Tokyo-based Lifestyle Design, running the LaFabric online store focused on made-to-measure shirts and custom business suits for men, announced on Monday that it has secured a total of 740 million yen (about $6.6 million) from Globis Partners, Nissay Capital and Spiral Ventures Japan (previously known as IMJ Investment Partners Japan) in funding with loans from Japan Finance Corporation. Detailed financial terms have not been disclosed.
Coinciding with the funding, the company appointed their former CFO Kenichiro Mishima as a managing director while adding Globis Capital Partners’ Yuki Watanabe and Nissay Capital’s Kenko Nagai to the management board.
Following the launch of online fashion store back in February of 2014, the company successfully raised 100 million yen from Nissay Capital in 2015. Subsequently they launched a real flagship store in Shibuya back in 2016 while occasionally before that opening pop-up stores here and there. They secured 400 million yen (about $3.5 million) in funding back in January this year, seeing a steady growth these days.
In order to the strengthen direct-to-consumer model, Lifestyle Design will use the funds to improve user experience at both online and offline stores while enriching the lineup of their original fashion products.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
LaFabric Real Store in Shibuya Image credit: Lifestyle Design
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Spectee, the startup behind the artificial intelligence(AI)-powered platform offering news materials based on social media analytics, announced today that it has fundraised 260 million yen (about $2.3 million US) in a series B round. This round was led by YJ Capital with participation from Kyodo News Images, Mizuho Capital, Arco Partners, Quaras (an ad agency of Japanese media conglomerate Fuji Sankei Group), Makoto Naruke (former president of Microsoft Japan, angel investor now), and an unnamed angel investor. This follows the company’s series A round conducted back in July of 2016. Spectee was founded in February of 2014 (previously Euclid Lab), and it graduated in October of 2015 from the 11th batch of Open Network Lab’s incubation program. The team has been offering a service called Spectee (previously known as Newsdeck), curating images and video clips for live events from social media and offering copyright clearance for use by broadcasters and news organizations, similar to Banjo in the US. A patent has been filed for the AI technology for analyzing curated image and video clips. See also: Japan’s Spectee files patents for news writing bot In Japan, Spectee is currently serving almost 100 companies…
Tokyo-based Spectee, the startup behind the artificial intelligence(AI)-powered platform offering news materials based on social media analytics, announced today that it has fundraised 260 million yen (about $2.3 million US) in a series B round. This round was led by YJ Capital with participation from Kyodo News Images, Mizuho Capital, Arco Partners, Quaras (an ad agency of Japanese media conglomerate Fuji Sankei Group), Makoto Naruke (former president of Microsoft Japan, angel investor now), and an unnamed angel investor. This follows the company’s series A round conducted back in July of 2016.
Spectee was founded in February of 2014 (previously Euclid Lab), and it graduated in October of 2015 from the 11th batch of Open Network Lab’s incubation program. The team has been offering a service called Spectee (previously known as Newsdeck), curating images and video clips for live events from social media and offering copyright clearance for use by broadcasters and news organizations, similar to Banjo in the US. A patent has been filed for the AI technology for analyzing curated image and video clips.
In Japan, Spectee is currently serving almost 100 companies including 86 TV broadcasters plus 4 newspaper publishers, such as Nippon TV, TV Asahi, TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System), Fuji TV and Yomiuri Shimbun. We were told that they have a project collaboratively being worked on with a certain Japanese public broadcaster but details were not disclosed. As a news distributor based on the social media-based aggregation technique, the company claims it has a 92% market share in Japan based on the number of clients.
In June, Spectee launched news video distribution via Associated Press’ Video Hub targeting the global market, seeing a steady growth and trying to expand it further. The company also got a subscriptions contract with New York Times because of the partnership with the global news agency. Kenjiro Murakami, co-founder and CEO of Spectee, told The Bridge that they expect sales expansion through news material sales on the global market while securing stable revenue through subscriptions contracts with media companies and news publishers in Japan.
Murakami explained:
With the personnel in Berlin and Los Angeles in addition to Tokyo, we are running a 24-hour nonstop operations such as the distribution of news materials on platform and gaining approvals from social media users who posted images of live events that are likely to be used by news media outfits.
However, video editing and distributing operations are still centralized to our Tokyo office. Because of a fierce competition with other news video providers on AP Video Hub, we want to increase the operating weight at overseas locations to provide news materials as fresh as possible. To make this possible, we expect to focused on securing new staffers at these locations.
AP Video Hub Associated Press
Spectee is now selling video materials to 33 markets, including the US, UK, Thailand and Brazil in order from the top. The company’s global sales still depends on AP Video Hub but Spectee is considering build-up of their own video sales portal for global media publishers because the agreement with Associated Press is not exclusive.
It is interesting to see how they can expand globally from here.
See the original story in Japanese. Fukuoka-based Skydisc, a Japanese startup focused on developing and offering a one-stop solution from artificial intelligence to IoT (Internet of Things), announced today that it has fundraised 740 million yen (about $6.5 million) in the latest round. It’s supposed to be a series A round. Investors participating in this round are Nissay Capital, DG Daiwa Ventures (the joint venture of Digital Garage and Daiwa Securities), Energy & Environment Investment, Yamaguchi Capital (the investment arm of Yamaguchi Financial Group), Kaga Electronics (TSE:8154), Dogan Beta (the investment arm of a Fukuoka-based financial consulting firm) and Archetype Ventures. For Skydisc, this follows their seed round raising 100 million yen (about $855,000) back in January of 2016 which Nissay Capital, Dogan and Archetype previously participated in too. See also: Startups spring into action to secure apex access Myojo Waraku: Japan’s rendition of SXSW begins in Fukuoka with showcasing prominent startups Since its launch back in October of 2013, Skydisc has been developing a variety of detachable sensor devices and the cloud for storing, then analyzing data from these devices. Offering products including SkyLogger (previously known as Ginga Box), the company’s flagship sensor product line-up, that allow users to…
Fukuoka-based Skydisc, a Japanese startup focused on developing and offering a one-stop solution from artificial intelligence to IoT (Internet of Things), announced today that it has fundraised 740 million yen (about $6.5 million) in the latest round. It’s supposed to be a series A round. Investors participating in this round are Nissay Capital, DG Daiwa Ventures (the joint venture of Digital Garage and Daiwa Securities), Energy & Environment Investment, Yamaguchi Capital (the investment arm of Yamaguchi Financial Group), Kaga Electronics (TSE:8154), Dogan Beta (the investment arm of a Fukuoka-based financial consulting firm) and Archetype Ventures. For Skydisc, this follows their seed round raising 100 million yen (about $855,000) back in January of 2016 which Nissay Capital, Dogan and Archetype previously participated in too.
Skydisc founder and CEO Osamu Hashimoto was onstage at the Toryumon startup event in Fukuoka in September. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Since its launch back in October of 2013, Skydisc has been developing a variety of detachable sensor devices and the cloud for storing, then analyzing data from these devices. Offering products including SkyLogger (previously known as Ginga Box), the company’s flagship sensor product line-up, that allow users to choose up to three detachable sensors out of 14 different sensors to plug into a circuit board. Data acquired with these sensors can be monitored on SkyAnalyzer (previously known as Ginga Cloud), the company’s data management and analysis platform. In particular for the agricultural industry, Skydisc has already started offering an optimized package called Hatamori, literally meaning vegetable field keeper.
Starting off with connected sensors and the analytics cloud, the firm’s services have been further evolved so that they are playing an important role in automated oeprations, especially in the industries suffering from the lack of successors of skilled workers.
In the factory safety sector, Skydisc has introduced an AI- and IoT-powered machine fault detection system to a major power plant, succeeded in detecting faults with 95% accuracy. The firm, together with Kyushu University, has been conducting a joint research of automated fault detections around factory equipments and ball bearings, with the aim to improve the detection accuracy. The firm claims their technology is highly evaluated because of succeeding creating fault case data model by simulating from normal time data, which it’s told is the most difficult in the AI technique.
In the field of mechanical safety, Skydisc released a mobile app called Smart Choshinbo, literally meaning a smart auscultation rod, which allows users to predict possible faults and failures based on the sound collected with a smartphone. Going forward, the firm plans to provide it as part of a service package that enables users to predict possible faults and failures based on fluctuation data of vibration and electric current. They are collaborating with Kyushu Institute of Technology for a research applying AI and IoT into nursing care services.
Screenshots of Smart Choshinbo, the “smart auscultation rod” mobile app
Thanks to a high reputation to SkyAI, Skydisc’s IoT data analytics cloud, the company was recently approved by Nvidia, the world’s leading chip maker, as a partner for the latter’s AI and deep learning-focused startup incubator Nvidia Inception Program.
Skydisc uses the funds to secure AI engineering experts and business developers from Japan and the rest of the world, aiming to assign them to collaborative research and development with Kyushu University and Kyushu Institute of Technology.
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Yoyo Wallet, Europe’s fastest-growing mobile wallet provider, is mulling expansion worldwide but is in particular focused on the Asia-Pacific region, with Japan as a cornerstone. The four-year-old fintech outfit, based out of London, had just two months ago conducted its Series B fund run. Thus today Yoyo Wallet is well-funded enough to be able to find strong partners in Asia, not to mention that it could recently open a pilot base in Singapore. In addition, the startup has also been testing out the waters through a (still stealth-ish) New York office, so in view of fathoming the situation overseas, Yoyo Wallet’s Co-Founder and CEO Alain Falys was in Tokyo this week for the Rakuten FinTech Conference 2017; it’s worth noting that he visited Japan last year as well. Regarding the fintech conference, not only the serial entrepreneur M. Falys but also UK finance provider PremFina‘s CEO Bundeep Singh Rangar (a McGill and a Columbia School of Journalism graduate who has garnered much media attention) and blockchain-centered startup Wyre Co-Founder and CEO Michael Dunworth (an erstwhile Sydneysider fund transfers expert who…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
Image credit: Yoyo Wallet
Yoyo Wallet, Europe’s fastest-growing mobile wallet provider, is mulling expansion worldwide but is in particular focused on the Asia-Pacific region, with Japan as a cornerstone. The four-year-old fintech outfit, based out of London, had just two months ago conducted its Series B fund run. Thus today Yoyo Wallet is well-funded enough to be able to find strong partners in Asia, not to mention that it could recently open a pilot base in Singapore. In addition, the startup has also been testing out the waters through a (still stealth-ish) New York office, so in view of fathoming the situation overseas, Yoyo Wallet’s Co-Founder and CEO Alain Falys was in Tokyo this week for the Rakuten FinTech Conference 2017; it’s worth noting that he visited Japan last year as well.
Image credit: Yoyo Wallet
Regarding the fintech conference, not only the serial entrepreneur M. Falys but also UK finance provider PremFina‘s CEO Bundeep Singh Rangar (a McGill and a Columbia School of Journalism graduate who has garnered much media attention) and blockchain-centered startup Wyre Co-Founder and CEO Michael Dunworth (an erstwhile Sydneysider fund transfers expert who is now a San Francisco entrepreneur) gathered together to discuss “Innovation in FinTech” on September 27th at the Hotel New Otani venue. The conference also had participants like Professor Emeritus Yukio Noguchi of Hitotsubashi University [this reporter’s former fellow contributor to “BP Navigator” magazine], speaking on blockchain and the digital economy, plus other eminent persons.
Image credit: Yoyo Wallet
Returning to Yoyo Wallet, according to its CEO – who had in the past created a global electronic invoice company OB10 (now known as Tungsten Network) – it is not another “mobile wallet” app for the smartphone user but a tool for the retailer whose ePOS can become a powerful business generator when it takes advantage of the simple, quick and attractive “rail” set for them by the Yoyo Wallet platform. In a nutshell, the mobile app lets users gain “electronic point card” benefits while also letting the retailers know what kind of preferences the consumers have upon shopping. The increased incentives availed have been shown to motivate consumers into using Yoyo Wallet even more, as was borne out by the fact that the Europe-based Caffè Nero chain of 650 stores already having turned 5% of its total payment volume onto Yoyo Wallet, barely 3 months from launch.
Image credit: Yoyo Wallet
The Yoyo Wallet CEO sees their loyalty-driven set-up altering Japanese “cash-preferred” inclination which, like German buying behavior, could be changed into a digital money-oriented one where even tax invoices can be handled. Although its business in UK was led by the university sector wherein students were the early adopters, the difference in the Japanese student canteen system and suchlike will likely mean a targeting of the retail sector for Japan. A 20% share of the mobile payment market will be aimed for once the startup gains appropriate local entities as partners. Since queries as to security and other concerns were clearly addressed by CEO Falys, I would like to wish him and his company “Bonne Chance!” in breaking into the Japanese market.
See the original story in Japanese. In an interview with The Bridge back in September of 2015, Nulab CEO Masanori Hashimoto told us that the firm was about to graduate from startup mode toward a sustainable growth but it seems like things were not going as expected. Offering three cloud services such as Backlog, Cacoo and Typetalk, Nulab had been exponentially growing since 2015 when they stopped entrusted system developments but started focusing on the SaaS (software as a service) business. He said jokingly: We couldn’t graduate but still need to repeat years as a startup (laugh). The Fukuoka-based company revealed today that it has secured its first cash injection from an external investor. It’s 100 million yen (about $884,000) funding from East Ventures, a seed round for the 13-year-old company. Nulab has a relatively long history but had been initially focused on entrusted system developments, subsequently making a total shift into the SaaS business in as recently as 2013. Quoting Chatwork (previously known as EC Studio) as an example which has also a 17-year history but shifted into the SaaS business several years ago, Hashimoto explained: We (virtually) started as a startup back in 2013 when we made a…
Masanori Hashimoto, Co-founder and CEO of Nulab Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
In an interview with The Bridge back in September of 2015, Nulab CEO Masanori Hashimoto told us that the firm was about to graduate from startup mode toward a sustainable growth but it seems like things were not going as expected. Offering three cloud services such as Backlog, Cacoo and Typetalk, Nulab had been exponentially growing since 2015 when they stopped entrusted system developments but started focusing on the SaaS (software as a service) business. He said jokingly:
We couldn’t graduate but still need to repeat years as a startup (laugh).
The Fukuoka-based company revealed today that it has secured its first cash injection from an external investor. It’s 100 million yen (about $884,000) funding from East Ventures, a seed round for the 13-year-old company. Nulab has a relatively long history but had been initially focused on entrusted system developments, subsequently making a total shift into the SaaS business in as recently as 2013. Quoting Chatwork (previously known as EC Studio) as an example which has also a 17-year history but shifted into the SaaS business several years ago, Hashimoto explained:
We (virtually) started as a startup back in 2013 when we made a total shift into the SaaS business. That’s why both our mindset and our team members are pretty young.
The company’s user base is currently comprised of 780,000 people across 50,000 companies in Japan using the Backlog project management and collaboration tool as well as 2.8 million people (86.2% of them are from outside Japan) using the Cacoo visual collaboration tool. They introduced a chat communication tool called Typetalk back in February of 2014, allowing users to complete various team work and remote work tasks within the Nulab platform. The Nulab Account single sign-on scheme enables customers to use all the three web services with a single user account.
The Nulab team Image credit: Nulab
The company has now grown up to a 80-people team based out of Tokyo, New York City, Taiwan and Singapore locations in addition to their headquarters in Fukuoka City. In view of such a high number of users and employees, we can assume that they have less urgent needs in funding because they may generate ample cash flows from their business. However, it seems like that the latest funding at this time around is intended for strengthening global expansion and preparing for a future initial public offering. We can also see the reason behind their choice of East Ventures as a sole investor in this round, which is highly evaluated in terms of global investment and hands-on support.
Hashimoto elaborated:
Based on our achievement, we may create a tunnel that can carry Japanese SaaS products (including third-party products) into the global market. In a way like the global market adopting Japanese project management methods developed by Toyoda, Honda and others, I believe there are many spaces that Nulab and other SaaS companies can expand into.
Regarding the reason why Nulab is looking at an IPO while they used to be less aggressive about funding from an external investor, he added:
Companies and businesses are different. Nulab is a company, and has three businesses (like three startups): Backlog, Cacoo and Typetalk. Now that these so-called startups have further grown up than I thought, I turned to think I need to focus on stabilizing our management base. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to concentrate on their business but might get up shit creek.
Since Nulab is focused on pursuing people’s diversity of both their in-house developers and user community, it employees many international staffers in the team (like a Canadian assistant to Hashimoto-san). As part of this effort, the company revealed that they will set up a new location in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
There are not many Japanese startups looking at the global market yet, but it’s interesting to see a startup from Fukuoka seeing such an exponential growth. Encouraged by their progress, I really hope that more startups from across Japan will be motivated for aggressive global expansion.
See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Xenoma, developing a smart apparel product called E-skin, announced today that it has fundraised 200 million yen (about $1.8 million) from UTokyo Innovation Platform (an investment firm backed by the University of Tokyo) in addition to two existing investors; Beyond Next Ventures (BNV) and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). This follows their previous 180 million yen (about $1.6 million) funding from BNV and JST’s SUCCESS Program. Using the funds, the firm will strengthen their company structure so that they can receive orders for a customized version of the business-use product while aiming to develop an optimized technology to produce a low-price version for consumers. E-skin consists of a compression-fit E-skin shirt with 14 stretch/strain sensors and a controller named E-skin Hub which is attachable to the shirt. These sensors are directly mounted on shirts, so that it is lightweight and can detect the user’s motion accurately. The controller has a 3-axis accelerometer and can monitor overall body motion without requiring Lighthouse or other 3D scanner motion capture devices. The firm had been running a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter from August 2nd to September 7th, where they made an amazing success by raising…
Japan’s Xenoma, developing a smart apparel product called E-skin, announced today that it has fundraised 200 million yen (about $1.8 million) from UTokyo Innovation Platform (an investment firm backed by the University of Tokyo) in addition to two existing investors; Beyond Next Ventures (BNV) and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). This follows their previous 180 million yen (about $1.6 million) funding from BNV and JST’s SUCCESS Program.
Using the funds, the firm will strengthen their company structure so that they can receive orders for a customized version of the business-use product while aiming to develop an optimized technology to produce a low-price version for consumers.
E-skin consists of a compression-fit E-skin shirt with 14 stretch/strain sensors and a controller named E-skin Hub which is attachable to the shirt. These sensors are directly mounted on shirts, so that it is lightweight and can detect the user’s motion accurately. The controller has a 3-axis accelerometer and can monitor overall body motion without requiring Lighthouse or other 3D scanner motion capture devices.
Takeshi Hirano
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
