news

Japanese voice-acting service adds new languages, announces investment

Junya Mori 2013.05.25

See the original story in Japanese. Voip is a crowdsourcing service for voice-acting work. Since its launch back in January, it has acquired more than 1,500 registered actors in partnership with actor agencies and vocational schools. The startup behind the service is called Grood, and it is trying to provide an easy way to fulfill voice acting jobs in areas like social game development or media production. The startup announced yesterday that it has added foreign-language voice acting to its menu. Available languages now include English, Mandarin, French, and Italian. To receive orders for narration jobs in foreign languages, the startup has partnered with some agencies outside Japan. With the launch of its foreign-language narration service, the startup plans to extend its customer base into business sectors such as education, publishing, and translation. Voip also announced on Friday that it has received an undisclosed (small) amount of an investment from East Ventures. This follows the previous funding from Incubate Fund back in March of 2012. The startup’s CEO Yuya Haraguchi further explains: Our first target is smartphone app/game developers, and the education sector follows. With our inclusion of foreign languages, we expect app developers or publishing companies expanding globally choose…

See the original story in Japanese.

Voip is a crowdsourcing service for voice-acting work. Since its launch back in January, it has acquired more than 1,500 registered actors in partnership with actor agencies and vocational schools. The startup behind the service is called Grood, and it is trying to provide an easy way to fulfill voice acting jobs in areas like social game development or media production.

The startup announced yesterday that it has added foreign-language voice acting to its menu. Available languages now include English, Mandarin, French, and Italian. To receive orders for narration jobs in foreign languages, the startup has partnered with some agencies outside Japan. With the launch of its foreign-language narration service, the startup plans to extend its customer base into business sectors such as education, publishing, and translation.

Voip also announced on Friday that it has received an undisclosed (small) amount of an investment from East Ventures. This follows the previous funding from Incubate Fund back in March of 2012.

The startup’s CEO Yuya Haraguchi further explains:

Our first target is smartphone app/game developers, and the education sector follows. With our inclusion of foreign languages, we expect app developers or publishing companies expanding globally choose us when developing their content. ¶

For narration orders of consisting of less than 9,000 words, they will deliver within three business days of order. They also have a sort of quality assurance system, where you can ask them to re-do the recording until you’re satisfied with the quality of the outcome.

They will set up a card payment feature on the website soon, and they are also planning to launch new services like translation and proof-reading by native speakers.

Some of our readers may recall that we recently interviewed Ryota Ichioka, the CEO of illustration-focused crowdsoucing service MugenUp. Unlike existing crowdsourcing sites for general purposes, these services typically standardize the ordering process and visualize the skills of crowdsouced workers. This makes things more convenient for both clients and workers.

news

Japan’s Kitchhike gives you alternative dining choices when you travel

SCORE 2,092

Junya Mori 2013.05.20

See the original story in Japanese. Kitchhike is a website that lets you experience meals prepared by locals (usually) in their home while you travel abroad. In a way, it is a sort of AirBnB for home-cooked meals. The service, which launches officially today, is a matching platform connects cooks and travelers in kitchens around the world. If you are interested in having local dishes when you travel, this site gives you a chance to dine on homemade dishes with local people instead of just visiting local restaurants. Currently it has 32 menus from six countries: Japan, Korea, mainland China, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines. In online travel space, AirBnB focuses on finding accommodations, and Meetrip gives you a way to find a tour given by local people. Kitchhike’s proposed value is that it connects you with both local meals and local people, adding “delicious experiences” to your travel itinerary. This startup was founded by two entrepreneurs: Masaya Yamamoto, who previously worked at one of Japanese ad giant Hakuhodo DY Media Partners; and Syoken Fujisaki, who worked at Japanese thinktank Nomura Research Institute. Local people, local experiences In their announcement, they elaborate on what makes the service unique: Food culture is…

See the original story in Japanese.

Kitchhike is a website that lets you experience meals prepared by locals (usually) in their home while you travel abroad. In a way, it is a sort of AirBnB for home-cooked meals.

The service, which launches officially today, is a matching platform connects cooks and travelers in kitchens around the world. If you are interested in having local dishes when you travel, this site gives you a chance to dine on homemade dishes with local people instead of just visiting local restaurants. Currently it has 32 menus from six countries: Japan, Korea, mainland China, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

In online travel space, AirBnB focuses on finding accommodations, and Meetrip gives you a way to find a tour given by local people. Kitchhike’s proposed value is that it connects you with both local meals and local people, adding “delicious experiences” to your travel itinerary.

This startup was founded by two entrepreneurs: Masaya Yamamoto, who previously worked at one of Japanese ad giant Hakuhodo DY Media Partners; and Syoken Fujisaki, who worked at Japanese thinktank Nomura Research Institute.

Local people, local experiences

In their announcement, they elaborate on what makes the service unique:

Food culture is not really created intentionally, but rather it is an accumulation, [intertwined with the] history of neighborhoods. Every single household has different meals, and these are the places that give you a real local feeling. For visitors, a meal served by local people might be one of the most exciting parts of encountering a new culture.

In addition to the usual sightseeing destinations, we believe that a table filled with homemade meals by local people is also a destination most people have never experienced.

Homemade meals becomes profitable

Your homemade meals can take on a new value when you make them available to people outside your social circle. It’s not only globe trotters, but even your neighbors might be interested in experiencing your homemade meals.

For users who want to cook for someone (they are referred to as ‘cooks’ on the platform), you simply log on to the service and register what dishes you can prepare.

For users who want to eat dishes cooked by other users, you can choose a place (a cook’s residence) and contact them via the messaging feature. Subsequently they will schedule what time you can visit. To avoid any possible risk that might go along with meeting up with strangers, the service is linked up with Facebook for identification purposes.

The service is starting out in Asian regions, with some coverage in Europe and North America. But they are hoping for global expansion in the future.

news

Nana app gets anime theme songs, available globally without location restriction

SCORE 2,245

Junya Mori 2013.05.16

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese music collaboration app Nana has partnered with Joysound, one of the country’s biggest karaoke service providers, to provide anime theme songs for karaoke in its app. What’s most interesting here is that despite the fact that most music-related services have geographically limited availability due to copyright, Nana’s anime theme songs will be available to users the world over. The startup has an agreement with Joysound for the master license for these anime theme songs, with a blanket purchase agreement in place JASRAC, Japan’s copyright control authority. For readers not yet familiar with Nana, the app allows users to share and mix their audio with other users on the platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. The startup aims to bring new users the experience of singing along with someone else. Singers can even team up with a band or a choir in this way, even if your collaborators live on the other side of the world. Nana launched its beta version last August, and its global version followed last November. According to the startup’s co-founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara, the app currently has about 25,000 users, and 70% of them…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese music collaboration app Nana has partnered with Joysound, one of the country’s biggest karaoke service providers, to provide anime theme songs for karaoke in its app.

What’s most interesting here is that despite the fact that most music-related services have geographically limited availability due to copyright, Nana’s anime theme songs will be available to users the world over. The startup has an agreement with Joysound for the master license for these anime theme songs, with a blanket purchase agreement in place JASRAC, Japan’s copyright control authority.

For readers not yet familiar with Nana, the app allows users to share and mix their audio with other users on the platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. The startup aims to bring new users the experience of singing along with someone else. Singers can even team up with a band or a choir in this way, even if your collaborators live on the other side of the world. Nana launched its beta version last August, and its global version followed last November.

According to the startup’s co-founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara, the app currently has about 25,000 users, and 70% of them are teenage girls. More than 120,000 songs have been exchanged using the platform, and about 1,200 songs are being posted every day.

Japan’s karaoke giant Joysound provides anime theme songs to karaoke bars and nightclubs all across the country. They are also known for providing many user-created or Vocaloid songs, typically posted by amateur singers on Japan’s video sharing site Nico Nico Douga.

Nico Nico Douga has many videos tagged as ‘I’ve sung this song,’ a good indication that there’s actually a culture growing around users who record themselves singing popular songs on the platform. As the Nana app makes it easier for you to record yourself and post to the internet, this new Joysound partnership may encourage Nana users to sing and share even more. Fumihara notes:

The anime theme song genre is a suitable one that people will enjoy singing together. I hope the partnership will generate even more song-based communication among people.

If you’d like to try the Nana app for yourself, you can get it for iOS over on the App Store.

news

Moneytree gives Japanese consumers smarter access to their finances

Junya Mori 2013.04.28

See the original story in Japanese. Our readers may recall when we recently featured Japanese personal finance app Zaim. It finally has OCR functionality which can collect purchase data just by taking a photo of your receipt. But as many people have multiple bank accounts and multiple credit cards, they might be interested in a more robust financial organization system for their money management. Australian entrepreneur Paul Chapman (based in Japan) has created Moneytree, a smartphone app that allows users to manage their spending by importing bank balances and card billing updates. The app has a sort of artificial intelligence, and can sort your spendings into the appropriate categories. Its data analysis feature will surface trends about your spending too. In comparison to similar apps, Moneytree eliminates much of the manual work, as it just syncs with user accounts from more than 30 banks and credit card companies. The Moneytree team is working out of Co-ba, a co-working space in Shibuya. As to why they developed this sort of app, Paul explains: People feel tracking their finances is a heavy burden. It takes too much time, so people give up soon after starting, and that makes you feel a sense…

See the original story in Japanese.

Our readers may recall when we recently featured Japanese personal finance app Zaim. It finally has OCR functionality which can collect purchase data just by taking a photo of your receipt. But as many people have multiple bank accounts and multiple credit cards, they might be interested in a more robust financial organization system for their money management.

Australian entrepreneur Paul Chapman (based in Japan) has created Moneytree, a smartphone app that allows users to manage their spending by importing bank balances and card billing updates.

The app has a sort of artificial intelligence, and can sort your spendings into the appropriate categories. Its data analysis feature will surface trends about your spending too. In comparison to similar apps, Moneytree eliminates much of the manual work, as it just syncs with user accounts from more than 30 banks and credit card companies.

The Moneytree team is working out of Co-ba, a co-working space in Shibuya. As to why they developed this sort of app, Paul explains:

People feel tracking their finances is a heavy burden. It takes too much time, so people give up soon after starting, and that makes you feel a sense of guilt. Moneytree is an app that seeks to do the hard work for you — after signing up, you just open the app on your device to see bank balances or credit card usage.

These days, with a growing number of e-commerce services out there, consumers will tend to use cash less often when purchase, preferring to use credit card or e-money. New payment methods, such as the Coiney app for example, could drastically change the Japanese payment market and increase the volume of credit card transactions.

It will be interesting to see where Moneytree will fit in among the forest of finance management options available in Japan.

news

New portal site for crowdfunding projects helps Japanese creators and entrepreneurs fundraise globally

Junya Mori 2013.04.24

See the original story in Japanese. One More Inc., a Tokyo-based startup specializing in providing an ASP-based crowdfunding site platform, has released a portal site called Green Funding. The new site aggregates updates on crowdfunding projects from its seven partner sites: Tokyo Calendar Fund, Nylon Project, Tokyo Crowdfunding Club, Sportie Fund, Sustena Crowdfunding, Allez! Japan, and Green Girl. The startup aspires to help get crowdfunding projects featured on overseas crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo as well. One More’s CEO Takehiko Numata explains: In order to feature your project on crowdfunding sites outside Japan, you will need to register your company in that country and have an account at a local bank there. The qualification process can be very cumbersome and you’ll face many issues before getting your project featured. We’re considering partnership with those crowdfunding sites, which will make the process easier. We’ll help project owners submit their proposals to Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and introduce those projects on our portal site so as to encourage Japanese people to back those projects. As of 2012, the global market for crowdfunding services was worth about 2.8 billion yen (about $28 million). These days, a variety of new crowdfunding services are popping…

See the original story in Japanese.

One More Inc., a Tokyo-based startup specializing in providing an ASP-based crowdfunding site platform, has released a portal site called Green Funding. The new site aggregates updates on crowdfunding projects from its seven partner sites: Tokyo Calendar Fund, Nylon Project, Tokyo Crowdfunding Club, Sportie Fund, Sustena Crowdfunding, Allez! Japan, and Green Girl.

The startup aspires to help get crowdfunding projects featured on overseas crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo as well. One More’s CEO Takehiko Numata explains:

In order to feature your project on crowdfunding sites outside Japan, you will need to register your company in that country and have an account at a local bank there. The qualification process can be very cumbersome and you’ll face many issues before getting your project featured.

We’re considering partnership with those crowdfunding sites, which will make the process easier. We’ll help project owners submit their proposals to Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and introduce those projects on our portal site so as to encourage Japanese people to back those projects.

As of 2012, the global market for crowdfunding services was worth about 2.8 billion yen (about $28 million). These days, a variety of new crowdfunding services are popping up all around Asia.

On a related note, we recently reported that Japanese internet tycoon Takafumi Horie said he might be taking on a special advisory role for Campfire, one of Japan’s largest crowdfunding services.

news

Japanese online content marketplace raises $3 million from Jafco and Femto Growth Capital

Junya Mori 2013.04.24

See also the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Piece of Cake, the company behind online article/content marketplace called Cakes, announced today that it has fundraised 300 million yen (or about $3 million) from Jafco and Femto Growth Capital Fund. The fund is being jointly managed by the investment arm of Japan’s Shinsei Bank and notable Japanese CPA Tetsuya Isozaki. Cakes is an online marketplace where content authors can sell their articles to an audience. In partnership with notable magazine or comic publishing companies, the startup gathers popular content authors including best-selling novelists, scientists, famous bloggers, businessmen, photographers, and musicians. Articles or other content by all these authors will be presented on the platform every day. It’s free to view the lead excerpt, but to view the entire piece requires a subscription of 150 yen ($1.50) per week. They explain further about the pricing: You’re paying the same amount of a bottled drink, and in return you can enjoy as much content as you like throughout the week. With the new funding, the startup aspires to build up a framework to provide a better user experience for readers, content authors, and publishers, with the eventual goal of being a leader…

Tokyo-based startup Piece of Cake, the company behind online article/content marketplace called Cakes, announced today that it has fundraised 300 million yen (or about $3 million) from Jafco and Femto Growth Capital Fund. The fund is being jointly managed by the investment arm of Japan’s Shinsei Bank and notable Japanese CPA Tetsuya Isozaki.

Cakes is an online marketplace where content authors can sell their articles to an audience. In partnership with notable magazine or comic publishing companies, the startup gathers popular content authors including best-selling novelists, scientists, famous bloggers, businessmen, photographers, and musicians. Articles or other content by all these authors will be presented on the platform every day. It’s free to view the lead excerpt, but to view the entire piece requires a subscription of 150 yen ($1.50) per week. They explain further about the pricing:

You’re paying the same amount of a bottled drink, and in return you can enjoy as much content as you like throughout the week.

With the new funding, the startup aspires to build up a framework to provide a better user experience for readers, content authors, and publishers, with the eventual goal of being a leader in content distribution.

Our readers may recall back in February when GREE had launched a paid online magazine service called Magalry. They are having a tough time in the publishing industry, but it’s interesting to see if this kind of new publication platform can establish some solid growth.

news

Stealth m-commerce startup Origami raises $5M from KDDI and DAC

SCORE 1,169

Junya Mori 2013.04.24

See the original story in Japanese. On Tuesday Tokyo-based startup Origami held a press briefing where they finally unveiled what they had been working on. The company has developed a mobile app (also called Origami) which allows you to follow updates from the accounts of your favorite brands or merchants. When you find something you like, you can also easily purchase using the app. It also has ‘like’ features for items, and you can check-in at both real and virtual retailers if you want to share your shopping experience with friends. The press briefing was held in Tokyo’s fashion district of Omotesando. Brands and retailers using the mobile commerce app for their promotion efforts include names like: Beams, Mori Museum, MoMA Design Store, Hysteric Glamour, Bang & Olufsen, Mizuma Art Gallery, as well as some department stores and art galleries. At the press briefing, Origami’s CEO Yoshiki Yasui introduced their goals: Mobile commerce solves many problems faced by retailers in e-commerce, both online and offline. The gap between of e-commerce and offline retailing is disappearing, and mobile commerce enables merchants to take advantage of both market opportunities. Giving users the ability to follow their favorite brands, the app helps them…

See the original story in Japanese.

On Tuesday Tokyo-based startup Origami held a press briefing where they finally unveiled what they had been working on. The company has developed a mobile app (also called Origami) which allows you to follow updates from the accounts of your favorite brands or merchants. When you find something you like, you can also easily purchase using the app. It also has ‘like’ features for items, and you can check-in at both real and virtual retailers if you want to share your shopping experience with friends.

The press briefing was held in Tokyo’s fashion district of Omotesando. Brands and retailers using the mobile commerce app for their promotion efforts include names like: Beams, Mori Museum, MoMA Design Store, Hysteric Glamour, Bang & Olufsen, Mizuma Art Gallery, as well as some department stores and art galleries.

At the press briefing, Origami’s CEO Yoshiki Yasui introduced their goals:

Mobile commerce solves many problems faced by retailers in e-commerce, both online and offline. The gap between of e-commerce and offline retailing is disappearing, and mobile commerce enables merchants to take advantage of both market opportunities.

Giving users the ability to follow their favorite brands, the app helps them encounter an item of interest in a way other than conventional search process. Through integration with social media, you can share your shopping experience with your friends so that they will be easily encouraged to buy something if they like it, even if you didn’t actually buy it.

On the Origami platform, every merchant has both a real and virtual store. Right now many users have visited the real store, checked in there, and shared using social media. These actions used just not to help merchants with promotion. With our solutions, it allows users gain an access to a brand or a retailer’s website by just clicking on a picture that another user has posted. In other words, every single piece of consumer-generated content will become a sort of billboard ad for brands or retailers.

The startup received funds from Japanese telco KDDI and digital ad agency Digital Advertising Consortium (DAC), and according to some news sources, it amounted to 500 million yen (about $5 million). KDDI’s SVP Makoto Takahashi and DAC’s CEO Hiroki Yajima were in attendance as special guests at the briefing. The telco provides not only financial support but also technical integration with their mobile platform for a better user experience. DAC and its subsidiaries will provide technology solutions for the startup.

They have also partnered with Condé Nast Group, the publisher of magazine brands like Vogue Japan, GQ Japan, and Wired. Condé Nast will give users the latest trends on fashion and gadgets through the app.

The Origami app is still only available only for iOS, but an Android app will follow in two or three months. They also considered developing a desktop version in the future, but they intend to focus on the iOS app for the time being. In the future they hope to expand globally as well.

Founder Yasui previously worked at Lehman Brothers and Silicon Valley-based VC firm DCM. The startup also announced that DCM’s partner Gen Isayama has joined its board of directors.

A recent study by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications shows the Japanese mobile commerce to be worth of $11.7 billion, 16% more than what it was a year ago. In nearby China, the mobile commerce market is expected to reach $27.1 billion, surpassing the United States by 2014.

Origami-Team — From the left: Takashi Nozawa (VP of Technology), Yoshiki Yasui (Founder and CEO), and Max Mackee (VP of Business Development)

news

Tokyo-based web marketing agency to launch Japan’s first ever ‘audience commerce’ platform

Junya Mori 2013.04.17

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based web marketing agency Hivelocity has unveiled Japan’s first ever audience commerce platform. It’s called Feedbuy, and it has just opened up pre-registration for membership. The company expects to launch the service around late-April or early-May. For those of you who may not be familiar with it yet, the concept of audience commerce is that the more users spread the word about a product using their social network, the lower the sales price becomes. If the volume of social buzz about the item reaches a certain point, merchants may even give users a 100% discount. We’re told the platform is Japan’s first ever promotion tool using this audience commerce model, where merchants can sell their products on the platform and ask users to help their promotional efforts. Hyvelocity was founded in 2004 by several Japanese web producers, and has been distributing web marketing solutions for companies in partnership with inbound marketing solution provider HubSpot.

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based web marketing agency Hivelocity has unveiled Japan’s first ever audience commerce platform. It’s called Feedbuy, and it has just opened up pre-registration for membership. The company expects to launch the service around late-April or early-May.

For those of you who may not be familiar with it yet, the concept of audience commerce is that the more users spread the word about a product using their social network, the lower the sales price becomes. If the volume of social buzz about the item reaches a certain point, merchants may even give users a 100% discount. We’re told the platform is Japan’s first ever promotion tool using this audience commerce model, where merchants can sell their products on the platform and ask users to help their promotional efforts.

Hyvelocity was founded in 2004 by several Japanese web producers, and has been distributing web marketing solutions for companies in partnership with inbound marketing solution provider HubSpot.

news

Fabless printing startup Raksul partners with Stores.jp, fulfills printing needs for e-store owners

Junya Mori 2013.03.21

See the original story in Japanese. Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, announced today it has partnered with Stores.jp, the e-commerce platform that lets you set up a store online in minutes. Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,400 printing factories nationwide. Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the participating printers use their downtime to finish those orders. The partnership allows the owners of online stores using the Stores.jp platform to order free printing of their store’s promotional cards, providing an one-stop solution for e-commerce owners. This makes it easier to manage their stores, since they can also do other things like set up a promotional newsletter or apply for credit card payments all in one place. With the partnership, Raksul also lets the store owners pay more attention to printing materials as promotion tools. Both startups are also planning to introduce a new service together, although the details of this are not yet known. Earlier this month, Raksul announced it had partnered with Crowdworks, a startup that crowdsources engineering and design needs for business cards and hand-outs. Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total…

See the original story in Japanese.

Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, announced today it has partnered with Stores.jp, the e-commerce platform that lets you set up a store online in minutes.

Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,400 printing factories nationwide. Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the participating printers use their downtime to finish those orders.

The partnership allows the owners of online stores using the Stores.jp platform to order free printing of their store’s promotional cards, providing an one-stop solution for e-commerce owners. This makes it easier to manage their stores, since they can also do other things like set up a promotional newsletter or apply for credit card payments all in one place.

With the partnership, Raksul also lets the store owners pay more attention to printing materials as promotion tools. Both startups are also planning to introduce a new service together, although the details of this are not yet known.

Earlier this month, Raksul announced it had partnered with Crowdworks, a startup that crowdsources engineering and design needs for business cards and hand-outs.

Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total amount of 230 million yen ($2.4 million) during the last year from Nissay Capital, Yahoo Japan, and angel investor Anri Samata. Stores.jp was founded by Yusuke Mitsumoto who has developed a variety of web services.

news

Japan’s Pocket Concierge fills cancelled restaurant reservations with eager customers

Junya Mori 2013.03.06

Read this story in Japanese. When you go for a night out on the town, how do you find the best restaurant? In Japan, most people rely on internet resources such as Tabelog, Gournavi, Naver Matome, or even blog posts. But with Japan’s high internet penetration, many people in your area are probably doing the same thing. As a result, it can be even the harder to reserve a spot in the restaurant you want. Pocket Concierge was recently launched with the aim at solving this kind of problem, allowing you to book even popular restaurants that might be wait-listed for several months. How does it work? You bookmark the restaurant of your choice by clicking the ‘wish-to-go’ button on the Pocket Concierge website. When the restaurant finds any unexpected vacancy in their reservation list, they will e-mail you an invite through the site. You will be requested to enter what day and how many people are in your party. Pocket Concierge will then e-mail you confirmation of the booking after finalizing with the restaurant. While popular restaurants are tough to reserve, when they experience sudden cancellations they could be wasting food – and it’s useful for them to be…

Read this story in Japanese.

When you go for a night out on the town, how do you find the best restaurant? In Japan, most people rely on internet resources such as Tabelog, Gournavi, Naver Matome, or even blog posts. But with Japan’s high internet penetration, many people in your area are probably doing the same thing. As a result, it can be even the harder to reserve a spot in the restaurant you want.

Pocket Concierge was recently launched with the aim at solving this kind of problem, allowing you to book even popular restaurants that might be wait-listed for several months.

How does it work? You bookmark the restaurant of your choice by clicking the ‘wish-to-go’ button on the Pocket Concierge website. When the restaurant finds any unexpected vacancy in their reservation list, they will e-mail you an invite through the site. You will be requested to enter what day and how many people are in your party. Pocket Concierge will then e-mail you confirmation of the booking after finalizing with the restaurant.

While popular restaurants are tough to reserve, when they experience sudden cancellations they could be wasting food – and it’s useful for them to be able to invite other customers instead. Interestingly, the service is not PC dependent as it is also available to use via fax.

Pocket Concierge was founded by Kei Tokado who was has experience in the restaurant business, including time as a restaurant chef. His unique background and insight made it possible to come up with such an idea, having seen the need for such a service first hand.

Early insights

Pocket Concierge has been operating in closed beta since the beginning of this year. And so far they have intriguing insights, finding that sales professionals in their 30s often dined with business partners, and male business owners in their 40s were also very responsive. Kei Tokado explains:

We previously intended to provide users with an alternative way to book ‘hard-to-reserve’ restaurants. But from the closed beta program, we found that customers using our service were very satisfied because participating restaurants provided them with extra rewards when the customers dined. In comparison to existing restaurant-related online services, we believe we provide more value, even offline.

We heard from many restaurants that it’s possible to learn in advance the sort of occasion a customer might have, or if they have certain ingredients they dislike or might be allergic to. This information makes it possible to provide a service which fits the customer very well.

For users, it’s free to make a reservation more than three days in advance of your visit, but otherwise you will be charged. The service started in Tokyo but expects to expand to other major Japanese cities including Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, and Fukuoka.

Junya Mori

Articles

Japanese voice-acting service adds new languages, announces investment