Tokyo-based Astool has globally launched their multi-functional mobile web browser app Smooz today. iOS and Androd versions are available on iTunes AppStore and Google Play respectively. The app was initially launched only for iOS on the Japanese market back in September of 2016. The company marked 20,000 downloads within as short as one week since that launch, also having driven 200,000 app installs organically to date. Because the app has been continuously adding functions via frequent updates according to user feedback, it has been updated about 40 times within 18 months since the launch.
With the aim of “one-handed browsing” being enabled for users, the app has added functions like in-app QR code reading and gesture-based control (ver 1.6), character recognition and automated tab arrangement (ver 1.7), translation and ID/password saving (ver 1.9), bulk article generation from bookmarks (ver 1.16) in addition to three major functions available since the first version: search word prediction making use of artificial intelligence, functionally-thoughtful tab interface and smart bookmarks. The company said it has decided to start global expansion because it got a 4.7 star rating on average from Japanese users who are said to have strict user experience measurements.
The Smooz app targets a power user niche adhering to comfortable user interface rather than becoming mass favorites. In view of FireFox having won 12% market share in Japan despite being non-OS native desktop web browser, Astool is targeting about 2% of the entire global population of 2.2 billion smartphone users.
Astool, as founded back in February of 2016 by Yuichi Kato who was previously managing the Viber app at Rakuten and subsequently developed an AppleWatch for tennis players called TennisCore. The company raised about $140,000 US for a $930,000 valuation from Skyland Ventures and several angel investors back in August of 2016 (seed round), followed by securing about $790,000 US from Fan Communications (TSE:2461) and angel investor Masao Ito (pre-series A round), in addition to having been chosen as a finalist for the Launch Pad pitch competition at Infinity Ventures Summit 2017 Spring last year.
See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s digital health startup CureApp announced on Monday that it had fundraised 1.5 billion yen (about $14 million) in the latest round. This follows their previous $3.4 million funding from Beyond Next Ventures (BNV), Keio Innovation Initiative (KII) and SBI Investment back in February last year. In addition to existing investors BNV and KII, participating investors in this round are Itochu Corporation (TSE:8001), Itochu Technology Ventures, Cyberdine (TSE:7779), Dai-ichi Life (TSE:8750), Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Iwagin Jigyo Souzou Capital, Saison Ventures, Chibagin Capital, and Mizuho Capital. The company was founded in July of 2014 by two medical doctors: Kohta Satake (CEO) and Shin Suzuki (CTO). The firm is one of the leading players in the medical app vertical under the theme of “app exhibits therapeutic effects against diseases” and launched a nicotine addiction treatment app in February 2015, which was jointly developed with Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Keio University’s School of Medicine. In addition, since October of 2016 the company has been conducting clinical research of a mobile app specifically focused on treating Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) patients in collaboration with the University of Tokyo Hospital. Last year, the company started developing lifestyle diseases and mental…
Japan’s digital health startup CureApp announced on Monday that it had fundraised 1.5 billion yen (about $14 million) in the latest round. This follows their previous $3.4 million funding from Beyond Next Ventures (BNV), Keio Innovation Initiative (KII) and SBI Investment back in February last year.
In addition to existing investors BNV and KII, participating investors in this round are Itochu Corporation (TSE:8001), Itochu Technology Ventures, Cyberdine (TSE:7779), Dai-ichi Life (TSE:8750), Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Iwagin Jigyo Souzou Capital, Saison Ventures, Chibagin Capital, and Mizuho Capital.
Image credit: CureApp
The company was founded in July of 2014 by two medical doctors: Kohta Satake (CEO) and Shin Suzuki (CTO). The firm is one of the leading players in the medical app vertical under the theme of “app exhibits therapeutic effects against diseases” and launched a nicotine addiction treatment app in February 2015, which was jointly developed with Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Keio University’s School of Medicine.
In addition, since October of 2016 the company has been conducting clinical research of a mobile app specifically focused on treating Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) patients in collaboration with the University of Tokyo Hospital. Last year, the company started developing lifestyle diseases and mental health treatment programs in addition to offering the Ascure smoking cessation program for private companies.
Based on the business model developed in Japan, the company is planning to expand their proprietary digital health solutions into the global market.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Seven Japanese startups announced today that they will jointly exhibit at 4YFN, a startup showcase event taking place alongside Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, which kicked off today. They will exhibit in form of a joint pavilion named Japan Rising Startups from Monday to Wednesday at Montjuïc, the 4YFN venue in Barcelona (Note that the MWC event will be open until Thursday). The participating startups are Aquabit Spirals, Amegumi, Capy, Nain, Fuller, FutuRocket, and Mamorio. This was primarily realized thanks to the effort of Aquabit Spirals, which was chosen as one of the Top 8 finalists at 4YFN Awards IoT last year, with back-up from ACCIÓ Tokyo-Catalonia Trade & Investment. The event literally is intended to find and raise together the great startups which may rise to the top of the world in four years’ time. Marking its fifth edition, this year’s 4YFN was organized by renowned Israeli angel investor Yossi Vardi, who has been also instrumental in hosting DLD in Tel Aviv plus InnovFest Unbound in London and Singapore, in addition to other global startup events. We have seen several cases where Japanese startups receive assistance from METI (the Japanese Ministry of Economy,…
Founders from 7 Japanese startups stand before Montjuïc, the main venue for 4YFN. Image credit: Aquabit Spirals
Seven Japanese startups announced today that they will jointly exhibit at 4YFN, a startup showcase event taking place alongside Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, which kicked off today. They will exhibit in form of a joint pavilion named Japan Rising Startups from Monday to Wednesday at Montjuïc, the 4YFN venue in Barcelona (Note that the MWC event will be open until Thursday).
The event literally is intended to find and raise together the great startups which may rise to the top of the world in four years’ time. Marking its fifth edition, this year’s 4YFN was organized by renowned Israeli angel investor Yossi Vardi, who has been also instrumental in hosting DLD in Tel Aviv plus InnovFest Unbound in London and Singapore, in addition to other global startup events.
Founders from 7 Japanese startups stand before the Japan Pavilion in the 4YFN main venue. Image credit: Aquabit Spirals
We have seen several cases where Japanese startups receive assistance from METI (the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry) or JETRO (the Japan External Trade Organization) to exhibit at major startup events like TechCrunch Disrupt SF and SXSW Interactive. However, this time might probably be unusual in that Japanese startups are exhibiting jointly as a pavilion representing the country on their own.
Aquabit Spirals CEO Tomohiro Hagiwara, who led the initiative this time, said in a statement:
Unfortunately we could not get support from public organizations or private companies in Japan this year because it is the first year to start this initiative. However, I hope this will gain much attention and provide vitality to the Japanese startup scene. If so, we can provide from next year more attractive assistance options for Japanese startups that feel the need to become even closer to global market.
See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s ChatBook, providing the automated marketing solution under the same name utilizing Facebook Messenger chatbot, announced on Monday that it had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Salesforce Ventures, East Ventures and YJ Capital in its seed round. It is estimated to total at hundreds of thousands of dollars. This round follows the one from YJ Capital and East Ventures in 2016 when ChatBook took part in the accelerator program Code Republic, which is managed by the two companies (the investment amount had not been disclosed neither but all the participant teams were evenly given 7 million yen (about $66,000) by the 100 million yen (about $940,000)-valuation. Chatbook was co-founded in September of 2016 (named Hect as its start) by Maiko Kojima who formerly worked for Prime Again as CFO/COO. The firm has been chosen for various accelerator programs so far; the first batch of the Code Public program in 2016, Accelerate course of FbStart which is a developer support program by Facebook in 2017 and the first batch of AI Accelerator organized by the major job information provider Dip (TSE:2379). ChatBook offers an auto-creation function of chatbot capable of information provision or…
Japan’s ChatBook, providing the automated marketing solution under the same name utilizing Facebook Messenger chatbot, announced on Monday that it had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Salesforce Ventures, East Ventures and YJ Capital in its seed round. It is estimated to total at hundreds of thousands of dollars. This round follows the one from YJ Capital and East Ventures in 2016 when ChatBook took part in the accelerator program Code Republic, which is managed by the two companies (the investment amount had not been disclosed neither but all the participant teams were evenly given 7 million yen (about $66,000) by the 100 million yen (about $940,000)-valuation.
Chatbook was co-founded in September of 2016 (named Hect as its start) by Maiko Kojima who formerly worked for Prime Again as CFO/COO. The firm has been chosen for various accelerator programs so far; the first batch of the Code Public program in 2016, Accelerate course of FbStart which is a developer support program by Facebook in 2017 and the first batch of AI Accelerator organized by the major job information provider Dip (TSE:2379).
ChatBook offers an auto-creation function of chatbot capable of information provision or interaction with website visitors targeting enterprise users, making it difficult to acquire new customers only by landing page. By securing the user flow from landing page to chatbot, enterprise users can achieve more effective marketing.
Chatbook CEO Maiko Kojima gives pitch at Demo Day of Code Public. Photo credit: Code Republic
With the secured money, ChatBooks begins official operation of its service. It is available at no charge for individual users and no charge for ten days for enterprise users as trial use, while it had been opened as an invitational service based on inquiries. ChatBook has already been introduced to many companies including large enterprises or local government, such as the Marugame Seimen noodle restaurant chain and KAGA Route, the recruitment website for the spa resort area in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.
In the chatbot-driven automated marketing field in Japan, Hachidori had raised 100 million yen (about $940,000) from Vector, Colopl Next, Evolable Asia, Aucfan and other investors in its series A round last year, as we as ZEALS providing Fanp raised 420 million yen (about $3.9 million) from JAFCO or FreakOut last month. Fanp aims to enhance the conversion by leading potential customers from infeed ad to chatbot, while on the other hand, ChatBook shows a bit different approach in that it aims to improve the conversion by leading customers from existing landing page to chatbot.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Linc, offering education and employment support services for foreign students to Japan, announced on Wednesday that it had raised approximately 100 million yen (about $937K US) in funding from Genesia Ventures and Beenext. The share ratios and payment dates were not disclosed. Founder and CEO Shiyo Naka (or Siyao Zhong in Chinese pronunciation), Co-founder and COO Vincent Wang, and CMO Sophie Chow are all foreign nationals who have experienced working in major companies after studying in Japan. They founded the company after finding it easy to live in Japan as international students, but discovering that the system of studying abroad and working was lacking in efficiency and convenience. Naka said: There are more than 3.5 million Japanese learners alone in Asia, but the conversion rate of just 300,000 students studying abroad in Japan is very low. The company is also aiming to meet the demand for cultural assistance by using E-learning to educate about daily life and work manners. When I asked Naka about the flow of coming from China to Japan to study, he related that in most cases after arriving in Japan students study in a language school for 1 to…
Founder and CEO Shiyo Naka (Siyao Zhong/仲思遥) Image credit: Linc
Tokyo-based Linc, offering education and employment support services for foreign students to Japan, announced on Wednesday that it had raised approximately 100 million yen (about $937K US) in funding from Genesia Ventures and Beenext. The share ratios and payment dates were not disclosed.
Founder and CEO Shiyo Naka (or Siyao Zhong in Chinese pronunciation), Co-founder and COO Vincent Wang, and CMO Sophie Chow are all foreign nationals who have experienced working in major companies after studying in Japan. They founded the company after finding it easy to live in Japan as international students, but discovering that the system of studying abroad and working was lacking in efficiency and convenience.
Naka said:
There are more than 3.5 million Japanese learners alone in Asia, but the conversion rate of just 300,000 students studying abroad in Japan is very low.
The company is also aiming to meet the demand for cultural assistance by using E-learning to educate about daily life and work manners. When I asked Naka about the flow of coming from China to Japan to study, he related that in most cases after arriving in Japan students study in a language school for 1 to 2 years and then go on to enter a Japanese university. However, in the 1 to 2 years at a language school classmates advance at different rates, and it is necessary to prepare independent measures, apart from the language school, for taking the university entrance exams in Japan.
To solve this, the company released “Ling ke (羚課) Nihon Ryugaku (日本留学)” for the Chinese market, where the ratio of foreign students arriving to study in Japan in January of 2017 was highest. With this service, students can deepen their understanding of the knowledge necessary for attending a university in Japan through video lectures, exercises, questions and answers, etc. In a year, the company has joined together with more than 50 language schools nationwide, and the cumulative audience number for the live lectures exceeded 100,000 people.
One lecture at its longest is 15 minutes and is divided into smaller lessons. By doing this, in addition to maintaining the ability to concentrate, it is possible to focus on points that are difficult for the user, and realize personalized learning plans and steps for advancement for each individual user. Additionally, the company is also looking into a mechanism to utilize learning attitudes for credit scoring.
Naka added:
The majority of students coming to Japan have difficulty reviewing housing and opening bank accounts. In fact, since a cause of this is the difficulty in building trust, we hope to create standards through learning and working that can guarantee it.
A Profitable Business, Funding to Scale-up
From left: Founder and CEO Shiyo Naka (Siyao Zhong/仲思遥), CMO Sophie Chow (蘇菲), and Co-founder and COO Vincent Wang (王超) Image credit: Linc
The service was released in January of 2017, but many of the users are foreign nationals who have come to Japan. On China’s version of Twitter, Weibo, many users are talking about and accessing the service, Linc itself has 80,000 social network followers, and CMO Sophie Chow doubles as influencer with over 500,000 followers. The company will continue to strengthen its social network marketing.
“In a single month the company itself turned a profit,” said Naka. Upon asking, “What about offering E-learning in other countries?”
He confided that the funds raised were for just that, server costs and scaling up. While living in China, some people bought teaching materials, but he felt that the server was lagging and slow to load so he sought to improve the user-friendliness.
In the future, the company aims to expand the introduction of Linc’s learning system to language schools throughout Japan, and to higher education institutions and international schools that provide Japanese language education in the Chinese language sphere. In addition, it looks to strengthen the production system and marketing contents, and to expand the target countries to include foreigners in Southeast Asia.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Start Today (TSE:3092), the Japanese company behind online fashion marketplace Zozotown, announced in January that it has set up a project team called Start Today Research (Research for short) as its R&D arm. Yuki Kanayama, CEO of Vasily which was recently acquired by Start Today, will lead the arm and conduct projects leveraging big data owned by the fashion giant. The specific Big Data set as its analysis data include 30 million brand-official product data (product information, category, size, material), 10 million fashion coordination data, 23 million user information (user attribute, purchase history, held items), shop information and distribution-related data, in addition to human body dimension data measurements from Zozosuit as had recently been announced and is seen being accumulated in the future. According to Kanayama, although he cannot disclose details about the current team, he aims to build an organization a few hundred-strong comprising doctorate holders in such fields as machine learning, encryption technology, material science or hydrodynamics, so as to analyze fashion from the scientific perspective in the future. In tandem with the announcement, we held a short interview with Start Today CEO Yusaku Maezawa and Kanayama, inquiring into their objectives in…
L to R: Start Today CEO Yusaku Maezawa, Vasily CEO Yuki Kanayama Image credit: The Bridge
Start Today (TSE:3092), the Japanese company behind online fashion marketplace Zozotown, announced in January that it has set up a project team called Start Today Research (Research for short) as its R&D arm. Yuki Kanayama, CEO of Vasily which was recently acquired by Start Today, will lead the arm and conduct projects leveraging big data owned by the fashion giant.
The specific Big Data set as its analysis data include 30 million brand-official product data (product information, category, size, material), 10 million fashion coordination data, 23 million user information (user attribute, purchase history, held items), shop information and distribution-related data, in addition to human body dimension data measurements from Zozosuit as had recently been announced and is seen being accumulated in the future.
According to Kanayama, although he cannot disclose details about the current team, he aims to build an organization a few hundred-strong comprising doctorate holders in such fields as machine learning, encryption technology, material science or hydrodynamics, so as to analyze fashion from the scientific perspective in the future. In tandem with the announcement, we held a short interview with Start Today CEO Yusaku Maezawa and Kanayama, inquiring into their objectives in establishing Research [interviewer questions indicated in boldface].
Approaching fashion from scientific angle
Zozosuit Image credit: Start Today
I give due warning; the whole picture of the R&D arm is still unclear. As mentioned above, it is a fact that the firm has been storing an enormous amount of data related to fashion especially in Japan. The data content will enable more multidimensional analysis by adding body dimension data measured by Zozosuit that astonished the world. The two guys explained about the outline of the new arm.
Although Research was introduced with a bit ambiguous expression as “scientific approach of fashion utilizing big data” in the press release, would you explain about the outline of it again?
Kanayama: The purpose of Research is to utilize fashion data including human body dimension data. We will jointly research with external companies or educational organization about what can be grasped from fashion data or how we can utilize it into our service. The output of Start Today is thought to be divided into two types: the one is academic approach via papers or learned societies and the one is to make it into services or products led by companies. As acquiring an enormous amount of data, I would like to improve the state of the world together with outside collaborators.
Is it a R&D department of Start Today?
Maezawa: We had sometimes conducted planning or development as needed, but here we will cover a wide range of R&D activities in Research.
I ask you more about the organization. While Mercari had also announced the establishment of R&D department with detailed research themes or organization scale, how about is that in Research?
Kanayama: We plan to construct a several hundred-scale organization having Ph.D. members, in addition, we will start researching about fact or theory which has not been commercialized. Fashion has both “protection” and “emotion” aspects. The protection aspect is to wear clothes to protect himself against the cold or to cover up himself. The emotion aspect is to lift the spirit or to gain confidence or satisfaction. To meet the emotion aspect, measurement technology is needed, and the size suit must be improved further. We will explore themes about combination or coordination utilizing algorithm, machine learning, or deep learning. If health factor were required for fashion, healthcare field would become one of our research targets.
These data, Kanayama compared to “petroleum”, is just a string if it remains as it was. Refining it and synthesizing it, they turn it into a form available. The direction Research pursues may be to quantify fashion that had been determined based on the sense and to change fashion into a knowledge that everyone can share as common recognition.
Perfect-fitting by one-centimeter pitch
L to R: Start Today CEO Yusaku Maezawa, Vasily CEO Yuki Kanayama Image credit: The Bridge
What are the specific views the two guys are going to cultivate, while it seems to a big project they imagine? I continued interviewing.
I will ask you about the research contents. For example, Amazon has a simple view like Echo Look, suggesting fashion which suits each user by taking photos. Do you have any specific ideas as outputs from Research?
Kanayama: Yes, we have some plans for services but cannot reveal them now. I want to pursue the point what is cool for him seen from himself just as seen from those around him.
Maezawa: The purpose of Research is to seek the answer to the problem as for what is cool for each user, by suggesting satisfactory fashion that looks cool seen him and also seen from surrounding people. We aim to digitize what is cool and what is cute. Off course, it is important for a user to be satisfied himself, but we want a proof that other people will be sure to admire the fashion enough to recommend them to him.
We will digitize the ambiguous concept of “cool”; for example, a coordination is cool because it is formed by combining this one and that one it is highly evaluated by 85 in 100 people qualitatively. Anyone may be worried about whether clothes will suit him. I think it is important to tell him that it really suits him or looks cool qualitatively to make him positive. To do that, first of all, we want everyone to experience wearing perfect-fitting clothes and to be impressed with them. Then, digitalized data outputted from Research will work as a support. That is our future vision.
As hearing Maezawa’s explanation, I had a dim impression that standardized information related to fashion like “fashion score” will be born from here. Of course, that will be incorporated into the group’s services, but standardized data can be used by external companies too.
Start Today CEO Yusaku Maezawa Image credit: The Bridge
Let’s continue the interview. If you could acquire any outputs from the data in Research, how the world will change? For example, with the advent of fast fashion represented by Uniqlo, we no longer have difficulties in having clothes just to live. How are they going to change the world?
We no longer have difficulties in having clothes thanks to the advent of fast fashion. On the other hand, ocular changes have occurred in the street; homogeneity in fashion can be seen. What impacts do you expect Research to have?
Maezawa: I think the silhouette of aman wearing T-shirt is an art; it completely differs according to person. In autos’ body lines, there is a ratio called golden section which is digitalized to a certain degree. Similarly, we will try to sublimate the silhouette in a size suitable for each person to an art. I believe there is “a point” of perfection.
Currently, we have been producing T-shirts with size intervals of several centimeters pitch and wish everyone to find their favorite silhouette. An impression of clothes changes greatly only with one-centimeter difference in size, but there had not been such line-ups allowing customers to choose thus far. Few people are particular about one-centimeter difference in clothes, right? That is why I wish them to find their own perfect T-shirts.
Although I cannot refer to Zozosuit because I have not experienced Zozosuit yet, how does it feel to wear a perfect T-shirt?
Kanayama: It makes you positive.
I see.
Should the day arrive when we really can obtain perfect-fitting clothes, we will surely get to enjoy fashion from all over the world via online more easily or more people will gain confidence about one’s own fashion by utilizing the abovementioned Fashion Scoring.
Will it bring another change just as fast fashion created? I would like to wait for their outputs with great interest.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
Takeshi Hirano
