See the original story in Japanese. Our readers may recall that we have covered Takuma Terakubo, formerly working for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate, has established Leapfrog Ventures for the purpose of investing in East African seed-stage startups. We have just got an update from the company regarding their first investment. The firm unveiled that it has invested $50,000 US in Exuus, the startup offering credit infrastructure for unbanked people in Rwanda and neighboring countries. Leapfrog Ventures is the sole investor in this round. Founded in 2014 by National University of Rwanda graduate Shema Steve, Exuus has been offering a wallet service and lending credit platform for unbanked communities in rural areas, called Save. With the funding at this time, the startup intends to expand beyond Rwanda into other neighboring countries like Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. In East Africa including Rwanda, community-based savings groups have been appearing all across the region. Having digital technology adopted by these groups enables Save group members to invest using mobile devices as well as to borrow money from lending services by leveraging the credit scoring feature. An Exuus study says there are as many as 36,571 savings groups in Rwanda alone. In addition to…
Our readers may recall that we have covered Takuma Terakubo, formerly working for Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate, has established Leapfrog Ventures for the purpose of investing in East African seed-stage startups. We have just got an update from the company regarding their first investment.
The firm unveiled that it has invested $50,000 US in Exuus, the startup offering credit infrastructure for unbanked people in Rwanda and neighboring countries. Leapfrog Ventures is the sole investor in this round.
A shot of a typical savings group in Rwanda where you can see ledgers for deposit and withdrawal records. Exuus wants to digitalize these using mobile devices. Image credit: Exuus
Founded in 2014 by National University of Rwanda graduate Shema Steve, Exuus has been offering a wallet service and lending credit platform for unbanked communities in rural areas, called Save. With the funding at this time, the startup intends to expand beyond Rwanda into other neighboring countries like Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.
Shema Steve, Founder and CEO of Exuus
In East Africa including Rwanda, community-based savings groups have been appearing all across the region. Having digital technology adopted by these groups enables Save group members to invest using mobile devices as well as to borrow money from lending services by leveraging the credit scoring feature.
An Exuus study says there are as many as 36,571 savings groups in Rwanda alone. In addition to Rwanda, Exuus targets other Sub-Saharan African countries with many unbanked and low-income individuals.
In addition to helping savings groups avoid trouble upon lending and borrowing money among members by objectively monitoring their credit scores, the platform allows them to raise money from external resources like financial institutions by sharing the data. Even non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can utilize the data to find out what kind of aid is needed in a specific region.
Banks collaborating with the Save platform can reach out to potential customers and explore credit needs without establishing branches or rolling out ATMs which are costly in terms of performance in poorly populated areas.
Leapfrog Ventures tells us that they are currently exploring other opportunities to invest in prominent startups in the region. We’ll keep you updated as to their next investment.
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Spectee, at an OrangeFab meetup in Tokyo outlining the program in Asia, noted that from September it will start expanding its presence abroad — most likely in the U.S. which has been the amateur-based newsfeed firm’s largest market. Founder & CEO Kenjiro Murakami worked at a Silicon Valley major prior to starting up Spectee, under a different name. The Tokyo firm is a second batch (the first which covered Japan, Korea and Taiwan) graduate of the accelerator run by the European telecom concern Orange. Spectee will showcase its service at an Austin, Texas confab next month to mark the launch of its active foray into North America. Many competing services are headquartered on this continent. The Japanese startup not only handles copyright management issues for the image data but applies Artificial Intelligence (AI) upon finding and matching the requisite data. It was underscored that by 2020 the Internet will be some 44 ZB (zettabytes) of information floating out on cyberspace, beyond the capacity of a normal human brain alone to thresh through. See also: Japan’s social news aggregator for press…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
Spectee CEO Kenjiro Murakami introduces his service at a recent OrangeFab Asia meet-up. Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy
Spectee, at an OrangeFab meetup in Tokyo outlining the program in Asia, noted that from September it will start expanding its presence abroad — most likely in the U.S. which has been the amateur-based newsfeed firm’s largest market. Founder & CEO Kenjiro Murakami worked at a Silicon Valley major prior to starting up Spectee, under a different name.
The Tokyo firm is a second batch (the first which covered Japan, Korea and Taiwan) graduate of the accelerator run by the European telecom concern Orange. Spectee will showcase its service at an Austin, Texas confab next month to mark the launch of its active foray into North America. Many competing services are headquartered on this continent.
The Japanese startup not only handles copyright management issues for the image data but applies Artificial Intelligence (AI) upon finding and matching the requisite data. It was underscored that by 2020 the Internet will be some 44 ZB (zettabytes) of information floating out on cyberspace, beyond the capacity of a normal human brain alone to thresh through.
Spectee is currently working with Associated Press (AP) among other press organizations to disseminate its visual newsfeed network. Its system is also armed with multiple patents, which is rare for a startup with less than ten years of history, to be applied in expanding into new areas beyond the news field.
Earlier last month, Uzabase — offering the NewsPicks service and tied up with Dow Jones in the U.S. — announced its intention to buy digital-only business news service Quartz from Atlantic Media. Assuming the approximately month-long U.S. government approval goes smoothly, the Tokyo company can expect to be the new Quartz provider.
See the original story in Japanese. Bangkok-based TalentEx, offering recruitment-focused online media and SaaS (software as a service) for human resource affairs, announced last week that it has fundraised from Tokyo-based Monstar Lab, the Japanese company sourcing app developments around the world, as well as Japanese consulting firm Skylight Consulting. The fundraising round and amount have not been released, however based on materials published by the company it appears to be tens of millions Japanese yen making it equivalent to the seed round. This follows an angel round (amount and investor names undisclosed). TalentEx will use the funds to advance into the Russian market in order to supply engineer talent to Japanese companies. TalentEx’s expansion into the Russian market is stemmed from the Japan-Russia Digital Sector Cooperation Seminar, which was conducted in February of this year by Rotobo (The Japan Association for Trade with Russia & NIS), based on an agreement between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Vladimir Putin for business cooperation to accelerate the digital economy between the two countries. Around ten startup experts from Japan were invited to the startup scenes in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kazan (Republic of Tatarstan) where they exchanged information with local entrepreneurs…
Human Holdings, Kazan Federal University, and TalentEx signed an MoU to support employment in Japan for Russian students (June 2017) Image credit: Human Holdings
Bangkok-based TalentEx, offering recruitment-focused online media and SaaS (software as a service) for human resource affairs, announced last week that it has fundraised from Tokyo-based Monstar Lab, the Japanese company sourcing app developments around the world, as well as Japanese consulting firm Skylight Consulting. The fundraising round and amount have not been released, however based on materials published by the company it appears to be tens of millions Japanese yen making it equivalent to the seed round. This follows an angel round (amount and investor names undisclosed).
TalentEx will use the funds to advance into the Russian market in order to supply engineer talent to Japanese companies.
TalentEx’s expansion into the Russian market is stemmed from the Japan-Russia Digital Sector Cooperation Seminar, which was conducted in February of this year by Rotobo (The Japan Association for Trade with Russia & NIS), based on an agreement between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Vladimir Putin for business cooperation to accelerate the digital economy between the two countries. Around ten startup experts from Japan were invited to the startup scenes in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kazan (Republic of Tatarstan) where they exchanged information with local entrepreneurs and investors.
During this visit, TalentEx Founder and CEO Yojiro Koshi was surprised by Russia’s overwhelming supply of engineers and became convinced that human resource exchanges, joint research, and joint business development will be important in the field of IT development in Japan, Russia, and Europe. With the support of Human Holdings (TSE:2415), the company started a project to teach Japanese to IT engineering students at Kazan Federal University. Trained students are expected to work as engineers at Japanese companies as arranged by Human Holdings in the future.
Of the two companies that contributed funds this time around, Monstar Lab is cooperating with TalentEx through the operation of its recently launched co-working space Monstar Hub Bangkok. Additionally, due to the business alliance formed from this investment, TalentEx will expand the use of Copell, an IT human resource search and screening platform for talent in Asia launched in beta by Monstar Lab in June, to its headquarters in Thailand as well as in Russia.
The other investor, Skylight Consulting, is planning and cooperating with the previously mentioned Japan-Russia Digital Sector Cooperation Seminar and will conduct cross-border open innovation by identifying and introducing promising startups from Russia and Asia to Japanese companies.
The following is a comment from Toshiki Habutsu, CEO of Skylight Consulting.
We believe that the importance of Japanese companies securing adequate people for global expansion will increase more and more in the future. Through our backing of TalentEx, we will collaborate on the human resource aspect of supporting the global development of Japanese companies and in the business of global open innovation.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Wovn Technologies launched last week the beta version of Wovn.app, an SDK (software developer kit) that allows mobile developers to easily multilingulize their apps. At present it is only available for iOS apps (Swift and Object-C), and the SDK for Android will be offered at a later date. In the future, the company will also consider the possibility of releasing SDKs for other app development frameworks such as Unity. Until now the company has been providing Wovn.io for website multilingulization. At the end of last year the company began offering standard functions for free and changed directions with Wovn.io Prime which aims to meet the demands of major companies by offering improved functions for enterprises. In the spring of this year the company also changed its name from Minimal Technologies to Wovn Technologies. This all appears to be a part of the trend for the multilingualization of mobile apps, in addition to websites. In particular, with companies that provide both web and mobile apps in multiple languages, it is difficult to manage the accuracy of both translations along with the terminology use, and it took a considerable number of steps. With Wovn.app, users…
Tokyo-based Wovn Technologies launched last week the beta version of Wovn.app, an SDK (software developer kit) that allows mobile developers to easily multilingulize their apps. At present it is only available for iOS apps (Swift and Object-C), and the SDK for Android will be offered at a later date. In the future, the company will also consider the possibility of releasing SDKs for other app development frameworks such as Unity.
Until now the company has been providing Wovn.io for website multilingulization. At the end of last year the company began offering standard functions for free and changed directions with Wovn.io Prime which aims to meet the demands of major companies by offering improved functions for enterprises. In the spring of this year the company also changed its name from Minimal Technologies to Wovn Technologies. This all appears to be a part of the trend for the multilingualization of mobile apps, in addition to websites.
In particular, with companies that provide both web and mobile apps in multiple languages, it is difficult to manage the accuracy of both translations along with the terminology use, and it took a considerable number of steps. With Wovn.app, users can manage the translation part of the web and mobile apps centrally on the dashboard. Additionally, because translation correction and replacement can all be done on the dashboard there would be no need to recompile the app and apply to the App Store each time.
Wovn.app is primarily offered for enterprise users using Wovn.io Prime, and the fee for single usage is undecided. It is negotiable for startups that wish to use the Wovn.app if a fixed cooperative relationship is established.
Also, Wovn recently started a service that collectively accepts translations on a fixed monthly budget. This means that with the multilingualization of websites and mobile apps where budgets are hard to fix, the user sets the budget beforehand and in accordance with this optimizes the quantity of the translations and the balance of human translation/machine translation. As the cost becomes constant, it is easier for the user to make internal inquiries and settlements, and in particular, it is easier to adopt it in a public organization.
Competitors in the same field around the world include One Sky in Hong Kong, Get Localization in Finland, and Transifex in Silicon Valley.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original article in Japanese. During Infinity Venture Summit 2018 Spring in Taipei, a semi-annual conference hosted by renowned startup-focused investment fund Infinity Venture Partners (IVP), the LaunchPad startup pitch competition was held on June 8th, where Taipei-based ReCactus won the top prize. According to Infinity Venture Partners Founder and Managing Partner Akio Tanaka, of the 300 startups that have participated in LaunchPad in the last 10 years, around 20 have reached the IPO stage, another 20 or so are at M&A, and another 20 have secured large amounts of funding, which means that 1 in 5 teams has made significant progress. A total of 14 teams, 7 from Japan and 7 from Taiwan, participated in this edition of LaunchPad. The following people served as judges. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda Joesph Chan, AppWorks Josephine Cheng, KKBOX Yvonne Chen, WI Harper Brian Hsu, Mediatek Kotaro Yamagishi, Keio Innovation Initiative Hiroto Tokusei, Google Shoga Kawada Koichiro Yoshida, CrowdWorks Yoshihiko “Max” Kinoshita, Skyland Ventures Yuzuru Honda, FreakOut Holdings Kota Chiba, Drone Fund Additionally, Taiwan’s Cinchy, one of the companies sponsoring the LaunchPad session, presented the Shure high-end headset to each of the finalists. 1st place winner: ReCactus by ReCactus (Taiwan) Prizes Amazon…
During Infinity Venture Summit 2018 Spring in Taipei, a semi-annual conference hosted by renowned startup-focused investment fund Infinity Venture Partners (IVP), the LaunchPad startup pitch competition was held on June 8th, where Taipei-based ReCactus won the top prize.
According to Infinity Venture Partners Founder and Managing Partner Akio Tanaka, of the 300 startups that have participated in LaunchPad in the last 10 years, around 20 have reached the IPO stage, another 20 or so are at M&A, and another 20 have secured large amounts of funding, which means that 1 in 5 teams has made significant progress.
A total of 14 teams, 7 from Japan and 7 from Taiwan, participated in this edition of LaunchPad. The following people served as judges.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Joesph Chan, AppWorks
Josephine Cheng, KKBOX
Yvonne Chen, WI Harper
Brian Hsu, Mediatek
Kotaro Yamagishi, Keio Innovation Initiative
Hiroto Tokusei, Google
Shoga Kawada
Koichiro Yoshida, CrowdWorks
Yoshihiko “Max” Kinoshita, Skyland Ventures
Yuzuru Honda, FreakOut Holdings
Kota Chiba, Drone Fund
Additionally, Taiwan’s Cinchy, one of the companies sponsoring the LaunchPad session, presented the Shure high-end headset to each of the finalists.
1st place winner: ReCactus by ReCactus (Taiwan)
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Prizes
Amazon Loft Tokyo Invitation Tour, Airplane Tickets for 2 (Provided by Amazon Web Services)
500,000 yen voucher for Freee (Provided by Freee)
360 cans of Yebisu Beer (Provided by AGS Consulting)
1 night stay for 5 people at Village Izukogen (Provided by Sumitomo F Real Estate)
5,000 US dollars worth of GCS Credit (Provided by GrandTech Cloud Services)
ReCactus is a social app that allows users to shoot, edit, and post their video reactions alongside online video content. When someone tries to create a video reaction without ReCactus, they have to download the original video, shoot and edit their reaction while playing it, and then re-upload the finished product to YouTube or other platforms. And then there is always the chance that the video could end up deleted due to copyright restrictions on the original video content.
ReCactus collects videos that have already cleared the copyright hurdle and users can shoot a video reaction while playing them within the app. Once shooting is finished, it is mixed and edited with the original video and automatically uploaded to YouTube and other social media platforms. After launching in October of 2017 the monthly user growth rate has reached 30%, with North and South America accounting for ⅓ of the access rate respectively, the rest accessing from Russia and Southeast Asia. It is possible to imagine monetization in the form of native advertising and paid content using video reactions. The app is available on iOS and Android.
2nd place tie: TWO (Taiwan)
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Two is an IoT (Internet of Things) hardware device that allows users to keep track of what is going on with their garbage by simply attaching it inside the can. It can run using WiFi for one year on a battery. By accumulating and analyzing the data it is possible to improve the waste disposal cycle and to lower waste management costs required from garbage collection to the landfill disposal.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
From August, the company will start PoC (proof of concept) with the Environmental Protection Agency responsible for waste disposal in Taipei. It is said that by 2050 approximately 80% of the world’s population will live in urban areas. With an example like Toronto, Canada where the annual garbage processing costs top $2.5 billion US, it is expected that local governments from each city in each country will step up to help try and solve such headaches.
2nd place tie: Xpression by EmbodyMe (Japan)
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Xpression is an app that replaces users’ faces and expressions as reflected in a camera with video faces and expressions in real time. It is possible to use videos taken with an iPhone or videos that have been published on YouTube, etc., as long as the facial expressions can be made out. In addition to impersonating celebrities, users can appear in online videos in suits without ever changing out of their pajamas.
While SnapChat earns much of its revenue from AR (augmented reality) ads, EmbodyMe’s business model for Xpression seems to involve YouTubers and AR ads using the app. Also, by making the Xpression functions available as SDK (software developer kit), the company is considering third party AR app developers who can incorporate it into their own apps and services.
In 2015, SkyRec, which graduated from the 11th batch of Taipei-based startup accelerator AppWorks, initially analyzed wires using cameras installed in stores, analyzed items for sale, improved display methods, selected and removed unpopular items, and specialized in offline retail marketing and business intelligence. But, for this pitch the company proposed applying their technology to the new field of unmanned shops.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
The company introduced an unmanned self-checkout system using facial recognition technology with a function that can recognize repeat customers even without members cards. The company says that nearly 30% of manual labor time and cost at convenience stores, G stores (gas stations with convenience stores attached), and supermarkets around the world could be reduced. After winning the Slush Asia 2016 pitch competition, the company’s business has been expanding rapidly, and nearly 200 stores are currently using SkyRec, along with 199 companies using the brand.
Orii is a wearable device designed to support communication without having to look at a screen as with smartphones or smart watches. It is troublesome to have to focus on a screen while in the middle of doing something, and even dangerous to try do so while walking. Orii is a smart ring capable of transmitting voice, when a consumer wears it on their finger and hits their finger against their ear, it is possible to hear voices by bone conduction.
It is recommended for those who are inconvenienced by AirPods or other hearing devices, which must always be worn in the ear.
It is also possible to give voice commands using Bluetooth in collaboration with Siri and Google Assistant. A crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and Indiegogo produced good results. The company also won the Techsauce Summit Tokyo preliminary round and proceeded to its finals in Bangkok in late June.
The following is a list of the teams that participated as finalists while they didn’t place 5th or above.
A fortune telling service for companies by Animalogy (Japan)
Animalogy is a human resource analysis platform to analyze the skills of team members and create stronger teams within the company. Animalogy proposes a fortune telling service using four pillar astrology to make guesses about human relationships and urges companies to place the right people in the right place.
frm.ai by UNH3O (Taiwan)
Frm.ai is a fan relationship management tool for brands, retailers, and artists. The tool tracks interactions and engagement with fans, analyzes the user’s preferences and interests, and tells users how to follow up with which fans, what messages to send, and when to send them. The company was acquired by Botomize, a company specializing in bot analysis, in March of 2018.
Soico Cloud by Soico (Japan)
Soico advocates the idea of “time capsule stock options” that can solve the problems of existing stock option schemes, in particular, the problem of issuing stock options after the market capitalization increases, thus making the stock price too high. The solution is to decide the number of stock options to be offered at the point of offering since it is not possible to measure its future contribution to the company. The company has developed Soico Cloud, which can complete a series of procedures on the cloud and manage, store, execute rights, and accept contracts.
Bonx for Business by Bonx (Japan)
Bonx, which is a wearable transceiver that allows users to communicate hands-free via the Internet, has sold approximately 20,000 units so far and is targeted at sports fans such as snowboarders and cyclists. Bonx for Business has expanded on the original Bonx to meet corporate demand by targeting users who need to communicate with each other in remote locations such as management bases and warehouses. It is assumed that the pricing structure is based on a combination of hardware sales and software usage fees.
Tlunch by Mellow (Japan)
Tlunch is a platform that matches open building spaces with food trucks. The company has contracts with about 70 building owners, mainly in Tokyo and Yokohama, and so far about 350 food trucks use the platform. For food truck owners, who are often individuals, it is troublesome to negotiate with each building owner individually in order to find business spaces, and this is what Tlunch aims to alleviate. Tlunch receives 15% of sales from the food trucks as a commission, 5% of which is paid to the building owner as a fee.
Leber by Agree (Japan)
Leber is a doctor sharing app with a question response rate of 3 minutes or more. When users input their symptoms they will receive a message from the doctor with regards to treatment, and according to symptoms and necessity may also receive information on the nearest medical institutions and open drugstores. For individual users the company offers services for 100 yen per inquiry, and Tsukuba City Hall, along with companies in the Tsukuba area, have begun offering the services for employees, staff, and their families.
WeMo by WeMo (Taiwan)
WeMo is a rental sharing platform for scooters deployed in Taiwan. The merits include suppression of air pollution and reduction in parking spaces. The scooters are equipped with GPS and IoT devices, and it is also possible to acquire the user’s movement data. It is convenient to use as one-way transportation since it can be left behind, like when users need to travel late at night and the public transportation has stopped or before going out drinking. Every week the company acquires 1,000 new users, and the usage per day/per scooter is 4.3 times on average. By the end of 2018, the company plans to offer services in 3,000 cities around the world.
Sumaho Hoken by JustInCase (Japan)
The goal of JustInCase is to apply the idea of a sharing economy to the “P2P insurance” field. Generally, with P2P insurance, insurance premiums are paid in groups (pools) that are interested in insurance among friends or with the same risk, and the insurance money is paid out from this pool. As the first step, the company will provide “smartphone insurance” covering damage to smartphones, and the second step will be to offer “Kega Hoken” (injury insurance) covering injuries from trekking and fishing events.
PiSquare by PiStage (Taiwan)
CG and animation production requires rendering, and rendering takes time. PiSquare applies real-time rendering technology implemented in game engines, and the like, to CG and animation production software, reducing the rendering which conventionally took 100 minutes per frame to 0.05 minutes (3 seconds) per frame. It is expected to be used mainly in animation studios and VR/AR content makers.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-headquartered Rapyuta Robotics, the startup developing a cloud-based robotics platform, revealed on Monday that it has secured 1.05 billion yen (about $9.5 million US) in a series A follow-on funding round. Participating investors are Japan Co-Invest Limited Partnership, Sony (Sony Innovation Fund), JMTC Capital and SBI Investment. For Rapyuta, this follows their seed round back in January of 2015 (raised about $3.2 million US) and their series A round back in September of 2016 (raised about $9 million US). SBI Investment has consecutively invested in the startup since the seed round. The funding at this time means the startup has secured a total of 2.5 billion yen (about $22.5 million US) to date. Spun off from ETH Zurich, Rapyuta Robotics was founded in 2014 in Tokyo by CEO Gajan Mohanarajah who earned a master’s degree at Tokyo Institute of Technology followed by Ph.D at ETH Zurich. About 25 40 people, mainly engineers, are working based out of their Tokyo headquarters as well as Zurich and Bangalore offices. The platform that the startup has been currently working on is somewhat like a robotics version of the Android open mobile platform. Initiated by the launch of…
Rapyuta Robotics’ engineers let robots with different capabilities synchronize and combine their actions each other by a single command entry. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Tokyo-headquartered Rapyuta Robotics, the startup developing a cloud-based robotics platform, revealed on Monday that it has secured 1.05 billion yen (about $9.5 million US) in a series A follow-on funding round.
Participating investors are Japan Co-Invest Limited Partnership, Sony (Sony Innovation Fund), JMTC Capital and SBI Investment. For Rapyuta, this follows their seed round back in January of 2015 (raised about $3.2 million US) and their series A round back in September of 2016 (raised about $9 million US). SBI Investment has consecutively invested in the startup since the seed round. The funding at this time means the startup has secured a total of 2.5 billion yen (about $22.5 million US) to date.
Spun off from ETH Zurich, Rapyuta Robotics was founded in 2014 in Tokyo by CEO Gajan Mohanarajah who earned a master’s degree at Tokyo Institute of Technology followed by Ph.D at ETH Zurich. About 25 40 people, mainly engineers, are working based out of their Tokyo headquarters as well as Zurich and Bangalore offices.
The platform that the startup has been currently working on is somewhat like a robotics version of the Android open mobile platform. Initiated by the launch of the Android platform by Google, the mobile ecosystem has been created through the emergence of various mobile development frameworks, app developers and service providers, in not to mention users.
Mohanarajah explained:
Rapyuta Robotics aims to be a platformer but is also developing solutions in addition to the platform because the ecosystem in the robotics sectors is still emerging that there’s still an insufficient number of system integrators and other players.
To select the best target sector which the company would develop solutions for, they thought how much of an impact they could have on each addressable sector by looking at how many robots are connected and how many engineers are involved, and currently focusing on logistics (such as order picking) and robot arm and drone. Companies already using robots will not be forced to replace their existing assets but can obtain further efficiency of the assets by adopting Rapyuta’s solutions, Mohanarajah said.
Rapyuta Robotics will use the funds for further development based on feedbacks from their early developer program since last year, sales marketing for public launch of the platform, plus development of automated solutions for logistics and factory automation industries, as well as extensive sales marketing to strengthen partnerships.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Ignition Point announced earlier this month that it has founded a subsidiary called DANX providing an on-demand eating and drinking service using food trucks. Satoshi Ota who had been managing Food-tech Business at Ignition Point is appointed to CEO of DANX while Ignition Point CEO Kazuhiro Aoyagi is appointed to Director of DANX. Ignition Point sets a target to create two internet services every year. Their achievement includes Secual (home security with IoT), an e-commerce service between Japan and other Asian countries based on the meGrid photobook service, Point Edge (community-based creator studio) and LEARNie (online English conversation learning for schoolchildren). Ignition Point has recently founded Pontely dealing with a pets’ lifecycle business using DNA information and DANX is the sixth case in independent company form. DANX is acronym for ‘Day and Night Box’ and aims to make an innovation in the eating and drinking industry corresponding to the change of lifestyle such as diversification of work environment, increase in singles-led households or need for regional revitalization. Conventionally, eating and drinking establishments had expanded its business based on restaurant having fixed geographic locations. For restaurants that serve unique menu, their geographical locations can…
From left: Kazuhiro Aoyagi (Managing Director, DANX), Satoshi Ota (CEO, Danx)
Tokyo-based Ignition Point announced earlier this month that it has founded a subsidiary called DANX providing an on-demand eating and drinking service using food trucks. Satoshi Ota who had been managing Food-tech Business at Ignition Point is appointed to CEO of DANX while Ignition Point CEO Kazuhiro Aoyagi is appointed to Director of DANX.
Ignition Point sets a target to create two internet services every year. Their achievement includes Secual (home security with IoT), an e-commerce service between Japan and other Asian countries based on the meGrid photobook service, Point Edge (community-based creator studio) and LEARNie (online English conversation learning for schoolchildren). Ignition Point has recently founded Pontely dealing with a pets’ lifecycle business using DNA information and DANX is the sixth case in independent company form.
DANX Image credit: DANX
DANX is acronym for ‘Day and Night Box’ and aims to make an innovation in the eating and drinking industry corresponding to the change of lifestyle such as diversification of work environment, increase in singles-led households or need for regional revitalization. Conventionally, eating and drinking establishments had expanded its business based on restaurant having fixed geographic locations. For restaurants that serve unique menu, their geographical locations can become established but will not grow further without a key potential customer layer. It is said that 90% of the key to success in the eating and drinking business is influenced by location, but the rent of properties in conventional urban locations remains at a high level due to supply shortage.
Ignition Point developed and organized several dozens of food trucks / kitchen cars. Each truck is dispatched to event sites or dead spaces in town as a pop-up restaurant serving a variety of menus. It can meet demands for lunch in office areas with few restaurants or can hold events like pop-up gourmet festivals by gathering multiple food trucks. DANX aims for a stable supply of high-quality food regardless of the cooks’ skill by utilizing a central kitchen function and efficient channels for procurement of foodstuff.
Siam ERAWAN exhibits at Thai Festival Image credit: DANX
While Ignition Point has been taking on consulting business as its core business, the firm purchased a Thai restaurant Siam ERAWAN in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo or a casual French restaurant Bistro Epices in Kichijoji, Tokyo, preparing to enter into the food-tech industry steadily as led by Ota. Chefs of these restaurants are expected to cooperate with DANX projects in recipe development.
DANX had exhibited its food truck restaurant at Thai Festival held in Yoyogi Park or a beach house at Katase-nishihama beach in the Shonan area before the full-scale operation. The beach house was not exhibited as food truck style due to the geographical restriction of beach, but it provided the firm’s future eating and drinking service virtually. Leveraging the experience obtained from beach house management, DANX focuses on establishment of operation model of the food truck business. Soon we may see food trucks with DANX logo throughout Japan.
Beach house in Katasenishihama beach, opened by Ignition Point Image credit: DANX
No competitor providing very similar service to DANX exist in Japan as far as the author knows, but DANX might be inspired from some conventional services. TLUNCH, provided by Tokyo-based Mellow, achieved success as a matching platform between 370 food truck owners and real estate owners with 70 vacant spaces.
DANX plans to launch an advance order / payment app resembling O:der to solve alleviate queuing in front of food trucks when busy. Additionally, one of the app’s function notifies users when favorite food trucks open nearby. Based on users’ GPS information of smartphones, it is similar to the freelance support platform Summon.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Japan Foodie, the Tokyo startup offering a mobile app for international visitors to Japan, announced on Monday that it has secured a total of 1.01 billion yen (almost $9.2 million US) in the latest round led by Norinchukin Bank, the Japanese state-run cooperative bank for developing agriculture and forestry businesses. This follows the company’s pre-series A round back in June when they fundraised 130 million yen (about $1.2 million US) from several investors including Ikuo Nishioka (President of Innovation Research Laboratory, formerly Chairman of Intel Japan), Xiaohang Yuan (Partner at MS Capital), Kotaro Chiba (renowned angel investor), Naoki Shimada (CEO of P&E Directions), Yusuke Tanaka (Executive Officer at Yahoo Japan, Chairman of Cross C), as well as Legend Partners. The latest funding is estimated as a series A round, and it appears that multiple existing angel investors also participated in this round. In a nutshell, Japan Foodie provides the following three functions for international visitors through a mobile app under the same name. Media: Introducing carefully selected eating and drinking establishments in Japan Reservation: Allowing users to make reservations and advance payments in 4 languages Mobile payments: Supporting 15 different QR code-based and NFC-based…
Japan Foodie, the Tokyo startup offering a mobile app for international visitors to Japan, announced on Monday that it has secured a total of 1.01 billion yen (almost $9.2 million US) in the latest round led by Norinchukin Bank, the Japanese state-run cooperative bank for developing agriculture and forestry businesses.
This follows the company’s pre-series A round back in June when they fundraised 130 million yen (about $1.2 million US) from several investors including Ikuo Nishioka (President of Innovation Research Laboratory, formerly Chairman of Intel Japan), Xiaohang Yuan (Partner at MS Capital), Kotaro Chiba (renowned angel investor), Naoki Shimada (CEO of P&E Directions), Yusuke Tanaka (Executive Officer at Yahoo Japan, Chairman of Cross C), as well as Legend Partners. The latest funding is estimated as a series A round, and it appears that multiple existing angel investors also participated in this round.
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
In a nutshell, Japan Foodie provides the following three functions for international visitors through a mobile app under the same name.
Media: Introducing carefully selected eating and drinking establishments in Japan
Reservation: Allowing users to make reservations and advance payments in 4 languages
Mobile payments: Supporting 15 different QR code-based and NFC-based mobile payments
In addition to attracting customers, it has the ability to prevent no-shows, as well as collect consumer behavior data from users along with location data and construct a database that effectively guides customers to establishments and realizes successful promotional campaigns for restaurants.
Pitching at the Tokyo Star Bank’s Foreign Entrepreneur Business Contest’s Demo Day earlier this month Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
The company recently participated in Tokyo Star Bank’s Foreign Entrepreneur Business Contest’s Demo Day where it revealed that in addition to serving restaurants, it will expand the business into other areas such as transportation, accommodation, shopping, and activities resulting in the one stop service for the entire inbound tourism industry. In the future, with the rise in inbound tourism and the prospective visitors to the 2020 Olympics, the company can expect to see an even larger increase in users.
Japan Foodie was selected to participate in the acceleration course of the JR East Railway Company’s Acceleration Program last year. Additionally, it was adopted into the Tokyo Metro Accelerator 2017 run by Creww, during its field trial the company succeeded in attracting inbound tourists from subway stations to restaurants, followed by winning the Alliance Award at Keikyu Accelerator 2018 run by 01Booster.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. The Australia-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ANZCCJ) on Tuesday evening held, with support from Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and Japan Australia Business Co-operation Committee, a Tech Startup confab at its new headquarters inside WeWork Shimbashi, in Tokyo. The panel comprised Australian Paul Chapman of fintech firm Moneytree, New Zealand-raised Yuta Iguchi of Million Steps Partner now doing Israel-focused business in Japan, Japan manager Shota J. Adam of mattress provider Koala.com and Kiwi-Aussie serial entrepreneur Terrie Lloyd (Japan Travel CEO), moderated by Jared Campion of Carter Search. See also: Moneytree, Japanese personal finance app, raises $9M to better serve corporate users Japanese personal finance app Moneytree raises $1.5 million Moneytree gives Japanese consumers smarter access to their finances Japan-based MetroWorks raises funds from Sunbridge Global Ventures Part of the Small/Medium-sized Enterprises Support Programme, it brought an audience ranging from ANZ Bank and HRExperts to Rio Tinto and Vega Global, illustrating the keen interest by foreign affiliates as to communication and human resource aspects of tech startups in Japan. In addition to SME, ANZCCJ has a program supporting Youth…
This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.
The panel comprised Australian Paul Chapman of fintech firm Moneytree, New Zealand-raised Yuta Iguchi of Million Steps Partner now doing Israel-focused business in Japan, Japan manager Shota J. Adam of mattress provider Koala.com and Kiwi-Aussie serial entrepreneur Terrie Lloyd (Japan Travel CEO), moderated by Jared Campion of Carter Search.
Part of the Small/Medium-sized Enterprises Support Programme, it brought an audience ranging from ANZ Bank and HRExperts to Rio Tinto and Vega Global, illustrating the keen interest by foreign affiliates as to communication and human resource aspects of tech startups in Japan. In addition to SME, ANZCCJ has a program supporting Youth Jobs too.
Image credit: ANZCCJ
Moneytree’s Chapman in particular noted how opportunities open up, referring to how the banking sectors in Japan and Australia both are conservative, yet once a trend begins, the momentum will be maintained on a long-term basis. For fintech, Open Banking — meaning accessibility via cyberspace to bank accounts — is a prominent example of this.
Hiring, training and retaining personnel were points stressed by intercultural expert Shota Adam of Internet-dependent Koala.com while the need to familiarize/educate clients and customers was emphasized by Messrs. Iguchi and Lloyd alike, though the latter apparently has an eye on philanthropic endeavors like disaster prevention activities as well.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Ignition Point announced last month that it had founded a subsidiary named Pontely which deals with pet distribution / lifecycle business based on DNA information of pets. Partnering with pet retailers across Japan, it provides information about potential risk of various diseases based on genetic information to customers considering the purchase of pets, aiming to reduce negligence or euthanization. Initially, the firm plans to provide a business targeting canines exclusively. Earlier last month, The Bridge reported that Kazuhiro Aoyagi retired from CEO of Secual, returning to Ignition Point to work on new business creation (he mentioned that Ignition Point aims to create two businesses every year). Pontely is the fifth case in this context. Toshiki Tamura and Dai Shinohara, the two being from the financial IT major Simplex, were appointed to CEO and COO respectively. Shinohara joined the team recently and Tamura had been mulling the possibilities of new businesses while being engaged in consulting works at Ignition Point. Bringing Aoyagi onboard as CSO (Chief Strategy Officer), they will focus on business development at Pontely. Pontely cooperates with pet retailers to conduct DNA examination on unpurchased pets and returns the information to retailers…
L to R: Kazuhiro Aoyagi (CSO of Pontely), Toshiki Tamura (CEO), Dai Shinohara (COO)
Tokyo-based Ignition Point announced last month that it had founded a subsidiary named Pontely which deals with pet distribution / lifecycle business based on DNA information of pets. Partnering with pet retailers across Japan, it provides information about potential risk of various diseases based on genetic information to customers considering the purchase of pets, aiming to reduce negligence or euthanization. Initially, the firm plans to provide a business targeting canines exclusively.
Earlier last month, The Bridge reported that Kazuhiro Aoyagi retired from CEO of Secual, returning to Ignition Point to work on new business creation (he mentioned that Ignition Point aims to create two businesses every year). Pontely is the fifth case in this context.
Toshiki Tamura and Dai Shinohara, the two being from the financial IT major Simplex, were appointed to CEO and COO respectively. Shinohara joined the team recently and Tamura had been mulling the possibilities of new businesses while being engaged in consulting works at Ignition Point. Bringing Aoyagi onboard as CSO (Chief Strategy Officer), they will focus on business development at Pontely.
Pontely cooperates with pet retailers to conduct DNA examination on unpurchased pets and returns the information to retailers free of charge, in principle. The retailers provide the information to customers and pays a certain amount of remuneration to Pontely after a pet is sold. Pontely issues certification to pet retailers that participate in this program. Aoyagi explains Pontely’s business model:
This model is similar to the internet provider Yahoo BB that increased its customers by free distribution of routers and collected provider charges afterward. We provide free DNA examination and aim to increase the number of pet retailers participating in our platform.
Pet retailers can automatically obtain high reliability without additional cost. Aoyagi had a similar idea at Secual but gave up on this Yahoo BB style due to high manufacturing costs as to IoT (Internet of Things) sensors.
Every pet-related business including pet insurance or pet food begins at pet retailers in most cases. There are 5,000 pet retailers in Japan but no super-major chain except mid-sized ones like Kojima. The pet market is one of the promising industries so Pontely could capture a large market share if they can cover this virtual mesh.
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
