Honda R&D, the research and development-focused subsidiary of the Japanese automotive giant, announced on Monday that it has acquired full stake in Drivemode, the US-based startup developing smart driving assistant technology, for an undisclosed sum.
The two companies will join forces to develop connect mobility services at Digital Solution Center, a newly developed facility in Honda R&D. They have been working together since 2015 sice the Honda Xcelerator open innovation program.
Since its launch back in 2014, Drivemode secured seed funding from Tokyo-based Incubate Fund and then launched an Android app under the same name which allows drivers to control their cars without watching the screen of the app.
Prior to launching Drivemode, the startup’s founder Yokichi Koga previously worked at a Boston-based VC as a director and then car-sharing startup Zipcar as an advisor.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based AI Medical Service, the Japanese startup developing the AI-powered technology to detect cancerous lesions from endoscopic footage, announced on Friday that it has secured about 4.6 billion yen (about $43 million US) in a series B round. Participating investors in this round are: Globis Capital Partners（GCP） WiL Sparx Group Sony Innovation Fund by IGV（Managed by Innovation Growth Ventures, the joint venture of Sony and Daiwa Capital Holdings) Japan Lifeline (cardiovascular medical device manufacturer, TSE:7575) Japan Post Capital Aflac Ventures Ryoyo Electro (semiconductor trader, TSE:8068) SMBC Venture Capital Daiwa Corporate Investment An unnamed angel investor For the company, this follows their previous funding (series A round) worth 1 billion yen back in August of last year and brought their funding sum up to 6.2 billion yen (about $58 million US). Established by physician Dr.TOmohiro Tada, AI Medical Service has been developing an AI-powered diagnostic system for cancer detection. A survey says only 31% even among medical doctors can correctly determine the presence or absence of gastric cancer symptoms from endoscopic footage. With help from more than a few medical doctors, the company can improve the AI engine because of using hundreds of thousands of…
Tokyo-based AI Medical Service, the Japanese startup developing the AI-powered technology to detect cancerous lesions from endoscopic footage, announced on Friday that it has secured about 4.6 billion yen (about $43 million US) in a series B round.
Participating investors in this round are:
Globis Capital Partners（GCP）
WiL
Sparx Group
Sony Innovation Fund by IGV（Managed by Innovation Growth Ventures, the joint venture of Sony and Daiwa Capital Holdings)
Japan Lifeline (cardiovascular medical device manufacturer, TSE:7575)
Japan Post Capital
Aflac Ventures
Ryoyo Electro (semiconductor trader, TSE:8068)
SMBC Venture Capital
Daiwa Corporate Investment
An unnamed angel investor
For the company, this follows their previous funding (series A round) worth 1 billion yen back in August of last year and brought their funding sum up to 6.2 billion yen (about $58 million US).
Established by physician Dr.TOmohiro Tada, AI Medical Service has been developing an AI-powered diagnostic system for cancer detection. A survey says only 31% even among medical doctors can correctly determine the presence or absence of gastric cancer symptoms from endoscopic footage. With help from more than a few medical doctors, the company can improve the AI engine because of using hundreds of thousands of high-definition endoscopic images to let it learn better. The engine now can detect with high accuracy the presence of Helicobacter Pylori bacteria, which is known to be the major cause of stomach cancer.
In 2017, the company won the top award at Beyond Next Ventures’ Brave accelerator program in the pre-incorporated startup segment. They also won the Best Growth and Judge awards at Incubate Camp 10th back in August of 2017, followed by winning the TechCrunch Japan award at the 10th Batch Demo Day of Recruit’s Tech Lab Paak accelerator.
The company uses the funds to promote clinical trials, expand the pipeline, hire talents, make more investments, aiming to accelerate the development of real-time endoscope AI and to get an approval of medical regulatory for it.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based SkyDrive, the Japanese drone startup spun off from the Cartivator volunteer group consisting of aircraft, drone and automotive engineers, announced on Monday that it has secured 1.5 billion yen (about $13.9 million US). The investment round is unknown but participating investors are Drone Fund, Z Corporation (investment arm of Yahoo Japan), Strive, Itochu Technology Ventures, and Energy & Environment Investment. Drone Fund and Z Corporation have participated in the startup’s past rounds. The company claims that the latest round brought their funding sum up to 2 billon yen (about $18.5 million US). Coinciding with the funding, Tatso Tsutsumi, General Partner of Strive, will join the board of SkyDrive as an outside director. The starutp will use the funds to speed up developing their drone to conduct a test flight within this year. See also: Japan startup unveils manned hoverbike, expecting it to fly above public roads SkyDrive’s so-called “flying car” is an electrically-powered, vertical take-off and landing pilotless aircraft. As a new trend in the mobility industry, the drone is expected to be used for taxi service in cities, means for transportation in remote islands and mountainous areas, emergency transport in the event…
Tokyo-based SkyDrive, the Japanese drone startup spun off from the Cartivator volunteer group consisting of aircraft, drone and automotive engineers, announced on Monday that it has secured 1.5 billion yen (about $13.9 million US). The investment round is unknown but participating investors are Drone Fund, Z Corporation (investment arm of Yahoo Japan), Strive, Itochu Technology Ventures, and Energy & Environment Investment.
Drone Fund and Z Corporation have participated in the startup’s past rounds. The company claims that the latest round brought their funding sum up to 2 billon yen (about $18.5 million US). Coinciding with the funding, Tatso Tsutsumi, General Partner of Strive, will join the board of SkyDrive as an outside director. The starutp will use the funds to speed up developing their drone to conduct a test flight within this year.
SkyDrive’s so-called “flying car” is an electrically-powered, vertical take-off and landing pilotless aircraft. As a new trend in the mobility industry, the drone is expected to be used for taxi service in cities, means for transportation in remote islands and mountainous areas, emergency transport in the event of a diaster. Compared to conventional air crafts, the drone is cost-effective, makes lower noise but requires a smaller space for take-off and landing.
SkyDrive was qualified as a finalist in the Tokyo Startup Gateway 2014 startup incubator, and then won the 5th place at the Launch Pad pitch competition at Infinity Ventures Summit 2015 Spring in Miyazaki. We have learned that the company secured funds from Drone Fund’s 2nd fund earlier this year.
See the original story in Japanese. Nagoya-based UniFa, the Japanese startup behind the Lookmee service brand using AI-powered IoT (Internet of solutions) solutions for tracking kindergartners’ health and growth, announced on Friday that it has secured about 3.5 billion yen (about $32.4 million US) in a series C round. Investors participating in this round are Japanese state-backed fund INCJ, Dai-ichi Life Insurance, medical service provider M3, Japan Post Capital, business management consulting firm Link And Motivation (TSE:2170), SBI Investment, Aflac Ventures, Nagoya-based textile trader Toyoshima, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Toppan Printing (TSE:7911), Shinsei Corporate Investment, and SMBC Venture Capital. Among all these investors, Toppan Printing, Shinsei Corporate Investment, and SMBC Venture Capital have participated in the past round. For UniFa, this follows their previous funding back in October of 2017 (1.02 billion yen), in April of 2017 ($1 million US from Fenos Venture Capital or now known as Pegasus Tech Ventures), and in 2015 (300 million yen from Jafco and Japan Finance Corporation). The latest round brought their total funding sum up to about 5 billion yen (about $46.3 million US). The company offers AI and IoT-powered healthcare solution for monitoring kindergartners’ safe nap, smart thermometer service in addition to allowing…
Nagoya-based UniFa, the Japanese startup behind the Lookmee service brand using AI-powered IoT (Internet of solutions) solutions for tracking kindergartners’ health and growth, announced on Friday that it has secured about 3.5 billion yen (about $32.4 million US) in a series C round.
Investors participating in this round are Japanese state-backed fund INCJ, Dai-ichi Life Insurance, medical service provider M3, Japan Post Capital, business management consulting firm Link And Motivation (TSE:2170), SBI Investment, Aflac Ventures, Nagoya-based textile trader Toyoshima, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Toppan Printing (TSE:7911), Shinsei Corporate Investment, and SMBC Venture Capital.
Among all these investors, Toppan Printing, Shinsei Corporate Investment, and SMBC Venture Capital have participated in the past round. For UniFa, this follows their previous funding back in October of 2017 (1.02 billion yen), in April of 2017 ($1 million US from Fenos Venture Capital or now known as Pegasus Tech Ventures), and in 2015 (300 million yen from Jafco and Japan Finance Corporation). The latest round brought their total funding sum up to about 5 billion yen (about $46.3 million US).
The company offers AI and IoT-powered healthcare solution for monitoring kindergartners’ safe nap, smart thermometer service in addition to allowing their parents to purchase movies and pictures shooting their child at the kindergarten. As of August, their service is used by about 350,000 people at 6,250 kindergartens and other childcare facilities all across Japan. The company uses the funds to improve their existing products and develop new services, aiming to speed up completing so-called “Smart Kindergarten”.
UniFa announced in June that it has appointed Naoto Hoshi as CFO. He previously worked as an investment banker at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. Coinciding with the funding at this time, the company acquired Kidsly, a childcare-focused online service originally founded by Recruit Marketing Partners and later acquired by Tokyo-based children book publisher Froebel.
Tokyo-based Base, the e-commerce platform provider dubbed Japan’s answer to Shopify, announced on Friday that the IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on October 25 with plans to offer 405,000 shares for public subscription and to sell about 1.2 million shares in over-allotment options for a total of about 7.6 million shares. The underwriting will be led by Daiwa Securities while Base’s ticker code will be 4477. Its share price range will be released on October 8 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on October 9 and pricing on October 17. According to the consolidated statement as of December 2018, they posted revenue of 2.35 billion yen (about $21.7 million) with an ordinary loss of 798 million yen (about $7.4 million). Led by founder and CEO Yuta Tsuruoka (19.9%), the company’s major shareholders include VC firm Global Brain (19%), SBI Ventures Two / FinTech Business Innovation (15.4%), Japanese tech giant CyberAgent (9.6%), Japanese department store operator Marui Group (6.7%), Japanese sell-and-buy platform Mercari (6.6%), Japanese serial entrepreneur / angel investor Kazuma Ieiri’s Partyfactory (5.6%), and East Ventures (5.5%). See also: Japanese e-commerce platform Base raises $13M,…
Image credit: Base
Tokyo-based Base, the e-commerce platform provider dubbed Japan’s answer to Shopify, announced on Friday that the IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on October 25 with plans to offer 405,000 shares for public subscription and to sell about 1.2 million shares in over-allotment options for a total of about 7.6 million shares. The underwriting will be led by Daiwa Securities while Base’s ticker code will be 4477.
Its share price range will be released on October 8 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on October 9 and pricing on October 17. According to the consolidated statement as of December 2018, they posted revenue of 2.35 billion yen (about $21.7 million) with an ordinary loss of 798 million yen (about $7.4 million).
Led by founder and CEO Yuta Tsuruoka (19.9%), the company’s major shareholders include VC firm Global Brain (19%), SBI Ventures Two / FinTech Business Innovation (15.4%), Japanese tech giant CyberAgent (9.6%), Japanese department store operator Marui Group (6.7%), Japanese sell-and-buy platform Mercari (6.6%), Japanese serial entrepreneur / angel investor Kazuma Ieiri’s Partyfactory (5.6%), and East Ventures (5.5%).
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Oct, the Japanese startup developing and providing the Andpad house construction management platform, announced on Thursday that it has closed a series B round by raising funds from the investment arms of four regional banks in Japan in addition to existing investors. Participating investors are Senshu Ikeda Capital, Iyogin Capital, Kyogin Lease & Capital, Chibagin Capital, Globis Capital Partners, DNX Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and Beenext. This is additional funding in a series b round following the previous announcement back in March of this year, brings the total funding sum in the round up to about 2.4 billion yen (about 22.6 million US). Launched back in 2016, the platform has been adopted by more than 1,600 companies by March of this year. Through respective partnerships with the regional banks participating in this round, the company wants to more focus on expanding their business into provincial areas, aiming to help address labor shortage and improve productivity in the entire Japanese construction industry. Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Tokyo-based Oct, the Japanese startup developing and providing the Andpad house construction management platform, announced on Thursday that it has closed a series B round by raising funds from the investment arms of four regional banks in Japan in addition to existing investors.
Participating investors are Senshu Ikeda Capital, Iyogin Capital, Kyogin Lease & Capital, Chibagin Capital, Globis Capital Partners, DNX Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and Beenext. This is additional funding in a series b round following the previous announcement back in March of this year, brings the total funding sum in the round up to about 2.4 billion yen (about 22.6 million US).
Launched back in 2016, the platform has been adopted by more than 1,600 companies by March of this year. Through respective partnerships with the regional banks participating in this round, the company wants to more focus on expanding their business into provincial areas, aiming to help address labor shortage and improve productivity in the entire Japanese construction industry.
The Bridge
Masaru Ikeda
