THE BRIDGE

translation

Japanese mobile developer Cinnamon raises $1.5 million, launching new photo app

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See the original story in Japanese. Spicy Cinnamon (Cinnamon for short), the startup behind the photo sharing app Seconds, announced today that it has raised 150 million yen (approximately $1.47 million) from CyberAgent Ventures, TBS Innovation Partners [1], Incubate Fund, and Golden Gate Ventures. Coinciding with this funding, the company has launched a new iOS app today called PicChat. [2] An Android version will follow soon. Cinnamon was launched back in 2012, led by Miku Hirano who previously work with Naked Technology, which was acquired by Mixi in 2011. The company securing seed funding from CyberAgent Ventures and several angel investors. Our readers may recall that the company pitched its Seconds app at Startup Asia Jakarta last April. The app appears to be doing well with over 200,000 downloads across the Asia region, including Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore, so I’m curious why they are moving on to a new app. I had a chance to speak with the company’s co-founder and CEO Miku Hirano to find out more. We’ve been looking at our Seconds users for almost an year since launch, and we’ve learned how they typically behave. We target women around the age of 25 in the South East…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Spicy Cinnamon (Cinnamon for short), the startup behind the photo sharing app Seconds, announced today that it has raised 150 million yen (approximately $1.47 million) from CyberAgent Ventures, TBS Innovation Partners [1], Incubate Fund, and Golden Gate Ventures. Coinciding with this funding, the company has launched a new iOS app today called PicChat. [2] An Android version will follow soon.

Cinnamon was launched back in 2012, led by Miku Hirano who previously work with Naked Technology, which was acquired by Mixi in 2011. The company securing seed funding from CyberAgent Ventures and several angel investors. Our readers may recall that the company pitched its Seconds app at Startup Asia Jakarta last April.

The app appears to be doing well with over 200,000 downloads across the Asia region, including Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore, so I’m curious why they are moving on to a new app. I had a chance to speak with the company’s co-founder and CEO Miku Hirano to find out more.

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Cinnamon CEO Miku Hirano

We’ve been looking at our Seconds users for almost an year since launch, and we’ve learned how they typically behave. We target women around the age of 25 in the South East Asian region, and we found that they are using our app not for saving memories in photos, but rather for real-time communication. For them, they can’t be bothered to key in texts when uploading a photo, so our new app allows you to add a short audio clip with the app. That’s PicChat.

I thought the Seconds app was a completed product to share photos among intimate friends. But it seems that Cinnamon has been treating it as a test marketing process for the next step. Considering the Seconds app has acquired more than 200,000 users to date, we can expect the new app to have a more rapid user expansion since based on user feedback.

In this space, I think Vietnam and Korea saturated by Korean apps like Kakao Talk. So we expect to take over Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand with the new app. To help in user acquisition, we hired a number of students from top Asian universities as interns. We believe in their potential in terms of their viral marketing skills.

As we’ve learned from China’s ClassBox, which reached 1 million downloads its first month, a viral effect can happen in a student network. It could be interesting to see if Cinnamon can win the interest of the younger generation in this way.

Cinnamon will shut down the Seconds app in the future and shift all their resources to their PicChat app. We understand that they will keep focusing on user acquisition this year, and will start monetization by selling stickers and ads after 2015.

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  1. The investment arm of Tokyo Broadcasting System
  2. The company has bases in Tokyo and Hanoi, but is registered in Singapore. 

Japan’s Adways invests in Gumi, looks to conquer Asia mobile app market

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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese internet company Adways (TSE:2489) announced yesterday that it has invested in mobile gaming developer Gumi (also from Japan), taking a 1.0% stake. Adways provides a reward-based ad platform for mobile app developers (in Japan and around the world) called AppDriver. Gumi is seeing good results in user acquisition, not only for its own game titles but also with Brave Frontier, a game developed by its subsidiary Alim. It is said that the app has acquired more than 2 million users in Japan as well as a million users from around the rest of the world. Through this investment, Adways expects to create a synergy with Gumi to expand its business in global mobile markets. Adways also recently announced it has partnered with InMovi Japan and five Japanese startups providing crowdsourcing services, helping AppDriver users improve and promote their apps using these services for free or at discounted rates.

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See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese internet company Adways (TSE:2489) announced yesterday that it has invested in mobile gaming developer Gumi (also from Japan), taking a 1.0% stake.

Adways provides a reward-based ad platform for mobile app developers (in Japan and around the world) called AppDriver. Gumi is seeing good results in user acquisition, not only for its own game titles but also with Brave Frontier, a game developed by its subsidiary Alim. It is said that the app has acquired more than 2 million users in Japan as well as a million users from around the rest of the world. Through this investment, Adways expects to create a synergy with Gumi to expand its business in global mobile markets.

Adways also recently announced it has partnered with InMovi Japan and five Japanese startups providing crowdsourcing services, helping AppDriver users improve and promote their apps using these services for free or at discounted rates.

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Sekai Lab: Crowdsourcing platform lets Japanese companies find developer teams around Asia

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See the original article in Japanese Sekai Lab, a company under Singapore-based music/game company Monstar Lab, has launched a crowdsourcing platform. It lets companies in Japan find engineers from all around the world, but still using Japanese. With the rapid spread of smartphones in Japan, more and more app developers are needed these days. Sekai Lab COO Ikkei Okuma thought that the company could provide a solution to match Japanese companies with skilled engineers in Asian countries such as China and Vietnam. Okuma explains: There are many great engineers in Asia. But there is no platform in Japanese to match them with companies in Japan, making it very difficult for companies to outsource their work. Workers registered on most crowdsourcing platforms are individuals, which makes it hard to outsource a big project using crowdsourcing platforms. Sekai Lab aims to address these issues. The cost of human resources on Sekai Lab are relatively low. And by providing Asian engineers with high skill sets, the company hopes to alleviate the shortage of engineers currently plaguing Japan. So how does it work? Development processes are executed through communication between the developer team and the company that outsourced the work. And depending on the…

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See the original article in Japanese

Sekai Lab, a company under Singapore-based music/game company Monstar Lab, has launched a crowdsourcing platform. It lets companies in Japan find engineers from all around the world, but still using Japanese.

With the rapid spread of smartphones in Japan, more and more app developers are needed these days. Sekai Lab COO Ikkei Okuma thought that the company could provide a solution to match Japanese companies with skilled engineers in Asian countries such as China and Vietnam. Okuma explains:

There are many great engineers in Asia. But there is no platform in Japanese to match them with companies in Japan, making it very difficult for companies to outsource their work. Workers registered on most crowdsourcing platforms are individuals, which makes it hard to outsource a big project using crowdsourcing platforms. Sekai Lab aims to address these issues.

The cost of human resources on Sekai Lab are relatively low. And by providing Asian engineers with high skill sets, the company hopes to alleviate the shortage of engineers currently plaguing Japan.

So how does it work? Development processes are executed through communication between the developer team and the company that outsourced the work. And depending on the project, Monstar Lab can provide support as well.

On the Sekai Lab website, you can find engineers across many different categories, such as the type of app required, cost, and the past experience of the team.

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Okuma also told us a little about how they screen teams for registration.

For the time being, we only register companies who have an office in Japan, in addition to their developer base outside Japan. We meet the team face-to-face and confirm their past experience. We gather information about the team leader and put it on our website.

In Japan, crowdsourcing service is getting lots of attention these days, with Lancers and Crowdworks showing remarkable growth. Can crowdsourcing beyond Japan’s borders be successful as well? We’ll keep watching Sekai Lab, so stay tuned.

Japanese loyalty program startup Hyper8 raises $510,000

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See the original article in Japanese Tokyo-based Hyper8 Inc., the startup that operates Mespo, a loyalty program platform for restaurants and retail stores, recently announced that it has raised 51 million yen ($510,000) from MID Venture Capital, East Ventures, and two individual investors. Restaurants and retailers who implement Mespo can use the platform for 980 yen ($9.80) per month. When users make a purchase, they can earn points and collect them using their smartphones. A tablet device that incorporates the platform is distributed to each store, with an LTE connection as well since some stores don’t have wi-fi. At checkout, customers can collect the points by scanning a QR code displayed on the tablet. Until now over 300 establishments, including restaurants, massage salons and hair salons, have been using the platform. The company aims to tie up with publicly-listed companies who may already have a large network of retailers. There are already some similar services in Japan, including Gurunavi touch and Recruit point. We spoke to the CEO of Hyper8, Keiji Isogimi, about how his company can differentiate from the competitors. The loyalty programs provided by Gurunavi and Recruit add points common among member stores. The system doesn’t motivate each…

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See the original article in Japanese

Tokyo-based Hyper8 Inc., the startup that operates Mespo, a loyalty program platform for restaurants and retail stores, recently announced that it has raised 51 million yen ($510,000) from MID Venture Capital, East Ventures, and two individual investors.

Restaurants and retailers who implement Mespo can use the platform for 980 yen ($9.80) per month. When users make a purchase, they can earn points and collect them using their smartphones. A tablet device that incorporates the platform is distributed to each store, with an LTE connection as well since some stores don’t have wi-fi. At checkout, customers can collect the points by scanning a QR code displayed on the tablet.

Until now over 300 establishments, including restaurants, massage salons and hair salons, have been using the platform. The company aims to tie up with publicly-listed companies who may already have a large network of retailers.

There are already some similar services in Japan, including Gurunavi touch and Recruit point. We spoke to the CEO of Hyper8, Keiji Isogimi, about how his company can differentiate from the competitors.

The loyalty programs provided by Gurunavi and Recruit add points common among member stores. The system doesn’t motivate each store to recommend a loyalty program to customers. That’s one reason why Gurunavi touch is not widely recognized even though its member stores amounts to over 8000 in total.

But with Mespo, each store can offer customers their own points, specific to that store. Of course, if a store is part of a chain, it can use the same points. There are smart features in the app, like a feature to update users in real time about how busy a store is, and send push-notifications of special offers. Those features add motivation for stores to use Mespo.


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Given that retailers can borrow the LTE tablet for free, the monthly rate of 980 yen is incredibly low. I can’t help but wonder if Hyper8 could really make a profit from this. Isogimi told us:

We are now focusing on increasing our total member stores. Currently the tablet devices are not on lease. We purchase them and lend them to stores. So most of the funds we raised this time will be used to buy tablet devices.

We aren’t thinking of growing our sales only through Mespo. We noticed that the IT literacy of workers in restaurants and retail stores is getting higher. So we want to add more services based on the network we will build through Mespo, making the business more profitable in that way.

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From Left: CEO Keiji Isogimi, board member Shota Morikawa

Until now Hyper8 has been expanding Mespo through profits earned by operating social events. In addition to this fundraising, Shota Morikawa from East Ventures will join the company’s board, aiming to strengthen the team.

The company will relocate Startup Dojo, an incubation space run by Movida Japan in Shibuya. It is said that growing e-commerce platform, Base, will have an office there too.

Japanese mobile app developer TriFort raises $3.9 million from WiL fund

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup TriFort announced today it has raised about $400 million yen (about $3.9 million) from WiL (World Innovation Lab), a fund recently formed by Japanese venture capitalist Gen Isayama. Since its launch back in August of 2012, the company has been working on contract-based software development for social gaming and smartphone app developers. They have rapidly grown to 100-person team in just 1.5 years. The company will use the new funds to start developing and marketing its own mobile apps globally. Our readers may recall that this investment fund was formed back late December, raising over $300 million from a number of Japanese companies. It aims to promote Open Innovation activities and to nurture Japanese entrepreneurs who can lead Japan into the next generation.

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From the left: TriFort CEO Shintaro Otake and CTO Taimei Omata (From their Facebook page)

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup TriFort announced today it has raised about $400 million yen (about $3.9 million) from WiL (World Innovation Lab), a fund recently formed by Japanese venture capitalist Gen Isayama.

Since its launch back in August of 2012, the company has been working on contract-based software development for social gaming and smartphone app developers. They have rapidly grown to 100-person team in just 1.5 years. The company will use the new funds to start developing and marketing its own mobile apps globally.

Our readers may recall that this investment fund was formed back late December, raising over $300 million from a number of Japanese companies. It aims to promote Open Innovation activities and to nurture Japanese entrepreneurs who can lead Japan into the next generation.

Japanese personal accounting startup Money Forward launches enterprise version

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See the original article in Japanese There are more cloud tools than ever available to support small scale or personal businesses. In Japan such services include things like Evernote, Talknote, Github, and Qitta. But for many small businesses, there’s a bottleneck in areas like accounting, and it is inevitable that freelancers and small businesses must handle such work slowly and carefully. But Tokyo-based Money Forward, the startup behind the personal accounting app of the same name, has a solution that might work for them. On January 27th, Money Forward released its official version of “Money Forward Kakutei-shinkoku” (Kakutei-shinkoku is Japanese for “filing the final tax return”) and “Money Forward for Business”. The basic plan for “Money Forward Kakutei-shinkoku” for personal users is free, and with a paid plan at 800 yen ($8) per month for those who want to enter more than 15 items a month. “Money Forward for Business” is available for free for the first 45 days, and users who want to continue the service need to pay 1800 yen ($18) per month. A variety of features, including online communication with tax accountants, will be added later. One of the most remarkable features of the app is that…

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See the original article in Japanese

There are more cloud tools than ever available to support small scale or personal businesses. In Japan such services include things like Evernote, Talknote, Github, and Qitta. But for many small businesses, there’s a bottleneck in areas like accounting, and it is inevitable that freelancers and small businesses must handle such work slowly and carefully. But Tokyo-based Money Forward, the startup behind the personal accounting app of the same name, has a solution that might work for them.

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On January 27th, Money Forward released its official version of “Money Forward Kakutei-shinkoku” (Kakutei-shinkoku is Japanese for “filing the final tax return”) and “Money Forward for Business”.

The basic plan for “Money Forward Kakutei-shinkoku” for personal users is free, and with a paid plan at 800 yen ($8) per month for those who want to enter more than 15 items a month. “Money Forward for Business” is available for free for the first 45 days, and users who want to continue the service need to pay 1800 yen ($18) per month.

A variety of features, including online communication with tax accountants, will be added later.

One of the most remarkable features of the app is that it can automatically acquire data from a bank account at over 1400 financial institutions. Based on past records, the app helps automatically add tags to entries. The goal is to dramatically improve the process of creating reports, including things like cash flow statements and financial statements.

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By automatization data entry and journalizing, the app makes your accounting work much more efficient.

CEO Yosuke Tsuji told us that his company plans to tie up with other services like iPad POS systems, and other departments that deal with employees’ salary and attendance, aiming to reduce manual work.

In Japan, more and more small e-commerce sites are emerging, through e-commerce platforms like Base and Stores.jp. It’s logical to assume that there will be more C2C transactions in the future. It is exciting to picture the whole accounting processes taken care of with cloud accounting apps.

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According to Tsuji, a few thousands of people have used the test version of the app. He says that around 12% of Money Forward users say that they would want to use Money Forward for Business too.

When I visited their new office recently, I found that the developer team had expanded to over 20 members. I asked Tsuji about the recruiting process and what kind of qualifications he is looking in new members.

We have six-person recruiting team. For engineers, we are often referred to a new engineer by engineers that we know. Good engineers tend to be connected with each other. We are looking for someone good at teamwork, with the right skills and an interest in our service.

The team has to figure out how to evolve the product based on user feedback. In order to establish its priorities, members need to share the company’s vision and values. Tsuji adds that it is very important to grow a positive culture within the company.

In order to be a sort of infrastructure in the future, Money Forward will be expected not only to provide good products at reasonable prices, but also to make contributions to public good through their service.

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Digital music score platform PiaScore releases version 4.0, aims for 1M downloads

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See the original article in Japanese PiaScore is a digital music score platform from Japan. Its first iPad app was released back in December of 2010, and an iPhone version followed in May of 2013. The total number of downloads grew rapidly, to date accumulating more than half million downloads. Version 4.0 of the app was recently released on January 24th. PiaScore has many remarkable features for musicians. Not only can a user view musical scores, but they can jot notes over them, or use gestures to turn pages (iPad only). They can download over 70,000 classical scores for free as well. The app is used by a wide range of people including professional musicians the world over, educators, or just anyone who enjoys music as a hobby. Its App Store is vert high, with 4.5 points out of 5.0 given by users in Japan, the US, the UK, and China. Some new features have been added in this most recent update, including the ability to import scores, or to organize scores using playlists or tags. The design has also been renewed, and in total the company has added over 100 improvements. By paying attention to their users’ needs, PiaScore…

PiaScore

See the original article in Japanese

PiaScore is a digital music score platform from Japan. Its first iPad app was released back in December of 2010, and an iPhone version followed in May of 2013. The total number of downloads grew rapidly, to date accumulating more than half million downloads. Version 4.0 of the app was recently released on January 24th.

PiaScore has many remarkable features for musicians. Not only can a user view musical scores, but they can jot notes over them, or use gestures to turn pages (iPad only). They can download over 70,000 classical scores for free as well.

The app is used by a wide range of people including professional musicians the world over, educators, or just anyone who enjoys music as a hobby. Its App Store is vert high, with 4.5 points out of 5.0 given by users in Japan, the US, the UK, and China.

Some new features have been added in this most recent update, including the ability to import scores, or to organize scores using playlists or tags. The design has also been renewed, and in total the company has added over 100 improvements. By paying attention to their users’ needs, PiaScore has managed to retain its position as one of the most useful apps in the music field.

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You might think that only professional musicians would make frequent use of such an app. But the monthly active rate of its users overall is fairly high at 20%. The CEO of Plus-Add (the company the makes PiaScore) Hiroyuki Koike played piano when he was young, and his personal experience and understanding has contributed to his winning the support of many music lovers. He tells us:

Many of people in music are not very familiar with the iPad or smartphones. So instead of making an advanced app with the latest technologies, I tried to keep the app very simple, something that would be easy to use even for beginners. I implemented user-friendly guides, and I tried to craft the design carefully people could use it easily.

While the startup got supports from external entities and advisors, when its comes to product and business development, nearly everything has been conducted by Koike up until now. Tablet devices are expected to continue to be used in music. So he thinks there is still a lot of room for this product to grow.

The startup aims to reach 1 million downloads in the near future.

Japanese startup aims to disrupt market duopoly with razor subscription service

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See the original story in Japanese. Shaving is regular part of most men’s daily routine. And now there’s a Japanese company trying to make that routine a little less troublesome. Tokyo-based startup OpenUp launched a subscription-based razor delivery service back in December. It’s called Tokyo Shave Club. When you sign up for the service on their website, a new razor blade will be delivered to you every month, and the payment will be automatically processed. This of course will remind many of our readers of a similar service from the US, Dollar Shave Club. According to a survey, Schick and Gillette own more than 80% of the Japanese razor market. The vision of this startup is to disrupt that market by providing consumers with more convenience. The company’s CEO Yusuke Ido believes that the current market duopoly limits the variety of shaving products available in stores, reducing the chance that consumers can buy a really good product. Patented six-blaze razor They deliver a patented six-blade razor product every month, produced by Korean maker Dorco. Generally speaking, the more blades, the better your shave. But the company provides two-blade and four-blade types as well. Premium plan: A six-blade razor with three…

See the original story in Japanese.

Shaving is regular part of most men’s daily routine. And now there’s a Japanese company trying to make that routine a little less troublesome. Tokyo-based startup OpenUp launched a subscription-based razor delivery service back in December. It’s called Tokyo Shave Club.

When you sign up for the service on their website, a new razor blade will be delivered to you every month, and the payment will be automatically processed. This of course will remind many of our readers of a similar service from the US, Dollar Shave Club.

According to a survey, Schick and Gillette own more than 80% of the Japanese razor market. The vision of this startup is to disrupt that market by providing consumers with more convenience.

The company’s CEO Yusuke Ido believes that the current market duopoly limits the variety of shaving products available in stores, reducing the chance that consumers can buy a really good product.

Patented six-blaze razor

They deliver a patented six-blade razor product every month, produced by Korean maker Dorco. Generally speaking, the more blades, the better your shave. But the company provides two-blade and four-blade types as well.

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  • Premium plan: A six-blade razor with three spare blades for 800 yen/month (shipping and handling included)
  • Standard plan: A four-blade razor with three spare blades for 600 yen/month (S&H included)
  • Simple plan: A two-blade razor with four spare blades for 100 yen/month (requires 250 yen for S&H)

If you use a typical razor, you usually need to replace a blade every week or every ten days. Otherwise, it could irritate your skin. So in order to get more people to use the service, the company has to educate users about why they should a good razor, and assure them of the product’s quality and convenience.

Dollar Shave Club succeeded in their marketing efforts with a viral YouTube video starring their CEO (see below). In a similar way, Tokyo Shave Club has perhaps an even more attractive marketing effort (as you can see in the video above) to catch the eye of potential users.

This sector has been getting lots of attention since NY-based startup Harry’s recently took over a 93-year-old razor factory in Germany. That company was founded by Jeffrey Raider, co-founder of glasses e-commerce site Warby Parker.

So it will be interesting to see how Tokyo Shave Club can impact the market in Japan.

Japan’s Showcase Gig secures series A funding, starts nationwide operations

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based digital marketing startup Showcase Gig, the startup behind ‘O:der’ (apparently pronounced ‘order’), announced today that it has raised funds from Nissay Capital and Nippon Venture Capital. The exact details of the funding were not disclosed but we understand that the amount is in the millions (US dollars). According to the startup’s CEO Takefumi Nitta, this is series A funding to follow their angel round secured at the company’s began back in February of 2012. Since the launch of O:der back in July, the company has been providing a suite of CRM solutions for small-sized retailers, comprising of two iOS apps, one for consumers and the other for merchants. The consumer app has a mobile wallet feature that lets you pay by credit card before picking up a product at the shop. Nitta told us they have implemented their solutions at 25 stores to date, and they expected to expand to 50 stores by the end of February. They’ve taken their time to carefully select stores to implement their solution. About 70% of their initial users have used the tool more than twice, which convinced them that it was a solid CRM tool for…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based digital marketing startup Showcase Gig, the startup behind ‘O:der’ (apparently pronounced ‘order’), announced today that it has raised funds from Nissay Capital and Nippon Venture Capital. The exact details of the funding were not disclosed but we understand that the amount is in the millions (US dollars).

According to the startup’s CEO Takefumi Nitta, this is series A funding to follow their angel round secured at the company’s began back in February of 2012.

Since the launch of O:der back in July, the company has been providing a suite of CRM solutions for small-sized retailers, comprising of two iOS apps, one for consumers and the other for merchants. The consumer app has a mobile wallet feature that lets you pay by credit card before picking up a product at the shop. Nitta told us they have implemented their solutions at 25 stores to date, and they expected to expand to 50 stores by the end of February.

They’ve taken their time to carefully select stores to implement their solution. About 70% of their initial users have used the tool more than twice, which convinced them that it was a solid CRM tool for small businesses. With the funds raised this time around, the company plans to expand their operations beyond Tokyo prefecture. Nitta adds:

Rather than expanding our business, we are currently focusing on validating our product with stores that are more conscious about digital technologies for retail sales. In addition to small independent stores, we’d like to acquire larger store chains to use our solutions in the future.

Our readers may recall that he has been involved in notable offline businesses too, producing Tokyo Girls Collection, one of the country’s biggest fashion events, and mixiXmas, a campaign run by Mixi.

Creator of popular homescreen app CocoPPa launches new profile exchanging app ‘iam’

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See the original article in Japanese Japan’s Fogg Inc is a subsidiary company of United Inc, the developer of popular home screen decoration app CocoPPa 1. And last week Fogg launched a profile card exchanging app named iam. With this app, you can manage all your profile information including telephone numbers and social media accounts, and exchange that profiles with other iam users. The app is available for free on iOS. Profile exchanging apps are something we have seen many times before, with Bump being one of the leading app’s in that area, acquired by Google in 2013. Here in Japan specifically, we have startups such as EverConnect and Sansan provide services for managing business cards. I am not going to go into details about the different features of iam. But I’d like to encourage you to download the app and experience it for yourself. For now, I’d like to focus on the two people behind the app. The CEO of Fogg, Yusuke Sekine, is responsible for starting the fast-growing app, CocoPPa. I spoke with Sekine and Hiroki Teshima, the executive officer at United. Teshima spoke of when the idea of CocoPPA came about, when he convinced the company to…

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See the original article in Japanese

Japan’s Fogg Inc is a subsidiary company of United Inc, the developer of popular home screen decoration app CocoPPa 1. And last week Fogg launched a profile card exchanging app named iam. With this app, you can manage all your profile information including telephone numbers and social media accounts, and exchange that profiles with other iam users. The app is available for free on iOS.

Profile exchanging apps are something we have seen many times before, with Bump being one of the leading app’s in that area, acquired by Google in 2013. Here in Japan specifically, we have startups such as EverConnect and Sansan provide services for managing business cards.

I am not going to go into details about the different features of iam. But I’d like to encourage you to download the app and experience it for yourself. For now, I’d like to focus on the two people behind the app.

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The CEO of Fogg, Yusuke Sekine, is responsible for starting the fast-growing app, CocoPPa. I spoke with Sekine and Hiroki Teshima, the executive officer at United. Teshima spoke of when the idea of CocoPPA came about, when he convinced the company to let him make a small team to create a service. At the time social gaming was at a peak back then, and developer salaries were rising fast.

Teshima: I collected new graduates. And while their potential skills are high, they don’t have much experience in developing apps. Then I was referred by Kobayashi-san (former CEO of Nobot) to Sekine-san.

Sekine joined Teshima’s team and released a music service app named Discodeer. It went on to achieve 1.8 million downloads, and subsequently got the attention of DeNA. That led Sekine to get involved with DeNA’s new service, Groovy.

Teshima: But our team still had the resources to start another service. We brainstormed ideas, but nothing really clicked. So one day, I invited Sekine-san to join our team meeting.

The meeting was only for an hour. And Teshima was not even there because of another appointment. But at that meeting, the idea of CocoPPa was born.

Sekine: Since most of our team members were women, we came up with some beauty or healthcare service. […] Then the topic happened to turn to Mixi, and how cute their icon was.

Home screens in iOS are not easy to customize. Sekine was researching about the URL scheme for app icons, and he realized that it wasn’t so hard to change app icons. Our female members’ had the idea of making a community to share these icons, and thus first outline of CocoPPa was born.

CocoPPa has gone on to surpass 18 million downloads around the world. And that’s how Teshima and Sekine came to be in charge of building smartphone businesses within United.

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Now let’s circle back to iam. When there are already so many competitors in this field, how can iam be successful? Sekine says:

Sekine: Where we’d like to innovate is on the complexity social networking and reducing paper waste. With iam, users can manage multiple profiles, or even create a variety of profiles to choose from later when they want to send it to another user.

So depending on the person with whom you want to share your profile, you can choose which one to send.

At the beginning, we have narrowed down our target users. First was college students. College students tend to seek out a service that enables a high level of customization.

The app was initially tested by about 1000 college students, and was then released from stealth mode to be made public. I hear that creating temporary URLs are very useful way to make profile exchanging viral among friends.

I asked Sekine if an “intrapreneur” can be successful when the atmosphere of the team remains a bit loose. But Sekine says “I told the members that we have to make it this year. If we don’t, there will be no next year for us.”

The team is aiming for 1.3 million downloads by the end of May. That figure represents one sixth of all college students in Japan.

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  1. Fogg was founded in June 2013, as the first startup under United’s startup initiative ‘U-Start’. United holds 66% of its shares, and Yusuke Sekine, Fogg’s CEO, holds 34%. ↩