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Tokyo Government launches center of exchange between entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders

Tokyo Metropolitan Government

Masaru Ikeda 2023.11.27

On Monday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government held a kick-off event to celebrate the opening of Tokyo Innovation Base or TiB for short, a center of exchange between entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in the startup landscape. Based on its startup strategy titled Global Innovation with Startups, the government uses the venue for activities in aim to help increase 10 folds in the number of unicorns, that of founding new businesses, and that of collaborative projects between the government and startups. It will serve as a base for activities to realize all these goals. The venue will host a variety of activities based on four keywords: Global, Growth, Collaboration, and Connect. In Global, the government will collaborate with Plug and Play, Startup Island Taiwan and other foreign initatives while in Growth, it will collaborate with the UTokyo Innovation Platform (UTokyo IPC) which has vast network with universities across the country through its 1st Round program. In Collaboration, the government works with Sony Innovation Fund and other corporate venture capital units to support open innovation while in Connect, it teams up with startup support organizations to hold one to three events a week at the venue. Most recently, Startup Genome and Dealroom are…

On Monday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government held a kick-off event to celebrate the opening of Tokyo Innovation Base or TiB for short, a center of exchange between entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in the startup landscape.

Based on its startup strategy titled Global Innovation with Startups, the government uses the venue for activities in aim to help increase 10 folds in the number of unicorns, that of founding new businesses, and that of collaborative projects between the government and startups. It will serve as a base for activities to realize all these goals.

The venue will host a variety of activities based on four keywords: Global, Growth, Collaboration, and Connect. In Global, the government will collaborate with Plug and Play, Startup Island Taiwan and other foreign initatives while in Growth, it will collaborate with the UTokyo Innovation Platform (UTokyo IPC) which has vast network with universities across the country through its 1st Round program.

In Collaboration, the government works with Sony Innovation Fund and other corporate venture capital units to support open innovation while in Connect, it teams up with startup support organizations to hold one to three events a week at the venue. Most recently, Startup Genome and Dealroom are scheduled to hold an event this coming Thursday.

The government has conducted various initiatives to encourage entrepreneurship including a startup cafe for potential entrepreneurs near Tokyo Station, the Tokyo Startup Gateway program, and the Aoyama Startup Acceleration Center (ASAC), APT for Women, the initiative to especially encourage female entrepreneurs as well as the global conference.

Compared to these past initiatives encouraging entrepreneurs in their early phase, the new venue seems to be intended to further support those who have already started their own businesses and to further promote startup activities. Other examples of venues for entrepreneurs run by local governments include Fukuoka City’s Fukuoka Growth Next (FGN) and Aichi Prefecture’s STATION Ai (scheduled to open next year).

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Tokyo Otaku Mode acquired by Japanese major publisher Shogakukan

tokyo otaku mode

The Bridge 2023.11.22

Tokyo Otaku Mode announced on Tuesday that it has been acquired by Japanese major publishing company Shogakukan. The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed. We haven’t confirmed that the company secured funding from VC firms and other sources after January of 2018. To date, the total amount of funds secured through the Series A and Series B rounds apparently surpasses 1.8 billion yen. Buffett Code estimated the company’s was valued at 3 billion yen as of August of 2022. The company was founded in March of 2011 by Naomitsu Kodaka, a former Merrill Lynch employee and former CFO of Gaiax, and then established a U.S. subsidiary in April of 2012 with global expansion in mind. Serving its global audience with updates on Japanese anime and manga in English, it has earned over 20 million followers on its Facebook fan page. After the acquisition, CEO Odaka and Vice Hajime Ataka will continue playing their role respectively. Shogakukan’s President Nobuhiro Oga and other directors join the board of Tokyo Otaku Mode as Chairman and directors respectively. Tokyo Otaku Mode kicked off its business with a media outlet offering Japanese anime and manga updates to the world, and now offers…

Tokyo Otaku Mode announced on Tuesday that it has been acquired by Japanese major publishing company Shogakukan. The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed. We haven’t confirmed that the company secured funding from VC firms and other sources after January of 2018. To date, the total amount of funds secured through the Series A and Series B rounds apparently surpasses 1.8 billion yen. Buffett Code estimated the company’s was valued at 3 billion yen as of August of 2022.

The company was founded in March of 2011 by Naomitsu Kodaka, a former Merrill Lynch employee and former CFO of Gaiax, and then established a U.S. subsidiary in April of 2012 with global expansion in mind. Serving its global audience with updates on Japanese anime and manga in English, it has earned over 20 million followers on its Facebook fan page. After the acquisition, CEO Odaka and Vice Hajime Ataka will continue playing their role respectively. Shogakukan’s President Nobuhiro Oga and other directors join the board of Tokyo Otaku Mode as Chairman and directors respectively.

Tokyo Otaku Mode kicked off its business with a media outlet offering Japanese anime and manga updates to the world, and now offers character goods, e-commerce, and a logistics outsourcing service that can deliver products from e-commerce and crowdfunding sites to all over the world. In September of 2014, the company became the first investee from Japan’s state-backed Cool Japan Fund. Through the acquisition, Shogakukan is expected to strengthen the overseas expansion of its intellectual property businesses.

See also:

via Shogakukan

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LA startup Cashi Cake secures $3.7M to promote seaweed-based functional sweets, beverages

The Bridge 2023.11.21

Los Angeles-based Cashi Cake, the Japanese startup behind the Misaky Tokyo seaweed confectionery brand and the OoMee seaweed beverage brand, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $3.7 million US in the 1st close of its Series A round. Participating investors include Mitsubishi Foods (TSE: 7451), Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and undisclosed venture capital firm(s) as well as angel investors including Masaki Yamamoto (CEO, Chatwork), Shinichi Takama, Kazutaka Mori (international attorney, One Aisa Lawyers), Yu Kaneko (qualified institutional investor), and Hiroyuki Miyake (CEO, Synergy Plus). For the company, this follows their two angel rounds (securing approximately 60 million yen in total) and the 1st close of its seed round back in 2022 (since the seed round’s 2nd close has not been announced, so in effect this appears to be the final close of the seed round). The latest round brought the startup funding sum up to date to $5.6 million US. Our readers may recall the company secured a seed round from Chiba Dojo Fund, Coconala Skill Partners (CSP), and Headline Asia as well as two angel investors: Hiromi Okuda, and Shin Murakami. The company revealed at this time that Japanese microalgae developer Euglena (TSE: 2931) also…

Misaky.Tokyo and OoMee
Image credit: Cashi Cake

Los Angeles-based Cashi Cake, the Japanese startup behind the Misaky Tokyo seaweed confectionery brand and the OoMee seaweed beverage brand, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $3.7 million US in the 1st close of its Series A round. Participating investors include Mitsubishi Foods (TSE: 7451), Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and undisclosed venture capital firm(s) as well as angel investors including Masaki Yamamoto (CEO, Chatwork), Shinichi Takama, Kazutaka Mori (international attorney, One Aisa Lawyers), Yu Kaneko (qualified institutional investor), and Hiroyuki Miyake (CEO, Synergy Plus).

For the company, this follows their two angel rounds (securing approximately 60 million yen in total) and the 1st close of its seed round back in 2022 (since the seed round’s 2nd close has not been announced, so in effect this appears to be the final close of the seed round). The latest round brought the startup funding sum up to date to $5.6 million US. Our readers may recall the company secured a seed round from Chiba Dojo Fund, Coconala Skill Partners (CSP), and Headline Asia as well as two angel investors: Hiromi Okuda, and Shin Murakami. The company revealed at this time that Japanese microalgae developer Euglena (TSE: 2931) also participated in the previous seed round.

Founded in Los Angeles in September of 2019 by Alissa Miky, Cashi Cake uses technology to process seaweed agar to develop its high-end Japanese confectionery products. In addition to serving their products to the Academy Awards and Emmy Awards eve, the company collaborated with Kim Kardashian’s fragrance brand KKW and was featured in the Bon Appétit food magazine. The company has earned over 1.4 million followers on its Tiktok brand account (Misaky.Tokyo). They will use the funds to hire talents and administrative expenses for brand expansion, as well as product and patent development for selling functional seaweed powder to businesses.

In conjunction with the funding, the company also announced that it will apply for a joint patent with the Tottori Institute of Industrial Technology. The company will apply the institute’s technology for wrapping soy sauce in a membrane created from seaweed to wrapping highly concentrated alcohol, thereby providing a plastic substitute that can be used with any material. Until now, it has been difficult to encapsulate highly concentrated alcohol with the dietary fiber contained in seaweed, but the new technology will make it possible to encapsulate high-alcohol (tequila, gin, whiskey, sake, etc.) and low pH liquids (orange juice, etc.) in any shape or size. It is expected to realize a new texture with a film that pops when chewed in the mouth, and to develop edible containers.

via PR TImes

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Fukuoka City helps shorten visa screening process for foreign IT engineers

fukuoka

Masaru Ikeda 2023.11.14

On Monday, Fukuoka City began operating the Engineer Visa program utilizing the National Strategic Special Zone. In 2019, the city requested the central government to approve a system to shorten and clarify the examination period for foreign IT engineers’ status of residence. Whereas the normal examination period for residency status for foreign nationals takes about one to three months, the special legislation can make it shorter to about one month with the city taking part of the examination process. This will lower the hurdle for Japanese startups based in the city to hire foreign engineers and for foreign startups to establish their base there. The first company to take advantage of the system is expected to be the Japanese subsidiary of VMO Holdings, an offshore development company in Vietnam. Fukuoka City has long been active in attracting overseas startups and encouraging local startups to expand overseas: in 2016, the city began collaborating with the French city of Bordeaux to support drone startups, and in 2017, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Taiwan’s Taipei city to support Fukuoka startups expand overseas and vice versa. In 2017, Fukuoka City established the Fukuoka Global Startup Center to strengthen mutual startup support between…

On Monday, Fukuoka City began operating the Engineer Visa program utilizing the National Strategic Special Zone. In 2019, the city requested the central government to approve a system to shorten and clarify the examination period for foreign IT engineers’ status of residence. Whereas the normal examination period for residency status for foreign nationals takes about one to three months, the special legislation can make it shorter to about one month with the city taking part of the examination process.

This will lower the hurdle for Japanese startups based in the city to hire foreign engineers and for foreign startups to establish their base there. The first company to take advantage of the system is expected to be the Japanese subsidiary of VMO Holdings, an offshore development company in Vietnam.

Fukuoka City has long been active in attracting overseas startups and encouraging local startups to expand overseas: in 2016, the city began collaborating with the French city of Bordeaux to support drone startups, and in 2017, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Taiwan’s Taipei city to support Fukuoka startups expand overseas and vice versa. In 2017, Fukuoka City established the Fukuoka Global Startup Center to strengthen mutual startup support between the city and other countries.

In 2012, the city declared “Startup City” and then established a startup support facility called FUKUOKA Growth Next on the site of the former Daimyo Elementary School. This year, the Fukuoka Daimyo Garden City building was completed adjacent to the facility, and Fukuoka Financial Group (TSE: 8354) opened its open innovation center called GROWTH I in the terrace annex of the building.

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Japanese Government opens entrepreneurs’ base in SF Bay Area

METI

Masaru Ikeda 2023.11.14

The Japanese Government is establishing a center for entrepreneurs in Palo Alto called Japan Innovation Campus. Its arm METI, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, held a reception party to celebrate the launch of it on Sunday, inviting Yasutoshi Nishimura, the Japanese Economic Minister. Other guests included Palo Alto Mayor Lydia Kou, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and the head of Geodesic Capital John Ruus as well as local Japanese investors and entrepreneurs. The venue is conveniently located just three blocks from University Avenue, a major thoroughfare in the city, and close to Stanford University, which is known for producing many startups. It is managed by Mori Building and Accenture under contract from METI. About five companies will be selected as office members that can use private offices, and 50 companies will be selected as co-working members that can use shared space (up to three people per company) while applications have been already closed. The venue was established as part of the Japanese government’s “Five-Year Startup Development Plan,” and has been designated as one of the venues for J-StarX, a program promoted by the Ministry to send Japanese entrepreneurs to startup hubs in the overseas. By linking Japanese entrepreneurs,…

Japan Innovation Campus
Image credit: METI

The Japanese Government is establishing a center for entrepreneurs in Palo Alto called Japan Innovation Campus. Its arm METI, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, held a reception party to celebrate the launch of it on Sunday, inviting Yasutoshi Nishimura, the Japanese Economic Minister. Other guests included Palo Alto Mayor Lydia Kou, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and the head of Geodesic Capital John Ruus as well as local Japanese investors and entrepreneurs.

The venue is conveniently located just three blocks from University Avenue, a major thoroughfare in the city, and close to Stanford University, which is known for producing many startups. It is managed by Mori Building and Accenture under contract from METI. About five companies will be selected as office members that can use private offices, and 50 companies will be selected as co-working members that can use shared space (up to three people per company) while applications have been already closed.

The venue was established as part of the Japanese government’s “Five-Year Startup Development Plan,” and has been designated as one of the venues for J-StarX, a program promoted by the Ministry to send Japanese entrepreneurs to startup hubs in the overseas.

By linking Japanese entrepreneurs, students, and others with local accelerators, VCs, universities, JETRO and other government agencies, the program aims to support the global expansion of Japanese startups and the development of the ecosystem. Through organizing events, it also aims to encourage open innovation between the two sides of the Pacific.

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