Tokyo-based Abeja, the Japanese startup offering a variety of AI-based solutions to help companies transform their workflows into digital, announced on Tuesday that its initial listing application on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved.
The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on June 13 with plans to offer 700,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 187,500 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 550,000 shares. The underwriting will be led by Nomura Securities while Abeja’s ticker code will be 5574.
Founded in September of 2012, Abeja provides more than 200 clients with AI-based business solutions such as ABEJA Platform and ABEJA Insight for Retail. In April of 2021, the company formed a capital and business alliance with SOMPO Holdings (TSE: 8630, SOMPO HD) and became an affiliate of the insurance conglomerate.
According to its consolidated statement as of August of 2022, the company posted revenue of 1.978 billion yen ($14.6 million) with an ordinary loss of 181.757 million yen ($1.3 million). Their sales is mainly composed of two categories from a revenue stream perspective: Transformational (one-time-fee business model) and Operational (subscription business model). The transformational services account for 83.6% of their total sales.
Led by founder and CEO Yosuke Okada (17.76%), the company’s main shareholders include SOMPO Light Vortex (17.61%, digital business-focused subsidiary of Sompo HD), SBI (7.22% through two funds), Hulic (4.5%), Inspire Investment (4.47%), Executive Officer and CEO Office’s head Naoki Tonogi (3.69%), co-founder Keisuke Tomimatsu (3.68%), stock options trustee Kotaeru Trust (3.45%), and NTT Docomo (3.39%).
In Japan, COVID-19 has become downgraded to Category 5 so that it will be treated as a normal infectious disease by medical institutions and public organizations from today. Forbes Japan says more than half of Japanese companies said they would not return to their pre-COVID work style while FNN Primeline reports 40% will return to the previous state, which makes me feel interesting since media outlets expressed different perspectives based on the same survey to 11,428 companies conducted by Japanese research company Teikoku Databank. In the startup community, perhaps many of us would view this not going back to the previous state as a positive. Although I love the concept that developing new ideas based on study of the past, however, the changing times are irreversible. For startups being likely to change and evolve due to their “simple” organizational management, adapting quickly to change will give them an advantage. Startups must excel not only in changing themselves, but also in proposing new services to a changing society. It was around the end of 2019 when the damage from COVID-19 began to be reported suddenly. About six months after we first heard it, some of our readers may recall that San…
The Retreat team. Founder and CEO Shunsuke Yamada is on the far right. Image credit: Retreat
In Japan, COVID-19 has become downgraded to Category 5 so that it will be treated as a normal infectious disease by medical institutions and public organizations from today. Forbes Japan says more than half of Japanese companies said they would not return to their pre-COVID work style while FNN Primeline reports 40% will return to the previous state, which makes me feel interesting since media outlets expressed different perspectives based on the same survey to 11,428 companies conducted by Japanese research company Teikoku Databank.
In the startup community, perhaps many of us would view this not going back to the previous state as a positive. Although I love the concept that developing new ideas based on study of the past, however, the changing times are irreversible. For startups being likely to change and evolve due to their “simple” organizational management, adapting quickly to change will give them an advantage. Startups must excel not only in changing themselves, but also in proposing new services to a changing society.
It was around the end of 2019 when the damage from COVID-19 began to be reported suddenly. About six months after we first heard it, some of our readers may recall that San Francisco-based Japanese entrepreneur Shunsuke Yamada announced a service called Remotehour. People loves the tool’s experience which allows users to talk to others anytime through an always-on connection, as opposed to, say, Zoom and other work-from-home platforms where you need o set a pre-defined time to connect. Tokyo-based VC Miraise, one of Remotehour’s investors, arranged office hours for entrepreneurs to consult with using the platform. However, we can no longer reach the Remotehour website. Yes, it pivoted.
What kind of world is out there as the dawn from the pandemic breaks out? In industries where digitization is possible, people has adopted a hybrid form of work-from-home and work in office. Major companies and startups have shut down the space of their headquarters one after another, which in principle were designed to bring all employees to work together, and have shifted to purpose-specific spaces or decentralized offices utilizing co-working spaces. Meanwhile, offsite meetings are coming into the limelight. In Japan, Island and office, a startup founded in 2021, is a remarkable answer.
As you may have guessed by this point, Remotehour has pivoted to a service for offsite meetings. In January 2022, Yamada decided to shut down the previous service and turn the helm completely to Retreat (formerly Telesite). It has been already used by around 20 startups in their series B round stage, mainly in the U.S.
Getting People Ops onboard
Retreat held a meeting in San Diego last year, attended by People Ops representatives from 16 startups. Image credit: Retreat
When a startup with a few dozen employees decides to go offsite, it is up to the People Ops team to arrange it. It would be impractical for startups to hire additional personnel or assign someone exclusively for offsite arrangements. In addition, while individual business travelers can book accommodations and transportation quickly using online travel agencies (OTAs), this is not the case for offsite arrangements involving dozens of people.
Retreat has succeeded in digitalizing this part of the process, including some automation. Since meeting rooms and other facilities are required according to the number of people, the platform curates and proposes hotels with facilities suitable for such purposes. The company also provides detailed service by having staff members accompany the guests offsite, which has been well-received by People Ops representatives.
In a recent interview with Bridge, Yamada says,
Because of the large number of people, mistakes are sometimes made by the hotels. We experienced that one request came from an employee who had declared himself a vegetarian during the sign-up process, but who, during the offsite, had gave it up and asked to be reverted to a regular diet.
The representative was in a state of flux as requests from employees kept coming up. Sometimes they get angry when we are accompanying them, but when we accept their requests and solve their problems, they later thank us very much. This will lead to them asking for us again the next time.
Image credit: Retreat
The more global a startup is, the more distributed its work locations tend to be. It is not uncommon for them to only communicate with each other online and only meet in person during quarterly offsite meetings. Thus, the offsite experience is directly linked to the evaluation of their employee experience, which in turn is directly related to whether or not the startup is able to retain talented people, bring in new employees, and even whether or not it is able to grow.
Despite Retreat’s emphasis on digitalization, it may seem inefficient for the company’s members to accompany clients on offsite visits, but it is not all bad. First of all, the CEOs of these clients are usually present at their offsite meetings, which provides an opportunity for the company to meet and exchange words with the founders and executives of promising startups in the mid stage and beyond. And off course, this is a great opportunity to hear directly from participating employees, which may lead to service improvements or the creation of new businesses.
Retreat’s key to market its service is how they can get People Ops representatives involved. THe company has built the community of these representatives and organized offsite tours for them to participate. The company paid for most of the travel costs to bring in the representatives, but it seems to be paid off because they target a narrow demographic which are location-distributed startups in the mid or later stage.
a16z Scout Fund, Japanese angels participate in this round
Retreat has secured pre-seed round funding from renowned US angel investor Jason Calacanis and Miraise in June of 2020 (undisclosed sum in seed round). The company announced today that it has raised additional funding from Andreeseen Horowitz’s (a16z) Scout Fund as well as Japanese angel investors including Hiro Mizushima and Yuki Ota, which brought the company’s funding sum up to date to US$1.55 million.
Other investors in the latest round include Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital, Egg Forward, CyberAgent Capital, 90s, and UB Ventures in addition to Miraise as a follow-on investor. Retreat is competing in this space with Cvent (NASDAQ: CVT, acquired by Blackstone for US$4.6 billion and expected to go private) and Navan (formerly TripActions, valued at US$9 billion in market cap and has acquired a number of peers in recent years). The company wants to differentiate itself by leveraging its engineering capabilities and further increasing automation.
The man is back. Tokyo-based Finnish entrepreneur and startup ecosystem builder Antti Sonninen, formerly known as the Japanese country manager for Angry Birds developer Rovio Entertainment, handed over his CEO position at Slush Tokyo (formerly Slush Asia) to the younger generation in 2018 (Incidentally, Rovio just agreed to be acquired by Sega Sammy Holdings of Japan). Since then he has been involved in supporting companies and running an international hackathon event called Builders Weekend. Takeoff Tokyo, a two-day pitch event for entrepreneurs aiming for the global market, was just announced to take place in Tennozu, Tokyo, on June 8-9. In addition to Sonninen, the new event will be organized by several like-minded individuals, including Haruka Furukawa, who took over the CEO role of Slush Tokyo from Sonninen (Slush Tokyo was rebranded into BARK but later cancelled during the pandemic). Sonninen first came to Japan in 2007 as an exchange student at the University of Tokyo. In an interview with Bridge, he compared the Japanese startup landscape of about 10 years ago to that of today, saying, it has now become easier to realize the vision he used to want to achieve. In many countries, startups usually expand into beyond their…
Antti Sonninen speaks at the Takeoff Tokyo launch party in Shibuya, Tokyo, on Tuesday. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
The man is back. Tokyo-based Finnish entrepreneur and startup ecosystem builder Antti Sonninen, formerly known as the Japanese country manager for Angry Birds developer Rovio Entertainment, handed over his CEO position at Slush Tokyo (formerly Slush Asia) to the younger generation in 2018 (Incidentally, Rovio just agreed to be acquired by Sega Sammy Holdings of Japan). Since then he has been involved in supporting companies and running an international hackathon event called Builders Weekend.
Takeoff Tokyo, a two-day pitch event for entrepreneurs aiming for the global market, was just announced to take place in Tennozu, Tokyo, on June 8-9. In addition to Sonninen, the new event will be organized by several like-minded individuals, including Haruka Furukawa, who took over the CEO role of Slush Tokyo from Sonninen (Slush Tokyo was rebranded into BARK but later cancelled during the pandemic).
Sonninen first came to Japan in 2007 as an exchange student at the University of Tokyo. In an interview with Bridge, he compared the Japanese startup landscape of about 10 years ago to that of today, saying, it has now become easier to realize the vision he used to want to achieve.
Antti Sonninen speaks at the Takeoff Tokyo launch party in Shibuya, Tokyo, on Tuesday. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
In many countries, startups usually expand into beyond their home turf early on in their history, which is just an extension of their everyday business efforts. Of course, the typical mindset of local entrepreneurs differs between countries that heavily depend on foreign demand and those with large domestic demand, but even so, it seems to Sonninen that Japanese startups have less ventured outside the country, which in his eyes is a rare occurrence. However, the situation has been changed, especially in the Web3 startup scene, and there has been a noticeable movement of entrepreneurs and investors from all over the world coming to Japan, as seen at ETHGlobal Tokyo a couple of weeks ago.
Sonninen says,
During my days at Rovio, I recall how much I was impressed when I saw with my own eyes how one of the world’s best projects was born from the small Nordic country.
He continued.
Now it is much easier to take on the challenge of creating the world’s best business or project from Japan. In 1990s when Japan saw high economic growth, some people may have thought that the Japanese way on business works fine. They typically used to take an interpreter and visit destinations worldwide on business. But more people now think that this way doesn’t work anymore. Now we have a better environment in Japan, which encourages new challenges to take on.
There are many startup conferences in Japan and the rest of the world, but Takeoff Tokyo is particularly interested in helping and encouraging startups trying to go global, not only from Japan. However, the issue at hand for them is to help Japanese startups trying to expand globally. The team will focus on fostering a community which can also discuss issues such as securing the human resources and improving the skills required for the startups looking at global expansion. The June event will be apparently a kick-off to such community activities.
A huge crowd gathered at the Takeoff Tokyo launch party in Shibuya, Tokyo on Tuesday. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Our country has imported a variety of knowledge from overseas, and even Slush Asia and Slush Tokyo were localized from Slush in Finland. But Sonninen’s decision to launch his own brand, Takeoff, was based on the idea that he wanted to bring his original to the world instead of importing. The event is eventually expected to be managed on a community-driven basis where each participant can act as one of the organizers.
Slush Asia and Slush Tokyo have produced many entrepreneurs and budding entrepreneurs from the conference’s organizers and volunteers. In fact, we have often covered startups founded by their alumni, and they proudly say, “I am from Slush Asia (or Slush Tokyo)” when introducing themselves, which is less often experienced in other startup conferences, either domestic or international. We look forward to seeing the June event to understand what kind of community Takeoff Tokyo will foster from now on.
Taizo Son, founder of Mistletoe, a collective impact community comprised of startups and innovators, and Atsushi Taira, co-founder and chairman, have established a new company called The Edgeof. The new company has agreed with SoftBank Group to acquire SoftBank Ventures Asia, the group’s wholly owned subsidiary. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. (The new company has incidentally the same name with the game-changing studio Son joined the launch of, which shut down during the pandemic.) SoftBank Ventures Asia was established in Seoul in 2000 under its previous name of SoftBank Ventures Korea. Originally investing in South Korean startups, the firm rebranded its name in 2019 as it has increased its investments beyond the country into the Southeast Asian and Chinese markets. The fund’s current AUM (Assets Under Management) has reached around $2 billion, with offices in Seoul, Beijing, Singapore, and San Francisco, and focuses on ICT investments, including AI, IoT, and smart robotics. SoftBank Ventures Asia’s notable investments to date include Indonesian e-commerce unicorn Tokopedia (which later merged with Gojek and went public in Indonesia), sneaker and other fashion item marketplace Kream, POS startup Moka, used car portal Carro, P2P lender Funding Societies, C2C…
Taizo Son spoke at the Ventures Forum 2017 by SoftBank Ventures Korea (formerly) in Seoul. Image credit: SoftBank Ventures Asia
Taizo Son, founder of Mistletoe, a collective impact community comprised of startups and innovators, and Atsushi Taira, co-founder and chairman, have established a new company called The Edgeof. The new company has agreed with SoftBank Group to acquire SoftBank Ventures Asia, the group’s wholly owned subsidiary. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. (The new company has incidentally the same name with the game-changing studio Son joined the launch of, which shut down during the pandemic.)
SoftBank Ventures Asia was established in Seoul in 2000 under its previous name of SoftBank Ventures Korea. Originally investing in South Korean startups, the firm rebranded its name in 2019 as it has increased its investments beyond the country into the Southeast Asian and Chinese markets. The fund’s current AUM (Assets Under Management) has reached around $2 billion, with offices in Seoul, Beijing, Singapore, and San Francisco, and focuses on ICT investments, including AI, IoT, and smart robotics.
SoftBank Ventures Asia’s notable investments to date include Indonesian e-commerce unicorn Tokopedia (which later merged with Gojek and went public in Indonesia), sneaker and other fashion item marketplace Kream, POS startup Moka, used car portal Carro, P2P lender Funding Societies, C2C marketplace Sendo, co-working space operator EV Hive, as well as AI leaning app developer Mathpresso.
Meanwhile, Mistletoe has so far invested in about 170 companies from 15 countries. Since its foundation back in February of 2016, its notable investments include online gaming giant and unicorn Garena, blockchain-based startup-focused stock exchange Funderstream, Singapore-based data-driven venture investment platform Hatcher+, among others. We haven’t confirmed whether or not any change will be made to the respective funds managed by SoftBank Ventures Asia and Mistletoe.
SmartRyde, the Japanese startup behind a global airport transfer marketplace under the same name, announced that it has secured approximately 450 million yen (about $3.4 million) in a Series A+ round. This round was led by NVenture Capital (a subsidiary of NEC Capital Solutions), with participation from SMBC Venture Capital, Yamaguchi Capital, Hiroshima Venture Capital, Shigagin Local Innovation SD Fund (managed by Shiga Bank and Quantum Leaps Capital Partners) and Iyogin Capital. The amount includes loans from Japan’s state-run loan company Japan Finance Corporation. This follows a seed round in December of 2019 and a Series A round in October of 2021. Among the investors participating in this round, SMBC Venture Capital, Yamaguchi Capital, Hiroshima Venture Capital, and Iyogin Capital followed their previous investments. The latest round brought the startup’s funding sum to date up to at least 630 million yen ($4.7 million). Originally known as DLGP, SmartRyde was founded in March 2017 by founder Sota Kimura, a student at Ritsumeikan University, after he was ripped off by a cab driver on his way from the airport to the city in Thailand. The company has worked with airport transfer cab companies at over 700 airports in 150 countries, as well…
SmartRyde, the Japanese startup behind a global airport transfer marketplace under the same name, announced that it has secured approximately 450 million yen (about $3.4 million) in a Series A+ round. This round was led by NVenture Capital (a subsidiary of NEC Capital Solutions), with participation from SMBC Venture Capital, Yamaguchi Capital, Hiroshima Venture Capital, Shigagin Local Innovation SD Fund (managed by Shiga Bank and Quantum Leaps Capital Partners) and Iyogin Capital. The amount includes loans from Japan’s state-run loan company Japan Finance Corporation.
This follows a seed round in December of 2019 and a Series A round in October of 2021. Among the investors participating in this round, SMBC Venture Capital, Yamaguchi Capital, Hiroshima Venture Capital, and Iyogin Capital followed their previous investments. The latest round brought the startup’s funding sum to date up to at least 630 million yen ($4.7 million).
Originally known as DLGP, SmartRyde was founded in March 2017 by founder Sota Kimura, a student at Ritsumeikan University, after he was ripped off by a cab driver on his way from the airport to the city in Thailand. The company has worked with airport transfer cab companies at over 700 airports in 150 countries, as well as with more than 25 OTAs (online travel agencies) such as Booking.com, Expedia, Trip.com, Traveloka, and Despega. The company offers airport transfer cab sales service to users purchasing airline tickets through OTAs.
SmartRyde
The service is beneficial to both OTAs and travelers. For travelers, it frees them from the hassle of finding transportation to downtown at the airport. You may know Uber, Grab, and other ridehailing services are not allowed to operate to protect the employment of local cab drivers in selected countries. Furthermore, it may be very helpful to have a driver with your name waiting for you in the arrival lobby, and to have a means of transportation in advance in an environment where you may be less familiar with the language in the destination.
Meanwhile, OTAs are a very thin margin business. They are trying to diversify their product lines to car rentals and various activities in addition to airline tickets and accommodations, but price competition among them intensifies as users try to choose the cheapest option by comparing results from multiple OTAs. Furthermore, OTAs can’t sign contract with every single airport cab operator in the world, but having a bundler like SmartRyde simplifies the coordination process and creates an additional revenue stream.
In conjunction with the funding announcement, SmartRyde also announced the launch of its Demand Partner API, which allows OTAs and airlines to gain additional revenue by selling airport transfer services to customers along with hotel and flight sales.
Since its previous round, SmartRyde has increased its pipeline by integrating its system with Nippon Travel Agency, collaborating with the Splyt mobility service interconnection provider, working with WAmazing offering digital services for inbound travelers to Japan, as well as working with the national flag carrier’s subsidiary and travel agency JALPAK. In August, the company welcomed Alvin Leonard, a former technical manager at Tripadvisor and engineering manager at Alassian, as CTO.
Orange Fab Asia, a startup accelerator run by French telecom giant Orange in the region, came to an end in October after nine years of activity. We had been wondering what was going on with Hiroshi Nishikawa (西川浩司), who has been supervising the program, and others involved, but as for Nishikawa, we learned that he had joined MoBagel (行動貝果), the Taiwanese founder-led startup offering an AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) platform. MoBagel was founded in March of 2015 and is currently headquartered in Santa Clara, US. The company has secured about $20 million in total to date, mainly backed by Taiwanese VC firms and others. Some of our readers may recall that they delivered a pitch at Slush Asia, Rising Expo as well as having been selected by AppWorks and SparkLabs Taipei for their respective acceleration programs. We learned that MoBagel has established a Japanese subsidiary called Solve AI while Nishikawa has been appointed as its CEO to launch a cross-border open innovation program called the Solve AI Challenge. The program aims to connect enterprises (partners) seeking ideas and startups that want to propose ideas on topics such as AI and data collection and analysis. According to Nishikawa,…
Image credit: MoBagel
Orange Fab Asia, a startup accelerator run by French telecom giant Orange in the region, came to an end in October after nine years of activity. We had been wondering what was going on with Hiroshi Nishikawa (西川浩司), who has been supervising the program, and others involved, but as for Nishikawa, we learned that he had joined MoBagel (行動貝果), the Taiwanese founder-led startup offering an AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) platform.
MoBagel was founded in March of 2015 and is currently headquartered in Santa Clara, US. The company has secured about $20 million in total to date, mainly backed by Taiwanese VC firms and others. Some of our readers may recall that they delivered a pitch at Slush Asia, Rising Expo as well as having been selected by AppWorks and SparkLabs Taipei for their respective acceleration programs.
We learned that MoBagel has established a Japanese subsidiary called Solve AI while Nishikawa has been appointed as its CEO to launch a cross-border open innovation program called the Solve AI Challenge. The program aims to connect enterprises (partners) seeking ideas and startups that want to propose ideas on topics such as AI and data collection and analysis. According to Nishikawa, the name of the program was inspired by the Startup Challenges program at VivaTech, an annual startup conference in Paris to which Orange Fab Asia’s selected teams were often invited.
It has not yet been known what companies will participate as partners, but we have been told that one major Japanese tech company has been confirmed to join so far. In the program, every partner will individually set their Challenge topic while startups are requested to propose methods and ideas for solving it. Partners will offer some benefits (financial rewards, invitations to startup events, business collaboration opportunities, etc.) to the startups with the most highly evaluated proposals.
Image credit: MoBagel
According to Nishikawa, when Orange Fab Asia was about to end, Adms Chung (鍾哲民), CEO of MoBagel, also one of the alumni from the program, heard about it and proposed Nishikawa to launch an open innovation program in MoBagel. The new company, Solve AI, will focus on building a startup ecosystem around AI and data, with the intention of finding potential users for MoBagel in the future.
The Solve AI Challenge will make full use of the vast network that Nishikawa has cultivated at Orange Fab Asia. Danny Han and Clare Fan, former directors of Orange Fab Asia in Seoul and Taipei respectively, will participate as advisors for the new program. Taking advantage of their global presence with offices in Santa Clara, Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Singapore, MoBagel will fully assist operating the Solve AI Challenge with considering offering MoBagel products free of charge to startups participating in the program.
In the program, each partner will evaluate and select startups to work with on their respective conditions. After several months of PoC (proof-of-concept), the Demo Day is expected to take place to showcase their results. The approach of inviting startups from different partners in the same industry to collaborate on a specific topic is similar to what Plug and Play and others have been running. Solve AI is currently inviting partners for the program while details will be announced in the future.
The Bridge
Masaru Ikeda
