yoshikazu Tanaka (CEO, GREE) Kotaro Chiba (Angel Investor / CEO, The Ryokan Tokyo) Akiko Naka (CEO, Wantedly) Shinichiro Hori (CEO, YJ Capital) Ken Honda (Global CEO, FreakOut Holdings) Kotaro Yamagishi (CEO, Keio Innovation Initiative) James Riney (Head & Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan) In addition, well-known Japanese serial entrepreneur Takafumi Horie took part as a special commentator. The prizes of this competition were: Amazon Web Services activate coupon worth $3,000 for all participants, and “True wish list” for top prize winner (provided by Amazon Web…
This is a part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS) 2017 Spring in Kobe.
During the 10th edition of Infinity Venture Summit in Kobe, a semi-annual conference hosted by renowned startup-focused investment fund Infinity Venture Partners (IVP), the LaunchPad startup pitch competition was held on June 7th, where Tokyo-based Cluster developing the VR social room app won the top prize.
here’s a quick rundown of the competition finals. Judges in the finals were as follows:
James Riney (Head & Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan)
In addition, well-known Japanese serial entrepreneur Takafumi Horie took part as a special commentator.
The prizes of this competition were:
Amazon Web Services activate coupon worth $3,000 for all participants, and “True wish list” for top prize winner (provided by Amazon Web Services)
One year’s worth of Yebisu Beer for top prize winner (provided by AGS Consulting)
Use right of Freee worth 500,000 yen for top prize winner (provided by Freee)
Settlement fee of PayPal worth 1 million yen (provided by PayPal)
Cluster (top prize)
Cluster CEO Naoto Kato
Cluster provides a social VR (virtual reality) service under the same name, enabling large scale event in VR space gathering many users. By sharing URL, only invited users are allowed to enter a VR room and to share the experience there. The users can view the same virtual screen as other users in the VR room. The screen can display game plays or YouTube videos, so that users can discuss or share experiences while viewing the same video contents or sports matches.
iNAIL is an auto-nail art print service. The conventional nail art applying procedures at salons require the time and cost to design in handwriting by nail artists; on the other hand, this service provides smart nail art printing by the exclusive nail printer only within 15 seconds in the same method as 3D printer.
The firm plans to expand its service at hair salons, nail salons, or esthetic salons. Due to the high reputation for Japanese nail arts, the firm pursues global development eagerly as well.
Town WiFi (3rd place)
Town WiFi CEO Takehiro Ogita
Town WiFi (formerly provided with the name of WiFiShare) is a mobile app enabling smart devices to connect automatically to private and free WiFi services to reduce the data communication fee. Besides Japan, the firm provides its auto-WiFi logon service in 200 locations in the US, Korea, Taiwan, or Macau. The firm aims to monetize by the push advertising when logging on and the sales commission for charged WiFi services within the app.
Albert Okamura born in Peru, once encountered a scene where his friend was forcibly deported to Peru due to irregularities upon acquiring his visa, and that motivated Okamura to solve the problem of visa acquisition. Since Japan’s immigration inspectors are just public employees who basically only speak Japanese and the application documents are written in Japanese, it is difficult for foreigners who cannot understand Japanese to communicate using this language.
Okamura had himself worked for Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, and been involved in visa-issuance work. Leveraging the experience obtained there, he developed Residence, now known as One Visa. The service displays questions that are required for terms utilized upon visa acquisition in the users’ native language, and outputs them as a form written in Japanese.
The firm aims to monetize by credit clearance service for foreigners based on the registered information and launched the open beta version on June 6th. The firm was born out from Tech Lab Paak 4th batch.
Hyper8, also known for services such as Mespo or Tabeniiku, offers a new internet service called LION Project.
LION Project is a Uber-like service for hostess bars, allowing girls to be called up to parties after events.
The service shows the amount purchased by each user is 27,000 yen (about $240) and the repeat ratio within 30 days is 68%, with 40% month-on-month growth ratio since its launch back this February. More than 820 girls have registered the service.
Astool developed a “chain-reaction” type web browser Smooz available for iOS. Through text extraction, morpheme analysis, ranking and related term extraction for the current web page, it recommends search terms which will be required next by the user or suggests bookmarking to him / her by recognizing and reviewing reactions on social media.
Player! by Ookami
Ookami CEO Taiyo Ogata
Player! is a sports-centric social network app which provides information of ongoing status or results of live sports matches and allows users to share the excitement with other users viewing the same match in real-time.
HoloEyes aims to make an information revolution in the medical field using VR. Its technology will be helpful for the medical world by sharing information of human bodies in 3DVR form. The medical VR database will be constructed through collection of CT scan data and forming 3D human body models, then accumulating such data.
If a search on the terms “male, 60s, prostate cancer” is made, 3D images of matched cases will be output and doctors can utilize them for diagnosis references of similar cases or training upon surgical operations. The team expects a business model providing VR viewers for hospitals and selling collected data, after obtaining patients’ consent, to medical colleges or pharmaceutical companies.
APlay is a Bluetooth earphone having a voice assistant function capable of conveying smartphone notifications by voices. It notifies Twitter timelines or LINE messages while listening to music or telephone conversation.
Cansell
Cansell CEO Kyohei Yamashita
Cansell is a P2P (peer-to-peer) commerce platform for non-refundable accommodation reservation rights between guest users. In Cansell, exhibitor users who want to cancel reservations can sell accommodation rights for users who look for hotels.
The exhibitor users receive reselling money after deducting the commission for Cansell and can save the cancellation cost compared with paying the cancellation cost to travel agents or hotels; on the other hand, the purchaser users can make reservations in comparatively cheaper price.
Matcher is an “alumni visit” matching service for Japanese job hunting activities. With the watchword “do me a favor in return for advising about job hunting?”, the service connects students who want to consult about job hunting and businesspeople who have favor to ask on the web only by one-click.
For students, there is a merit that they can easily visit employees currently working at intended companies other than graduates of the university. For companies, they can use the service as an effective method for approaching incoming employees. Matcher, launched last February, acquired 10,000 users as of this April and has been adopted by more than 100 companies.
Scouty
Scouty
Scouty is a AI-powered human resource matching service, especially focused on engineers. Monitoring engineers’ information on social media and crawling open data on the web, the service integrates personal information about 800,000 engineers. It predicts the probability of retirement utilizing AI analysis for corrected data and matches them for the best companies.
For people potentially changing jobs, Scouty offers his / her profile email based on the template.
Receptionist by Delighted
Receptionist by Delighted
Receptionist provided by Delighted is a visitor reception service available for iPad. With this app, users can handle visitors using chat tool such as Chatwork or Slack. The app can also link with schedule / customer management system or labor management platform.
When a visitor is going to be late for an appointment, he / she can easily contact the intended person in charge via the app in a single operation. At a reception desk, any meeting procedure can be automated just by waving smartphone over the Receptionist app on iPad. Delighted plans to launch the app for smartphones in the future.
Translated by Taijoro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Kamakura Investment Management along with Japanese renowned investor Kotaro Chiba announced DroneFund, an investment fund focused on investing in drone startups, at a press conference held in Tokyo on Tuesday. June 1st marks the date of establishment of the fund on a scale of 1 billion yen (about $9 million US). There are six board members including Chiba and a number of drone experts; Yoshichika Sakamoto of ORSO, Motoaki Nishiwaki of Microsoft, Souki Oomae of Creative Hope, Daisuke Imai of Asratec, Shintaro Takahashi — special lecturer for Keio University’s Department of Media Studies, and Kazuhiro Obara — former executive director at Rakuten and former senior manager at Google Japan. At the time of establishment they are set to fund 11 drone startups: Drone Japan, Clue, Drone Department, iRobotics, Dron ë motion, Aerial Lab, Orone Iplab, Yodayoda.Inc, Kamomeya, FPV Robotics Inc., and Aeronext. Chiba had the following to say with regards to the circumstances behind the creation of DroneFund. I believe that from now drones will become an integral part of society. But, it will require the investment of risk money, internet based management methods, and the collaboration and production of good technology. The plan…
Kotaro Chiba, the man behind DroneFund, which is set to take the drone world by storm
Kamakura Investment Management along with Japanese renowned investor Kotaro Chiba announced DroneFund, an investment fund focused on investing in drone startups, at a press conference held in Tokyo on Tuesday. June 1st marks the date of establishment of the fund on a scale of 1 billion yen (about $9 million US).
There are six board members including Chiba and a number of drone experts; Yoshichika Sakamoto of ORSO, Motoaki Nishiwaki of Microsoft, Souki Oomae of Creative Hope, Daisuke Imai of Asratec, Shintaro Takahashi — special lecturer for Keio University’s Department of Media Studies, and Kazuhiro Obara — former executive director at Rakuten and former senior manager at Google Japan.
Board Members of DroneFund
At the time of establishment they are set to fund 11 drone startups: Drone Japan, Clue, Drone Department, iRobotics, Dron ë motion, Aerial Lab, Orone Iplab, Yodayoda.Inc, Kamomeya, FPV Robotics Inc., and Aeronext.
Drone startups funded by DroneFund
Chiba had the following to say with regards to the circumstances behind the creation of DroneFund.
I believe that from now drones will become an integral part of society. But, it will require the investment of risk money, internet based management methods, and the collaboration and production of good technology.
The plan is to clear these hurdles with the fund and disseminate Japanese drone technologies and services to the world.
Also, through a business collaboration with R&D company Leave A Nest, of which every member has a PhD., they will utilize a network of 3,500 small factories and university researched development technology. The company has already carried out a project to research and develop a manned hover bike (think flying motorcycle).
In terms of the technology related to drones developed through research, DroneFund revealed their plan to acquire patents through cooperation with the intellectual property management institution initiative Drone IP Lab, whose investment/establishment was also announced during this press conference.
According to Chiba, we can think of the fund as a kind of “Japanese Drone Co., LTD.”
In our image it will balance investment in all four layers: the development of core technologies, service offerings, software apps, and the hardware encasement to create one large company.
In his explanation, the drone market will reach about 140 billion yen (around $1.3 billion US) by 2022, and a 900% growth is expected, but Japan is lagging. Following these market backgrounds, the fund aims to increase the number of drone startups that can compete around the world by cooperating with them in terms of both hardware and software, and by promoting alliances with enterprises in Japan.
11 funded startups are as follows:
Dron ë motion: Offering an aerial shooting package for regional revitalization
iRobotics: Large-scale system integrator using 24-hour flying drones
Drone IP Lab: A company for special patent co-filing for drones
Yodayoda: Developing a location detecting technology without using global positioning system (GPS)
The following are summaries of three out of the companies that struck me the most.
Drone Japan: Agricultural remote sensing for rice
Aigamo: the drone for managing water quality (under development)
Drone Japan develops agricultural remote sensing specialized in rice. They are promoting using drones to produce rice.
The company aims for an IT conversion of the agricultural field, and creates a system that uses drones to carry out agricultural production all the way through to its promotion. As opposed to on-site management, the company manages water quality and the conditions of rice growth through data collected by drones, and then implements work such as the application of fertilizer. They also record the growth of the rice and take pictures of the farmer who produced it and include this information through the QR code attached on the package to increase PR.
The founder and CEO Kiichiro Katsumata aims to use drones as the opening to deliver Japanese rice to the world.
Aerial Lab develops a flying bike. The prototype made an appearance during the press conference.
It has a length of 4.3m and a breadth of 1.5 m. It is 1m tall and has a dry weight of 55kg. It can hold a maximum weight of 100kg. It is powered by a 2-stroke gasoline engine and is propelled through the air by a fan.
Although a projected date of sale and price are undecided as the project is under development, a future where people can fly in the sky by motorcycle may be close at hand.
Kamomeya: Land, sea, and sky drones for remote islands; comprehensive control system development
Kamomeya is a drone startup hailing from Japan’s western city of Takamatsu, Kagawa. They are developing a delivery system for remote islands using drones.
The company aims to provide transport services by drone for remote islands that it takes time to deliver goods to. They are creating a system capable of transporting parcels by unmanned transport ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, and unmanned transportation vehicles which are controlled by an integrated control system called Kazamidori. After asking the company, it appears they can currently transport one package of oranges.
At the time of the demonstration in the spring of 2017, their future development is underway with the goal to deliver medicines to remote islands combined with remote medical treatment.
At the press conference Chiba remarked, “Market development is expected in the areas of agriculture, inspection, and surveying.” With the establishment of DroneFund, I look forward to seeing what services will be provided and what their impact on the market will be in the future.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. 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. See also: Japan’s Cluster to launch social VR hangout rooms for live events and gatherings 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…
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
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
This is a guest post by Takumi Ishii, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator 
Sekiko Suzuki
