Tokyo-based Safie (TSE: 4375), the Japanese startup offering cloud-based CCTV solutions, went public on the TSE Mothers market on Wednesday. The company has priced its initial public offering at 2,430 yen (about $22) a share but it hit the highest price of 3,700 yen (about $33) last week which brought the company’s market cap up to over 180 billion yen (about $1.6 billion).
In Japan, Safie is this year’s fourth IPO-ed company with a market cap over 100 billion yen (about $900 million) at its opening price, following Taiwanese AI startup Appier, job-placement portal site BizReach’s parent company Visional, and data analysis firm Plus Alpha Consulting.
Safie was founded in October of 2014 by Ryuhei Sadoshima (currently CEO) and his two longtime colleagues who all previously worked at Japanese image processing startup Motion Portrait, a spin-off of Sony’s Kihara Research Center. Sadoshima is also known for Daigakunote.com, his previous startup running a university student portal. The company launched a cloud-based CCTV solution back in 2015.
Safie has so far secure funds from NTT Docomo Ventures, 31Ventures (by Mitsui Fudosan and Global Brain), Innovation Fund 25 (by Senshu Ikeda Bank and others), Orix, Kansai Electric Power, Canon Marketing Japan, NEC Capital Solutions, and others.
Citadel AI, the Japanese startup developing automated AI quality maintenance tools, announced on Monday that it has secured 100 million yen (about $900,000 US) in a seed round from UTokyo Innovation Platform (UTokyo IPC) and Anri. For the startup, this is the first funding from external investors. They launched Citadel Rader in beta in May, aiming to help companies protect themselves from AI-specific risks by automatically monitoring their AI systems, detecting, blocking, and visualizing anomalies. Citadel AI was launched in December by CEO Hironori “Rick” Kobayashi and CTO Kenny Song. Prior to Citadel AI, Kobayashi served Loyalty Marketing as president, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas) as SVP, and US-based meat processing firm Indiana Packers Corporation as CEO. Meanwhile, Song led the development of TensorFlow and AutoML as a product manager at Google Brain, the tech giant’s AI research and development unit. Unlike traditional hardware-based software, AI systems are exposed to an ever-changing real-world environment that degrades their accuracy and quality day by day. It is important for businesses to maintain the quality of AI functions by automatically detecting anomalies before they are misrecognized and misjudged, resulting in business losses and compliance issues. Citadel Rader has an XAI (eXplainable Artificial Intelligence) function that…
Image credit: Citadel AI
Citadel AI, the Japanese startup developing automated AI quality maintenance tools, announced on Monday that it has secured 100 million yen (about $900,000 US) in a seed round from UTokyo Innovation Platform (UTokyo IPC) and Anri. For the startup, this is the first funding from external investors. They launched Citadel Rader in beta in May, aiming to help companies protect themselves from AI-specific risks by automatically monitoring their AI systems, detecting, blocking, and visualizing anomalies.
Citadel AI was launched in December by CEO Hironori “Rick” Kobayashi and CTO Kenny Song. Prior to Citadel AI, Kobayashi served Loyalty Marketing as president, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas) as SVP, and US-based meat processing firm Indiana Packers Corporation as CEO. Meanwhile, Song led the development of TensorFlow and AutoML as a product manager at Google Brain, the tech giant’s AI research and development unit.
Unlike traditional hardware-based software, AI systems are exposed to an ever-changing real-world environment that degrades their accuracy and quality day by day. It is important for businesses to maintain the quality of AI functions by automatically detecting anomalies before they are misrecognized and misjudged, resulting in business losses and compliance issues. Citadel Rader has an XAI (eXplainable Artificial Intelligence) function that automatically detects and blocks AI input and output anomalies and visualizes them in a form that humans can understand.
Kobayashi says,
In the development stage, AI reads only clean data, but when it moves to actual operation, it receives a variety of data, including those with input errors. Basically, people think that computers will give correct answers, and even if they give wrong answers, it is difficult to point them out.
Since it is difficult for companies to allocate human resources to monitor the output of AI, our tool may help AI engineers who are usually busy with their daily work find the time to concentrate on their original work.
Image credit: Citadel AI
When a system integrator receives an order for an AI system, they will typically implement the system but not provide services to automate the operation and maintenance afterwards.
Kobayashi continued,
If the accuracy and quality of the data deteriorates, in the worst case scenario, it could lead to errors in sales forecasting, or in credit approval. For example, think FATF (Financial Action Task Force, the global organization working with money laundering regulators in various countries). A single node with poor security in determining a money laundering case could lead to the vulnerability of the entire global network, which could lead to the node not being allowed to join the organization.
He added that Citadel Rader is currently used by more than 10 companies on a trial basis and is in talks with more than 100 companies as potential users. The company plans to use the funds to expand its engineering team for the product’s official launch which is scheduled next spring.
Tokyo-based Photosynth, the Japanese startup developing and offering smart lock Akerun as well as cloud-based room-entry access control system, announced on Thursday that its application to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on November 5 with plans to offer 700,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 946,900 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 5,613,300 shares. The underwriting will be led by Daiwa Securities and Credit Suisse while Photosynth’s ticker code will be 4379. Based on the estimated issue price of 1,500 yen (about $13.4), the company will be valued at 22.9 billion yen (about $204.2 million). Its share price range will be released on October 19 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on October 20 and pricing on October 26. According to the consolidated statement as of December 2020, they posted revenue of 1,175.9 million yen ($10.5 million) with an ordinary loss of 683.5 million yen ($6.1 million). Founded back in September 2014 by Kodai Kawase, Photosynth aims to allow people to gain access to spaces without carrying physical keys. They have developed IoT-based connected smart locks and a cloud-based authentication platform, offering them to…
Photostynth CEO Kodai Kawase
Tokyo-based Photosynth, the Japanese startup developing and offering smart lock Akerun as well as cloud-based room-entry access control system, announced on Thursday that its application to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on November 5 with plans to offer 700,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 946,900 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 5,613,300 shares. The underwriting will be led by Daiwa Securities and Credit Suisse while Photosynth’s ticker code will be 4379.
Based on the estimated issue price of 1,500 yen (about $13.4), the
company will be valued at 22.9 billion yen (about $204.2 million). Its
share price range will be released on October 19 with bookbuilding
scheduled to start on October 20 and pricing on October 26. According to
the consolidated statement as of December 2020, they posted revenue of
1,175.9 million yen ($10.5 million) with an ordinary loss of 683.5
million yen ($6.1 million).
Founded back in September 2014 by Kodai Kawase, Photosynth aims to allow people to gain access to spaces without carrying physical keys. They have developed IoT-based connected smart locks and a cloud-based authentication platform, offering them to users based on a subscription basis.
Last year, the company introduced the Akerun Access Intelligence, an access authentication platform to realize a keyless society, as well as a new service called the Akerun visitor management system. In this scheme, users can associate their unique identity used in real life, such as NFC transit card, smartphone, employee ID and entrance pass with their digital entity such as e-mail address and phone number, and then register all them in to the cloud. This allows users to gain access to various spaces such as their office, building and home with just a single ID.
The company won the grand prize at the JR East Startup Program, a startup accelerator program by Japan’s largest railway company, with a system offering access control for the entry to office buildings using JR’s Suica NFC transit card. They established a joint venture with Japanese leading lock and security company Miwa Lock in January.
Led by CEO Kawase (18.35%), the company’s major shareholders include Globis Capital Partners (9.81%), Norinchukin Bank (7.45%), Jafco (5.47%), Fidelity Funds (4.34%), Globis Fund (4.19%), Daiwa Corporate Investment (4.18%), Gaiax (3.82%), Tokyo Metropolitan Government (3.48%), Fidelity Japan Trust (3.10%), and Executive Vice President Hiroaki Uesaka (2.65%).
Tokyo-based VC firm Incubate Fund announced on Tuesday that it has established a new growth fund called IFGO worth 16.1 billion yen (about $147 million). This is the sixth flagship fund for the firm since its first fund established in 2010 (excluding regional funds and franchise funds in India, the US, and Brazil). With the launch of the new fund, Incubate Fund’s AUM (assets under management) has reached approximately 62 billion yen (about $567 million). Focusing on follow-on investments in their more than 400 portfolio companies, the firm will start investing in middle- and later-stage startups. The firm has been focused on investing in early-stage startups, especially those in seed to series B rounds. When a promising startup in need of funding came to the firm but they are in the middle or later stage, the firm may have experienced to decline the startup’s request due to scope mismatch. In an interview with Bridge, Masahiko Honma, the firm’s founder and managing partner says, the new fund is to actively invest in the firm’s portfolio startups preparing for IPO and help them become unicorns. The fund’s ticket size is expected to be 500 million to 2.5 billion yen (about $4.6 million…
Image credit: Incubate Fund
Tokyo-based VC firm Incubate Fund announced on Tuesday that it has established a new growth fund called IFGO worth 16.1 billion yen (about $147 million). This is the sixth flagship fund for the firm since its first fund established in 2010 (excluding regional funds and franchise funds in India, the US, and Brazil). With the launch of the new fund, Incubate Fund’s AUM (assets under management) has reached approximately 62 billion yen (about $567 million). Focusing on follow-on investments in their more than 400 portfolio companies, the firm will start investing in middle- and later-stage startups.
The firm has been focused on investing in early-stage startups, especially those in seed to series B rounds. When a promising startup in need of funding came to the firm but they are in the middle or later stage, the firm may have experienced to decline the startup’s request due to scope mismatch. In an interview with Bridge, Masahiko Honma, the firm’s founder and managing partner says, the new fund is to actively invest in the firm’s portfolio startups preparing for IPO and help them become unicorns.
Image credit: Incubate Fund
The fund’s ticket size is expected to be 500 million to 2.5 billion yen (about $4.6 million to 22.8 million), aiming to actively lead pre-IPO rounds. If it is possible for middle- and later-stage startups to secure billions of yen in their pre-IPO round, they will no longer have to rush into an IPO but will be able to gain sufficient profitability, recognition, an appropriate valuation before it. The Japanese market used to be ridiculed for having many small IPOs compared to the U.S. and other countries, but the recent emergence of growth funds and large funds in Japan may help resolve these issues.
The firm also disclosed some of the investees from the new fund: ispace (lunar development), BellFace (online sales SaaS), Wovn (website multilingualization solution), Timers (parenting app development), Caster (online secretary and assistant), and Satori (marketing automation tool developer). Since all these startups have won a certain level of recognition from the market, there’s no doubt if any of them has started countdown to an IPO.
Image credit: Incubate Fund
About 57% of the new fund is backed by financial institutions and university foundations from North America, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Honma says there may be two main reasons behind the fact. First, the firm proactively disclosed their track records, sharing their performance to date in terms of DPI (Distributions to Paid in Capital) with potential investors, which helped gain the latter’s great understanding.
Secondly, geopolitical trends have also had a significant impact on the market. Due to the offensive between the U.S. and Chinese governments, as well as the restrictions imposed by the Chinese government, China’s big tech market is becoming increasingly suspicious. Even though we don’t know much about the inner workings of the market, the world’s money, with its huge appetite for consumption and expectations of speculative growth, is losing its way here. The Japanese market has been attracting attention because of its moderate market size, stable politics and economy, and steady real returns.
Honma says,
I have wanted to launch such a fund for a long time. Asked about why we could do it at this time this year, I think it’s significantly triggered by the momentum.
Incubate Fund has a strong presence in Japan, but I had a strong impression that they are pouring money from Japanese investors into promising startups in Southeast Asia, as Homma is based out of Singapore and they have invested in KK Fund other funds in the region. With the launch of the new fund, a two-way money flow will be created where funds from overseas will be invested in Japanese startups, which will benefit their international business expansion in the future.
Since the beginning of this year, Japanese independent VC firms have launched a series of large funds worth over 10 billion yen (about $9.1 million): One Capital closed its first fund with 16 billion yen while University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC) launched its 30 billion yen fifth fund. Coral Capital launched its third fund worth 14 billion yen, revealing that a third of its investors are from overseas.
SmartNews announced on Wednesday that it has raised US$230 million in a Series F round. This brings the company’s total amount raised to date to over US$400 million, and its valuation up to US$2 billion, the highest for a single news app, securing its “double unicorn” status. This follows the close of their previous series E round announced 22 months ago. Participating investors in this round include Princeville Capital and Woodline Partners from the US, JIC Venture Growth Investments, Green Co-Invest Investment, and Yamauchi No.10 Family Office (by Nintendo founder’s family) from Japan in addition to existing investors like ACA Investments and SMBC Venture Capital. According to AppAnnie’s monthly average usage of mobile apps for iOS and Android in the U.S., SmartNews ranked first with 4.7 hours, followed by FlipBoard (4.5 hours) in the second as well as Google News (2.9 hours) and Apple News (0.8 hours). Futhermore, the number of monthly active users has doubled since 2019 (as of 2019, the total number of users in the US and Japan was 20 million). SmartNews plans to use the additional funding to double its headcount in the U.S. (currently 500 staffers globally) and add engineers and leaders, especially in Silicon…
SmartNews announced on Wednesday that it has raised US$230 million in a Series F round. This brings the company’s total amount raised to date to over US$400 million, and its valuation up to US$2 billion, the highest for a single news app, securing its “double unicorn” status. This follows the close of their previous series E round announced 22 months ago.
Participating investors in this round include Princeville Capital and Woodline Partners from the US, JIC Venture Growth Investments, Green Co-Invest Investment, and Yamauchi No.10 Family Office (by Nintendo founder’s family) from Japan in addition to existing investors like ACA Investments and SMBC Venture Capital.
According to AppAnnie’s monthly average usage of mobile apps for iOS and Android in the U.S., SmartNews ranked first with 4.7 hours, followed by FlipBoard (4.5 hours) in the second as well as Google News (2.9 hours) and Apple News (0.8 hours). Futhermore, the number of monthly active users has doubled since 2019 (as of 2019, the total number of users in the US and Japan was 20 million).
SmartNews plans to use the additional funding to double its headcount in the U.S. (currently 500 staffers globally) and add engineers and leaders, especially in Silicon Valley, New York, and San Francisco. The company will also expand its dashboard on the COVID-19 vaccine and its “News From All Sides” feature which gives users easy access to a wide range of political views.
Launched by Japanese serial entrepreneur Hiroshi Takatoh, Teatis offers meal replacement / superfood powders for diabetic consumers mainly in the US. The company announced on Friday that it has secured $700,000 in a seed round. Participating in the round are Genesia Ventures, Ryo Ishizuka (co-founder of Japanese C2C company Mercari), Takuya Noguchi (founder of Japanese men’s skincare D2C brand Bulk Homme), and seven unnamed angel investors. This round follows the company’s angel round announced in June and brings their total funding amount up to over $1 million. Noguchi participated in the previous round. Focusing on diabetes, one of the most common lifestyle-related diseases among people today, Teatis started offering meal replacements, which contain a lot of superfood ingredients such as seaweed polyphenols, in the US, where about 120 million people are said to have pre- and diabetes. When dissolved in water, it can be drunk as a smoothie or latte with a focus to help curb blood sugar spike, contains no chemicals nor sweeteners but seaweed extract which has been proven to inhibit the absorption of sugar from the intestinal tract and help maintain normal blood sugar levels. Prior to the official launch, Takatoh revealed Teatis already had about 4,000…
Image credit: Teatis
Launched by Japanese serial entrepreneur Hiroshi Takatoh, Teatis offers meal replacement / superfood powders for diabetic consumers mainly in the US. The company announced on Friday that it has secured $700,000 in a seed round. Participating in the round are Genesia Ventures, Ryo Ishizuka (co-founder of Japanese C2C company Mercari), Takuya Noguchi (founder of Japanese men’s skincare D2C brand Bulk Homme), and seven unnamed angel investors. This round follows the company’s angel round announced in June and brings their total funding amount up to over $1 million. Noguchi participated in the previous round.
Focusing on
diabetes, one of the most common lifestyle-related diseases among
people today, Teatis started offering meal replacements, which contain a
lot of superfood ingredients such as seaweed polyphenols, in the US,
where about 120 million people are said to have pre- and diabetes. When
dissolved in water, it can be drunk as a smoothie or latte with a focus
to help curb blood sugar spike, contains no chemicals nor sweeteners but
seaweed extract which has been proven to inhibit the absorption of
sugar from the intestinal tract and help maintain normal blood sugar
levels.
Prior to the official launch, Takatoh revealed Teatis already had about 4,000 pre-registered users in June. Asked these users a try, the company received a lot of feedback that they felt it helped control elevated blood sugar levels. In September, they plan to launch a platform called Teatis RD on Demand, aiming to give users nutrition advice by registered dietitians.
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
