Tokyo-based MakeLeaps, the startup behind a cloud-based invoicing platform under the same name, announced on Friday that it has agreed to be acquired by Japanese photocopier giant Ricoh (TSE:7752). The acquisition price is not disclosed but Nikkei estimated it to be tens of million US dollars in their report. Ricoh is scheduled to complete acquiring all MakeLeaps shares on November 30.
As far as has been disclosed, MakeLeaps raised several million US dollars from Rakuten Ventures in a series A round back in July of 2016, an undisclosed sum from Kima Ventures (a seed startup-focused fund led by renowned French entrepreneur Xavier Niel) in a seed round back in September of 2014, plus $600,000 from AngelList, Dave McClure and other investors in an angel round back in August of 2014.
MakeLeaps CEO Jay Winder delivers his pitch at B Dash Camp 2015 Spring in Fukuoka. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Since its launch in October 2011 by Australian serial entrepreneur Jay (Jason) Winder, MakeLeaps has been offering an invoicing platform that targets freelancers as well as small/medium-sized enterprises. Their users can simplify and streamline their process of issuing estimates, purchase orders, bills, receipts, etc. in addition to even mailing all these to their clients.
According to Ricoh’s announcement, the company expects to integrate MakeLeaps solutions to its photocopiers and multi-functional printing machines while adding on to various third-party systems for customer management, accounting and sales management, aiming to transform into a B2B platform operator by helping enterprises digitalize their workflows. MakeLeaps CEO Winder says in his statement that there will be no change in service offerings and terms of delivery even after the acquisition.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Digital Garage hosted the Demo Day for its Open Network Lab acceleration program earlier this month. The program celebrated its 17th batch and has supported 97 companies so far, with 60% of these successfully raising funds. This year 90 companies applied, and it appears female entrepreneurs, medical services, and inbound travel have become the prominent trends. Recruitment for the 18th batch began on October 9th. Six companies that received support such as mentoring over three months beginning in July took the stage to to share their results. After review, the medicine management platform 9lione (pronounced Kulione) was awarded the Best Team and Audience prizes, while the mental health support app KibunLog secured the Special Award. (Below is an introduction to each companies’ pitch.) Best Team & Audience Awards winner: 9lione Medical facilities using medicines experience the problem of having to discard medicine due to incorrect orders and other reasons. The total amount lost due to discarded medicine is 770 billion yen (nearly $6.9 billion US; estimated to be 10% of the total cost of medicine), which brings the loss per institution to 5 million yen (about $45K US) per year or roughly equivalent to…
Award winners and other graduating teams from the 17th Batch Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
Digital Garage hosted the Demo Day for its Open Network Lab acceleration program earlier this month. The program celebrated its 17th batch and has supported 97 companies so far, with 60% of these successfully raising funds. This year 90 companies applied, and it appears female entrepreneurs, medical services, and inbound travel have become the prominent trends. Recruitment for the 18th batch began on October 9th.
Six companies that received support such as mentoring over three months beginning in July took the stage to to share their results. After review, the medicine management platform 9lione (pronounced Kulione) was awarded the Best Team and Audience prizes, while the mental health support app KibunLog secured the Special Award. (Below is an introduction to each companies’ pitch.)
Best Team & Audience Awards winner: 9lione
9lione
Medical facilities using medicines experience the problem of having to discard medicine due to incorrect orders and other reasons. The total amount lost due to discarded medicine is 770 billion yen (nearly $6.9 billion US; estimated to be 10% of the total cost of medicine), which brings the loss per institution to 5 million yen (about $45K US) per year or roughly equivalent to the operating profits of a privately run hospital.
The cause of the problem is simple: information management is still largely done with general-purpose tools such as handwriting and Excel. It is this point that “9lione honed in on.
The company uses a SaaS model to make pharmaceutical management more efficient. It is equipped to read prescriptions using OCR (optical character recognition), can manage the medicine per capsule, and has a function that can keep track of expiration dates using the barcodes of the medicine. Some healthcare providers saw a loss improvement of 75% after introducing the beta version because it is able to manage and propose the optimal order quantity based on consumption data.
The company’s traction is also on the up and up, with 91 companies submitting advance applications in two weeks. The business model is based on monthly subscriptions, with 150,000 medical institutions apart from pharmacies as potential customers. In the future, the company’s aim is to become a buying/selling platform like Amazon which utilizes inventory data.
Special Award winner: KibunLog
KibunLog
There are 300 million people suffering from depression worldwide, with 5 million of those in Japan alone. It is a difficult illness to cure with just medicine, and while treatment using psychotherapeutics based on “emotional records” is widely known, it is difficult for depression sufferers to accurately grasp and record their symptoms.
Kimamani’s KibunLog is a support app for improving users’ mental health and looks to solve this problem. Psychotherapy work can be carried out in the app itself, and emotions can be recorded and analyzed to make control easier.
The company has prepared an interface that can record situations accurately with the app, and the recorded emotions can be analyzed by easy-to-understand mood classifications. There is also a community function for interested users, and support for mental health improvement with psychotherapy. In terms of business, the company anticipates a community pricing model through sales of content to improve consumers’ health, an online salon, etc.
Giftpack
Giftpack is an on-demand gifting service that can deliver gifts from remote locations. The company is focusing particularly on gift giving experiences; for example, it offers the fun experience that involves local delivery people singing as they give the gift.
The company began the service after interviewing some 70,000 people, 70% of whom reported dissatisfaction with deliveries and experiences. Deliveries occur within three hours. The fee is 20%-30% and it aims to become the new gifting platform preferred by the millennial generation and as such has implemented a campaign in partnership with the 17 livestreaming app. The company is developing services in five countries, focusing mainly on Taiwan and San Francisco.
Everyplus
For care recipients at nursing facilities, more than half of the day is spent at leisure. Recreational activities are one way to use this time, but EveryPlus is focusing on the efficiency of this. It is necessary to improve satisfaction with recreational options amongst the elderly using nursing facilities, and while the budget for such places is between 10,000 and 500,000 yen (around $89-$4,445 US), it does not receive priority, so we end up with cases like the facility organizing a magic show for care recipients, who suffer from dementia, who cannot understand it.
Every Plus has partnered with companies, prepared a recreation package for singing karaoke at care facilities, and provides a matching service that takes into consideration the degree of care required and size of the facility. As a result, facility business hours can be reduced more than 700 hours a year, and the number of times the service has been implemented has increased to 3500.
Signature
Signature focuses on craft beer trends among the 30,000 brewing companies globally. Today, the craft beer market in Japan is attracting attention from all over the world because of the momentum exemplified by the 20% annual growth rate; however, it faces a roadblock in that just 2% succeed in expanding overseas. The reason lies in the alcohol licensing required by each country, and with businesses who possess licenses unwilling to take on inventory risks. Futhermore, when expanding to multiple countries, it is necessary to negotiate with each of them.
Signature is a marketplace that makes these inconvenient points more efficient. The company has eliminated inventory risks with an advance booking model, and has additionally removed the roadblock by offering liquor license bundles. The result is 70% of trial users repeatedly coming back. It is considering a D2C (direct-to-consumer) model in the future based on user data acquired by the company.
Mediction
Mediction allows “medical tourist” users to settle the procedures required for medical treatment in Japan online. It targets visitors in particular from China as they account for 70% of the 430,000 medical tourists that come to Japan for treatment purposes.
When a user uploads their clinical records to the service, it translates them and matches them with relevant medical providers. Additionally, the service introduces hospitals, seeks missing information, and prepares examination reports. Usually, with this treatment process it takes two months to produce a diagnosis. While it takes one month for the treatment, translation and other processes can be reduced from three weeks to two days, thereby improving efficiency.
The diagnosis plan will check if treatment in Japan is necessary and can be used for 150,000 yen (about $1,334 US). In the future, the company plans to provide treatment services to affluent people by accumulating the medical record data.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Bangkok- and Tokyo-based Omise Holdings, providing the Omise online payment services as well as the OmiseGo (OMG) token economy-powered initiative, announced today it has raised an undisclosed sum in a series B++ round from Global Brain, 31 Ventures (the investment arm of Mitsui Fudosan), and Sinar Mas Digital Ventures (SMDV for short, the investment arm of Indonesia’s leading conglomerate). With the latest funding, Omise wants to deliver their financial infrastructure services under development to more people through strategic partnerships with the participating investors. Omise’s previous equity based funding was a series B+ round back in October of 2017. As far as disclosed, the company has raised more than $45 million US including $25 million US funding via ICO (initial coin offering) as well as equity financing. Omise has been in cooperation with Global Brain, especially in managing Ethereum Community Fund (ECF) and the Neutrino blockchain-focused co-working space network. 31 Ventures currently runs a $270 million fund named 31 Ventures Global Brain Growth I, jointly managed by Global Brain and Mitsui Fudosan. SMDV participated in a series B round back in July of 2016, and will play a significant role in marketing OmiseGO in…
From the left in the back row: Takashi Sano (Partner in charge of Blockchain, Global Brain), Yasuhiko Yurimoto (CEO, Global Brain), Jun Hasegawa (CEO / Founder, Omise Holdings), Takeshi Matsuoka (Executive Manager, Mitsui Fudosan) From the left in the front row: Shohei Ichimiya (Principal, Global Brain), Takeshi Kodama (Project Manager, Mitsui Fudosan), Masaharu Uno (Country Manager, Omise Japan) Image credit: Omise Holdings
Bangkok- and Tokyo-based Omise Holdings, providing the Omise online payment services as well as the OmiseGo (OMG) token economy-powered initiative, announced today it has raised an undisclosed sum in a series B++ round from Global Brain, 31 Ventures (the investment arm of Mitsui Fudosan), and Sinar Mas Digital Ventures (SMDV for short, the investment arm of Indonesia’s leading conglomerate).
With the latest funding, Omise wants to deliver their financial infrastructure services under development to more people through strategic partnerships with the participating investors.
Omise’s previous equity based funding was a series B+ round back in October of 2017. As far as disclosed, the company has raised more than $45 million US including $25 million US funding via ICO (initial coin offering) as well as equity financing.
Omise has been in cooperation with Global Brain, especially in managing Ethereum Community Fund (ECF) and the Neutrino blockchain-focused co-working space network. 31 Ventures currently runs a $270 million fund named 31 Ventures Global Brain Growth I, jointly managed by Global Brain and Mitsui Fudosan. SMDV participated in a series B round back in July of 2016, and will play a significant role in marketing OmiseGO in the Southeast Asian market. Omise is expected to launch within this year.
See the original story in Japanese. Japanese robotics startup Meltin MMI announced today it has raised 2.02 billion yen (about $18 million US) from Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma (TSE:4506), SBI Investment and Daiichi Life Insurance (TSE:8750) in a series B round. For Meltin this follows their seed round funding (the amount raised not disclosed) from Euglena SMBC Nikko Leave-a-Nest Capital and Globalink back in January of 2016 and their series A round funding (raised about $2.1 million US) from Realtech Fund, Mirai Creation Fund (by Toyota and SMBC) and the Japanese Organization for Medical Device Development (JOMDD). Meltin was born out from the incubator belonging to the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo to develop cyborg technologies using bio-signals and robotics. Since its launch back in July of 2013, the company has been primarily focused on R&D and commercialization of medical and welfare equipment, avatar robots and other devices ー extending people’s physical ability. Integrating bio-signal processing technologies that accurately analyze the human’s body movements and intention with robot mechanisms that faithfully reproduce those movements in the real world, the company aims to realize the practical level of Brain Machine Interface (BMI) and cyborg. Meltin uses the funds raised to accelerate development…
Japanese robotics startup Meltin MMI announced today it has raised 2.02 billion yen (about $18 million US) from Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma (TSE:4506), SBI Investment and Daiichi Life Insurance (TSE:8750) in a series B round. For Meltin this follows their seed round funding (the amount raised not disclosed) from Euglena SMBC Nikko Leave-a-Nest Capital and Globalink back in January of 2016 and their series A round funding (raised about $2.1 million US) from Realtech Fund, Mirai Creation Fund (by Toyota and SMBC) and the Japanese Organization for Medical Device Development (JOMDD).
Meltin was born out from the incubator belonging to the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo to develop cyborg technologies using bio-signals and robotics. Since its launch back in July of 2013, the company has been primarily focused on R&D and commercialization of medical and welfare equipment, avatar robots and other devices ー extending people’s physical ability. Integrating bio-signal processing technologies that accurately analyze the human’s body movements and intention with robot mechanisms that faithfully reproduce those movements in the real world, the company aims to realize the practical level of Brain Machine Interface (BMI) and cyborg.
Meltin uses the funds raised to accelerate development of the practical model of Meltant, the company’s flagship and remotely operable avatar robot, as well as medical devices.
The company won the Startup Division award at Realtech Venture of the Year by Leave a Nest back in March of 2016, followed by winning the audience’s choice of exhibitor at Microsoft Innovation Award back in May of 2016.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Ginco, the Japanese startup developing a multi-cryptocurrency wallet app, officially announced the launch of its decentralized exchange (DEX) on the app. The availability of the DEX function will be limited to users outside Japan for the time being because it may require them to register as a “virtual
Tokyo-based Ginco, the Japanese startup developing a multi-cryptocurrency wallet app, officially announced the launch of its decentralized exchange (DEX) on the app. The availability of the DEX function will be limited to users outside Japan for the time being because it may require them to register as a “virtual currency exchanger” with the Financial Services Agency (FSA), the Japanese monetary authority.
Muuto Morikawa, CEO of Ginco, unveiled the DEX function to be already live for overseas users during the Pitch Arena competition at B Dash Camp 2018 Fall, the startup conference held in Fukuoka last month. In order to allow users to buy / sell different cryptocurrencies in the app with each other, integration with KyberSwap, an application program interface by Singapore-based DEX project Kyber Network. was realized.
Starting with a cryptowallet app, Ginco aims to build a comprehensive asset platform that can deal with all types of cryptocurrencies. Their other services include a crypto-mining business in Mongolia (launched in June) and development of a hardware wallet (planned for launch next year). The exact launch schedule for the exchange function in Japan is yet unclear because it is totally up to talks with FSA.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Sonas, the Japanese startup developing a wireless communication technology for IoT (Internet of Things) called UNISONet, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised a total of 350 million (about $3.1M US) from Global Brain and Anri in the series A round. This is a follow-on investment for Anri after also participating in the seed round (in 2017, precise time and amount undisclosed). Sonas will increase the number of employees with the amount raised at this time round. Sonas was established in 2015 and began doing business in wireless communication technology in 2017. Many of its members hail from the University of Tokyo’s Morikawa Laboratory (named after Professor Hiroyuki Morikawa), which specializes in advanced studies of mobile and sensor networks. Multi-hop wireless network configuration (topology) can be roughly divided into two categories: star type and mesh type. Sigfox, LoRaWAN, Zigbee, BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), etc., are all examples of star type conguration where each node and hub communicate, but the speed and range of communication are in a trade-off relationship. On the other hand, with mesh type configuration the routing of the data depends on the communication environment, so it is difficult to synchronize…
From left: Jiro Kumakura (General Partner, Global Brain), Kenta Kitsuka (Principal, Global Brain), Yasuhiko Yurimoto (CEO, Global Brain), Sotaro Ohara (CEO, Sonas), Makoto Suzuki (CTO, Sonas) Image credit: Global Brain / Sonas
Tokyo-based Sonas, the Japanese startup developing a wireless communication technology for IoT (Internet of Things) called UNISONet, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised a total of 350 million (about $3.1M US) from Global Brain and Anri in the series A round. This is a follow-on investment for Anri after also participating in the seed round (in 2017, precise time and amount undisclosed). Sonas will increase the number of employees with the amount raised at this time round.
Sonas was established in 2015 and began doing business in wireless communication technology in 2017. Many of its members hail from the University of Tokyo’s Morikawa Laboratory (named after Professor Hiroyuki Morikawa), which specializes in advanced studies of mobile and sensor networks.
Multi-hop wireless network configuration (topology) can be roughly divided into two categories: star type and mesh type. Sigfox, LoRaWAN, Zigbee, BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), etc., are all examples of star type conguration where each node and hub communicate, but the speed and range of communication are in a trade-off relationship. On the other hand, with mesh type configuration the routing of the data depends on the communication environment, so it is difficult to synchronize timing among nodes and create a power saving design.
UNISONet, developed by Sonas, is a technology capable of taking the “cherry pick” of star and mesh type configuration. It has realized a high-performance, power saving multi-hop network by combining simultaneous flooding and intricate scheduling.
Sonas x01 (left) and Sonas xs01 (right). Photos not to scale. Image credit: Sonas
In an environment where existing communication technology and power supply are difficult to secure, and because values can be obtained at the same time among numerous communication nodes, it is often used for inspections and safety checks on buildings and structures with accelerometers.
Additionally, the company will partner with K-Opticom, the telco subsidiary of Kansai Electric Power Company in Osaka. It will be used for monitoring in environments where it is difficult to secure a power supply and communication paths, such as power plant equipment and safety checks for motor bearings. By doing this, it is easier to discover abnormalities in advance, prevent future problems, and replace regular check-ups.
Sonas’ UNISONet technology begins with its own wireless communication modules, but in order to make it easier for corporate users the company has developed the sensor devices Sonas x01 and Sonas xs01 which combine a high-precision accelerator sensor, a power-saving sensor, a processor, and storage along with a cloud capable of integrating and analyzing Windows software and data. Until now this package has been available to companies working together with Sonas, but with the funds procured this time around the company plans to launch full-fledged sales. In addition to expanding sales in Japan, the company is also considering expansion in the US and China.
The Bridge
Takeshi Hirano
Masaru Ikeda
