THE BRIDGE

Yukari Mitsuhashi

Yukari Mitsuhashi

Yukari is a tech writer based in Tokyo, with previous experience working with a few startups in Japan. She also supervised the Japanese caption and narration of the movie “Social Network”. She aspires to contribute to Japanese startup scene by what she does best: writing. Find her on Twitter, at @yukari77.

http://www.techdoll.jp

Articles

This online concierge startup secures seed funding to better serve visitors to Japan

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See the original story in Japanese. Fast Japan, an online chat concierge service for visitors to Japan, was established in November of 2015 and fully started its service from March. The team announced this week that it has fundraised 25 million yen (about $236,000). TLM and KLab Venture Partners and angel investors participated in this round. In Japan, various services targeting visitors to Japan, constantly growing in number, are appearing. Fast Japan provides Q&A or consultation services related to trip inside Japan via Facebook Messenger, Line and its own chat function on the website. The ‘decentralized concierge’ is one preference of this service which enables users to use any tool they are familiar with. The content of questions collected from users range far and wide, such as recommended hotel, restaurant or route for certain locations. The chat service is provided in English and is free of charge for now. In addition, it operates its own media providing useful information to travel inside Japan in English and Traditional Chinese (for Taiwan and Hong Kong). Access to the website is mostly from Taiwan, having a large ratio of visitors to Japan as well. CEO of Fast Japan Yuki Katano closed his former…

fast-japan_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Fast Japan, an online chat concierge service for visitors to Japan, was established in November of 2015 and fully started its service from March. The team announced this week that it has fundraised 25 million yen (about $236,000). TLM and KLab Venture Partners and angel investors participated in this round.

In Japan, various services targeting visitors to Japan, constantly growing in number, are appearing. Fast Japan provides Q&A or consultation services related to trip inside Japan via Facebook Messenger, Line and its own chat function on the website. The ‘decentralized concierge’ is one preference of this service which enables users to use any tool they are familiar with.

The content of questions collected from users range far and wide, such as recommended hotel, restaurant or route for certain locations. The chat service is provided in English and is free of charge for now. In addition, it operates its own media providing useful information to travel inside Japan in English and Traditional Chinese (for Taiwan and Hong Kong). Access to the website is mostly from Taiwan, having a large ratio of visitors to Japan as well.

CEO of Fast Japan Yuki Katano closed his former social gift business and took on this new challenge.

He  explains about how Fast Japan started:

I have liked communicating with people from many different countries, through study abroad programs for example. After considering the field in which I could communicate through a product and also can put being a Japanese to use, I figured out the inbound business. Among that, I chose a form of the chat concierge business which would contribute to decision-making when traveling.

Katano finds a sure response from the increased number of users. The secured funding this time will be spent for construction of a chat operation system and development of a scalable chat service model.

He concluded:

In the future, I want to develop a personal assistance for chat support when traveling not only in Japan but also anywhere else in the world.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s Popcorn now allows foreign visitors to book last-minute deals for salons

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See the original story in Japanese. Popcorn is a beauty salon-booking app for last-minute deals. The app offers discount deals up to 70% off for beauty salons for hair styling, nail art and care as well as eyelash extensions, in addition to relaxation and aesthetic salons, focused on allowing users to book a same-day or last-minute appointment for deals at salons in Tokyo’s busiest shopping districts such as Shibuya, Harajuku, Ebisu and Ginza. Since its launch back in February of 2015, the service is about to cover 1,000 salons, seeing an approximate 30% MoM growth in the number of bookings since late 2015. Coubic, the company behind Popcorn, announced today that the app supports a multilingual interface to better serve international visitors to Japan, ever on the increase. Available for Android via Google Play or for desktop in English, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and Korean, not to mention Japanese. According to Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), more than 20 million tourists are expected to visit Japan this year, especially those from the East Asia region like China, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which accounts for 70% of all visitors, are increasing at more than 30% every year. Due to the…

popcorn-multilingual_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Popcorn is a beauty salon-booking app for last-minute deals. The app offers discount deals up to 70% off for beauty salons for hair styling, nail art and care as well as eyelash extensions, in addition to relaxation and aesthetic salons, focused on allowing users to book a same-day or last-minute appointment for deals at salons in Tokyo’s busiest shopping districts such as Shibuya, Harajuku, Ebisu and Ginza. Since its launch back in February of 2015, the service is about to cover 1,000 salons, seeing an approximate 30% MoM growth in the number of bookings since late 2015.

Coubic, the company behind Popcorn, announced today that the app supports a multilingual interface to better serve international visitors to Japan, ever on the increase. Available for Android via Google Play or for desktop in English, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and Korean, not to mention Japanese.

According to Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), more than 20 million tourists are expected to visit Japan this year, especially those from the East Asia region like China, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which accounts for 70% of all visitors, are increasing at more than 30% every year. Due to the increase of individual tourists and repeating visitors, their consumption is expanding from buying products to experiencing services.

Among many tourist attractions, more foreign visitors are choosing to try beauty salons in Japan because of a high interest in their health and Japanese beauty. When a massage salon in Ginza used the app, for example, the monthly number of foreign customers increased sevenfold from a year ago. After this year’s beginning, the salon says not only Asian but also European customers are increasing. With the launch of the multilingual interface at this time, it will attract foreign visitors with the convenience of enabling online booking and in-advance credit card payments.

The Popcorn app initially supported booking a same-day appointment only, but then added a next-day appointment in response to user needs. By offering a special limited menu, many beauty salons participating in the app use have succeeded in gaining repeat customers while more than half the customers delivered to salons by the app are repeat customers. It appears that users are tired in making phone calls to make an appointment, like those using the app to find a new salon and book an appointment.

Coubic CEO Hiroshi Kuraoka elaborated:

Some male and female users have used our app about 30 to 40 times in three months. It was so surprising that some users recognized the convenience of online booking and use our app very frequently. We thought some users may feel resistance against credit card prepayments but many of them appear to accept that in return for receiving a limited menu for Popcorn users.

Providing users with rewards from salons in Tokyo plus selected areas in Fukuoka so far, the company will expand to other cities in Japan shortly, planning to curate salons in cities outside Japan as well. Leveraging the Coubic appointment management platform, the company intends to expand their business to other retailing industries beyond beauty salons.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

EastMeetEast, dating app for Asian Americans, gets funds from Japanese investors

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See the original story in Japanese. New York City in the US is this nation’s largest urban area and Mecca for IT startups in which various kinds of media / fashion service can be found. In addition, the city abounds in matching services for dating such as leading female-use service Lulu, which was purchased by Badoo in February, or Coffee Meets Bagel based on a concept of introducing friends of a friend. The matching service EastMeetEast especially focusing on Asians was born in such a city. Having started its service since December 2013, the firm has recently conducted a second funding round of an undisclosed amount from Mercari CEO Shintaro Yamada, East Ventures, 500 Startups, iSGS Investment Works, and DeNA (TSE:2432). DeNA participated in a seed funding round in August 2014. The number of registered users in 2015 increased seven-fold last year. Also the sales amount has been increasing at a growth of 30-40% month-to-month. The factor that made EastMeetEast possible to grow without competing with majors such as Match.com may be the targeting specifying users; it focuses in particular on individuals from East and Southeast Asia including China, Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The main users are men /…

eastmeeteast_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

New York City in the US is this nation’s largest urban area and Mecca for IT startups in which various kinds of media / fashion service can be found. In addition, the city abounds in matching services for dating such as leading female-use service Lulu, which was purchased by Badoo in February, or Coffee Meets Bagel based on a concept of introducing friends of a friend.

The matching service EastMeetEast especially focusing on Asians was born in such a city. Having started its service since December 2013, the firm has recently conducted a second funding round of an undisclosed amount from Mercari CEO Shintaro Yamada, East Ventures, 500 Startups, iSGS Investment Works, and DeNA (TSE:2432). DeNA participated in a seed funding round in August 2014.

The number of registered users in 2015 increased seven-fold last year. Also the sales amount has been increasing at a growth of 30-40% month-to-month. The factor that made EastMeetEast possible to grow without competing with majors such as Match.com may be the targeting specifying users; it focuses in particular on individuals from East and Southeast Asia including China, Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

The main users are men / women in the 25 to 35 age group. Most of them are in their late 20’s and said to participate rather casually, thinking “through dating, might consider getting married if a good person.” The service has been recognized as the place to meet someone who has the same background or culture. Even if a user withdraws from the service once, he / she tends to return again within an average of three months.

Unique circumstances for Asians

As a result of continuous focus group interviews with users prior to launch, it has been found that factors which Asians expect of their partners differ from those expected by Caucasians.

As can be expected from apps like Tinder based on photos that became popular, Caucasians tend to emphasize one’s appearance such as eye color or body build. On the other hand, Asians tend to consider background or culture as a whole, such as academic record, language or occupation, similar to the Japanese.

On EastMeetEast, users seek partners on the basis of search results. Although its search function is useful, sometimes the number of hits are too large to choose from, or some people miss good persons due to too many search terms being input at the onset. In order to cover these defects, the service distributes support emails to users.

EastMeetEast founder / CEO  Mariko Tokioka explains:

We send emails under the image of ‘marriage arrangement lady’ to users once a week, in which we propose just one person who seems to be well suited. When email distribution takes place, the number of message exchanges between users increase by 40% compared with regular days.

In the emails, not only the person’s appearance but also quality is emphasized. The subject of emails is arranged to attract user attention by appealing his / her age, schools attended or occupation, not being a bland title like ‘your partner of the week,’ and that resulted in a high disclosure rate.

Successful video marketing

Originated as a PC website, EastMeetEast launched an app for iOS in July 2014. It will shift toward mobile-based service further in the future.

According to Tokioka, the most highly evaluated point of the firm upon this funding is its active marketing. For startups overseas, it is common to conduct promotion or marketing itself without outsourcing to accrue know-how. In fact, she had tried various approaches this past year.

When the first advertisement came out, the user acquisition cost was $14 each. It has fallen to 85% now. The most effective method among the variety of trial experiments was video marketing. Collaborating with a famous YouTuber having a million subscribers, EastMeetEast has been producing original short videoclips.

Tokioka explains:

For example, we made a funny Q&A-like video clip in which the YouTuber conducts street interviews and asks “how do you think of this app?” or “what’s your request of dating partners?”; I feel certain response from video marketing because users who’d registered with the service via video have a higher photo posting rate, and the video doubles as a tutorial upon use.

Co-founding as the original challenge

Mariko-Tokioka-620x411
Mariko Tokioka, CEO and founder of EastMeetEast

After working at Oracle Japan, Tokioka moved to UK in order to obtain an Oxonian MBA. She had been interested in startups where she could directly feel the impact of her own job as to social contribution ever since her days as an office worker, so that she specialized in entrepreneurship at Oxford.

After gaining her MBA, she took part in the London-based startup Quipper, an online learning platform, as COO. Quipper was purchased by Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098) for 4.8 billion yen (about $40 million at the exchange rate then) in July of 2015. After that, Tokioka engaged in EastMeetEast as her next challenge.

Previously, she had used major matching services to seek for a partner in consideration of marriage when living in London. Although she thought her suitable marriage partner would be a Japanese man, conventional services sometimes arranged matching with a Sri Lankan or an Indian due to the wide definition of the term Asian.

Notes Tokioka:

Although there was a matching service focusing on Jewish folks called JDate, I realized the absence of services focusing on Asians. EastMeetEast was born out of what I actually experienced, having difficulties in seeking a partner. As an increase of late marriage has become increasingly a social problem, I want to support users in seeking a partner for their entire lifetime.

Eyeing the Global Market from Onset

She chose UK as her first startup location, and then New York as the next. Since already having experienced activities overseas at Quipper, it was natural for Tokioka to select her next venture as one competing on the global market.

While it is not easy to start up even in Japan, doing so overseas seems to be much more difficult, but there are some advantages according to Tokioka. Some investors decided to invest with her because she was ‘taking on the world’ though she already had much experience abroad and accumulated a considerable record, while companies in same industry or managers thereof encouraged her to take on the challenge.

Moreover, a network of Japanese living in the US was also of great support to her. EastMeetEast has newly added a Japanese engineer, who had formerly worked at a renowned company in San Francisco but moved to New York just to work there. The deciding factor was the vision of the firm and the members of the founder team who were all Japanese.

Tokioka concludes:

If going completely global, I thought to start up a business overseas from the onset rather than starting up domestically in my homeland, then expanding overseas. Since half the global dating market is held by the US, I feel the country has a well-established culture where it is not a shame to meet a partner for marriage via matching services.

With the added funds, how will EastMeetEast grow into the future? We will continue our coverage of Tokioka & Company’s challenge.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy and Masaru Ikeda

NYC high-end fashion startup Material Wrld bags $9M series B from Start Today, Nissay

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See the original story in Japanese. Based out of New York City, Material Wrld provides a high-end marketplace for used clothes. Launched in 2012, the company avails a secondary circulation focused on luxury fashion items. Women can thus update the content of their closet according to events and seasonal changes. See also: Closet shopping for material girls: Material Wrld makes its public debut The company announced on Wednesday that it has secured $9 million from Start Today (TSE:3092) and Nissay Capital in a series B round. Start Today is a Tokyo company behind Japan’s largest fashion e-commerce site Zozotown, while Nissay Capital is the investment arm of a leading Japanese insurance company which participated in the previous funding round. With the latest funding, the American company has secured a total of $13 million to date. In October of 2015, Materal Wrld unveiled a prepaid debit card for luxury shoppers called Material Wrld Fashion Trade-In Card. Through the Discover Card network, this card allows users to buy new clothes at more than 700 fashion retailers both online and offline using trade-in values they got upon selling their used clothes, handbag and shoes to Material Wrld. Available retailer chains include Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom,…

Material-Wrld-debit-card

See the original story in Japanese.

Based out of New York City, Material Wrld provides a high-end marketplace for used clothes. Launched in 2012, the company avails a secondary circulation focused on luxury fashion items. Women can thus update the content of their closet according to events and seasonal changes.

See also:

The company announced on Wednesday that it has secured $9 million from Start Today (TSE:3092) and Nissay Capital in a series B round. Start Today is a Tokyo company behind Japan’s largest fashion e-commerce site Zozotown, while Nissay Capital is the investment arm of a leading Japanese insurance company which participated in the previous funding round. With the latest funding, the American company has secured a total of $13 million to date.

In October of 2015, Materal Wrld unveiled a prepaid debit card for luxury shoppers called Material Wrld Fashion Trade-In Card. Through the Discover Card network, this card allows users to buy new clothes at more than 700 fashion retailers both online and offline using trade-in values they got upon selling their used clothes, handbag and shoes to Material Wrld. Available retailer chains include Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, Intermix and Seven Alan.

Since Material Wrld clienteles using this card buy new items worth 2.5 times more than what they have sold, the company has received high praise from department stores because of the win-win situation created for both these stores and the clienteles. Going forward, the company wants to expand awareness of the unique debit card system in the fashion industry.

material-wrld-founders
Material Wrld founders: Rie Yano (left) and Jie Zheng (right)

Material Wrld co-counder Rie Yano and Jie Zheng offered their comment in a statement upon unveiling a new platform they are currently working on:

We will launch a new online platform in the US in several months from now. It will be a one-stop solution that allows people to submit their luxury brand items for trade-in, purchase new brand arrivals as well as second-hand items situated in others’ “closets.”

This is the first investment in the North American market for Start Today. This company wants to not only provide financial cooperation but also explore cross-border synergy in global business operations by sharing the experience of their secondhand fashion commerce service Zozoused in addition to leveraging the brand image and the vast network of Material Wrld.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s telemedicine and drug delivery platform Port Medical raises $7.9 million

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Port is preparing for the beta launch of Port Medical, a telemedicine platform allowing chronic patients to consult a doctor online. The company announced today that it has fundraised 900 million yen (about $7.9 million) from Eight Roads Ventures Japan (previously known as Fidelity Growth Partners Japan), Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Global Brain. Port has been serving businesses with employment consulting services through the leveraging of social media as well as offering several vertical media sites such as CareerPark (tips for careerbuilding) and Tabimo (travel tips). The company learned of many issues in the healthcare and medical sectors through Medicil, a health and beauty tips website launched back last November, and then launched the Port Medical platform to address these issues. The latest funds will be used to improve media content, strengthen technology capability and launch new businesses. Port is expecting to attract 30 million readers for vertical media sites during 2016, expanding into other sectors beyond careerbuilding, travel, healthcare and financial topics. They are planning to develop a recommendation engine using natural language processing and artificial intelligence (AI) for their existing and new services. Regarding the Port Medical platform, the company claims…

port-medical_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Port is preparing for the beta launch of Port Medical, a telemedicine platform allowing chronic patients to consult a doctor online. The company announced today that it has fundraised 900 million yen (about $7.9 million) from Eight Roads Ventures Japan (previously known as Fidelity Growth Partners Japan), Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Global Brain.

Port has been serving businesses with employment consulting services through the leveraging of social media as well as offering several vertical media sites such as CareerPark (tips for careerbuilding) and Tabimo (travel tips). The company learned of many issues in the healthcare and medical sectors through Medicil, a health and beauty tips website launched back last November, and then launched the Port Medical platform to address these issues. The latest funds will be used to improve media content, strengthen technology capability and launch new businesses.

Port is expecting to attract 30 million readers for vertical media sites during 2016, expanding into other sectors beyond careerbuilding, travel, healthcare and financial topics. They are planning to develop a recommendation engine using natural language processing and artificial intelligence (AI) for their existing and new services. Regarding the Port Medical platform, the company claims that they will be more focused on partnering with governments, hospitals and other stakeholders in the medical industry.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Archelis wearable chair from Japan helps surgeons through long hours of surgery

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This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. As IT industry workers normally work facing to desktops or laptops, more than a few of them are willing to use items like a standing desk to avoid sitting at work for all day. While there are many jobs that let people work while standing, one of the hardest is probably surgical operations which force surgeons to keep standing for long hours. A wearable chair called Archelis (meaning ‘walkable chair’ in Japanese) is designed for surgeons, allowing them to sit during surgery, thus reducing fatigue during long and physically demanding operations. It was developed for people in the medical field, but it can also help any worker in any industry who must stand for long periods. [1] Archelis was developed by Yokohama-based mold factory Nitto in collaboration with Chiba University’s Center for Frontier Medical Engineering, Hiroaki Nishimura Design, and Japan Polymer Technology. They aim to begin selling the product this summer. Translated by Minako Ambiru via Mother First Edited by Kurt Hanson and Masaru Ikeda Regarding wearable chairs, Swiss startup Noonee was in the news last year for developing a line for factory workers. A product similar to “Archelis”…

archelis_featuredimage

This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.

As IT industry workers normally work facing to desktops or laptops, more than a few of them are willing to use items like a standing desk to avoid sitting at work for all day. While there are many jobs that let people work while standing, one of the hardest is probably surgical operations which force surgeons to keep standing for long hours.

A wearable chair called Archelis (meaning ‘walkable chair’ in Japanese) is designed for surgeons, allowing them to sit during surgery, thus reducing fatigue during long and physically demanding operations. It was developed for people in the medical field, but it can also help any worker in any industry who must stand for long periods. [1]

Archelis was developed by Yokohama-based mold factory Nitto in collaboration with Chiba University’s Center for Frontier Medical Engineering, Hiroaki Nishimura Design, and Japan Polymer Technology. They aim to begin selling the product this summer.

Translated by Minako Ambiru via Mother First
Edited by Kurt Hanson and Masaru Ikeda


  1. Regarding wearable chairs, Swiss startup Noonee was in the news last year for developing a line for factory workers. A product similar to “Archelis” or “Noonee” can be found gaining patents - expired since - 37 years ago. The name for this product given by its inventor, one “Robert Bonner,” was in fact “wearable chair.”

Meet SD Factory, Japan’s matching platform of infrastructure for clothes manufacturing

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See the original story in Japanese. Usually, means of contacting apparel factories in Japan are limited to word-of-mouth or assistance by acquaintances. Since there are difficulties in finding appropriate factories, it is not easy to launch anew an apparel business or to manufacture products that are different from conventional ones, so that a new idea can barely be realized in this field. Japan’s SD Factory aims to solve such problems. SD Factory, launched last November by Osaka-based Raccoon (TSE:3031), is a matching platform for those wanting to order manufacturing of clothes and find domestic apparel infrastructure such as factories or patterners. Currently 22 factories are listed on the website with each detailed information including the number of lots, unit price, completion date, characteristics or pictures of the factory inside. Based on these information, one can search out factories and inquire or order from them. Although the service has just started up recently, some business negotiations for various matters have already been proceeding, based on requests of from sole proprietors to major trading companies. The average number of employees for listed factories is about 30. For factories which cannot afford information provision or sales promotion, SD Factory has turned into an…

sd-factory_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Usually, means of contacting apparel factories in Japan are limited to word-of-mouth or assistance by acquaintances. Since there are difficulties in finding appropriate factories, it is not easy to launch anew an apparel business or to manufacture products that are different from conventional ones, so that a new idea can barely be realized in this field. Japan’s SD Factory aims to solve such problems.

SD Factory, launched last November by Osaka-based Raccoon (TSE:3031), is a matching platform for those wanting to order manufacturing of clothes and find domestic apparel infrastructure such as factories or patterners. Currently 22 factories are listed on the website with each detailed information including the number of lots, unit price, completion date, characteristics or pictures of the factory inside. Based on these information, one can search out factories and inquire or order from them.

Although the service has just started up recently, some business negotiations for various matters have already been proceeding, based on requests of from sole proprietors to major trading companies. The average number of employees for listed factories is about 30. For factories which cannot afford information provision or sales promotion, SD Factory has turned into an effective tool for customer acquisition.

Bringing diversity to the apparel productline

The operating company Raccoon had been originally running a wholesaling website focused on apparel and grocery products, especially for the retailer Super Delivery. More than 1,000 manufacturers and 40,000 retailers have been registered on it. Behind the development of SD Factory, this conventional service revealed a problem in the apparel field.

Racoon’s executive secretary Koichi Nagamine says:

We received many requests from downstream manufacturers or retailers to introduce them domestic factories. They wanted to manufacture their own products but had no idea which factories to ask.

Moreover, a result of our own survey indicated current problems which domestic factories have in common, so we came to start development of a solution which connects manufacturers and factories.

A lack of means to connect creators and factories will impact the apparel industry and customers as a whole. If manufacturers pursue only their profitability, only similar products would be going on the market, and that can spoil the joy of shopping or ideals of consumers. However, since retailers or creators that have interesting ideas do not know how to turn them into concrete products, the variety of products on the market cannot be expanded.

By support of SD Factory for matching these creators with factories having capable of producing, appearance of unique products in terms of prices, shapes, or materials, can be expected and that will bring the activation of the apparel field.

Eliminating the dull image of factories

Kuriyama Sewing in Osaka
Kuriyama Sewing in Osaka

The point which the team was most particular about upon the development of SD Factory was being a cool website especially for younger users. That was to eliminate the dull image of typical factories. All photos on the website are taken by Raccoon’s staff in order to secure a high quality of the website. In addition, detailed impressions of the factories are described on the website by sales staff who actually visited there, trying to convey the atmosphere or the passion of the factory workers.

The reason for sticking to being cool is also upon looking forward to Japanese factories’ future 10 or 20 years on. As the birthrate is falling and the society rapidly aging in Japan, the younger labor population has been gradually decreasing. Without young workers to keep alive the skills and the technologies, the very existence of Japanese factories may become threatened.

Nagamine pointed out:

In spite of the move to create brand new products, the factories’ future is under threat. I think that this is because young Japanese do not regard working at factories as an employment option.

A lack of young and superior human resources will result in the decline of the entire industry. I want them to feel first how fun manufacturing is or how cool the existence of a particular technology is.

Currently focusing on matching companies or sole proprietors with factories, they are also considering the business of securing and developing human resources in the apparel field henceforth. Although there are many graduates from technical colleges that relate to apparel, most of them get a job as apparel shop salespersons. Their future vision is to provide opportunities to launch business careers for students who are interested in manufacturing, and to provide for successors to factories.

Anyone can realize their own products

The ordering users being targeted by SD Factory include not only companies but also sole proprietors or individuals who want small-scale production. You may think typical factories tend to avoid small lot orders. It is the opposite however, according to Nagamine. While small lot production requires more labor than mass production, it ensures appropriate remunerations and holds the possibility of business expansion, so that factories would rather receive small lot orders at preferance. Upon gaining exposure at SD Factory, further new orders may be expected as well.

For example, a female office worker searched out a factory utilizing SD Factory, and established her own brand. A system for anyone with just an idea to realize any product could become a fact of life in the apparel industry.

For the moment, SD Factory aims to increase the number of registered factories or patterners. Additionally it plans to enhance functions including those for search or schedule management.

Nagamine concluded:

We hope new made-in-Japan products or brands will appear from retailers or designers utilizing SD Factory. That will also act as industrial stimulus. Moreover, our export sales support service called SD Export can provide the infrastructure for exportation.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Boasting over 70,000 users, Japan’s fashion item rental service AirCloset snags $8M

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See the original story in Japanese. AirCloset is an outstanding startup in the Japanese fashion rental industry. Launched back in February of 2015, the company has been providing a subscription-based fashion item rental service for females under the same name. Its users combined surpasses 70,000 for now, which rapidly grew from 65,000 users in October of 2015. AirCloset announced today that it has fundraised slightly less than 1 billion yen (about $8 million) from several companies. Participating investors in this round include Jafco (TSE:8595, investment firm), Nakazono Holdings (operator of “White Kyubin” laundry shop chain), Saison Ventures (investment arm of credit card company Credit Saison), and Terrada Warehouse. With funding from such major companies, AirCloset will strengthen its structure by securing the financial base and maximizing business synergies between the warehouse management and laundry service businesses. Looking at what kind of synergies can be achieved with aforementioned investors, Terrada Warehouse, for examples, runs Minikura, a subscription-based box storage service which can be managed on the web. AirCloset partnered with the warehouse company slightly after launch, followed by securing funds from it in April of 2015. Going forward, the two companies will work together to streamline the logistics operations of accepting,…

aircloset_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

AirCloset is an outstanding startup in the Japanese fashion rental industry. Launched back in February of 2015, the company has been providing a subscription-based fashion item rental service for females under the same name. Its users combined surpasses 70,000 for now, which rapidly grew from 65,000 users in October of 2015.

AirCloset announced today that it has fundraised slightly less than 1 billion yen (about $8 million) from several companies. Participating investors in this round include Jafco (TSE:8595, investment firm), Nakazono Holdings (operator of “White Kyubin” laundry shop chain), Saison Ventures (investment arm of credit card company Credit Saison), and Terrada Warehouse. With funding from such major companies, AirCloset will strengthen its structure by securing the financial base and maximizing business synergies between the warehouse management and laundry service businesses.

Looking at what kind of synergies can be achieved with aforementioned investors, Terrada Warehouse, for examples, runs Minikura, a subscription-based box storage service which can be managed on the web. AirCloset partnered with the warehouse company slightly after launch, followed by securing funds from it in April of 2015. Going forward, the two companies will work together to streamline the logistics operations of accepting, storing, managing, and shipping items, aiming to provide customers with improved services. In partnership with Nakazono Holdings running 8,500 laundry shops nationwide in Japan, AirCloset will work on strengthening its service operations.

AirCloset was founded by Satoshi Amanuma, Yusuke Maekawa, and Shoichi Kotani 18 months ago. The service has attracted many users since its pre-registration launch in late October of 2014, steadily growing its user base. It delivers a new endeavor with a surprise to our daily lives upon enjoying fashion. Having powerful supporters onboard, we cannot but keep our eyes on how AirCloset will fare from now on.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Health 2.0 Asia showcases five most prominent healthcare startups from Japan

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See the original story in Japanese. Health2.0, started in California in 2007, is the global conference introducing the latest technologies and advanced solutions in the medical and health sector. The conference was held in Japan for the first time over a two-day period of November 4 and 5. Five prominent startups from Japan challenging the sector each with own style entered the Afternoon Pitch Competition posited on Day 1. The judges for the competition were: Akira Kurabayashi, Managing Director, Draper Nexus Ventures Yasutaka Sakon, Executive Director, Strategic Planning and Business Operations, Docomo Healthcare Shumpei Fukui, Principal, Archetype Satoshi Fukushima, Senior Associate, Globis Capital Partners Symax (competition winner) Symax analyzes urine by attaching it inside a toilet for analyzing health conditions. It enables early detection of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and gout with 99% accuracy leveraging the original algorithm. Some similar existing services cost no less than tens of millions yen (or tens of thousand US dollars). Compared to these, Symax is superior in the number of diseases it can detect and continous use at low cost. The company claims that this solution can discover 86% out of all different types of lifestyle diseases. An individual user can also use…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Health2.0, started in California in 2007, is the global conference introducing the latest technologies and advanced solutions in the medical and health sector. The conference was held in Japan for the first time over a two-day period of November 4 and 5.

Five prominent startups from Japan challenging the sector each with own style entered the Afternoon Pitch Competition posited on Day 1.

The judges for the competition were:

  • Akira Kurabayashi, Managing Director, Draper Nexus Ventures
  • Yasutaka Sakon, Executive Director, Strategic Planning and Business Operations, Docomo Healthcare
  • Shumpei Fukui, Principal, Archetype
  • Satoshi Fukushima, Senior Associate, Globis Capital Partners

Symax (competition winner)

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Symax analyzes urine by attaching it inside a toilet for analyzing health conditions. It enables early detection of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and gout with 99% accuracy leveraging the original algorithm.

Some similar existing services cost no less than tens of millions yen (or tens of thousand US dollars). Compared to these, Symax is superior in the number of diseases it can detect and continous use at low cost. The company claims that this solution can discover 86% out of all different types of lifestyle diseases.

An individual user can also use it for 980 yen (about $8) a month while companies can use it for their employees’ health and adjustment of medical expenses by installing it it a building or facilities. Some high-class nursing homes and condo developers have shown interest in it because they can reduce an initial investment to about one-tenth that for conventional similar solutions which usually costs more than hundreds of thousand US dollars. Using the vital data collected, offers of data marketing business to health insuarance societies and companies are planned.

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Clintal

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Over a million “hospital refugees” are being found in Japan; many patients feel anxious and dissatisfied about doctors’ explanations and treatment plans. Clintal is an online platform where doctors with optimal skills can be searched for such patients in accordance with their diseases and symptoms. They can see the list of skilled doctors just by selecting diseases and treatment departments.

Its characteristic is that it is searchable not by hospital units but doctors, using both qualitative and quantitative data for selecting skilled doctors and evaluating accessibility to such doctors. Regarding the recommendation service, it provides a skilled doctor’s details in about a week’s time after inputting information from the web form. It deals with subjects such as increases in medical expenses and medical quality improvement, as these are becoming social problems in Japan.

Though a question considering resistance to doctors’ achievement disclosure was tossed by the judges, high evaluation has been given by doctors with positive and cooperative attitude can be seen for improvement of information accuracy instead. There are 500 skilled doctors listed on Clintal at this point and they aim to list the top 3 to 4% out of 250,000 doctors throughout Japan within a year.

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Handiii

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Exiii explores a new form of myoelectric hand called Handiii using the 3D printing technique and the release of open source. Myoelectric arms are for people without hands for control with remaining muscles intuitively. As there has been no change in the function over a half century this kept the market small at several thousand people. Thus, customization needs for the size and shape of persons wearing an artificial hand have been hurdles.

For these reasons, an artificial hand so far costs about 1.5 million ($12,000) yen each. The diffusion of artificial hands stays at 0.7% because of the high cost. Handiii is an attempt which turns artificial hands into easier choice with its cost and design. It costs about 30,000 yen ($250) to make each artificial hand. The world where people can express handicaps as their personalities instead of hiding them is coming. Communities around the artificial hands have been formed and various customizations are put into practice all around the world.

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HealthServer

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The Dricos team has developed HealthServer which prepares supplement drinks to safekeep good health. HealthServer is the extremely easy solution for modern people to maintain good health.

Coordinating with various wearable devices, it analyzes the supplements which are necessary for user body. Then, the server prepares drinks according to the contents. The server also reads biomedical signals and produces an energy drink which fits each person who touches the machine itself when wearables are not in use.

38% of Japanese take some kinds of supplements today and its market amounts 1.5 trillion yen (about $124 billion) in scale. As the first stage, they have already started action to establish a sports gym next spring targeting people who go to the gym with high health awareness. And continuous sales are expected since the supplements of HealthServer are replenished by exchanging cartridges.

Cocololo

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There are people who have mental problems in over 70% of the offices in Japan. Cocololo can visualize a mind condition not using wearables but with only smartphone which is familiar to us. It reads stress and relax numerical values with finger placement on the smartphone camera. The result is expressed as eight feeling types and the reliability of measurement accuracy is about 80%. Since its launch seven months ago, the app has acquired over 300,000 downloads to date.

After measuring the stress level, there is also a function which recommends music and spa coupons according to the stress condition. And as a stress check is going to be mandatory for enterprises from this December, the Cocololo team will also be providing solutions for corporations.


As you can see the five companies which made pitches this time provide a variety of medical or healthcare forms, approaches and targets. As technologies and devices develop in the future, data will be collected no matter what. The point is how to use them for solutions to solve people’s problems. Healthcare services are increasingly attracting interest; those within and outside Japan should be scrutinized from now on.

Translated by Azusa Murano via Mother First
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy and Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s adaptive learning startup Polyglots gets funds to link language diversity

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Polyglots, the Japanese startup behind adaptive learning services like Polyglots for English-language learners and Mondo for Japanese-language learners, announced today that it has fundraised from Tokyo-based EdTech-focused Hitotoki Incubator. Financial details of the investment have not been disclosed. Upon the latest funding, Masayasu Morita, founder and CEO of Hitotoki Incubator, joined the management board of Polyglots. See also: Japan’s adaptive learning tech startup Polyglots secures estimated $292,000 in seed round Since its launch back in July of this year, Mondo, a mobile news reader app for Japanese-language learners, has acquired about 20,000 users while 30% out of them are active monthly users. The company also claimed that about 25% out of all active users have been continuously using the service for over three months. The user demographics of the Mondo app shows that 75% are male users and 40% are coming from outside Japan. Most of all users are aged between 20s and 40s while office workers have a majority of these, followed by students. As to the reason for using the app, 80% of them cited they want to communicate with Japanese people. 65% answered that they are interested in Japanese culture….

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See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Polyglots, the Japanese startup behind adaptive learning services like Polyglots for English-language learners and Mondo for Japanese-language learners, announced today that it has fundraised from Tokyo-based EdTech-focused Hitotoki Incubator. Financial details of the investment have not been disclosed. Upon the latest funding, Masayasu Morita, founder and CEO of Hitotoki Incubator, joined the management board of Polyglots.

See also:

Since its launch back in July of this year, Mondo, a mobile news reader app for Japanese-language learners, has acquired about 20,000 users while 30% out of them are active monthly users. The company also claimed that about 25% out of all active users have been continuously using the service for over three months.

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Which countries Mondo users come from? (Source: Polyglots)

The user demographics of the Mondo app shows that 75% are male users and 40% are coming from outside Japan. Most of all users are aged between 20s and 40s while office workers have a majority of these, followed by students. As to the reason for using the app, 80% of them cited they want to communicate with Japanese people. 65% answered that they are interested in Japanese culture.

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Why you are learning Japanese language? (Source: Polyglots)

The app has been receiving praise from non-Japanese speaking users, such as the app being helpful in finding Chinese characters and Japanese words while reading actual Japanese news articles or being the best amongst reading apps for middle- or high-level Japanese-language learners. Meanwhile, some users complain that there’s no Mondo app for Android, or it’s slightly hard for budding learners to use because the app is designed for those who can read some Chinese characters at least.

Polyglots Founder and CEO Junya Yamaguchi never in the least expected to see that many users citing they want to communicate with Japanese people as the reason. He says,

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Polyglots CEO Junya Yamaguchi

Since many of our users are non-Japanese office workers in Japan, We have assumed that they are using our app because of learning Japanese for business occasions. On the other hand, Japanese people are learning English for business needs or TOEIC test, where we see a huge difference in national traits. That’s why we will be focused on connecting Mondo Japanese learning users and Polyglots English learning users with each others.

The company is currently preparing for launching an Android version while adding more reading matters for budding language learners. Going forward, they will connect Mondo and Polyglots users with each others by adding a feature allowing them to teach their languages to each others, while considering providing meet-up opportunities for users not only online but also offline.

They will hold a year-end party called Monja on December 26th in Tokyo, aiming to helping users mingle with each others in different languages so please check out this meetup page.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy