Tokyo-based Neurospace, the Japanese startup developing a program to improve sleep quality for large companies, revealed that it has raised 100 million yen (about $890,000 ) from Real Tech Fund, the investment fund by Euglena, SMBC Nikko, and Leave a Nest Capital. For Neurospace, it follows funds raised from Slogan Coent and individual investors in July 2015 and from Glocalink in December 2016 (both the funding rounds and amounts are undisclosed). In addition to this funding, Neurospace also revealed that it was adopted as a R&D venture support project of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
Since its launch back in in December of 2013, the company has developed a sleep improvement program called Sommnie for corporate health management. Currently the company focuses on what is called a “Sleep Analysis Platform” utilizing AI (artificial intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) technology, and the beta version launched October 11th.
With this platform, the company will measure individual sleep data with high precision, provide individualized sleep analysis results, and then offer the optimum solution and improvement data derived from independent analytical technology using AI. The platform makes it possible for companies that intend to promote the health and productivity of employees and companies that are considering entering into the sleep business to incorporate into the improvement of management with the company services and IoT products through API (application programming interface).
As a PoC (proof of concept) test of the “Sleep Analysis Platform”, the company distributed a device to measure sleep and an app that presents a sleeping solution from the measured data to shift workers at Yoshinoya, a major Japanese beef bowl restaurant chain. It plans to demonstrate and brush up the effectiveness of the platform after conducting one month of sleep measurements and recommending measure for improvement and shift adjustment.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. San Francisco-based Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics enterprise SEO (search engine optimization) platform, announced today that it will fully acquire Withfluence, the Tokyo- and Bangkok-based startup offering an influencer marketing management platform under the same name. Both parties will work together to offer web marketing solutions more comprehensively for enterprise users. Withfluence was founded in May of 2016 by Hiroyuki Okamoto (CEO), who was previously running media and ad companies in Vietnam, along with Keiichi Honma (CTO) having developed web services and a translation app for foreign visitors to Japan. Before Withfluence, Okamoto and Honma developed a Thailand-based instant e-commerce platform described as an “Asian version” of Shopify, but after attending the 12th batch of Open Network Lab’s Accelerator Program shifted their attention to the launch of Withfluence. The company participated in several pitch events in Bangkok supported by the Japanese Embassy to Thailand as well as JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), followed by securing partnership with Thailand’s second-largest telco True back in April this year. Meanwhile, Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics platform, was founded in May of 2010 by Ray Grieselhuber and other serial entrepreneurs. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company…
San Francisco-based Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics enterprise SEO (search engine optimization) platform, announced today that it will fully acquire Withfluence, the Tokyo- and Bangkok-based startup offering an influencer marketing management platform under the same name. Both parties will work together to offer web marketing solutions more comprehensively for enterprise users.
Meanwhile, Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics platform, was founded in May of 2010 by Ray Grieselhuber and other serial entrepreneurs. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has now become a global solution provider with offices in Columbus (Ohio, US) and Tokyo (Japan) as well as operations in Warsaw (Poland), Lahore (Pakistan) and Toronto (Canada).
L to R: Ginzamarkets CEO Ray Grieselhuber, Withfluence CEO Hiro Okamoto
Grieselhuber and Okamoto first met each other ten years ago. Followed by working for the Japanese subsidiary of Mezi Media (subsequently acquired by Value Click Brands), Okamoto was involved in managing overseas operations at Japanese digital agency Irep (TSE:2132). Though the Japanese adtech industry was still in an early stage at that time, Okamoto had been promoting business partnerships with foreign adtech companies and digital agencies.
When Okamoto first met Grieselhuber, the latter was running a digtal agency called Firewatching Media. Grieselhuber subsequently launched Ginzamarkets and participated in the Y Combinator program. Despite being asked by Grieselhuber to join the Ginzamarkets team, Okamoto declined the request to carry out his original intention to launch his own startup. Okamoto told The Bridge that Grieselhuber is the former’s senior in the SaaS (software as a service) startup sector.
In terms of the business perspective, GinzaMetrics and Withfluence are complementing each other. GinzaMetrics had been finding a way to give their global brand clients a better access to influencer marketing opportunities while Withfluence had been exploring a good partner that can offer comprehensive online marketing solutions together.
With the acquisition at this time, Withfluence plans to launch a total roll-out of their managed influencer marketing service, strengthen system integration with the GinzaMetrics platform, as well as expanding into Japan, Hong Kong and Mainland China beyond their current coverage of the Southeast Asia market.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Beer and Tech, the Japanese startup behind a houseplants delivery flower delivery service called HitoHana announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised 100 million yen (about $890K US) in the latest fundraising round. This round was led by Global Brain with participation from Anri. Technically it was the series B round, but due to Beer and Tech pivotting the direction of the business since the latest funding is actually equivalent to a series A round. In the previous rounds Beer and Tech raised funds from Anri, Primal Capital, and East Ventures. Norihisa Morita, who previously worked for an internet ad agency, and his team founded Beer and Tech in August of 2014. In October of the same year the company announced its Smart Reservation service at Incubate Camp 7th, the bootcamp program by Tokyo-based VC firm Incubate Fund. The company continued the service for almost one year, but decided there was a limited scale, and Morita, who comes from a family of orchid farmers, has since pivoted to focus on problems that crop up in the flower and plant industry by starting HitoHana in 2015. Honing in on consumers’ demand for interior decoration…
At HitoHana’s fulfillment center in Saitama Beer and Tech CEO Norihisa Morita (right) and CTO Yoshiaki Ito (left) Image credit: Beer and Tech
Tokyo-based Beer and Tech, the Japanese startup behind a houseplants delivery flower delivery service called HitoHana announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised 100 million yen (about $890K US) in the latest fundraising round. This round was led by Global Brain with participation from Anri. Technically it was the series B round, but due to Beer and Tech pivotting the direction of the business since the latest funding is actually equivalent to a series A round. In the previous rounds Beer and Tech raised funds from Anri, Primal Capital, and East Ventures.
Norihisa Morita, who previously worked for an internet ad agency, and his team founded Beer and Tech in August of 2014. In October of the same year the company announced its Smart Reservation service at Incubate Camp 7th, the bootcamp program by Tokyo-based VC firm Incubate Fund. The company continued the service for almost one year, but decided there was a limited scale, and Morita, who comes from a family of orchid farmers, has since pivoted to focus on problems that crop up in the flower and plant industry by starting HitoHana in 2015.
Honing in on consumers’ demand for interior decoration
HitoHana Image credit: Beer and Tech
As a variety of products are being sold online, the flower and plant industry is one area where digitization has not advanced. In fact, many of current flower and plant e-commerce site basically offer the same potted plants and bouquets which can be bought in offline stores; so, the realization of the long tail for products, which is one of the big advantages of e-commerce, is by and far not being accomplished.
site for businesses, but then judged that it is impossible to make the service stand out because the orders stemming from corporate demands concentrate on obtaining adequate products, cheap and fast. He decided to specialize in the demand for individual’s interior decoration in accordance with the texture of the room and furniture which is paid for by themselves.
In physical flower shops in town, there are limitations on the variations of products, so consumers are limited when choosing products that suit their tastes. HitoHana has established a fulfillment center that can freely combine plants, vases, bowls and the like to create innumerable variations of products. Based on a multitude of order information, the company built a system to accurately discover the hit products and predict future big sellers in order to replenish stock.
When we think about potential competing companies in the Japanese flower and plant industry, online and offline, we come up with names like Hibiya-Kadan Floral, Aoyama Flower Market, Hana Cupid, E-flora, etc. Unfortunately, statistics relating to the number of orders and e-commerce sales are not disclosed anywhere, but based on the premise that the number of website accesses converts at a certain ratio, the ranking of the number of accesses should generally reflect the permutation of their online sales. HitoHana, with less than two years since the start of the service, has surpassed veteran businesses and ranks in the top five, largely thanks to the success of its product variations and SEO (search engine optimization) measures. Currently HitoHana deals strictly in potted plants, but even so, it is just a matter of time before they reach the top in this field.
Leveraging fine-tuned logistics for consignment business
HitoHana Image credit: Beer and Tech
Although there are exceptions, it is generally difficult to send plants such as potted plants by ordinary courier service. Considering constraints in packing, attending to those plants that require temperature control and delivering tall or irregularly-sized plants, in the end, it seems that it is more efficient for the company to create its own logistics network.
When ordering a plant with HitoHana, your item will be delivered using the company’s own logistics network if your address is within the Tokyo metropolitan area. However, Beer and Tech also conducts consignment sales at storefronts of retailers throughout the city by delivering products making the use of vacancy in the logistics. For example, consumers can purchase furniture and potted plants together in these stores while coordinating their interiors. Morita related confidently that here, as with e-commerce, the company uses its own logistics to efficiently deliver goods and replace products in addition to applying a data-driven approach, so depending on store campaigns and consumer needs it is easy upgrade the product lineup.
One example of placing the burden of the logistics of physical stores onto e-commerce businesses, and taking efforts to optimize over-the-counter product lineups, can be seen in the recent tie-up of Japanese major sports retailer chain Alpen and a big name in shoe-centric e-commerce site Locondo. As major chains with physical stores shift to SPA (Specialty retailer of Private Apparel) in order to reduce costs and gain profits, they learn more about the D2C (Direct to Consumer) model, so we can expect to see more linking up of e-commerce companies, with their ability to offer variety and efficient fulfillment and logistics, with physical stores in the future.
Currently, HitoHana operates in the Tokyo metropolitan area under its own logistics, and for other areas the company users regular delivery services to convey orders from interior coordinators and renovation companies, meaning there is no need for stock replacement.
Based on the funds raised this time, the company will open fulfillment centers in Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka and other areas and wants to expand its own logistics network so that services equivalent to those in the Tokyo metropolitan area can be offered nationwide. The company deals only with potted plants for now, but plans to adopt flower experts like florists to handle cut flowers, etc.
In this same field, Bloom & Wild, which was founded in the UK in 2013, has raised about 6.25 million pounds (about 930 million yen) while US benchmarks include 1-800-Flowers (NASDAQ:FLWS) and The Bouqs Company established in 2012 (which has raised $43.1M US so far).
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. MagicPrice and Hotel Banzuke are both AI-powered pricing strategy support platforms for hotels, helping find them the optimal price, i.e. not too expensive but also not too cheap for lodgings. Tokyo-based Sora, the Japanese startup behind these platforms, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised 80 million yen (about $710K US) in funding from 500 Startups Japan, Daiwa Corporate Investment, several angel investors, and loans from the Japan Finance Corporation. The funding round is unknown. Sora was founded in 2015 by Daiki Matsumura, who previously worked in ad-tech at Yahoo Japan. In March of 2016 the company won the Colopl Prize at Tech Lab Paak’s 3rd batch Demo Day, and in July 2016 the team participated in Incubate Camp 9th, followed in August 2016 when it was adopted as a participating team in the 500 Kobe Pre-accelerator. Due to its participation in these three events, in July 2016 Sora secured 20 million yen (about $178K US) in a seed round from 500 Startups Japan, Incubate Fund, and Kotaro Chiba (the judge in charge of awarding the Colopl Award at Tech Lab Paak’s 3rd batch Demo Day). MagicPrice, which launched as a beta version in…
The Sora management team along with some of their investors Image credit: Sora
MagicPrice and Hotel Banzuke are both AI-powered pricing strategy support platforms for hotels, helping find them the optimal price, i.e. not too expensive but also not too cheap for lodgings. Tokyo-based Sora, the Japanese startup behind these platforms, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised 80 million yen (about $710K US) in funding from 500 Startups Japan, Daiwa Corporate Investment, several angel investors, and loans from the Japan Finance Corporation. The funding round is unknown.
Sora was founded in 2015 by Daiki Matsumura, who previously worked in ad-tech at Yahoo Japan. In March of 2016 the company won the Colopl Prize at Tech Lab Paak’s 3rd batch Demo Day, and in July 2016 the team participated in Incubate Camp 9th, followed in August 2016 when it was adopted as a participating team in the 500 Kobe Pre-accelerator. Due to its participation in these three events, in July 2016 Sora secured 20 million yen (about $178K US) in a seed round from 500 Startups Japan, Incubate Fund, and Kotaro Chiba (the judge in charge of awarding the Colopl Award at Tech Lab Paak’s 3rd batch Demo Day).
A screenshot of MagicPrice Image credit: Sora
MagicPrice, which launched as a beta version in July 2016, allows hotels to calculate optimal prices based on machine learning using imported their reservation history data and curated pricing data of their neighboring competitor hotels. The prices will be reflected on companies’ website or ticket reservation / OTA (online travel agent) website via ‘site controller’ systems. As hotel back offices are usually busy, the service operates without functions that require literacy, and seeks to automate operations as fully as possible. It can be labeled an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) for hotels. In March of this year, Sora partnered with Dynatec, a Yahoo Japan subsidiary and a leading system integrator for the hotel industry.
A screenshot of Hotel Banzuke Image credit: Sora
Meanwhile, the Hotel Banzuke platform was started in late August and allows hotel owners to view how much the competing hotels in their vicinity were reserved for and how many sales they had compared with the users’ own on any particular day. According to calculations using the room price and the number of available rooms open to the public on websites, more than 10,000 cases of hotel data can be calculated automatically every day. Hotel Banzuke is provided completely free, and is assumed to be an introductory promotion for MagicPrice.
Sora has not released the current number of MagicPrice users, but for the time being it is aiming to acquire 5,000 users, which is about 10% of Japanese hotels and ryokan. With regards to Hotel Banzuke, the company has revealed that more than 500 individuals in the hotel sector have completed user registration since its launch about a month ago.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. 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…
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.
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
