news

Japan’s Degas secures $6.7M to serve more to unbanked small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa

Degas

The Bridge 2023.12.20

Tokyo-based Degas, the Japanese startup aiming to help improving the livelihoods of small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, announced last week that it has secured 970 million yen (about $6.7 million). Participating investors in the latest unspecified round are Animal Spirits, Global Catalyst Partners Japan, Hakuhodo DY Ventures, Nanto CVC (run by Nanto Bank and Nanto Capital Partners), and Primal Capital.

The company has so far secured 240 million yen in the 1st close of the seed round revealed in November of 2020 (Primal Capital, Akatsuki’s Heart Driven Fund, and others participated) and subsequently 1 billion yen (round unknown; Deepcore, Monex Ventures, Inclusion Japan, and Ikemori Venture Support participated) in January of 2023.

Since its launch back in 2018 by Doga Makiura, who was featured by TED as “one of the 12 young people around the world in 2014, the company has been offering financial services to more than 46,000 small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Through its mobile app and local operations, the company has been serving to small farmers not covered by traditional financial institutions leveraging data collection and AI-based credit decisions.

Degas will use the funds to expand its existing farmer finance business and launch two new businesses. The company will hire experts in carbon credits and data analysis to issue high-quality carbon credits to launch the decarbonization business while aiming to form a marketplace for academic loans, farm machinery leasing, and mobile phone contracts.

via PR Times

news

Gen AI startup EmbodyMe unveils new app, creates avatars responding to your motion in real time

Masaru Ikeda 2023.12.20

Tokyo-based EmbodyMe launched a new app called Xpression Avatar, which allows users to move their own avatars in real-time, available for iOS and Android. The app uses the company’s proprietary real-time video generative AI technology to instantly generate your avatar in different styles which responds to your facial expressions and head movements fin real time. Since its launch back in 2016, EmbodyMe has developed several apps in the generative video field, including the EmbodyMe VR app, the Xpression Camera face swap app, as well as the Xpression Chat VR- / ChatGPT-based app. In the new app, the AI technology allows you to generate your avatar in various styles from your photos. The avatar styles available include anime, ukiyoe, humanoid, 1990s, and hip-hop. The user can not only move the avatar in accordance with his/her own movements, but also make the avatar speak his/her favorite lines, and tap a button to make the avatar laugh or sing. The generated images can also be shared on social network services while the mobile screen with the avatar can be shared. The new app is the culmination of EmbodyMe in two ways. One is that, in addition to the preset styles mentioned above, you…

Since its launch back in 2016, EmbodyMe has developed several apps in the generative video field, including the EmbodyMe VR app, the Xpression Camera face swap app, as well as the Xpression Chat VR- / ChatGPT-based app. In the new app, the AI technology allows you to generate your avatar in various styles from your photos.

The avatar styles available include anime, ukiyoe, humanoid, 1990s, and hip-hop. The user can not only move the avatar in accordance with his/her own movements, but also make the avatar speak his/her favorite lines, and tap a button to make the avatar laugh or sing. The generated images can also be shared on social network services while the mobile screen with the avatar can be shared.

Image credit: EmbodyMe

The new app is the culmination of EmbodyMe in two ways. One is that, in addition to the preset styles mentioned above, you can freely specify your favorite style with text prompts; according to EmbodyMe CEO Issay Yoshida, your prompt is interpreted based on the customized version of the Stable Difussion LLM (Large Language Model).

The second is their proprietary AI technology that can generate video in real time. Moreover, video processing is not performed in the cloud but on the mobile, which makes the company stand out with its unrivaled technology. The company does not need to increase its computational resources as its user base grows because the experience does not rely on the cloud.

EmbodyMe is developing the app for consumers while offering business solutions using the same technology for video production, advertising, live streaming, games, and other applications.

In the generative video AI space, Meta and Stable AI have recently announced their own solutions respectively while Runway has partnered with Getty Images to develop generative AI video models for the film and advertising industries. Pika Labs has reached a $200 million valuation in just six months after its launch.

news

Japan’s Thirdverse raises $8.1M to focus on developing VR and blockchain game titles

Thirdverse

The Bridge 2023.12.01

Tokyo-based game developer Thirdverse announced on Thursday that it has secured approximately 1.2 billion yen (about $8.1 million US) in its latest round. B Dash Ventures, Shinsei Corporate Investment, Now, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Thirdverse CEO Hironao Kunimitsu participated in this round. For the company, this follows a 2 billion yen ($13.5 million) funding back in November of 2022, and brought their funding sum to date to 5.7 billion yen ($38.5 million). Thirverse uses the funds to more focus on developing and global marketing of its latest VR titles X8 and Soul Covenant. X8 has achieved 180,000 downloads since its official launch on the Meta Quest and Steam stores, and has hosted three VR e-sports events; Its PlayStation VR2 and PICO versions will be announced soon. Recently announced at the Tokyo Game Show 2023, Soul Covenant is also scheduled to release in early 2024. The company plans to continue developing new VR game projects and hiring development teams. Via PR Times

Tokyo-based game developer Thirdverse announced on Thursday that it has secured approximately 1.2 billion yen (about $8.1 million US) in its latest round.

B Dash Ventures, Shinsei Corporate Investment, Now, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Thirdverse CEO Hironao Kunimitsu participated in this round.

For the company, this follows a 2 billion yen ($13.5 million) funding back in November of 2022, and brought their funding sum to date to 5.7 billion yen ($38.5 million).

Thirverse uses the funds to more focus on developing and global marketing of its latest VR titles X8 and Soul Covenant.

X8 has achieved 180,000 downloads since its official launch on the Meta Quest and Steam stores, and has hosted three VR e-sports events; Its PlayStation VR2 and PICO versions will be announced soon.

Recently announced at the Tokyo Game Show 2023, Soul Covenant is also scheduled to release in early 2024. The company plans to continue developing new VR game projects and hiring development teams.

Via PR Times

news

Japanese serial entrepreneurs secure $13M to launch Izumo VTuber project

The Bridge 2023.11.29

Singapore-based AnotherBall announced that it has secured 1.9 billion yen (about $13 million US) in a seed round to promote its VTuber project targeting the English-speaking market called Izumo. The latest round was led by ANRI with participation from Hashed, Global Brain, Globis Capital Partners (GCP), Sfermion, HashKey Capital, Everyrealm, Ethereal Ventures, Emoote, Crunchyroll founder Kun Gao, and other angel investors. This follows an angel round in May of 2023 and brought their funding sum up to 2.2 billion yen (about $15 million US). The company was founded in May of 2022 by CEO Shunsuke Oyu and CTO Tatsuro Shimada, both of whom are known for having founded businesses like VTuber agency Prism Project as well as mom-focused Q&A app Mamari (acquired by KDDI’s Syn. Holdings back in 2016). Izumo is said to aim to create a sustainable platform that enables everyone to live their lives in their own way. The platform has been working on initiatives that incorporate cutting-edge technologies and is using these experiences to allow individual creators to gain fans and monetize their work. It is scheduled to be launched in 2024. Oyu proposes a future in which people are becoming avatars, which in turn expands human…

Singapore-based AnotherBall announced that it has secured 1.9 billion yen (about $13 million US) in a seed round to promote its VTuber project targeting the English-speaking market called Izumo.

The latest round was led by ANRI with participation from Hashed, Global Brain, Globis Capital Partners (GCP), Sfermion, HashKey Capital, Everyrealm, Ethereal Ventures, Emoote, Crunchyroll founder Kun Gao, and other angel investors. This follows an angel round in May of 2023 and brought their funding sum up to 2.2 billion yen (about $15 million US).

The company was founded in May of 2022 by CEO Shunsuke Oyu and CTO Tatsuro Shimada, both of whom are known for having founded businesses like VTuber agency Prism Project as well as mom-focused Q&A app Mamari (acquired by KDDI’s Syn. Holdings back in 2016). Izumo is said to aim to create a sustainable platform that enables everyone to live their lives in their own way.

The platform has been working on initiatives that incorporate cutting-edge technologies and is using these experiences to allow individual creators to gain fans and monetize their work. It is scheduled to be launched in 2024. Oyu proposes a future in which people are becoming avatars, which in turn expands human potential where VTubers are the future of this.

via PR Times

news

Japan’s talent assessment platform HRBrain acquired by Swedish investment firm EQT

HRBrain

Masaru Ikeda 2023.11.28

Nikkei reported on Monday that EQT has agreed to acquire Japanese startup HRBrain for an undisclosed sum. Japanese startup database Initial reported the company was valued around 21.5 billion yen (about $145 million US) when it secured 1.8 billion yen (about $12 million yen in equity and loans in the previous round back in February of 2022. After the aquisition, founder and CEO Hiroki Hori will remain on board and as a shareholder while EQT will dispatch an outside director. Prior to HRBrain, Mori managed a media business unit at CyberAgent (TSE:4751). After recognizing the complexity and inefficiency of the personnel evaluation and goal management of many enrolled members using Excel and other tools, he launched the company in March of 2016 under its previous name of Moskytone. The company’s cloud-based platform under the same name has served over 2,500 companies since its launch back in January of 2017. HRBrain streamlines the workload of HR professionals in the evaluation process by putting everything from the filling out of goal sheets to the management of evaluations by HR professionals into the cloud system, which allows them to create effective data-driven strategies on human resource management. It consists of seven services: Talent…

The HRBrain Headquarters
Image credit: HRBrain

Prior to HRBrain, Mori managed a media business unit at CyberAgent (TSE:4751). After recognizing the complexity and inefficiency of the personnel evaluation and goal management of many enrolled members using Excel and other tools, he launched the company in March of 2016 under its previous name of Moskytone. The company’s cloud-based platform under the same name has served over 2,500 companies since its launch back in January of 2017.

HRBrain streamlines the workload of HR professionals in the evaluation process by putting everything from the filling out of goal sheets to the management of evaluations by HR professionals into the cloud system, which allows them to create effective data-driven strategies on human resource management. It consists of seven services: Talent Management, Organizational Diagnostic Survey, Pulse Survey, Personnel Evaluation, 360-degree evaluation, Labor Management, and In-house Chatbot.

To date, the company has secured funds from Seiga Asset Management (Hong Kong), Dai-ichi Life Insurance, Eight Roads Ventures Japan, Mizuho Capital, SCSK (TSE: 9719), Genesia Ventures, Beenext, Keisuke Honda’s KSK Angel Fund, Mitani Sangyo, CyberAgent’s Fujita Fund, Mizuho Capital, JA Mitsui Leasing, Sparx Group’s Mirai Creation Fund, and others.

Originally from Sweden’s Vallenberg family (it’s said to indirectly control one-third of the Nordic country’s gross national product), EQT currently has assets under management of approximately 232 billion euros, with offices in 20 countries across Europe, Asia, and North America. It has acquired companies like VetPartners and Billtrust.

See also:

HRBrain, Japan’s answer to BetterWorks, gets seed round for business goals platform

news

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…

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).

Japan’s Degas secures $6.7M to serve more to unbanked small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa

Recent Articles

Trends

Gen AI startup EmbodyMe unveils new app, creates avatars responding to your motion in real time

Japan’s Thirdverse raises $8.1M to focus on developing VR and blockchain game titles

Japanese serial entrepreneurs secure $13M to launch Izumo VTuber project

Japan’s talent assessment platform HRBrain acquired by Swedish investment firm EQT

Tokyo Government launches center of exchange between entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders

Related news

Recent Articles

Trends

Related news

Related news

Related news

Related news

Related news