news

Back pain management app Pocket Therapist wins Health 2.0 Asia-Japan pitch competition

Health 2.0 Asia

Masaru Ikeda 2019.01.21

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based MedPeer, the Japanese company behind an online community for medics under the same name, held the Health 2.0 Asia – Japan conference back in December. A pitch competition took place during the conference and six Japanese teams participated in it. The judges for the pitch competition were as follows:

Akihisa Harada (CEO, Pfizer Japan / M.D.)
Yoshimasa Kato (General Manager of Tokyu Acceleration program, Tokyu)
Kenji Kobayashi (Copartner, Signifiant)
Georgia Mitsi (Senior Director, Head of Digital Health Care Initiatives, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals)
Takuya Miyata (Founder, General Partner, Scrum Ventures)
Yasuko Terao (Head of Development Planning Department, Clinical Science Management, R&D Department, Janssen Pharmaceutical / Phar.D.)
Tatsuo Tsutsumi (General Partner, Gree Ventures)
Takaaki Umezawa (President, A.T. Kearney Japan)
Hiroyuki Watanabe (Managing Director, Digital Business Representative, Nikkei)
Matthew Holt (Co-Chairman, Health 2.0 LLC)
Yo Iwami (CEO, MedPeer / M.D.)

See also:

Top Prize winner: Pocket Therapist by Backtech

Supplemental prizes: 1 million yen (about $9,200) and complimentary inivitation to the 13th Health 2.0 Annual Conference (Silicon Valley, September 2019) for two people

Backtech develops a mobile app for managing back-pain named Pocket Therapist, which suggests optimal exercises or introduces medical facilities according to the user’s back-pain type determined by a proprietary algorithm from Kyoto University.

The app judges users’ current back-pain condition and treatment needs based on their self-assessment and matches them with optimal medical facilities. In addition, it allows them to consult doctors via Skype when needed. The firm has gradually been establishing a B2E (Business-to-enterprise) model through providing two types of services: one is Assessment Plan which supports enterprises to assess the effectiveness of their health promotion measures and the other is Solution Plan which supports productivity improvement through reduction of employees’ back-pain.

Backtech was founded in April of 2016 and then born out of the Kyoto University’s entrepreneur training program Global Technology Entrepreneurship Program. The firm raised an undisclosed amount from Cyberagent Ventures in September 2016 as well as an undisclosed amount from Nippon Venture Capital and JR East Startup in May last year.

AI-powered medical inquiries system for pateints by Ubie

Ubie was founded in May by Yoshinori Abe (medical doctor of the University of Tokyo Hospital) and Kota Kubo (engineer from the medical information service major M3.com). Supervised by medical specialists, the Ubie platform automatically creates a clinical record using the data a patient enters in advance. The firm fundraised around 300 million yen (about $2.8 million) from Kanden Venture Management, the investment arm of Kansai Electric Power in Osaka in its series A round.

Office Natural Frozen Fruits HENOHENO by Day Break

The food-tech firm Day Break focuses on special freezing technologies including quick-freezing and has been providing top-quality frozen fruits under its own brand HENOHENO. With the technology, the HENOHENO fruits are richer in nutrients than raw fruits and are easy to eat due to small ice crystals without damaging scent and taste.

Remote ICU support system T-ICU by T-ICU

T-ICU has developed a 24-hour remote ICU (intensive care unit) system under the same name, which lightens the burden of doctor or nurse in medical sites by giving advices of intensive care from other medical specialists in remote location. With this system, intensive care specialists are able to consider therapeutic strategies by referring clinical records and vital information even in remote location. For medical organizations, it allows them to provide professional supports at much cheaper cost than hiring a new intensive care specialist.

The firm secured funding from Japanese biotech-centric startup accelerator/VC firm Beyond Next Ventures back in June (the amount and the round is not disclosed). This platform was chosen for the Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Accelerator 2018 and won the award for excellence in the program.

Remote monitoring of IBD patients by GCare

GCare focuses on the remote monitoring system for IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) patients. Since the IBD symptom easily changes, it is effective to grasp patients’ state by mobile app and to provide timely treatment. The firm was chosen for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Accelerator 2018 and is currently developing an mobile app for Ulcerative Colitis patients.

Therapy AI for adult ADHD by HoloAsh

HoloAsh takes on therapeutic solution for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) patients in ‘motivation interviewing’ or ‘therapeutic communication’ approaches that help ADHD patients to improve their self-esteem through talking with holographic characters. This year, the firm fundraised an undisclosed amount from INDEE Japan, Takeshi Soga (SGcapital), Takashi Shibayama (BLANQ) and Osamu Ogasawara (ABBALab).

See also:

YC Startup School grad uses holographic AI to evolve developmental disorder therapy

Transkated by Taijiro Takeda

news

Japanese crowdsourced translation startup Gengo acquired by Lionbridge

SCORE 1,394

The Bridge 2019.01.21

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based crowdsourced translation startup Gengo announced on Thursday that it has been acquired by Lionbridge Technologies. Financial terms on the deal have not been disclosed. Gengo was founded back in 2009 by Robert Laing and Matthew Romaine. Laing served the company as CEO in their early days while the position was handed over to Romaine in 2015. They have raised more than $26 million from Atomico, Intel Capital, 500 Startups and other investors. Since its launch back in 1996, Lionbridge has been globally offering translation and localization services, now in 27 countries. They were listed on NASDAQ back in 1997 but then delisted when they were acquired by private equity firm H.I.G. Capital for $360 million. The acquisition at this time is the first for Lionbridge following H.I.G. Capital’s purchase of them in May 2017. Lionbridge says Romaine and the rest of the Gengo team will join Lionbridge post transaction and assume key leadership roles in the company. It appears that Lionbridge will send someone to the board of Gengo’s directors. In 2018, Gengo launched GengoAI, a learning data platform for natural data processing-focused AI development, which has been fully leveraged by their existing…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based crowdsourced translation startup Gengo announced on Thursday that it has been acquired by Lionbridge Technologies. Financial terms on the deal have not been disclosed.

Gengo was founded back in 2009 by Robert Laing and Matthew Romaine. Laing served the company as CEO in their early days while the position was handed over to Romaine in 2015. They have raised more than $26 million from Atomico, Intel Capital, 500 Startups and other investors.

Since its launch back in 1996, Lionbridge has been globally offering translation and localization services, now in 27 countries. They were listed on NASDAQ back in 1997 but then delisted when they were acquired by private equity firm H.I.G. Capital for $360 million. The acquisition at this time is the first for Lionbridge following H.I.G. Capital’s purchase of them in May 2017.

Lionbridge says Romaine and the rest of the Gengo team will join Lionbridge post transaction and assume key leadership roles in the company. It appears that Lionbridge will send someone to the board of Gengo’s directors.

In 2018, Gengo launched GengoAI, a learning data platform for natural data processing-focused AI development, which has been fully leveraged by their existing translation services. The platform is expected to strengthen Lionbridge’s position in the machine learning and content relevance markets.

Tokyo-based Conyac, another Japanese translation startup launched around the same time with Gengo, was acquired for $14 million by Japanese translation service giant Rosetta back in August of 2018. Our readers may also recall that Korean translation tech startup Flitto has raised funding from Colopl Next for market expansion into the Japanese market.

news

American Express buys Japanese restaurant reservation startup Pocket Concierge

Pocket Concierge

The Bridge 2019.01.15

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Pocket Concierge, the Japanese startup offering an online restaurant reservation platform under the same name, has been fully acquired by American Express (Amex). Financial terms regarding the deal has not been disclosed. The platform was founded in March of 2013 by Kei Tokado who was has experience in the restaurant business, including time as a restaurant chef (the company’s name was Pocket Menu at the time). Based on the quality of menu and service as well as concept and their chef’s thought, more than 800 restaurants have been carefully selected according to the platform’s proprietary standards. With the acquisition by Amex, Pocket Concierge will be more focused on providing their card holders with access to Japanese premium restaurants. However, even after the acquisition, the platform is expected to continue offering their existing services to anyone regardless of whether or not he/she is an Amex member. It’s not clear about how much money the company has fundraised to date. Their investors partcipating in past rounds include Adways, Allied Architects, 500 Startup Japan, Monex Ventures, iMercury Capital, Line, Nippon Venture Capital, Fuji Startup Ventures, and Isetan Mitsukoshi Innovations. See also: Japan’s Pocket Concierge starts accepting…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Pocket Concierge, the Japanese startup offering an online restaurant reservation platform under the same name, has been fully acquired by American Express (Amex). Financial terms regarding the deal has not been disclosed.

The platform was founded in March of 2013 by Kei Tokado who was has experience in the restaurant business, including time as a restaurant chef (the company’s name was Pocket Menu at the time). Based on the quality of menu and service as well as concept and their chef’s thought, more than 800 restaurants have been carefully selected according to the platform’s proprietary standards.

With the acquisition by Amex, Pocket Concierge will be more focused on providing their card holders with access to Japanese premium restaurants. However, even after the acquisition, the platform is expected to continue offering their existing services to anyone regardless of whether or not he/she is an Amex member.

It’s not clear about how much money the company has fundraised to date. Their investors partcipating in past rounds include Adways, Allied Architects, 500 Startup Japan, Monex Ventures, iMercury Capital, Line, Nippon Venture Capital, Fuji Startup Ventures, and Isetan Mitsukoshi Innovations.

See also:

Translated by Masaru Ikeda

news

Japanese investment firm aSTART launches $46M space tech fund

aSTART

Masaru Ikeda 2019.01.08

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese investment firm aSTART announced on Monday it has formed the Space aSTART new fund specializing in space tech startups. The scale of the fund has not been finalized because the fundraising has not been closed yet, but it is said to be on a scale of 5 billion yen (about $46.2M USD). Their ticket size could be in the tens of billions of yen, and as a result it is expected that the startups on the receiving end will be limited to just a handful. aSTART will be focused on investing in space startups which are almost certain to become unicorns. Last November Singapore- / Tokyo-based Astroscale, the startup cleaning up space debris, announced that it secured $50 million US dollars in a series D round. aSTART participated and the funds provided for this round are from this new fund (aSTART also invested in a series C round from its No. 1 fund). aSTART was established in 2015 by Kazumasa Watanabe who has helped companies like internet cafe chain Next Japan and food delivery giant Ride On Expresss get public through IPO as their CFO respectively. Because of his experince as a business…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese investment firm aSTART announced on Monday it has formed the Space aSTART new fund specializing in space tech startups. The scale of the fund has not been finalized because the fundraising has not been closed yet, but it is said to be on a scale of 5 billion yen (about $46.2M USD). Their ticket size could be in the tens of billions of yen, and as a result it is expected that the startups on the receiving end will be limited to just a handful. aSTART will be focused on investing in space startups which are almost certain to become unicorns.

Last November Singapore- / Tokyo-based Astroscale, the startup cleaning up space debris, announced that it secured $50 million US dollars in a series D round. aSTART participated and the funds provided for this round are from this new fund (aSTART also invested in a series C round from its No. 1 fund).

aSTART was established in 2015 by Kazumasa Watanabe who has helped companies like internet cafe chain Next Japan and food delivery giant Ride On Expresss get public through IPO as their CFO respectively. Because of his experince as a business owner to exit companies succesfully while he’s now serving the VC industry, many fellow investors and entrepreneurs often request him to participate in their funding rounds with the expectation of his hands-on effort. The firm’s No.1 and No.2 funds, which have grown to billions of yen in size, is uniquely active in terms of focusing on investing in tech-oriented startups such as Sora (offering AI-powered dynamic pricing solution) and Connected Robotics (creating cooking robots for restaurants).

Watanabe says the reason to launch a space tech-focused fund is that there are certain conditions that only exist for space startups. Contrary to the fact that many startups in Japan typically start with focusing on the domestic market before trying their luck overseas, the fate of space tech startups lies in competing in the world market from their inception. And after giving it some thought, it is true, I have never heard of a space business targeted only for domestic demand, and it is more difficult for such businesses to proceed without being conscious of the world outside of Japan, including finding human resources and a place to launch their rockets or satellites.

Additionally, to become successful as a space tech startup requires significant investment. Traditionally, large enterprises such as Nissan, IHI (then Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, under the direction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) were going head to head over the Japanese Space Industry, but startups determined to survive in this field are also appearing. Rocket and satellite development require large amounts of funds, but the supply of risk money to this sector in Japan is far less than in the US and Europe.

Watanabe wants to attract risk money to this vertical through the formation of and investment from this fund. Given that space tech startups require much more money than other verticals, it is reasonable to say one approach could be an early listing on the TSE Mothers, whose terms are not as severe as other exchanges around the world. Obtaining funds widely from the market through an IPO makes sense especially for them.

aSTART will close its funding in spring this year, and in addition to the aforementioned Astroscale, it is expected to invest in several promising space startups in Japan within the year.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

news

Kamereo raises $500K to help restaurants in Vietnam manage suppliers, food orders

Kamereo

Masaru Ikeda 2019.01.07

See the original story in Japanese. Ho Chi Minh City-based Kamereo, the startup behind a B2B food marketplace for restaurants in Vietnam under the same name, announced today that it has raised $500,000 from Genesia Ventures in Tokyo and Velocity Ventures Vietnam (VVV). VVV is not well known in the startup scene but appears to be a Hanoi-headquartered $30 million investment fund focused on early stage startups. Kamereo was founded back in June of 2018 by HCMC-based Japanese entrepreneur Taku Tanaka. Prior to launching the startup, he previously worked at Credit Suisse followed by joining Pizza 4Ps, one of the most popular pizza chains in Vietnam, as the Chief Operating Officer. According to Tanaka, most of restaurants in Vietnam are heavily dependent on phone calls or the Zalo chat app when placing an order of food ingredients to suppliers. Kamereo addresses this insufficiency to streamline by digitalizing interactions between restaurants and suppliers. See also: Fancy a four flowers or ginger fried pork pizza? (BBC) Zalo Hits 2 Million Users and Plans for 5 Million Soon [INFOGRAPHIC] (Tech in Asia) Vietnam’s Messaging App Battle Just Got Hotter: Zalo Reaches 1 Million Users (Tech in Asia) Food waste may occur at some…

See the original story in Japanese.

Ho Chi Minh City-based Kamereo, the startup behind a B2B food marketplace for restaurants in Vietnam under the same name, announced today that it has raised $500,000 from Genesia Ventures in Tokyo and Velocity Ventures Vietnam (VVV). VVV is not well known in the startup scene but appears to be a Hanoi-headquartered $30 million investment fund focused on early stage startups.

Kamereo was founded back in June of 2018 by HCMC-based Japanese entrepreneur Taku Tanaka. Prior to launching the startup, he previously worked at Credit Suisse followed by joining Pizza 4Ps, one of the most popular pizza chains in Vietnam, as the Chief Operating Officer. According to Tanaka, most of restaurants in Vietnam are heavily dependent on phone calls or the Zalo chat app when placing an order of food ingredients to suppliers. Kamereo addresses this insufficiency to streamline by digitalizing interactions between restaurants and suppliers.

See also:

Fancy a four flowers or ginger fried pork pizza? (BBC)
Zalo Hits 2 Million Users and Plans for 5 Million Soon [INFOGRAPHIC] (Tech in Asia)
Vietnam’s Messaging App Battle Just Got Hotter: Zalo Reaches 1 Million Users (Tech in Asia)

Kamereo’s web-based dashboard (click to enlarge)
Image credit: Kamereo

Food waste may occur at some restaurants due to an unclear order from their staffers but others may have experienced their staffers intentionally order food ingredients too much to bring the surplus back home. Meanwhile, suppliers or farmers have few chances to cultivate sales channels to restaurants. Kamereo allows restaurants owners to tackle tiresome tasks, such as finding better suppliers or managing orders, and put them all on the web.

In the Vietnamese food distribution industry, there’s no intermediary wholesaler bundling multiple small-scale suppliers like that of Japan. That’s why restaurants in Vietnam are forced to interact with many small suppliers, causing the high complexity in dealing with delivery notes, invoices, and payments. In addition to helping restaurants improve their efficiency, Kamereo considers to offer payment functions so that restaurants can streamline their payments and accounting operations. Furthermore, the company also has a plan to expand into Singapore where few restaurants can afford to keep additional personnel for stock management because of high labor cost. As a benchmark they are seeing Informart (TSE:2492), the Japanese listed company operating a B2B food ordering platform which Tanaka was keeping his eyes on during his days at Credit Suisse.

In addition to the platform’s currently available functions like supplier introduction and order management functions, the Kamereo team wants to provide enterprise resource planning (ERP) for restaurants in the future. When Kamereo has been infiltrated into suppliers well, they can expect the network effects that these suppliers can introduce their client restaurants to the platform. Using the funds, the company will expand their team from 3 to 8 people, aiming to accelerate system development and gain customer success effort.

See also:

7 Outstanding B2B Food Marketplaces That Inspire (Apiko)

news

CyberAgent rebrands investment arm, looks at synergies between core biz and portfolio

Masaru Ikeda 2019.01.07

See the original story in Japanese. CyberAgent (CA) announced today that CyberAgent Ventures (CAV), a consolidated subsidiary of the company to develop its VC business, has been rebranded into CyberAgent Capital (CAC). Hirofumi Kondo, who served as the Japan Lead for CAV, is being appointed as CEO of CAC. Established as CyberAgent Investment (CAI) back in 2006, the company subsequently rebranded itself CAV in 2010. This marks the 2nd rebranding for the company. Growth in the company and the fund are behind these changes. Additionally, as the saying “CAV mafia” goes, the company has produced many venture capitalists, who then went on to join other VCs or establish new, independent VCs. With the birth of CAC, the company appears to be organizing the roles of new team members and increasing its presence. In 2010 when CAI was rebranded CAV, they only had about 100 portfolio startups (including 20 overseas), but now the number has increased to about 350 startups across 8 countries (the cumulative number, including those that have exited). Including the headquarters in Tokyo, CAC has offices in 10 locations in 8 countries mainly in Asia. Along with the establishment of CAC, the company announced that 3rd generation Japanese…

cyberagent-capital-group-photo — The CAC team. Front row, center: CEO Hirofumi Kondo; To his right: Riho Hayama managing the Fujita Fund. 2nd row, center: new team member Mauricio Omura.
Image credit: CyberAgent Capital

See the original story in Japanese.

CyberAgent (CA) announced today that CyberAgent Ventures (CAV), a consolidated subsidiary of the company to develop its VC business, has been rebranded into CyberAgent Capital (CAC). Hirofumi Kondo, who served as the Japan Lead for CAV, is being appointed as CEO of CAC.

Established as CyberAgent Investment (CAI) back in 2006, the company subsequently rebranded itself CAV in 2010. This marks the 2nd rebranding for the company. Growth in the company and the fund are behind these changes. Additionally, as the saying “CAV mafia” goes, the company has produced many venture capitalists, who then went on to join other VCs or establish new, independent VCs.

With the birth of CAC, the company appears to be organizing the roles of new team members and increasing its presence. In 2010 when CAI was rebranded CAV, they only had about 100 portfolio startups (including 20 overseas), but now the number has increased to about 350 startups across 8 countries (the cumulative number, including those that have exited). Including the headquarters in Tokyo, CAC has offices in 10 locations in 8 countries mainly in Asia. Along with the establishment of CAC, the company announced that 3rd generation Japanese Brazilian Mauricio Omura will join the team.

fujita-at-monthly-pitch — CyberAgent CEO Susumu Fujita commenting at Monthly Pitch
Image credit: CyberAgent

On top of this, the company is also restarting investment activity from so-called Fujita Fund, which was established in 2013 but has remained less active in recent years. Fujita Fund is an investment initiative for seed/early-startups by CA CEO Susumu Fujita in order to support young executives. For the sake of convenience, the term fund is used, but there are no limited partners and the investment comes straight from CA’s main accounts.

Fujita Fund has successfully invested in numerous Japanese startups that reached IPO including Wantedly, CrowdWorks, and Base, but all investment activities were frozen after the fall of 2014 due to the startup bubble. The first company to receive funds after the resumption of activities is Taimee, which launched a work share app of the same name in August of last year. Last year Taimee raised a total of 56 million yen (about $501K US) from Genesia Ventures, CAV (at the time), and Gaiax.

See also:

CyberAgent CEO Susumu Fujita chats with Japanese entrepreneurs about their journey

The new Fujita Fund collaborates with CAC in making an investment. CyberAgent CEO Office’s Investment Planning Headquarters manages Fujita Fund, but CAC’s CEO Kondo will also be in charge of this Headquarters, while Riho Hayama, who previously worked as a producer at CyberAgent’s entertainment livestreaming service Abema TV, will manage the Fujita Fund full time. Fujita Fund’s ticket size is around 100 million yen (about $895K US) to several hundred million yen and if the startup is internet related the vertical does not matter. So far, the company has decided to invest in four projects including Taimee (the remaining three are unpublished) while CAC has already invested in two of them including Taimee.

CA and CAC are planning to progressively manage Monthly Pitch, a monthly meet-up focused on helping startups get funds, from here on out. With the redevelopment of Shibuya, CA and CAC are planning transfer to a new building, which could mean that events to encourage startups and entrepreneurs will be held more frequently than last year. The number of companies participating in Monthly Pitch has exceeded 160 and it appears the company may be considering global development of the event (in the same manner as the Rising Expo conference).

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Back pain management app Pocket Therapist wins Health 2.0 Asia-Japan pitch competition

Top Prize winner: Pocket Therapist by Backtech

AI-powered medical inquiries system for pateints by Ubie

Office Natural Frozen Fruits HENOHENO by Day Break

Remote ICU support system T-ICU by T-ICU

Remote monitoring of IBD patients by GCare

Therapy AI for adult ADHD by HoloAsh

Recent Articles

Trends

Japanese crowdsourced translation startup Gengo acquired by Lionbridge

American Express buys Japanese restaurant reservation startup Pocket Concierge

Japanese investment firm aSTART launches $46M space tech fund

Kamereo raises $500K to help restaurants in Vietnam manage suppliers, food orders

CyberAgent rebrands investment arm, looks at synergies between core biz and portfolio

Top Prize winner: Pocket Therapist by Backtech

AI-powered medical inquiries system for pateints by Ubie

Office Natural Frozen Fruits HENOHENO by Day Break

Remote ICU support system T-ICU by T-ICU

Remote monitoring of IBD patients by GCare

Therapy AI for adult ADHD by HoloAsh

Related news

Recent Articles

Trends

Related news

Related news

Related news

Related news

Related news