news

Cotobe, Japan’s answer to CrunchBase, aims to improve work environment at startups

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.22

See the original story in Japanese. Net Jinzai Bank is a new business team within Japanese staff-dispatching and outsourcing company Saint Media, primarily offering an executive and talent search service for tech and IoT (Internet of Things) startups in Japan. On Wednesday, the company officially launched a startup valuation and scoring database site called Cotobe. It gathers and scores information about startups’ corporate values, and provides them as a list. This service is available via the website, and also as a mobile app for Android and iOS. The Cotobe site deals with listed and unlisted Japanese Internet companies as well as foreign companies run by Japanese entrepreneurs, gathers metrics like their amount of funding, annual sales, pageviews / unique visitors or the number of app downloads from publicly-available updates as well as the availability of stock options and average annual income by interviewing people involved. Then these metrics will be analyzed using a unique algorithm on the site so that users can easily compare startups at a glance. The breakdown of their targeted users is estimated to be job seekers (70%) and investors (30%), hence the service is seen being used for opportunities like finding new startups to work with…

See the original story in Japanese.

Net Jinzai Bank is a new business team within Japanese staff-dispatching and outsourcing company Saint Media, primarily offering an executive and talent search service for tech and IoT (Internet of Things) startups in Japan. On Wednesday, the company officially launched a startup valuation and scoring database site called Cotobe. It gathers and scores information about startups’ corporate values, and provides them as a list. This service is available via the website, and also as a mobile app for Android and iOS.

The Cotobe site deals with listed and unlisted Japanese Internet companies as well as foreign companies run by Japanese entrepreneurs, gathers metrics like their amount of funding, annual sales, pageviews / unique visitors or the number of app downloads from publicly-available updates as well as the availability of stock options and average annual income by interviewing people involved. Then these metrics will be analyzed using a unique algorithm on the site so that users can easily compare startups at a glance. The breakdown of their targeted users is estimated to be job seekers (70%) and investors (30%), hence the service is seen being used for opportunities like finding new startups to work with or invest in.

Typical job seekers for startups in Japan may use a social recruiting service like Wantedly. According to the Cotobe team, in contrast to Wantedly focused on offering users with an intuitive approach by allowing them to feel the atmosphere and work environment of startups they are interested in working at, Cotobe can be defined as offering a data-proven standard in finding a new position. Especially for the convenience of job seekers, each profile of registered startups is linked to the one on Wantedly, if any.

Considered an information resource for investments and funding updates on the startup landscape, the site plays a similar role as CrunchBase (US), CB Insights (US), Entrepredia (Japan), RocketPunch (Korea), Itjuzi (China), and 36kr’s database service (China).

Cotobe is provided free of charge, because it is part of activities to increase awareness of NET Jinzai Bank. Not just positive information for startups will be displayed on Cotobe so one can easily compare job information including average incomes from startups in the same industry. However, NET Jinzai Bank is going to publicize as much information as it can obtain, and contribute to improved status of startup workers by encouraging startup efforts to compete even under such an environment.

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

news

Japan’s social recruiting startup Wantedly unveils portfolio platform to attract creators

Junya Mori 2016.04.21

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Wantedly, the Japanese startup offering a social recruiting platform under the same name to connect startups with their potential employees, has launched a portfolio showcase platform called Case, aiming to connect creators and companies via products or artworks. Coinciding with the launch, products made by various startups or creative companies in Japan such as Party, Bascule, Bracket, 1->10design, Fablic and Vasily have as launch partners been displayed on the Wantedly website. Case allows users to team up and submit ‘projects.’ Any team already formed at Wantedly can submit projects as that team. When submitting projects, names of people concerned in the artworks or products can be put in the ‘credits.’ Although that is common practice in the advertisement field, names have not been visualized in product development so far. Visualization of names on Case will be appreciated by designers or engineers. Case aims to assist creators upon gaining inspiration or finding companies that provide excellent works through the displaying of products or artworks. However, there already have been many websites available for exhibition of creators’ portfolios or acquisition of inspiration. To distinguish Case itself as a later player from others, Wantedly will hold…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Wantedly, the Japanese startup offering a social recruiting platform under the same name to connect startups with their potential employees, has launched a portfolio showcase platform called Case, aiming to connect creators and companies via products or artworks.

Coinciding with the launch, products made by various startups or creative companies in Japan such as Party, Bascule, Bracket, 1->10design, Fablic and Vasily have as launch partners been displayed on the Wantedly website.

Case allows users to team up and submit ‘projects.’ Any team already formed at Wantedly can submit projects as that team. When submitting projects, names of people concerned in the artworks or products can be put in the ‘credits.’ Although that is common practice in the advertisement field, names have not been visualized in product development so far. Visualization of names on Case will be appreciated by designers or engineers.

Case aims to assist creators upon gaining inspiration or finding companies that provide excellent works through the displaying of products or artworks. However, there already have been many websites available for exhibition of creators’ portfolios or acquisition of inspiration. To distinguish Case itself as a later player from others, Wantedly will hold the key to success.

Previously on the Wantedly webpages, it was not easy for user companies to provide information about their products or artworks visually. By displaying their own products on Case, these companies can promote their activities more easily. On each company webpage at Case, a button for ‘view job’ is available, in addition to the follow button within Case. Accordingly, user companies will obtain more opportunities to acquire new customers or to recruit creators that match them.

Due to this launch, about 300 pieces of products were collected. The service plans to increase the number of users as targeting creators by having many opportunities to create products, and to attract 2,000 products within several months.

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

news

Tokyo-based Cluster secures $460K funding to develop VR platform for meet-ups

Cluster

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.20

Cluster, the Japanese startup behind a virtual reality(VR)-based event and environment platform under the same name, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised 50 million yen (about US$460,000) from Skyland Ventures, East Ventures and several angel investors. Upon obtaining this funding, the company was rebranded from its previous name Fictbox. Skyland Ventures participated in the previous funding round in January. The firm apparently is targeting relative small event organizers that cannot afford to commit much money or withstand losses. The Cluster platform allows event organizers to hold meet-ups, events, and other gathering opportunities using VR without fear of booking a venue or paying a high rent. For participants, they can virtually participate in an event by wearing a headgear and communicate with each others, even from home. Thanks to recent advances in server integration technologies and a protocol optimized for Internet of Things (IoT), even if more than 1,000 connections are established simultaneously, users are unlikely to feel a heavy load on the system. via TechCrunch Japan Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Cluster, the Japanese startup behind a virtual reality(VR)-based event and environment platform under the same name, announced on Tuesday that it has fundraised 50 million yen (about US$460,000) from Skyland Ventures, East Ventures and several angel investors.

Upon obtaining this funding, the company was rebranded from its previous name Fictbox. Skyland Ventures participated in the previous funding round in January.

The firm apparently is targeting relative small event organizers that cannot afford to commit much money or withstand losses. The Cluster platform allows event organizers to hold meet-ups, events, and other gathering opportunities using VR without fear of booking a venue or paying a high rent. For participants, they can virtually participate in an event by wearing a headgear and communicate with each others, even from home.

Thanks to recent advances in server integration technologies and a protocol optimized for Internet of Things (IoT), even if more than 1,000 connections are established simultaneously, users are unlikely to feel a heavy load on the system.

via TechCrunch Japan

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

news

If Conference 2016 in NYC connects Japan, US tech scenes

If Conference 2016

The Bridge 2016.04.18

This article is a contribution from New York-based journalist / translator Kasumi Abe. The Bridge reformatted and reproduced the article submitted to Nulab Blog, by courtesy of both Nulab and Abe. On 11 April, an event called If Conference (‘If Con’ for short) was held in New York City, aimed at connecting the tech scenes of Japan and the US. The venue was filled with some 250 visitors. The event got particularly lively in which many questions were thrown among the participants. Keynote 1: Pathway to Success in America for Japanese Companies If Con started from 12:30pm on 11 April, at Microsoft Technology Center in Times Square. First of all, William Lohse, who is founder / general partner of Social Starts and founder / CEO of Pivot Conference in addition to also being an investor, gave the keynote speech about tips for Japanese startups upon developing in the US and gaining success there. Lohse garnered much attention due to his familiarity with tech trends in both Japan and the US. Although it was a weekday and on a Monday afternoon to boot, the venue was filled to capacity from the onset! As he frequently flies back and forth between the…

This article is a contribution from New York-based journalist / translator Kasumi Abe. The Bridge reformatted and reproduced the article submitted to Nulab Blog, by courtesy of both Nulab and Abe.

On 11 April, an event called If Conference (‘If Con’ for short) was held in New York City, aimed at connecting the tech scenes of Japan and the US. The venue was filled with some 250 visitors. The event got particularly lively in which many questions were thrown among the participants.

Keynote 1: Pathway to Success in America for Japanese Companies

If Con started from 12:30pm on 11 April, at Microsoft Technology Center in Times Square.

First of all, William Lohse, who is founder / general partner of Social Starts and founder / CEO of Pivot Conference in addition to also being an investor, gave the keynote speech about tips for Japanese startups upon developing in the US and gaining success there.

Lohse garnered much attention due to his familiarity with tech trends in both Japan and the US. Although it was a weekday and on a Monday afternoon to boot, the venue was filled to capacity from the onset!

As he frequently flies back and forth between the two countries as well as is renowned for being knowledgable about Japan’s tech scene, questions for the keynoter from the audience centered on Japanese entrepreneurs or Japan’s tech community within the US.

Nulab CEO Hashimoto presents “The Tech City Fukuoka”

From 2pm, Nulab CEO Masanori Hashimoto took to the stage and introduced Japan’s Startup Visa system which has been newly implemented for issuance of visa for foreign entrepreneurs coming to the City of Fukuoka as the initial case for Japan, or the collaborative event between ‘tech’ and ‘creative’ called Myojo Waraku organized by Hashimoto and others.

See also:

Myojo Waraku: Japan’s rendition of SXSW begins in Fukuoka with showcasing prominent startups

His speech peppered with jokes sometimes drew laughter from the audience, with active discussions taking place during Q&A afterwards. He appeared to be very nervous, but the staff was relieved that he was able to contribute to the promotion of Nulab and the City of Fukuoka.

The Nulab CEO answered a question as to whether Myojowaraku will be held also in New York City or not:

The reason why we could carry out the event in Taiwan and London other than in Fukuoka was the support provided by the respective city. If New York City will support us, then I would like to hold it as well.

In retrospect, he noted:

I was very nervous because it was my first speech in New York City, but receiving good responses to a story about Ramen noodle as an introduction of the City of Fukuoka allowed me to speak as usual after that.

Meanwhile, other sessions regarding ‘Tips to Work with International Startups in New York’ was held in another place within Microsoft Technology Center, and that enlivened the venue as well.

Panel Discussion: Global Macro Trends / Launching Products in Japan

From 3pm to 5pm, two large panel discussions were held. One was on the theme of ‘global macro trends’ as mulled by CEOs of New York-based Japanese / US startups or analysts. The other was about perspectives on business development into Japan, by CEOs of startups which had actually developed their business into Japan.

Moderated by Ash Ryan (Developer Evangelist, Adobe), joining this panel were Ada Gries (CEO, OKPanda), Yoki Gibo (Director, Noom), and Odile Baneiflah (Head of International Operations, Meetup.com).

In another hall, several sessions having ‘Mental Game for Innovation’, ‘Structuring Your Startup for Success’ or ‘Trends in Japanese / US Startups’ as themes were held.

Keynote 2: How to Disrupt Personal Mobility Industry

As a finale to the event, CEO of Silicon Valley-based Whill Satoshi Sugie gave an evening keynote speech about development and future of next-generation powered wheelchairs. This session was also very well attended, with standing audiences!

Sugie shared the corporate philosophy of Whill which had just started in 2012 and episodes from the development of the Whill wheelchair. He concluded that what he wants to create is not just a powered wheelchair, but a personal mobility in a new category, which makes everyone want to ride it.

See also:

After 6pm, a networking event was held with light meals and drinks, where participants were asking speakers many questions, or discussing ideas among themselves.

The visitors were mainly entrepreneurs or students, and the ratio of men to women looked nearly equal.

I obtained the impression of the event from one of the If Con organizers, Masato Okunishi, after this.

He said:

The event was successful thanks to a lot of participants, more than we had imagined. Through this event, we could sense afresh the necessity or importance of the need for such events or communities, even in New York City.

We had received many testimonials like “It was worthwhile to come here today.” From US tech-related people, it was highly evaluated with comments like ‘I could come in contact with Japanese things for the first time’ including Japan-originated or Japanese startups through this event.

From Japanese or Japan-related people living in the US, we heard their impressions that it was nice to attend such a local event in New York. The common point in both feedbacks was that it was a new type of event that was not to be found before.

As an ambition for the future, we want to have more New Yorkers know about Japanese / US startups, and also have the Japanese become familiar with the tech situation in New York. We are happy if the community of If Con or our regular meet-up event Japan NYC Startups will enhance the circumstances for Japanese / US startups in New York.

It is expected that the relationship on the tech side between Japan and New York, or the US overall will be strengthened further in the future.

Photos taken at If Conference 2016

nyc-if-conference-2016-16 — Light exercise during the intermission to become refreshed, with a cooldown to follow

nyc-if-conference-2016-17 — The participants are treated to various drinks and snacks from sponsoring companies, such as green tea by Ito-en, draft beer by Sapporo and baumkuchen by Baum’s Sho.

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

news

Japanese newspaper giant Asahi Shimbun buys ‘owned media’ marketing startup Somewrite

Takeshi Hirano 2016.04.18

This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. The Asahi Shimbun, a leading national newspaper publisher in Japan, announced on Thursday that it will acquire the entire stake in Somewrite, a Japanese content marketing and “owned media” production startup. The purchase will be completed in late April when all the shares from Somewrite founder and Chairman Yasunari Shibata, COO Satoru Ikedo, Soraseed Startups and Gree Ventures are transferred to the Asahi side. Soraseed Startups is an investment fund owned by Shibata. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed but it is estimated to be around several million US dollars, comparing to the amount of the previous funding back in October of 2014. Soraseed is also an investor along with Gree Ventures, Incubate Fund and B Dash Ventures in Spika, a startup behind nail art photo app Nailbook. Since September 2013, Somewrite has been offering outsourced ‘owned media’ content production services for about 100 major companies in total, ranging from HR firm Adecco to beermaker Sapporo Breweries. Somewrite Ad, the company’s native advertising network platform, picks up advertorial articles from owned media sites and distributes them to other partnering news media sites as a native ad…

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

The Asahi Shimbun, a leading national newspaper publisher in Japan, announced on Thursday that it will acquire the entire stake in Somewrite, a Japanese content marketing and “owned media” production startup. The purchase will be completed in late April when all the shares from Somewrite founder and Chairman Yasunari Shibata, COO Satoru Ikedo, Soraseed Startups and Gree Ventures are transferred to the Asahi side. Soraseed Startups is an investment fund owned by Shibata.

Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed but it is estimated to be around several million US dollars, comparing to the amount of the previous funding back in October of 2014. Soraseed is also an investor along with Gree Ventures, Incubate Fund and B Dash Ventures in Spika, a startup behind nail art photo app Nailbook.

Since September 2013, Somewrite has been offering outsourced ‘owned media’ content production services for about 100 major companies in total, ranging from HR firm Adecco to beermaker Sapporo Breweries.

Somewrite Ad, the company’s native advertising network platform, picks up advertorial articles from owned media sites and distributes them to other partnering news media sites as a native ad so that these articles match the form with other regular articles in which they are placed. The platform has a tracking engine which learns the preference of users in real time.

After the acquisition, Somewrite Chairman Shibata and COO Ikedo will remain on the board of directors and continue managing the company while Asahi Shimbun will dispatch a director from their side.

According to Ikki Yamakawa, senior administrator of Asahi’s Media Lab startup collaboration initiative, the media giant will restructure their Advertisement Department in May to form a Media Business Department where they will start offering owned media marketing services to clients alongside with existing ad products, with the support from the Somewrite team.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

somewrite-yasunari-shibata-satoru-ikedo — From the left: Somewrite Chairman Yasunari Shibata and COO Satoru Ikedo

news

Japan port city of Kobe launches pre-accelerator program with 500 Startups

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.14

See the original story in Japanese. Silicon Valley-headquartered VC firm 500 Startups and the City of Kobe, Japan today announced the establishment of a collaborative pre-accelerator program. It will be run at the Kobe Institute of Computing located near Kobe-Sannomiya station from 1 August to 9 September. On the last day of the program, a Demo Day will be held for participant teams to show the result of the program, to which partners of 500 Startups will be invited, namely, Dave McClure, Christine Tsai, Zafer Younis, Marvin Liao and Mat Johnson. The City of Kobe and 500 Startups just started today accepting applications from participant startups via the program’s website. Eventually 15 to 20 teams will be selected from among them, and allowed to join the pre-accelerator program over a one month period. Applicants are limited to startups at seed stage inside / outside Japan, and covering fields including BI (business intelligence) tool, commerce, FinTech, EduTech, healthcare, IoT (Internet of Things), SaaS (Software as a Service) and so on. In particular, for cases on themes which focus on regional challenges in the Kobe area, the teams will be allowed to enter into partnership with sponsoring big companies (as part of Open…

dave-mcclure-in-kobe-city — 500 Startups founding partner Dave McClure at the Kobe city office. (Photo from his Instagram timeline)

See the original story in Japanese.

Silicon Valley-headquartered VC firm 500 Startups and the City of Kobe, Japan today announced the establishment of a collaborative pre-accelerator program. It will be run at the Kobe Institute of Computing located near Kobe-Sannomiya station from 1 August to 9 September. On the last day of the program, a Demo Day will be held for participant teams to show the result of the program, to which partners of 500 Startups will be invited, namely, Dave McClure, Christine Tsai, Zafer Younis, Marvin Liao and Mat Johnson.

The City of Kobe and 500 Startups just started today accepting applications from participant startups via the program’s website. Eventually 15 to 20 teams will be selected from among them, and allowed to join the pre-accelerator program over a one month period. Applicants are limited to startups at seed stage inside / outside Japan, and covering fields including BI (business intelligence) tool, commerce, FinTech, EduTech, healthcare, IoT (Internet of Things), SaaS (Software as a Service) and so on. In particular, for cases on themes which focus on regional challenges in the Kobe area, the teams will be allowed to enter into partnership with sponsoring big companies (as part of Open Innovation support).

As in a former case where 500 startups had engaged in incubation by tying up with local government, one may be reminded of the joint activities with the City of Osaka in 2013. Taking this as an opportunity, currently various events or programs related to startup acceleration have been carried out in the Osaka area, such as an annual startup conference every February like the collaboration HackOsaka, a 4.8 billion yen (about $44 million)-fund Hack Ventures backed by Osaka City / Osaka-based companies, incubation efforts conducted mainly at OIH (Osaka Innovation Hub) / GVH (Global Venture Habitat) in front of Osaka station, or a startups dispatch program to Silicon Valley.

See also:

500 Startups’ Expectations for Japan and Beyond – Interview with Dave McClure (Ignition)
Japan’s startup ecosystem gets lift from Silicon Valley’s Hiroshi Menjo (Beacon Reports)

On the other hand, the City of Kobe has been running startup competition Kobe Global Startup Gateway or a startup support business called Kobe Startup Office which gathers promising startups from within or outside Japan from last year. Looking at startup support activities by local government in Japan other than Tokyo, they are in fierce competition with each others in trying to differentiate their own support plans or to capture startups. For example, Fukuoka City aims at globalization of the community by inviting startups from Taiwan, which is rather close geographically.

It is likely that Kobe decided to rely upon 500 Startups for ‘globalization’; the word also can be seen in the name of the startup competition KOBE Global Startup Gateway which was started as of last year. We hope the startups from Kobe will enhance their presence in global startup hubs including Silicon Valley, triggered by the establishment of this pre-accelerator program.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

news

KDDI buys Japanese mobile game marketing startup AppBroadCast

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.12

Tokyo-based Mediba, an ad business-centric subsidiary of Japan’s leading telco KDDI, announced on Friday that it has gained a major stake in AppBroadCast, the company behind a mobile game media called GameGift. Details of the deal have not been disclosed but it seems like the valuation of the startup upon this acquisition is some one billion yen, or tens of million US dollars, according to several information sources. Since launch back in January 2013, AppBroadCast started the GameGift service in form of an Android app, which has surpassed 4.1 million downloads to date, offering users complimentary virtual items, news updates and strategic know-how for trending game apps. The company currently offers other services like Sakipre, which allows users to participate in beta testing of new game apps, as well as Hayatoku, a pre-registration platform for early downloads of new game apps with rewards. Prior to acquisition, AppBroadCast secured an undisclosed sum of funding in January 2014 from several sources including KDDI Open Innovation Fund, the startup investment fund jointly managed by KDDI and Japanese investment firm Global Brain. In addition, the company has also been participating in Syn. portal partnership, the mobile company alliance run by KDDI group company Supership….

Tokyo-based Mediba, an ad business-centric subsidiary of Japan’s leading telco KDDI, announced on Friday that it has gained a major stake in AppBroadCast, the company behind a mobile game media called GameGift. Details of the deal have not been disclosed but it seems like the valuation of the startup upon this acquisition is some one billion yen, or tens of million US dollars, according to several information sources.

Since launch back in January 2013, AppBroadCast started the GameGift service in form of an Android app, which has surpassed 4.1 million downloads to date, offering users complimentary virtual items, news updates and strategic know-how for trending game apps. The company currently offers other services like Sakipre, which allows users to participate in beta testing of new game apps, as well as Hayatoku, a pre-registration platform for early downloads of new game apps with rewards.

Prior to acquisition, AppBroadCast secured an undisclosed sum of funding in January 2014 from several sources including KDDI Open Innovation Fund, the startup investment fund jointly managed by KDDI and Japanese investment firm Global Brain. In addition, the company has also been participating in Syn. portal partnership, the mobile company alliance run by KDDI group company Supership. The company says that it may expand the Gamegift business globally, focusing on the Asian market.

Via TechCrunch Japan

appbroadcast-management — The AppBroadCast management team: CEO Masashige Ohara (middle), Director Keijiro Nakamura (right)
Image credit: AppBroadCast

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Japan’s Recruit holds Tech Lab Paak Demo Day, teams from 3rd batch exhibit outcomes

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.11

See the original story in Japanese. TECH LAB PAAK in Shibuya, Tokyo is a community space only for member IT creators, established by Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereinafter called Recruit) in November of 2014. The facility is managed by Recruit’s R&D headquarters, and works as an incubator to support tenant startups. The tenant teams are roughly classified into ‘community members’ and ‘project members’ according to maturity of their developing services. Last month, a Demo Day was held for four teams from community member and six teams from project members to exhibit a half year’s outcome since they moved in. Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from TECH LAB PAAK, with a focus on prize winners. The following are judges for the pitch competition in the event. Yohei Sawayama, Managing Partner, 500 Startup Japan Kotaro Chiba, Co-founder and Executive Director, Colopl Ken Nishimura, Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan Shinichiro Isago, Evangelist, Microsoft Japan Yoichi Aso, Head of Media Technology Labs, Recruit Holdings TECH LAB PAAK award winner: RE:GAIN Supplemental prize: Amazon gift card worth 30,000 yen (about $270) RE:GAIN is an online matching platform for rehabilitation. By summarizing information about diagnosis or healthcare of employees in…

See the original story in Japanese.

TECH LAB PAAK in Shibuya, Tokyo is a community space only for member IT creators, established by Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098, hereinafter called Recruit) in November of 2014. The facility is managed by Recruit’s R&D headquarters, and works as an incubator to support tenant startups.

The tenant teams are roughly classified into ‘community members’ and ‘project members’ according to maturity of their developing services. Last month, a Demo Day was held for four teams from community member and six teams from project members to exhibit a half year’s outcome since they moved in.

Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from TECH LAB PAAK, with a focus on prize winners. The following are judges for the pitch competition in the event.

Yohei Sawayama, Managing Partner, 500 Startup Japan
Kotaro Chiba, Co-founder and Executive Director, Colopl
Ken Nishimura, Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan
Shinichiro Isago, Evangelist, Microsoft Japan
Yoichi Aso, Head of Media Technology Labs, Recruit Holdings

TECH LAB PAAK award winner: RE:GAIN

Supplemental prize: Amazon gift card worth 30,000 yen (about $270)

RE:GAIN is an online matching platform for rehabilitation. By summarizing information about diagnosis or healthcare of employees in companies, it matches those having a disorder and physical therapists. It has already been running in the US and yielded $6,000 as a net profit just in two months since launch last October, under which 170 rehab specialists have been registered.

Based on a B2B2E (business-to-business-to-employee) business model, it targets 4,000 US companies providing health plans with more than 1,000 employees, or 1,500 Japanese companies having an internal health insurance association. It has been used by Hawaii Pacific Health or sports club members at the University of California. In Japan, DeNA (TSE:2432) is going to start utilization from March as well, and other IT or healthcare companies are also considering adoption.

Microsoft Japan award winner: LandSkip

Supplemental prizes: choice sirloin of Oumi beef for BBQ and Microsoft Azure credit worth $120,000

LandSkip is a video distribution platform providing scenery videos from all over the world with 4K high-definition. Gathering video content owned by tourism industries including local governments or resort owners, this service distributes such online. User companies can display three-minute endless video clips on a large screen in office as an interior object.

The team plans to construct a system capable of distributing to more than 30,000 clients by cooperating with Japanese signage ad network company Microad Digital Signage (MADS). With most of the content being purchased from freelance filmmakers or others, alongside consumer plan users can utilize HD video distribution for free but are charged with that of 4K videos. As for a business plan, only 4K video distribution will be offered and be charged 30,000 yen (about $280) for monthly fee. In the future, it will enhance collection of overseas scenery videos.

TechCrunch Japan award winner: Lifilm by aba

Supplemental prizes: a pair meal ticket for the Azure 45 restaurant at Ritz Carlton Tokyo and an exhibition right at the TechCrunch Tokyo 2016 conference

Lifilm is an excretion sensor device designed for the elderly or the handicapped in need of nursing care. Most of bedridden people receiving nursing care wear diapers. However, caregivers cannot change diapers whenever necessary because excretion timing of care receivers cannot be known, so that caregivers do so at an undetermined time regardless of presence / absence of excreta. It has not been excreted (missing) at about 20% of the regular changing of diapers, and the loss time is a heavy burden on caregivers.

Lifilm detects the presence / absence of excreta using its own unique algorithm and notifies caregivers via tablets; it was developed by diverting inexpensive sensors from existing air cleaners, wherein the electrical resistance changes in accordance to odor or gas component changes. This device had been chosen for James Dyson Award Top 20, in addition to IoT Lab Selection by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. The team has already tied up with product manufacturers, and plans to start selling the products by early 2017 (the current expected price is about 50,000 to 60,000 yen, or about $500).

500 Startups Japan award winner: DAncing Einstein

Supplemental prizes: three meal tickets at house-boat Funasei; boarding with participants of Geeks on a Plane East Asia tour in April

DAncing Einstein, a startup focused on neuroscience, aims to develop more effective learning methods through clarification of the brain mechanism. Also, it has been holding seminars for enterprises or educators about learning based on MPS (memory platform system).

Colopla award winner: MagicPrice

Supplemental prizes: two coupons for choice portion of unfarmed tunas and boiled snow crabs

MagicPrice is an AI-powered strategic pricing platform which enables hotels or airline companies to propose optimal pricing at the time, neither too high for providers nor low for customers. Importing client companies’ data such as reservation history and crawling competitors’ data such as those of neighboring competitor hotels, it learns and computes the prices in real-time. The prices will be reflected on companies’ website or ticket reservation / OTA (online travel agent) website via ‘site controller’ systems.

The service eliminated functions requiring tech literacy, and was designed to automate operations as much as possible, for workers in hotels or airline companies are extremely busy. Leveraging the founder’s AdTech knowledge from previous positions, it provides the service in form of API (application programming interface). Currently, four companies are considering adoption.

Audience award winners: MagicPrice and Subot

Supplemental prizes: membership of TECH LAB PAAK as project members (tenant right for half a year) and AppleStore gift card worth 10,000 yen (about $93)

(MagicPrice explanation omitted since it has already been provided above.)

Subot is a scheduling robot that can be integrated with the Slack business chatting tool. When scheduling of a meeting is needed, you will need to search Google Calendar for participants’ spare time and present several choices. But this new tool improves working efficiency 2 to 10 times more compared to conventional manual scheduling with Google Calendar.

The beta version will be launched in early April. Although it supports only the combination of Google Calendar and Slack for the time being, further integration with other calendar and communication tools is planned for future.

TECH LAB PAAK has started accepting the 4th batch of tenants, and will start recruiting the 5th membership batch soon. Regardless of whether a corporation or an individual, and presence / absence of products, one can apply. Please check out the details at the TECH LAB PAAK website.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

news

360° video livestreaming platform HUG wins Open Network Lab 12th Demo Day in Tokyo

Open Network Lab

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.11

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup incubator Open Network Lab held a Demo Day to showcase startups coming out of the 12th batch of its Seed Accelerator Program earlier this month. 93 teams including 19 teams from overseas had applied for this batch. Eventually, six teams were selected from among these for mentoring and support over a three-month period. Although details for one of these teams has not been disclosed, the other five teams made pitches. At the end of the event, the teams were judged and commended on the basis of votes from the main mentors or audiences. Best Team Award winner: HUG by Ducklings HUG is a platform for live streaming with cameras for a 360-degree view. The video can be watched on PCs or smartphones; in addition, the service supports distribution and sharing of 360-degree videos available for virtual reality devices, such as head-mounted displays, both in live or archived format by notifying the URL links. It can also accept comments on the video from viewers in real-time. According to Ducklings CEO Norikazu Takagi, while various cheap 360-degree cameras have been released by Samsung, LG, Nikon and other makers since the beginning of this year,…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup incubator Open Network Lab held a Demo Day to showcase startups coming out of the 12th batch of its Seed Accelerator Program earlier this month. 93 teams including 19 teams from overseas had applied for this batch. Eventually, six teams were selected from among these for mentoring and support over a three-month period.

Although details for one of these teams has not been disclosed, the other five teams made pitches. At the end of the event, the teams were judged and commended on the basis of votes from the main mentors or audiences.

Best Team Award winner: HUG by Ducklings

HUG is a platform for live streaming with cameras for a 360-degree view. The video can be watched on PCs or smartphones; in addition, the service supports distribution and sharing of 360-degree videos available for virtual reality devices, such as head-mounted displays, both in live or archived format by notifying the URL links. It can also accept comments on the video from viewers in real-time.

According to Ducklings CEO Norikazu Takagi, while various cheap 360-degree cameras have been released by Samsung, LG, Nikon and other makers since the beginning of this year, a simple distribution platform for them does not exist yet in the world so he commenced development of the service. Thus far, video streaming using the platform has been done 1,800 times by users in 100 countries. Also it has been used in introducing a new product by Nike at their event in Hong Kong, a live broadcast of a keynote speech at an event of American EduTech company Coursera, or a live broadcast of a cherry blossom viewing by Japanese meteorological company Weathernews.

Special Award / Audience Award winner: Shonika Online

Shonika Online, literally meaning Pediatrics Online, by KidsPublic is a platform to connect homes and pediatricians via smartphones. One can consult doctors about symptoms of their children via the Line messaging app, phone, Skype or Facebook Messenger. According to KidsPublic CEO Naoya Hashimoto, who is also a pediatrician, diagnoses for 80% of the children visiting emergency wards are considered to be slight. Their parents had no choice but to visit the emergency wards because they did not know well about the disease even after browsing on the Internet, or asking on hotlines provided by local governments.

With Shonika Online, pediatricians respond to users whether they should go to hospital, judging from medical interviews which is created by supervisory pediatricians, pictures of abnormalities photographed by smartphones or past medical treatment histories on electronic medical records. Currently ten pediatricians participate in this service as counselors, and it aims to monetize by serving the demand from companies, affiliation with nurseries or social services of municipalities, or meeting personal needs. Its goal is to construct a system where the check-ups at hospital can be judged by accumulating and analyzing case data without support from MDs.

Kakaku.com Award winner: BabyMap by Trim

BabyMap is an app focusing on search of tables for diaper exchange and nursing rooms for babies. It is not easy to find these information even with general search engines, and this led to development of the app. This app has more than 17,000 monthly active users and been realized through accumulation of information; more than 100 posts are sent from users per day. It is used for 2.5 years on average from birth of babies until potty training, and that results in a high retention rate.

Trim CEO Yusuke Hasegawa emphasized that it can be also utilized for marketing purposes by leveraging data accumulation of both users (attributes, activities or preferences) and facilities (details of facilities, products or word-of-mouth). For example, BabyMap can be partially used as preliminary surveys for city planning, so he suggests the possibility of monetization upon usage by developers or commercial facilities.

Listed below are startups that made interesting pitches though they missed winning prizes.

Túpac Bio Designer by Túpac Bio

Túpac Bio Designer is a DNA design software for drug development. The firm was founded by biomedical researchers at the University of Tokyo. Although major pharmaceutical companies typically spend much money for drug research and development, it is still not uncommon to end up with a failure. This platform aims to increase the success rate of drug development.

By digitalizing experiment processes which are being carried out manually, and by utilizing a custom drug library with synthetic DNA, periods of experiment processes which formerly required weeks or months can be shortened down to the level of several days. It aims to differentiate from similar platforms by using genome compilers, DNA sequences, collaboration functions, links with external databases or high-level processing capability.

Withfluence by HIP Stores

Withfluence is a marketing platform allowing requests to be made of top influencers in Asia for promotion work. It launched the beta version in Taiwan, Thailand and Hong Kong this February; clients can ask for promotion by suitable Instagrammers who match the purposes or conditions of projects.

Clients select influencers among the list on Withfluence by checking out their past works, and then request promotion projects. The feature of this service is that clients can also check increases / decreases in the number of influencers’ followers or changes in the number of “Like,” or engagement rates after ordering promotion. It has been sounded out about usage from an advertising agency in Southeast Asia or a mobile carrier in Thailand, and moreover, Japanese cosmetics major KOSE (TSE:4922) has already decided to utilize this service for promotion of its product Sekkisei in the Southeast Asian region.

According to Takayoshi Matsuda, the program director of Open Network Lab, the accelerator has produced 64 startups in total with the completion of this 12th batch. The total amount of market capitalization for all these startups being produced through 11 batches is 43.8 billion yen (about $405 million), showing a performance of 14.52 times as much as that at the start of investment.

Coinciding with the holding of this 12th Demo Day, Open Network Lab has started accepting applications to the 13th batch. It will provide 10 million yen (about $92,000) maximum as activity funding for this batch. Compared with conventional batches, it will enhance support to startups so that success overseas can be better attained. Also it plans to provide the right to use three bases (in Daikanyama of Tokyo, Kamakura, and San Francisco) gratis for a year, and mentoring by 70 startups that came out of the Accelerator Program through the 12th batch. The application deadline for the 13th batch is noon on May 27th.

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

news

Android inventor Andy Rubin showcases his godfathered biped robot in Tokyo

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.11

See the original story in Japanese. On Friday afternoon, Andy Rubin made a keynote speech at the New Economy Summit 2016 in Tokyo. Rubin developed the Android smartphone platform and sold it to Google, then joined Google as vice president of engineering before recently launched his own company called Playground Global. His new company will incubate and support hardware startups. According to Rubin, Playground Global is a cross between a typical venture capital firm in Silicon Valley and an IDEO-like design studio, employing about 50 in-house engineers focusing on industrial design, mechanical design, electrical engineering and other key areas. Despite only 11 months having passed since launch, the company has successfully fundraised $300 million for the purpose of investing in hardware startups last year. Looking back at the history of IT industry, we see a new computing platform emerging every 10 to 15 years. From Rubin’s perspective, he believes artificial intelligence (AI) will come next after the mobile platform. Given the paradigm shift driven by artificial intelligence, there will be a major change in how people interact with machines. By placing AI in the cloud as well as gathering information via sensors located sporadically, AI-powered engines will be taught and…

See the original story in Japanese.

On Friday afternoon, Andy Rubin made a keynote speech at the New Economy Summit 2016 in Tokyo. Rubin developed the Android smartphone platform and sold it to Google, then joined Google as vice president of engineering before recently launched his own company called Playground Global. His new company will incubate and support hardware startups.

According to Rubin, Playground Global is a cross between a typical venture capital firm in Silicon Valley and an IDEO-like design studio, employing about 50 in-house engineers focusing on industrial design, mechanical design, electrical engineering and other key areas. Despite only 11 months having passed since launch, the company has successfully fundraised $300 million for the purpose of investing in hardware startups last year.

Looking back at the history of IT industry, we see a new computing platform emerging every 10 to 15 years. From Rubin’s perspective, he believes artificial intelligence (AI) will come next after the mobile platform. Given the paradigm shift driven by artificial intelligence, there will be a major change in how people interact with machines. By placing AI in the cloud as well as gathering information via sensors located sporadically, AI-powered engines will be taught and trained.

A robot is definitely a complex aggregate of these sensors. To highlight this, Rubin invited Yuto Nakanishi onstage to ask him to unveil his biped robot under development. Nakanishi was CEO of Japanese robotics company Schaft, which was acquired by Google when Rubin was still with the tech giant. Nakanishi is currently continuing his R&D work at X (formerly Google X), the new tech development company under Google. Since Rubin has quit Google, he has no direct business relationship with Nakanishi for now but it seems Nakanishi agreed to make his new robot public upon request from the man who gave the go-ahead to investdin Nakanishi’s business years ago.

See also:

Google’s newly acquired robotics company wins DARPA Challenge Trials

Having no name yet, this robot is slightly shorter than the average human. Even on bumpy roads, it can walk while maintaining stability. Since it can walk up and down even on tiny steps of stairs, the use case includes autonomous stair-sweeping by attachment of vacuuming devices on its foot. However, applications for this robot are yet specifically to be determined by Google.

Rubin concluded the session with a prediction that computer engineers will need the skills of ‘training’ neural networks as well as programming. Hence, computer engineering will be replaced by the new concept of everyone teaching new things to robots or AI systems because of changes in how interactions with machines take place in coming years.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

translation

Cotobe, Japan’s answer to CrunchBase, aims to improve work environment at startups

Japan’s social recruiting startup Wantedly unveils portfolio platform to attract creators

Tokyo-based Cluster secures $460K funding to develop VR platform for meet-ups

If Conference 2016 in NYC connects Japan, US tech scenes

Keynote 1: Pathway to Success in America for Japanese Companies

Nulab CEO Hashimoto presents “The Tech City Fukuoka”

Panel Discussion: Global Macro Trends / Launching Products in Japan