Tokyo-based Hacobu, a business-to-business logistics optimization startup, has announced that it has secured 940 million yen (about $8.7 million US) in its latest round of funding. Participating investors are JIC Venture Growth Investments (JIC VGI), NN Corporate Capital (Investment arm of Nomura Real Estate Holdings), Toyota Tsusho (TSE:8015), Logistics Innovation Fund (Spiral (TSE:8015), Logistics Innovation Fund (a sector-focused fund managed by Spiral Capital and ledby Seino Holdings as an anchor limited partner), SMBC Venture Capital, Daiwa House Group’s Daiwa Logitech, and Mitsui Fudosan (TSE:8801).
For the startup, this round follows 160 million yen
funding in November of 2016, 140 million yen funding in November of
2017, and 400 million yen funding in April of 2019. Among the investors
participating in the latest round round, Daiwa Logitech and Mitsui
Fudosan followed their previous investments made in September of 2017
and September of 2019 respectively. The latest rounding brought the
company’s funding sum to date up to at least 1.64 billion yen ($15.2
million).
Hacobu was founded in May 2016 by CEO Taro Sasaki who
had been previously working as a consultant on a project for Morinaga
Milk where he faced with the challenge of how to improve the logistics
efficiency of the milk company’s 10 logistics subsidiaries in Japan,
which led to developing a shared logistics platform called Movo.
They offer the platform to more than 500 companies including
manufacturers, retailers, and logistics providers all across Japan.
Thanks to the cloud and hardware such as the IoT devices managing moving
vehicles, the company solves problems like vehicle dispatch (as an
integrated logistics management solution, solves the problem of the
difficulty of finding trucks to dispatch), operation management (solves
the problem of not knowing location information of the trucks), and
berth management (solves the problem of using trucks efficiently because
of waiting time).
The startup will use the funds to hire talents for
the development and sales of the application, strengthen logistics big
data analysis infrastructure, and launch and operate big data governance
system. They expect to accelerate their progress toward solving
social issues such as long working hours at logistics sites, carbon
emissions, inventory disposal, and food waste through the optimization
of logistics and supply chains.
Tokyo-based Abeja announced that it has formed a capital and business alliance with Japanese insurance giant Sompo Holdings (TSE:8630). Sompo acquired 21.9% of the outstanding shares from Abeja’s five existing shareholders: INCJ, Salesforce.com, Mizuho Capital Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Itochu (TSE:8001). The startup became an affiliate of the insurance conglomerate. Founded in September of 2012, Abeja has provided their AI-powered analytics suite Abeja Platform companies while more than a few stores have adopted Abeja Insight for Retail, their retail industry store analysis solution. To date, the company has secured over 6 billion yen (about $55 million) from domestic VC firms in addition to global tech giants like Google and Nvidia. Meanwhile, Sompo invested US$500 million in Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR), the data analytics startup well known to have been founded by Peter Thiel, in June 2020 prior to its listing so that the former is poised to adopt the latter’s data integration and analysis platform. Since last year, Abeja has been working with Sompo to develop predictive models and other joint businesses based on data analysis machine learning, especially in the areas of nursing care, healthcare, and domestic non-life insurance businesses. Sompo has been considering to develop “real data platform…
Abeja CEOYosuke Okada explains about Abeja Platform Partner Ecosystem (Photographed at Docomo Innovation Village in November of 2016) Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Tokyo-based Abeja announced that it has formed a capital and business alliance with Japanese insurance giant Sompo Holdings (TSE:8630). Sompo acquired 21.9% of the outstanding shares from Abeja’s five existing shareholders: INCJ, Salesforce.com, Mizuho Capital Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Itochu (TSE:8001). The startup became an affiliate of the insurance conglomerate.
Founded in September of 2012, Abeja has provided their AI-powered analytics suite Abeja Platform companies while more than a few stores have adopted Abeja Insight for Retail, their retail industry store analysis solution. To date, the company has secured over 6 billion yen (about $55 million) from domestic VC firms in addition to global tech giants like Google and Nvidia. Meanwhile, Sompo invested US$500 million in Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR), the data analytics startup well known to have been founded by Peter Thiel, in June 2020 prior to its listing so that the former is poised to adopt the latter’s data integration and analysis platform.
Since last year, Abeja has been working with Sompo to develop predictive models and other joint businesses based on data analysis machine learning, especially in the areas of nursing care, healthcare, and domestic non-life insurance businesses. Sompo has been considering to develop “real data platform for safety, security, and health” with Palantir, and joining Abeja in this initiative will accelerate the move toward launching the platform. Abeja will also help Sompo promote the use of AI and cultivate human resources optimized for digital businesses.
In an interview with Nikkei published on Friday, Abeja CEO Yosuke Okada revealed that even after becoming an affiliate of the conglomerate, Abeja will maintain independent management scheme and aim for an IPO.
Sompo has been active in offering and developing services for elderly care, also operating several subsidiaries focused on senior care facilities in Japan. In recent years, it has invested in IoT developers Novars and Moff for helping monitor the elderly and supporting their rehabilitation, smart security device company Secual, and Taiwan-based diabetes management platform Health2Sync. The insurance giant has launched digital strategy hubs called Sompo Digital Lab in Silicon Valley and Israel, and some of our readers may recall that last year it invested in Intuition Robotics, the Israeli startup developing robots to help the elderly relieve isolation and loneliness.
Kumamoto-based Daiz, the Japanese startup developing plant-based substitutes for meat products, announced on Monday that it has secured about 1.85 billion yen (about $17.1 million) in a series B round. Participating investors are Ajinomoto (TSE:2802), Marubeni (TSE:8002), Nippon Steel Trading (TSE:9810), Kanematsu (TSE:8020), Kanematsu Foods, ENEOS Innovation Partners, Kichiri Holdings (TSE:3082), Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital, The Norinchukin Bank, Global Brain, Kemuri Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Golden Asia Fund Ventures (jointly run by Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute-backed investment arm and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital), QB Capital, Shinkin Capital, and Kirin Holdings (TSE:2503). Among these investors, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital follows the Series A investment in May 2020 while QB Capital follows the September 2018 round. The latest round brought Daiz’s funding sum to date up to 3.05 billion yen (about $28.2 million). The company will use the funds to expand its meat substitutes production, strengthen research and development, develop global business channels, and hire new employees. The company plans to expand its annual production capacity up to 4,000 tons from June this year. Following this round, Daiz will work with Ajinomoto and Nichirei Foods (Nichirei Foods joined the series A round) to develop products for household and commercial use using the startup’s…
Image credit: Daiz
Kumamoto-based Daiz, the Japanese startup developing plant-based substitutes for meat products, announced on Monday that it has secured about 1.85 billion yen (about $17.1 million) in a series B round.
Participating investors are Ajinomoto (TSE:2802), Marubeni (TSE:8002), Nippon Steel Trading (TSE:9810), Kanematsu (TSE:8020), Kanematsu Foods, ENEOS Innovation Partners, Kichiri Holdings (TSE:3082), Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital, The Norinchukin Bank, Global Brain, Kemuri Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Golden Asia Fund Ventures (jointly run by Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute-backed investment arm and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital), QB Capital, Shinkin Capital, and Kirin Holdings (TSE:2503).
Among these investors, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital follows the Series A investment in May 2020 while QB Capital follows the September 2018 round. The latest round brought Daiz’s funding sum to date up to 3.05 billion yen (about $28.2 million).
The company will use the funds to expand its meat substitutes production, strengthen research and development, develop global business channels, and hire new employees. The company plans to expand its annual production capacity up to 4,000 tons from June this year.
Following this round,
Daiz will work with Ajinomoto and Nichirei Foods (Nichirei Foods joined
the series A round) to develop products for household and commercial use
using the startup’s flagship meat substitute Miracle Meat. Leveraging
the network of trading companies like Marubeni, Nippon Steel Trading, and
Kanematsu/Kanematsu Foods, the company expects to cultivate sales channels for
the meat substitute in both overseas and domestic markets. Daiz and
ENEOS Holdings (parent company of ENEOS Innovation Partners) aim to
create a low-carbon society through the spread of the meat substitute,
which has a smaller environmental impact than animal meat and
plant-based substitutes from defatted soybeans.
DAIZ adopts the patented
Ochiai method in germinating soybeans, which activates enzymes and
increases the amount of free amino acid contained by imparting stress
such as lower oxygen level and higher temperature at the right timing of
germination. This eventually contributes to bringing out the flavor of
the raw ingredients and reproducing the meat-like texture without adding
any additives.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Studist, the Japanese startup behind the TeachMe Biz visual workflow management platform and the Hansoku Cloud sales promotion PDCA management platform, announced today that it has secured 1.85 billion yen (about $17.1 million US) in the latest round. In addition to existing investors such as DNX Ventures, Nippon Venture Capital, and Salesforce Ventures, participating investors in this round are 31 Ventures-Global Brain Growth I (jointly run by Mitsui Fudosan and Global Brain), Pavilion Capital (a private equity fund by Singaporean Government-backed Temasek Holdings), and Hakuhodo DY Ventures. For Studist, this round follows their series C round back in April of 2019. The company has not disclosed the round stage but this is its fifth round securing funds from external investors. It brought the total sum of funding up to about $29.6 million US. According to the Initial startup database, the company’s post series C round (previous round) valuation is estimated about $63.4 million US. TeachMe Biz is widely used in the manufacturing, retail, and restaurant industries. The platform has served more than 318,000 accounts and saved over 520,000 SOPs (standard operation procedures) as of March of this year. In November of last year,…
Tokyo-based Studist, the Japanese startup behind the TeachMe Biz visual workflow management platform and the Hansoku Cloud sales promotion PDCA management platform, announced today that it has secured 1.85 billion yen (about $17.1 million US) in the latest round.
In addition to existing investors such as DNX Ventures, Nippon Venture Capital, and Salesforce Ventures, participating investors in this round are 31 Ventures-Global Brain Growth I (jointly run by Mitsui Fudosan and Global Brain), Pavilion Capital (a private equity fund by Singaporean Government-backed Temasek Holdings), and Hakuhodo DY Ventures.
For Studist, this round follows their series C round back in April of 2019. The company has not disclosed the round stage but this is its fifth round securing funds from external investors. It brought the total sum of funding up to about $29.6 million US. According to the Initial startup database, the company’s post series C round (previous round) valuation is estimated about $63.4 million US.
TeachMe Biz is widely used in the manufacturing, retail, and restaurant industries. The platform has served more than 318,000 accounts and saved over 520,000 SOPs (standard operation procedures) as of March of this year.
In November of last year, the company launched Hansoku Cloud as a new product line. The platform enables chain retailers, such as small supermarkets and drugstores, to put all instructions from their headquarters to stores in a place. It can reduce the burden on store clerks and encourages them to display new products as the instructions are given in an easy-to-understand manner that does not rely on text alone.
Studist has been focused on the SaaS business, but will strengthen its consulting service for better introducing TeachMe Biz, which has been offered on a testing basis to a total of 12 big companies since August last year. Generally speaking, consulting business is often labor-intensive, but the Studist’s one may rather help bring more users to the SaaS platform.
With Mitsui Fudosan, one of the new investors, Studist intends to introduce the TeachMe Biz platform to Mitsui’s subsidiaries and tenants in their office buildings and shopping malls to help them improve their productivity.
Meanwhile, Studist has been expanding into Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand where about 70 companies are using the TeachMe Biz platform. Having Pavilion Capital onboard, Studist may be more likely to reach potential customers in Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.
Based on the Hansoku Cloud platform, Studist plans to launch a new service for brands this summer. Details have not been disclosed but it may be something allowing brands to introduce their new products directly to retailers and use the storefront as a marketing tool. Hakuhodo, another investor in the round, has a creative department with strong ties with these brands.
We first covered Warrantee seven years ago when the company’s founder Yusuke Shono was selected as a finalist at HackOsaka 2014, an annual startup conference hosted by Osaka City. His rare experience that every single home appliance he bought when he started living alone was broken triggered him to launch his first business Warrantee aiming to convert all warranties into digital. It may be often hard for us to find a warranty form when we specifically need it. He created the service because he thought it would be convenient to manage such warranties electronically, but at first he had no idea about how to get companies to pay for it or how to grow the user base. They wondered if they could provide something like, “If you register your warranty on the platform, we’ll give you another year of warranty for free.” That was the beginning of their new insurance concept. In late 2014, Warrantee received investment from Japanese cooking-recipe sharing site Cookpad (TSE:2193) and started exploring business synergy with them. This made Shono keenly aware of the strength of a complimentary service, and he says, “It’s amazing that (Cookpad) can attract so many users even though it’s free,”. This…
Image credit: Warrantee
We first covered Warrantee seven years ago when the company’s founder Yusuke Shono was selected as a finalist at HackOsaka 2014, an annual startup conference hosted by Osaka City. His rare experience that every single home appliance he bought when he started living alone was broken triggered him to launch his first business Warrantee aiming to convert all warranties into digital.
It may be often hard for us to find a warranty form when we specifically need it. He created the service because he thought it would be convenient to manage such warranties electronically, but at first he had no idea about how to get companies to pay for it or how to grow the user base. They wondered if they could provide something like, “If you register your warranty on the platform, we’ll give you another year of warranty for free.” That was the beginning of their new insurance concept.
In late 2014, Warrantee received investment from Japanese cooking-recipe sharing site Cookpad (TSE:2193) and started exploring business synergy with them. This made Shono keenly aware of the strength of a complimentary service, and he says, “It’s amazing that (Cookpad) can attract so many users even though it’s free,”. This may be another reason why Warrantee is focused on developing a complimentary service.
Shono said,
Insurance for home appliances could be provided for free (as a way for sponsoring appliance manufacturers in return to obtain detailed user profiles) because it’s inexpensive, but not for automobiles because of high price. But if, for example, we divide a year by 365 days and ask a companies to pay 200 yen a day for each user, it could work.
Warrantee announced the launch of its first InsureTech business in 2017. Warrantee CEO Yusuke Shono (left), Tokio Marine Nichido Managing Executive Officer Yusuke Otsuka (right) Image credit: Warrantee
In 2017, Warrantee, which had been touting themselves a warranty managing startup, suddenly started talking about insurance. Through its experience launching insurance business, Shono says his company could learn about Japan’s Insurance Business Act and how to coordinate with government agencies. Warrantee’s “Free Insurance” is a way of making on-demand insurance premium-free.
He explained,
One example is our partnership between Japanese air-conditioner giant Daikin and property franchisor Century 21 Japan. Daikin wanted to connect with property owners (such as landlords) who owned a large number of air conditioners in their properties. However, since air conditioners are typically sold through retailers or housing equipment companies, Daikin had no profile of these air conditioner owners as end users.
By having Daikin sponsor our product, Warrantee provided property owners with an additional warranty for their air conditioners free of charge. In return, Daikin could obtain the real estate owner’s profiles. It was a win-win situation for both Daikin and the property owners.
Despite its start with insurance for home appliances, Shono’s company can provide the service even for clinics which typically own expensive medical equipments. In view of how pharmaceutical firms and medical equipment manufacturers approaching medical institutions, we may imagine their sales representatives making on-site visits and phone calls but this is inefficient because medical professionals are often very busy. If Warrantee can provide give the firms sales channels in return for sponsoring Free Insurance for clinics, medical professionals would be willing to find the time slot for meet-up.
He continued,
Many manufacturers are pivoting their business model from product selling to subscription-based. For example, before a product becomes obsolete or broken, they can send customers a new model at no extra cost after 10 years of their first purchase. I believe that our Free Insurance is a great match for this trend.
The Free Insurance concept can be applied not only to “products” but also to “humans”. For example, it may give osteoporosis patients calcium supplements for free, or may allow people to sign up for complimentary health promotion services based on the result of their medical checkup. Some people may be reluctant to give out their profile but many may be willing to receive these rewards if the benefits outweigh the negatives.
He added,
Japan has a universal health insurance system that allows all its nationals to receive advanced medical care at lower cost. But US and Singapore don’t, so doctor bills there vary from hospital to hospital, making it easy for us to launch the Free Insurance in these markets. In the US, not only health insurance but also car insurance is expensive. We decided to open a branch office in Singapore because it is a good place to start something new.
Warrantee’s core members are located in Tokyo and Osaka, but we finally learned why Shono has repeatedly visited Singapore despite the inconvenience of being quarantined for two weeks amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Free Insurance business seems to be doing quite well although the amount of sales is unknown, and the firm is aiming for an IPO in the US through an SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) in the near future, sources say.
In February, Evo Acquisition was incorporated as an SPAC to help get Japanese companies listed in the US. There will be more and more Japanese startups like Warrantee seeking a way out of the global market and aiming for a US IPO.
See the original story in Japanese. Japanese MedTech Startup Allm has secured 5.6 billion yen (over $50.5 million) from investors including Mitsui & Co (TSE:8031) and SOMPO Holdings (TSE:8630), Nikkei reported on Sunday. This round is considered to be a series A extension round while Japanese startup database Initial reports the company’s post-valuation has reached about 32 billion yen (about $300 million). According to a statement issued by Allm at 11am on Monday, participating investors are: SOMPO Holdings, Mitsui, Eisai (TSE:4523), Royal Philips (AMS:PHIA), NID (TSE:2349), Cyberdyne (TSE:7779), Financial Agency, Mixi (TSE:2121), Capital Medica, Vector (TSE:6058), SBI Investment, Bonds Investment Group, Mizuho Capital, Asia Africa Investment and Consulting Royal Philips participated in Allm’s previous series A round as well. Allm was founded in 2001 by Teppei Sakano as SkillUp Japan. After selling its video distribution platform business, the company entered the medical ICT business in 2015 and rebranded its name into the current state. Since then, the company has rolled out medical device programs in more than a few countries around the world. Their portfolio products include Join (communication app for medical professionals), Enroll (patient recruitment solution), JoinTriage (triage app for emergency transport), Team (comprehensive regional care system promotion solution),…
Japanese MedTech Startup Allm has secured 5.6 billion yen (over $50.5 million) from investors including Mitsui & Co (TSE:8031) and SOMPO Holdings (TSE:8630), Nikkei reported on Sunday. This round is considered to be a series A extension round while Japanese startup database Initial reports the company’s post-valuation has reached about 32 billion yen (about $300 million).
SOMPO Holdings, Mitsui, Eisai (TSE:4523), Royal Philips (AMS:PHIA), NID (TSE:2349), Cyberdyne (TSE:7779), Financial Agency, Mixi (TSE:2121), Capital Medica, Vector (TSE:6058), SBI Investment, Bonds Investment Group, Mizuho Capital, Asia Africa Investment and Consulting
Royal Philips participated in Allm’s previous series A round as well.
Allm was founded in 2001 by Teppei Sakano as SkillUp Japan. After selling its video distribution platform business, the company entered the medical ICT business in 2015 and rebranded its name into the current state. Since then, the company has rolled out medical device programs in more than a few countries around the world. Their portfolio products include Join (communication app for medical professionals), Enroll (patient recruitment solution), JoinTriage (triage app for emergency transport), Team (comprehensive regional care system promotion solution), and MySOS (life-saving and health app).
Allm will use the funds to focus on research and development of solutions that can contribute to developing countermeasures against COVID-19, not only in Japan but also overseas. The company will team up with Mitsui to help their operating medical institutions in Southeast Asia share information between core hospitals and smaller clinics. It will also develop telemedicine business connecting hospitals in Japan with local doctors in Southeast Asia to support the latter’s medical treatment. It will work with Sompo Holdings to consider creating a system utilizing Allm’s data for insurance and health promotion of nursing home users.
The Bridge
Masaru Ikeda
