At an emergency press briefing held on Friday midnight, Tokyo-based Coincheck — one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan — confirmed that they had just been hacked and lost 58 billion yen (about $530 million) worth of NEM, a new cryptocurrency especially popular among Japanese and Chinese crypto investors. The exchange was yet to be registered as an official dealer with the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) since they say the registration process takes a while due to the number of cryptocurrencies (13) to be dealt with.
The company is still investigating how many users have been affected by the incident but says all NEM tokens stored in the exchange’s digital wallets have been lost. They have reported the issue to FSA and the Japanese National Police Agency, and have started exploring possibilities about how they can compensate customers for their damages in discussions with NEM Foundation. The company is currently suspending all dealing operations for NEM and all other cryptocurrencies on their exchange, forcing their customers to lose access for cash withdrawals.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokushima, Japan-based Amegumi announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised a total of 20 million yen (about $183K US) from angel investors Shogo Kawada (DeNA Co-founder) and Yuzuru Honda (FreakOut Founder). This follows the company’s previous funding last year (funding round and amount unknown) from Skyland Ventures and angel investor Shinji Yamamoto (former Far East Asia Co-Chairperson for AT Kearney and former Representative in Tokyo for Bain & Company). Amegumi has developed Sunblaze OS, a smartphone operating system focused on supporting minimal functions. The company aims to develop inexpensive smartphones at around 5,000 yen (about $46 US) for markets such as Asia and Africa, specializing in users who do not use games or watch videos, and are satisfied with social network, search and other minimal functions. Amegumi completed the Sunblaze OS prototype in December of last year, and said that funds raised this time will be used to add talented people to its team who can be responsible for OS development and sales. Amegumi plans to utilize EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Service) in China to manufacture smartphones, but it faces the challenge of building sales networks around the world. It will search for possible alliances…
L to R: Shogo Kawada, Eisuke Tokiwa (Founder/CEO of Amegumi), and Yuzuru Honda Image credit: Amegumi
Tokushima, Japan-based Amegumi announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised a total of 20 million yen (about $183K US) from angel investors Shogo Kawada (DeNA Co-founder) and Yuzuru Honda (FreakOut Founder). This follows the company’s previous funding last year (funding round and amount unknown) from Skyland Ventures and angel investor Shinji Yamamoto (former Far East Asia Co-Chairperson for AT Kearney and former Representative in Tokyo for Bain & Company).
Amegumi has developed Sunblaze OS, a smartphone operating system focused on supporting minimal functions. The company aims to develop inexpensive smartphones at around 5,000 yen (about $46 US) for markets such as Asia and Africa, specializing in users who do not use games or watch videos, and are satisfied with social network, search and other minimal functions. Amegumi completed the Sunblaze OS prototype in December of last year, and said that funds raised this time will be used to add talented people to its team who can be responsible for OS development and sales.
Amegumi plans to utilize EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Service) in China to manufacture smartphones, but it faces the challenge of building sales networks around the world. It will search for possible alliances through open innovation in the future, especially with leading telcos, ad agencies, app developers, IoT product developers and other companies.
A smartphone prototype running on the Sunblaze OS Image credit: Amegumi
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Crowd Realty, which provides the real estate-specific crowdfunding platform under the same name, announced in late December that it has fundraised from Mitsubishi Estate (TSE: 8802), Shinsei Corporate Investment, Shinsei Bank, and Mizuho Capital. This is a follow-on of the series A round that the company announced last month (which raised a total of 350 million yen from Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Kabu.com Securities), and the amount of money procured this time around was 230 million yen (about $2.1M US). The total procurement for the series A round combined with last month’s is 580 million yen (around $5.2M US). Crowd Realty was established in December of 2014. The company secures seed funding (estimated to be in the tens of millions of yen) from Global Brain in November of 2015, followed by 20 million yen (about $181K US) from the SBI FinTech Fund in December of 2016. Regarding the meaning behind the funds raised this time, Crowd Realty Founder & CEO Takeshi Kito explained through a comparison to REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) in an interview for The Bridge. With REIT, when an estate (issuer) intends to raise funds, an…
The webpage of “Kyomachiya No. 2 Fund” that made use of Umamachi, Kyoto’s historical townhouses Image credit: Crowd Realty
Tokyo-based Crowd Realty, which provides the real estate-specific crowdfunding platform under the same name, announced in late December that it has fundraised from Mitsubishi Estate (TSE: 8802), Shinsei Corporate Investment, Shinsei Bank, and Mizuho Capital. This is a follow-on of the series A round that the company announced last month (which raised a total of 350 million yen from Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Kabu.com Securities), and the amount of money procured this time around was 230 million yen (about $2.1M US). The total procurement for the series A round combined with last month’s is 580 million yen (around $5.2M US).
Crowd Realty was established in December of 2014. The company secures seed funding (estimated to be in the tens of millions of yen) from Global Brain in November of 2015, followed by 20 million yen (about $181K US) from the SBI FinTech Fund in December of 2016.
Crowd Realty Founder & CEO Takeshi Kito Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Regarding the meaning behind the funds raised this time, Crowd Realty Founder & CEO Takeshi Kito explained through a comparison to REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) in an interview for The Bridge. With REIT, when an estate (issuer) intends to raise funds, an investment bank intervenes to provide access to the market (investor). In real estate crowdfunding, Crowd Realty aims to create an environment where real estate properties and markets (investors) can trade.
The Real Estate Specified Joint Enterprise Act was partially revised in 2017, and as long as it is within the scope of small recruitment, the environment for new entrepreneurs to enter real estate crowdfunding has been set up. Kito believes that a number of successive new entrants may join real estate crowdfunding much like what occurred several years ago in the field of general crowdfunding.
When this happens, Crowd Realty will not only act as a real estate crowdfunding company, but also as a platform that can participate in the market on behalf of other real estate crowdfunding companies. As more and more businesses participate, the market for real estate crowdfunding will become increasingly liquid. As the name direct financing indicates, Kito said he would like to aim for the formation of a P2P market, which connects real estate properties directly with investors.
To realize Kito’s vision it becomes necessary to develop and introduce a dApp (decentralized app) so that proper transactions are guaranteed even in the absence of an authority. Kito is not one to be swayed by buzzwords, and during the interview he avoided terms like Blockchain and smart contracts, but in reality it seems these techniques will become the nucleus for the realization of Dapps.
Business collaboration scheme with major investors joining this round Image credit: Crowd Realty
In order to be a platformer, neutrality is required for all businesses that trade on that platform. Crowd Realty has so far procured funds from multiple companies and VC firms across varying industries, and such a background seems to be affecting the company. If the liquidity of securities cannot be secured in the market, transactions will not be established, but in the world of crowdfunding, it will become important for the company to foster communities that are frequently talked about with ICO (initial coin offering).
In the future, Crowd Realty would like to directly or indirectly engage in the formation of international nonprofit groups and consortiums to optimize the ecosystem, distributed networks, global institutions and regulations.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Lancers, the Japanese startup providing a major crowdsourcing platform under the same name, announced last month that it had raised 1 billion yen (about $9 million) from Persol Holdings (TSE:2181) and Shinsei Bank (TSE:8303). Concluding business partnership contracts with both companies concurrently, Lancers will commence its new financing business targeting freelance workers. According to Lancers, the current number of freelancers in Japan is 11.22 million comprising 17% of the entire working population, showing a 5% increase from last year. It is said that more and more Japanese workers are coming to choose a ‘new work style’ which is neither full-time nor contract work. On the other hand, Persol Group, one of the investors this time, has developed various businesses that enhance job mobility of the Japanese working population, by using temporary staff company Tempstaff (TSE:2476) or staffing agency Persol Career (TSE:4757, formerly known as Intelligence) that it owns. While the two companies had been affiliated through investment via Persol Career, by adding Shinsei Bank into this framework, they aim to develop and provide a new loan service to individual workers who need equipment investment or education / training upon starting new business. At…
Tokyo-based Lancers, the Japanese startup providing a major crowdsourcing platform under the same name, announced last month that it had raised 1 billion yen (about $9 million) from Persol Holdings (TSE:2181) and Shinsei Bank (TSE:8303). Concluding business partnership contracts with both companies concurrently, Lancers will commence its new financing business targeting freelance workers.
According to Lancers, the current number of freelancers in Japan is 11.22 million comprising 17% of the entire working population, showing a 5% increase from last year. It is said that more and more Japanese workers are coming to choose a ‘new work style’ which is neither full-time nor contract work. On the other hand, Persol Group, one of the investors this time, has developed various businesses that enhance job mobility of the Japanese working population, by using temporary staff company Tempstaff (TSE:2476) or staffing agency Persol Career (TSE:4757, formerly known as Intelligence) that it owns.
While the two companies had been affiliated through investment via Persol Career, by adding Shinsei Bank into this framework, they aim to develop and provide a new loan service to individual workers who need equipment investment or education / training upon starting new business.
At the press conference held last April, Lancers announced that its sales in 2016 exceeded 2.1 billion yen and then revealed a new concept of Open Talent Platform as its business strategy out of an otherwise conventional online work matching platform. It presented several action plans for gearing up of its service operation as part of the concept, such as start of individual skill matching platform Pook or the spin-off of Quant for corporate customers.
The loan business to individuals announced this time is an extension of the concept, and is expected to be a system enabling individual workers to receive credit examination or third-party evaluation as with full-time workers. Specifically, they plan to visualize individual workers’ skill or work style as ‘Talent Score’ based on evaluation data accumulated by Persol Group or Lancers, and input it into business activities leveraging Shinsei Bank’s financial know-how.
Yohsuke Akiyoshi, CEO of Lancers, explained that the firm will jointly develop Talent Score as an evaluation criterion for the establishment of ‘Lancer Economies’:
Our cumulative fundraised amount is 2.3 billion yen (about $21 million) including this round. I see the two companies as partners to establish Talent Score together in order to increase freelancers’ working option under the framework of Open Talent Platform.
With Persol Holdings, we will jointly develop an evaluation system of freelancer’s work style and skill. Even in Lancers or Persol, full-time workers taking up freelance works as side jobs have been appearing.
Akiyoshi said the kind of workers that are expected to benefit most through this business partnership is those who hold full-time jobs and freelance work concurrently, called ‘parallel worker’:
Conventionally, work contents or performance evaluation were completely separated between the main job and the extra job.
However, in the economic area we are going to create, users can receive higher salary in their main job reflecting feedback of the subsidiary job performance at Lancers, or vice versa.
With the other partner Shinsei Bank, Lancers plans to carry out activities related to credit examination based on the score, according to Akiyoshi:
We also develop Talent Score with Shinsei Bank. Although Lancers has own unique data, the bank has a strength in individual credit data in terms of quality and quantity.
By cooperating with the institution, we will upgrade Talent Score and invest in Lancers users who are scored at a certain level, in order to change the current situation where it is harder for freelancers to borrow money than full-time workers. Imagine how we can improve their work style together as well as their life generally.
With respect to the concept of scoring individuals, Japan’s Crowd Works had also announced a similar lending service called Crowd Cash. The two players seem to lead the construction of infrastructure surrounding the Japanese new work style now in formation.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based SmartHR, the Japanese startup offering a cloud-based personnel management service under the same name, announced today that it has raised 1.5 billion yen (about $13.3 million US) in a series B round. This round was conducted through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed by 500 Startups Japan with participation from Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance, ad agency Nissen (TSE:6543), three unnamed institutional investors and corporate venture capitals, as well as angel investors. See also: Japan’s cloud-based personnel management tool SmartHR secures $5M from WiL, others At the press briefing at SmartHR’s new office in Tokyo, James Riney, Head of 500 Startups Japan, explained about how useful the new funding scheme is for startups, especially for their management: When a startup is raising funds, their management usually needs to be committed to that effort for three to six months to secure it. (In case of SmartHR,) I told Miyasa-san (CEO of SmartHR) to believe us that we’ll definitely gather investors in his stead. Ryo Tamaki, who previously worked for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate but recently joined SmartHR as CFO, said that the new scheme enabled them to secure funding in as short…
L to R: Takayuki Sumi (Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance), Yohei Sawayama (Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan), Shoji Miyata (CEO, SmartHR), James Riney (Head, 500 Startups Japan), Ryo Tamaki (CFO, SmartHR) Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Tokyo-based SmartHR, the Japanese startup offering a cloud-based personnel management service under the same name, announced today that it has raised 1.5 billion yen (about $13.3 million US) in a series B round. This round was conducted through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed by 500 Startups Japan with participation from Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance, ad agency Nissen (TSE:6543), three unnamed institutional investors and corporate venture capitals, as well as angel investors.
At the press briefing at SmartHR’s new office in Tokyo, James Riney, Head of 500 Startups Japan, explained about how useful the new funding scheme is for startups, especially for their management:
When a startup is raising funds, their management usually needs to be committed to that effort for three to six months to secure it. (In case of SmartHR,) I told Miyasa-san (CEO of SmartHR) to believe us that we’ll definitely gather investors in his stead.
Ryo Tamaki, who previously worked for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate but recently joined SmartHR as CFO, said that the new scheme enabled them to secure funding in as short as about a month and the labor required was about a quarter of the usual fundraising efforts.
The SPV scheme Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Shoji Miyata, CEO of SmartHR, revealed several figures seeing the growth of his business such as 17.1% of monthly sales growth rate and 6.28 times of YoY user growth rate, plus 9,300 corporate users with 99.3% of user persistency rate.
The latest funds are intended to be used for advertising (airing TV commercial, attending exhibitions, running online and transportation ads) and system development (hiring and employing developers). In addition to the current service menu, the company expects to develop up-sell products and a one-stop platform serving surrounding related solutions together, while driving potential customers to financial services such as company pension plans and “benefit-your-locality” tax scheme businesses.
SmartHR CEO shows the press user growth and persistency rate. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
The Japanese startup Dely, which runs video-centric culinary media Kurashiru, announced today that it has raised 3.35 billion yen (about $30 million US) from Softbank, YJ Capital (investment arm of Yahoo Japan), Akatsuki and United. YJ Capital and United have taken part in the previous round. In terms of the funding amount, the latest round let Dely beat its main rival Every, the company behind Delish Kitchen, which had recently secured $18 million in last year’s end. According to disclosed figures, Dely has raised more than $60 million in total while Delish Kitchen has secured about $50 million to date. Dely will use the funds to strengthen hiring and marketing efforts, while undertaking new businesses build-up and putting acquisition of other companies into consideration. Coinciding with the announcement, the company unveiled that their mobile app has surpassed 10 million downloads last month. Dely was established in April of 2014. In September of the same year the Tokyo-based company received funding from Anri and began a food delivery business as the inaugural service. However, after judging the outlook for such services difficult, around February of 2016 the firm pivoted to video curation media, which became the model for their current business….
Kurashiru Image credit: Dely
The Japanese startup Dely, which runs video-centric culinary media Kurashiru, announced today that it has raised 3.35 billion yen (about $30 million US) from Softbank, YJ Capital (investment arm of Yahoo Japan), Akatsuki and United. YJ Capital and United have taken part in the previous round.
In terms of the funding amount, the latest round let Dely beat its main rival Every, the company behind Delish Kitchen, which had recently secured $18 million in last year’s end. According to disclosed figures, Dely has raised more than $60 million in total while Delish Kitchen has secured about $50 million to date.
Dely will use the funds to strengthen hiring and marketing efforts, while undertaking new businesses build-up and putting acquisition of other companies into consideration. Coinciding with the announcement, the company unveiled that their mobile app has surpassed 10 million downloads last month.
Dely was established in April of 2014. In September of the same year the Tokyo-based company received funding from Anri and began a food delivery business as the inaugural service. However, after judging the outlook for such services difficult, around February of 2016 the firm pivoted to video curation media, which became the model for their current business.
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
Takeshi Hirano
