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French tech startup unveils diving-use cruise controller at Marine Diving Fair in Tokyo

The Bridge 2016.04.09

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Surf’s up! As things start warming up this Olympic year (though the venue is in the southern hemisphere, readying for cooler seasons) the seaside beckons. However, danger lurks for the unprepared. According to marine sports expert Nobunori Saito － looking forward to the 2020 Tokyo event where the first-ever Olympiad surfing competition promises dynamic video footage － open waters are most difficult to negotiate. As is, waves can be fickle, but considering other factors in combination, diving… whether for recreation or professionally, as I understand from my chat with industry people… is perhaps one of the marine activities requiring the utmost in care. notes the ShoreBlend owner. Along with the recent increase in diver population encompassing not only hobby purposes, including marine animal companionship and underwater photo-tourism, but also industrial ones ranging from aquaculture and construction to maintenance and resource search, there has been an explosion in the number of diving accidents and associated fatalities. PADI’s wading in but… Specifically for the diving field, in addition to governmental regulations there are industry organizations (in Japan, PADI Japan which is an…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.

Surf’s up!

As things start warming up this Olympic year (though the venue is in the southern hemisphere, readying for cooler seasons) the seaside beckons. However, danger lurks for the unprepared.

According to marine sports expert Nobunori Saito － looking forward to the 2020 Tokyo event where the first-ever Olympiad surfing competition promises dynamic video footage － open waters are most difficult to negotiate.

As is, waves can be fickle, but considering other factors in combination, diving… whether for recreation or professionally, as I understand from my chat with industry people… is perhaps one of the marine activities requiring the utmost in care.

notes the ShoreBlend owner.

Along with the recent increase in diver population encompassing not only hobby purposes, including marine animal companionship and underwater photo-tourism, but also industrial ones ranging from aquaculture and construction to maintenance and resource search, there has been an explosion in the number of diving accidents and associated fatalities.

PADI’s wading in but…

Specifically for the diving field, in addition to governmental regulations there are industry organizations (in Japan, PADI Japan which is an office of the half-century-old US-based organization) that ensure proper use of equipment like the scuba tank. PADI is officially Professional Association of Diving Instructors, but comprises a membership of not instructors alone but a large non-instructors as well.

The constant conundrum which, no pun intended, surfaces for divers is how to deal with the need to ascend from a deep (what with water pressure being quite powerful than laymen think, “only” 30 meters or more) dive as quickly in the safest manner possible when such need arises. The fact is, some people still lose their lives due to decompression problems known popularly as the bends even with all of mankind’s advances against the seas.

Diving into new markets

marine-diving-fair-2016-tokyo-padi.jpgcastellanet-from-bcdmaster-1 — Visit Seabed CEO Frederic Castellanet on the left

With this as a backdrop, Nice-based tech startup Visit Seabed unveiled its new diving equipment in Japan. Highlighting the fact that Asia has a promising market, President Frederic Castellanet chose the Marine Diving Fair in Tokyo to introduce its first product, the result of two years’ research efforts. Named BCDmaster, this item retrofits any Buoyancy Control Device (aka BCD) in vest form which provides for a hands-free, automatic ‘cruise control’ upon ascent, though it features a manual override as an added safety measure.

It seems most befitting that compatriots of the late Jacques Cousteau…who described for posterity’s sake the nitrogen narcosis or l’ivresse des grandes profondeurs issue vexing deepsea challenges…found an elegant solution to operational difficulties posed by such conditions in addition to the setting. BCDmaster, with 100% watertightness realized using resin encasement of induction-charge type battery/electro-circuitry, enables dynamic hovering and microadjustments for stability/autostop upon rising.

Preparing for The Season

As the summer months loom ahead, other related market activities can be espied on the horizon; just in terms of equipment there are dive computers and regulators beyond BCD vests, for example. It is also a fact that much of our planet is covered by the ocean, filled with opportunities. Further stories will surely appear for our readers’ benefit.

As regards BCDmaster, an announcement of a version meeting the American specification is slated later this month. M. Castellanet plans to visit Japan again during May, to showcase upgraded versions of his creation for Asian users, perhaps with an eye on Indonesia to the south. It behooves a close look at this French venture… after all, Tahiti and New Caledonia are prime destinations too.

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

EastMeetEast

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2016.04.07

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

See the original story in Japanese.

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

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

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

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

Unique circumstances for Asians

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

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

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

EastMeetEast founder / CEO Mariko Tokioka explains:

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

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

Successful video marketing

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

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

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

Tokioka explains:

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

Co-founding as the original challenge

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

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

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

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

Notes Tokioka:

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

Eyeing the Global Market from Onset

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

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

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

Tokioka concludes:

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

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

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

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Japanese AdTech experts to launch video ad network targeting smart TV viewers in Asia

AnyMind Group (previously AdAsia Holdings)

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.07

See the original story in Japanese. Singapore-based AdAsia Holdings announced today that it has commenced development of advertising solutions targeting Smart TV viewers in Asia. The company says that it will distribute video ads to internet Smart TV viewers subscribed to terrestrial and satellite TV channels in the region. The new company was founded by two Japanese serial entrepreneurs: Kosuke Sogo and Otohiko Kozutsumi. Sogo had been previously serving Southeast Asian subsidiaries of Japanese leading ad network operator MicroAd as CEO. Kozutsumi also served the Vietnamese subsidiary of MicroAd as COO following involvement in the global business expansion efforts of Nobot, a mobile-focused ad network acquired in 2011 by KDDI group company Mediba. See also: Japan’s KDDI To Take Over Mobile Ad Start-up Nobot For 1.5 Billion Yen (Tech in Asia) Both men have been engaged in the Adtech business in Southeast Asia for many years. Given the expanding growth for gross domestic product and ad market in the region, they have found huge opportunities in the Smart TV ad industry where there is still few companies capable of running productive marketing campaigns. Similar to Japan, advertising slots on Asian terrestrial and satellite TV channels are mostly controlled by existing…

kosuke-sogo-otohiko-kozutsumi — From the left: AdAsia Holdings CEO Kosuke Sogo, COO Otohiko Kozutsumi

See the original story in Japanese.

Singapore-based AdAsia Holdings announced today that it has commenced development of advertising solutions targeting Smart TV viewers in Asia. The company says that it will distribute video ads to internet Smart TV viewers subscribed to terrestrial and satellite TV channels in the region.

The new company was founded by two Japanese serial entrepreneurs: Kosuke Sogo and Otohiko Kozutsumi. Sogo had been previously serving Southeast Asian subsidiaries of Japanese leading ad network operator MicroAd as CEO. Kozutsumi also served the Vietnamese subsidiary of MicroAd as COO following involvement in the global business expansion efforts of Nobot, a mobile-focused ad network acquired in 2011 by KDDI group company Mediba.

See also:

Japan’s KDDI To Take Over Mobile Ad Start-up Nobot For 1.5 Billion Yen (Tech in Asia)

Both men have been engaged in the Adtech business in Southeast Asia for many years. Given the expanding growth for gross domestic product and ad market in the region, they have found huge opportunities in the Smart TV ad industry where there is still few companies capable of running productive marketing campaigns. Similar to Japan, advertising slots on Asian terrestrial and satellite TV channels are mostly controlled by existing ad agents and local TV operators. However, it can be said that the video ads field for Smart TVs are an exception.

In Japan, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners and some other companies have been distributing video ad services for Smart TVs such as Toshiba Regza, Sharp Aquos and Panasonic Viera. But these services have not yet been offered in many parts of the world. Meanwhile, over 200 TV channels are being offered in Korea, Taiwan, China and other Asian countries. The more TV channels on offer, the more the ad inventory and opportunity available… thus the team foresees a huge business opportunity as more viewers in these countries switch to Smart TVs.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Japan’s connected furniture startup Kamarq snags $3.2M to manufacture ‘smart’ tables

Kamarq

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.06

See the original story in Japanese. Kamarq Holdings is a startup to offer the high quality and connected furniture brand Kamarq. The company recently announced on Thursday that it has secured a total of about 350 million yen (about $3.2 million) from Energy & Environment Investment, Saison Ventures, iSGS Investment Works as well as angel investors. Saison Ventures is the investment arm of Japanese leading credit card company Credit Saison (TSE:8253). The funds will be used for product development, systems development or human resources. Coinciding with this funding, the firm also announced the launch of its first product called Sound Table, and started accepting pre-orders on the Makuake crowdfunding site. The backers can receive the product before the day of general release, and can purchase it at 80% of the normal price. Sound Table is a wooden IoT (Internet of Things) table capable of playing music or environmental sounds in accordance with the weather, controllable with a mobile app. It offers a product line-up of two types of dining table, low table and bedside table in three colors each. In our previous interview with Kamarq CEO founder and CEO Ken Machino last year, he indicated that he wanted to develop a…

See the original story in Japanese.

Kamarq Holdings is a startup to offer the high quality and connected furniture brand Kamarq. The company recently announced on Thursday that it has secured a total of about 350 million yen (about $3.2 million) from Energy & Environment Investment, Saison Ventures, iSGS Investment Works as well as angel investors. Saison Ventures is the investment arm of Japanese leading credit card company Credit Saison (TSE:8253). The funds will be used for product development, systems development or human resources.

Coinciding with this funding, the firm also announced the launch of its first product called Sound Table, and started accepting pre-orders on the Makuake crowdfunding site. The backers can receive the product before the day of general release, and can purchase it at 80% of the normal price. Sound Table is a wooden IoT (Internet of Things) table capable of playing music or environmental sounds in accordance with the weather, controllable with a mobile app. It offers a product line-up of two types of dining table, low table and bedside table in three colors each.

soundtable-bedside-table — Bedside table

soundtable-plugs-and-switch — Power source and USB sockets on table top plate

In our previous interview with Kamarq CEO founder and CEO Ken Machino last year, he indicated that he wanted to develop a voting platform for furniture design availed by the public, and a ‘smartdoor’ which implements sensors or devices for Internet connection. Starting with this Sound Table, a variety of IoT furniture products will be released in the future.

In Indonesia, custom-made furniture e-commerce site Fabelio, which targets the expanding middle-income segment, had succeeded in fundraising in February. Although the targeted market differs a bit, the needs for high quality furniture have been rapidly increasing. If defining IKEA or Nitori (Japan’s major furniture retailer chain) as fast fashion-like SPA (Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel) in the furniture industry, Kamarq or Fabelio may be considered as the third-wave SPA. Like the innovative designfinder platform for shoes Rooy, which recently expanded into Japan from Seattle, a cooperative business with distribution channels to conventional face-to-face sales players may be expected in the furniture industry, portending a new trend.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Japan’s DeployGate, test marketing tool for mobile developers, taking on the US market

deploygate

SCORE 1,452

Shintaro Eguchi 2016.04.05

See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s DeployGate, offering a test marketing tool for smartphone app development under the same name, announced last month that it will establish a US subsidiary. DeployGate provides a testing and marketing function that allows mobile developers to distribute beta version of their apps to testing users and collects feedbacks from them before the official launch. Spun off from Japanese internet company Mixi (TSE:2121) just a year ago, DeployGate has been providing this service for more than three years. Currently, it proposes service plans for individuals or SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) as well as the ones for big companies managing multiple apps or many developers involved. It has been adopted by various Japanese internet companies such as Mixi, Recruit (TSE: 6098) and Cookpad (TSE: 2193), in addition to some major game developers. Together with AppBroadCast, a Japanese media company focused on helping mobile gaming developers reach potential users, DeployGate released a test marketing specialized service for these developers called SakiPre. Conventionally, development of console games often required prolongation in order to raise the degree of perfection thoroughly because user reactions or feedbacks could be obtained only after the launch. However, as the game industry…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s DeployGate, offering a test marketing tool for smartphone app development under the same name, announced last month that it will establish a US subsidiary.

DeployGate provides a testing and marketing function that allows mobile developers to distribute beta version of their apps to testing users and collects feedbacks from them before the official launch. Spun off from Japanese internet company Mixi (TSE:2121) just a year ago, DeployGate has been providing this service for more than three years. Currently, it proposes service plans for individuals or SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) as well as the ones for big companies managing multiple apps or many developers involved. It has been adopted by various Japanese internet companies such as Mixi, Recruit (TSE: 6098) and Cookpad (TSE: 2193), in addition to some major game developers.

Together with AppBroadCast, a Japanese media company focused on helping mobile gaming developers reach potential users, DeployGate released a test marketing specialized service for these developers called SakiPre. Conventionally, development of console games often required prolongation in order to raise the degree of perfection thoroughly because user reactions or feedbacks could be obtained only after the launch. However, as the game industry gradually shifts toward the mobile field, it has realized a new development method which facilitates beta testing so that games are elaborated on by both developers and consumers, or sales promotion conducted before the launch.

DeployGate CEO Yuki Fujisaki commented on the positive response for their product:

Recently, people in the game business often tell me that they have been using DeployGate. The shift toward mobile in the game industry had much influence on DeployGate in providing them a new development environment.

The number of consumers who had downloaded apps from Saki-Pre has already exceeded 40,000. Also from clients, we have been receiving testimonials such as “it became possible to predict whether the game will be a big hit or not before launch” and “for a game which scored more than 3.5 at the Saki-Pre questionnaire, an average of 3.9 on GooglePlay store can be expected” as well as “since the response rate of Saki-Pre participants is more than 30%, points to be improved can be pinpointed at the last minute for the launch.”

Moreover, the company has started providing linking functions with business chat tools such as Slack, Hipchat and Chatwork since July of 2015 for easier communication within companies that makes feedbacks for development smoother as well. They were nominated for CEDEC Awards 2015 in August, followed by having spread its service steadily among global developer communities while participating in conferences in the US such as WWDC or Google I/O as well as holding meetups in tandem with Crittercism, a crash reporting tool startup in San Francisco. The team had been communicating closely with developers at Crittercism or Github, and emphasizing service development for developers from a global perspective.

The service is currently being utilized in about 100 countries. Even at launch, developers with diverse backgrounds such as Americans, Europeans and Scandinavians had used it, while only half of the users were Japanese. Since starting the service for Android first, it has gained esteem from developers in countries with much Android share, like Brazil.

COO Kazuto Yasuda looks back on the first year:

We spent most of the year enhancing the business core. Thankfully we have finished the first period of second year in the black, and have been organizing systems for management and customer supports.

In this situation, the team felt the need for local bases to gain customer support and brush up the product leveraging opinions from local developers as reference for service plans aimed at enterprises. As the first step to global expansion, they announced the establishment of the US while appointing Yasuda as its CEO.

Also the team aims at function expansion while cooperating with other service operators for developers that are under consideration. These days, the service is being enhanced under the theme of ‘how much the development environment for app developers can be simplified’ such as implementation of automated building function from source codes, called Dg Command. These updates can be checked out on the DeployGate blog.

The team is intended to continue operating their business on a bootstrap budget because they already have a good sales prospect and want to more focus on team building, investigating users’ needs, improving the product and user support.

To improve the product upon hearing feedbacks from developers using it directly, the company will set up an independent office this spring to make it easier to hold user meetups periodically. In addition to the three founders, the company has recently acquired new developers and designers, plus customer support representatives who work remotely from the office.

Fujisaki concluded:

DeployGate has grown as a tool essential for developers. Since there is substantial need not only in the IT industry but also in the game industry, many companies and developers are beginning to understand the importance of pre-launch test marketing.

By giving them more opportunities to communicate between developers and their users through our tool, we want to help developers continue developing apps that meet users’ expectations.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

deploygate-team — The DeployGate management team: From left, COO Yasuda the second one, and CEO Fujisaki the third.

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28-year-old launches $4.5M startup fund for western Japan city of Fukuoka

Masaru Ikeda 2016.04.04

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese seed startup incubator Samurai Incubate was founded in Tokyo, back in 2008. Since then this incubator has relocated its headquarters to a new building called Samurai Startup Island in Tokyo’s waterfront. Shota Morozumi, now 28 of age, had until recently been serving as a director for its incubation initiative. He started becoming involved in the startup scene through interviews on his personal blog Entrepreneurs’ Mind while attending university. After graduation, he continued to spend a lot of his time following Japanese entrepreneurs. He quit Samurai Incubate in January to move on to the next stage. Morozumi announced the launch of his own first startup fund called F Ventures today. The size of the funds is expected to be 500 million yen (about $4.5 million). He will spend almost a full year from now to raise more funds from investors. F Ventures, derived from the initial letter of Fukuoka where Morozumi was born and raised, is focused on participating in seed round investments, with amounts ranging from 5 to 15 million yen ($4.5 to $13.4 million) per investment deal. It sees local entrepreneurs, startups with a plan to relocate to Fukuoka and Asian startups…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese seed startup incubator Samurai Incubate was founded in Tokyo, back in 2008. Since then this incubator has relocated its headquarters to a new building called Samurai Startup Island in Tokyo’s waterfront. Shota Morozumi, now 28 of age, had until recently been serving as a director for its incubation initiative. He started becoming involved in the startup scene through interviews on his personal blog Entrepreneurs’ Mind while attending university. After graduation, he continued to spend a lot of his time following Japanese entrepreneurs. He quit Samurai Incubate in January to move on to the next stage.

Morozumi announced the launch of his own first startup fund called F Ventures today. The size of the funds is expected to be 500 million yen (about $4.5 million). He will spend almost a full year from now to raise more funds from investors.

F Ventures, derived from the initial letter of Fukuoka where Morozumi was born and raised, is focused on participating in seed round investments, with amounts ranging from 5 to 15 million yen ($4.5 to $13.4 million) per investment deal. It sees local entrepreneurs, startups with a plan to relocate to Fukuoka and Asian startups working closely with Fukuoka as their investees. They have already decided to invest soon in two Japanese startups ~~and several Korean startups~~.

Leveraging the ability to act rather than experience or knowledge, Morozumi claims that he will be committed to providing investments in startups with hands-on support for public relations, not to mention human resource inculcation and development through partnership with programming schools and by holding hackathon events.

For the time being, he will spend half a month at East Ventures office in Tokyo and spend the remainder at Startup Cafe, a startup incubation hub run by the local city government in Fukuoka. Futhermore, CEO Shogo Sato of Tokyo-based producer nurturing company Qreator Agent, known for ex-manager of popular Japanese comedy duos Ninety-nine and London Boots Ichi-gō Ni-gō, will participate in the funds as an advisor upon finding promising startups and in supporting entrepreneurs.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Japan’s automatic pet feeder Petly wins Red Dot Design Award, plans global rollout

Petly
Rinn

Junya Mori 2016.03.31

See the original story in Japanese. A current model of the pet smart feeder named Petly from Tokyo-based Rinn has received one of the world’s most prestigious design awards, Red Dot Design Award, of Germany. See also: Japanese hardware startup Rinn introduces automatic pet feeder Petly The Red Dot Design Award is one of the largest design awards recognized globally, offered by the German Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen to designs of products which have been manufactured within two years. Awards are made based upon nine criteria such as design innovation, functionality, human engineering, ecology or durability. As for 2016, 5,214 products were considered for the awards from designers or companies in 57 countries, and Petly was awarded the Product Design Award 2016 from among these. The award winning products will be displayed at the Red Dot Design museum as well as website. In Japan, some products labeled ‘Red Dot Design awarded’ are found in interior product and brand item stores. For products like Petly, winning this award will help the team in the future. Rinn had launched the original Petly in July of 2014. After that, it began publishing a life-style magazine entitled MILL Magazine, which focuses on life with…

See the original story in Japanese.

A current model of the pet smart feeder named Petly from Tokyo-based Rinn has received one of the world’s most prestigious design awards, Red Dot Design Award, of Germany.

See also:

Japanese hardware startup Rinn introduces automatic pet feeder Petly

The Red Dot Design Award is one of the largest design awards recognized globally, offered by the German Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen to designs of products which have been manufactured within two years. Awards are made based upon nine criteria such as design innovation, functionality, human engineering, ecology or durability.

As for 2016, 5,214 products were considered for the awards from designers or companies in 57 countries, and Petly was awarded the Product Design Award 2016 from among these. The award winning products will be displayed at the Red Dot Design museum as well as website.

In Japan, some products labeled ‘Red Dot Design awarded’ are found in interior product and brand item stores. For products like Petly, winning this award will help the team in the future.

Rinn had launched the original Petly in July of 2014. After that, it began publishing a life-style magazine entitled MILL Magazine, which focuses on life with cats, while starting a branding business called Mill Creative, for products related to cats.

Masahiro Ryohara, CEO of Rinn, commented on his prospects for the future:

Within this year, we will start sales of Mill overseas including EU, Asia and the US, and also will enhance sales of Petly globally. We had planned from the onset to expand sales of MILL for cities seen having large demands for Petly as well. In 2017, we will be placing an IoT (Internet of Things) product on the market too.

While emphasizing the design properties, Rinn has been developing various products and businesses. We look forward to further details of the IoT product planned for launch.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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

Material Wrld

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2016.03.31

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

See the original story in Japanese.

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

See also:

Closet shopping for material girls: Material Wrld makes its public debut

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Japan’s talent search startup BizReach gets $33M to offer hiring management platform

BizReach

Takeshi Hirano 2016.03.29

This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. BizReach, the Tokyo company providing an online talent search platform under the same name, announced today that it has fundraised about 3.73 billion yen (about $32.9 million) in the second funding round. This round was led by YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan, investing 1.6 billion yen ($14 million), with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment, Dentsu Digital Holdings, Gree, Rakuten, Link and Motivation, EFU Investment Limited, East Ventures, and IMJ Investment Partners. BizReach, the Tokyo company providing an online talent search platform under the same name, announced today that it has fundraised about 3.73 billion yen (about $32.9 million) in its second funding round. This round was led by YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan, investing 1.6 billion yen ($14 million), with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment, Dentsu Digital Holdings, Gree, Rakuten, Link and Motivation, EFU Investment Limited plus East Ventures, in addition to IMJ Investment Partners. The funds will be used to further develop their employment search engines and job listing services including StanBy, which was launched last year. Coinciding with this announcement, the company unveiled their plan…

soichiro-swimmy-minami — BizReach founder and CEO Soichiro Swimmy Minami

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

BizReach, the Tokyo company providing an online talent search platform under the same name, announced today that it has fundraised about 3.73 billion yen (about $32.9 million) in the second funding round. This round was led by YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan, investing 1.6 billion yen ($14 million), with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment, Dentsu Digital Holdings, Gree, Rakuten, Link and Motivation, EFU Investment Limited, East Ventures, and IMJ Investment Partners.

BizReach, the Tokyo company providing an online talent search platform under the same name, announced today that it has fundraised about 3.73 billion yen (about $32.9 million) in its second funding round. This round was led by YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan, investing 1.6 billion yen ($14 million), with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Investment, Dentsu Digital Holdings, Gree, Rakuten, Link and Motivation, EFU Investment Limited plus East Ventures, in addition to IMJ Investment Partners.

The funds will be used to further develop their employment search engines and job listing services including StanBy, which was launched last year. Coinciding with this announcement, the company unveiled their plan to launch a cloud-based hiring management platform called HRMOS (pronounced ‘harmos’) in May, not to mention continuing operation of aforementioned services as well as an applicant tracking system (ATS) called StanBy Company.

BizReach was launched back in April of 2009 by Soichiro Swimmy Minami, one of the founders of the Rakuten Eagles, an expansion baseball club in the Japanese professional league. The latest round follows the company’s first funding round having raised 200 million yen from Japanese investment firm Jafco in March of 2010. Minami founded a members-only premium outlet e-commerce site Luxa as a business operating under BizReach in August 2010 but spun it out in October of 2010 because BizReach shifted its focus to the job hunting and talent search field. Since Japan’s leading telco KDDI gained a majority stake in Luxa in April of 2015, it is said that Minami has plowed much profit from the sales of the stocks into the BizReach business.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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18 startups from around the world compete at B Dash Camp pitch arena in Fukuoka

B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2016

Masaru Ikeda 2016.03.29

This is a combined abridged version of the first article and the second article. As seen in this year’s theme ‘change,’ B Dash Camp 2016 Spring in Fukuoka was held earlier this month with a program agenda which differs a bit from conventional ones. From this time forward, the selection criteria for preliminary document screening was raised and the selection for finalist was conducted within the main session, while the selection had been conducted in a track behind the main session until last year. In this article, 18 teams including four finalists that all gave pitches at the arena have been described. The top winner was scheduled to be announced earlier this month. The five judges on the selection panel were as follows. Yu Akasaka (CEO, Eureka) Naoki Aoyagi (SVP, Global Operations and Business Development) Yusuke Asakura (Visiting Scholar, Stanford University) Hironao Kunimitsu (CEO, Gumi) Takuya Miyata (General Partner, Scrum Ventures) Award Winners Pitch Arena winner / Paypal Award winner: SmartHR by KUFU (Japan) Supplementary awards: Mentoring on product marketing and development (presented by Google) Amazon Fire Tablet (presented by Amazon Web Services) 1 million yen-worth of ads on Japanese career transition magazine Doda, arranging startup events for free at…

This is a combined abridged version of the first article and the second article.

As seen in this year’s theme ‘change,’ B Dash Camp 2016 Spring in Fukuoka was held earlier this month with a program agenda which differs a bit from conventional ones. From this time forward, the selection criteria for preliminary document screening was raised and the selection for finalist was conducted within the main session, while the selection had been conducted in a track behind the main session until last year.

In this article, 18 teams including four finalists that all gave pitches at the arena have been described. The top winner was scheduled to be announced earlier this month. The five judges on the selection panel were as follows.

Yu Akasaka (CEO, Eureka)
Naoki Aoyagi (SVP, Global Operations and Business Development)
Yusuke Asakura (Visiting Scholar, Stanford University)
Hironao Kunimitsu (CEO, Gumi)
Takuya Miyata (General Partner, Scrum Ventures)

Award Winners

Pitch Arena winner / Paypal Award winner: SmartHR by KUFU (Japan)

Supplementary awards:

Mentoring on product marketing and development (presented by Google)
Amazon Fire Tablet (presented by Amazon Web Services)
1 million yen-worth of ads on Japanese career transition magazine Doda, arranging startup events for free at startup community space Dots. in Shibuya (presented by Intelligence)
50,000 bonus miles each for three people (presented by Japan Airlines)
90,000 yen-worth of accommodation for the Atami Sekaie hot spring resort, plus a travel voucher for a two-day one-night trip for each of all team members (presented by Relux)
1 million yen-worth of credits for Paypal transactions or product marketing (Presented by Paypal Japan)

SmartHR is an automation tool of employment insurance or social insurance for SMEs. It has already been adopted at 650 companies in three months since its official launch. It targets 4.19 million SMEs existing in Japan, employing in total 27 million people workers. In early March, the web application function for government office use was also launched upon cooperation with e-Gov API.

In the future, SmartHR aims to establish a health insurance society on its own in order to lower insurance fees on user SMEs. Moreover, it also plans provision of big data to insurance companies or cooperation businesswises with pharmaceutical companies.

See also:

Pitch Arena Runner-up: Gozal by BEC (Japan)

Supplementary awards:

50,000 bonus miles each for two people (presented by Japan Airlines)

Gozal pursues back office automation for SMEs. Generally, SME managers are said to spend 30 days a year for back office works, yet they wonder uneasily whether the business operation had been carried out appropriately. This tool automates the back office operation utilizing machine learning as a cloud service. Currently, it supports 10 types of procedures online, and has been adopted by 1,000 companies. Gozal aims to enable completion of 100 types of procedures online by 2017.

See also:

Japan’s Gozal secures new funds, adds new functions to automate corporate operations

Sakura Internet Award winner: Nine by Lip (Japan)

Supplementary awards:

a two-day one-night trip to Sakura Internet’s Ishikari Data Center in Hokkaido for all team members (Presented by Sakura Internet)

Since the Tinder matching app connects people only with profile photos, sometimes it gives matching results that are unbalanced. On the other hand, this Nine works linking with Instagram; extracting the user’s 9 photos from Instagram which were most highly rated, it aims to match by showing his/her daily life or personality to other users. Since each user’s instinctive profile is made automatically by AI (artificial intelligence) from Instagram containing a treasure trove about user personality, a rich stock can be brought in as chat-use topics after matching.

See also:

Japan’s Nine matchmaking app connects users through best nine Instagram photos

Finalist

HelloWings by Outland (Taiwan)

Taiwan-based HelloWings, formerly known as Tixchart, is a price comparison website focusing on LCC (low-cost carrier) tickets. It provides information about ticket prices comparing 3,000 LCC companies in 107 countries in real-time, such as ticket prices on a specific date and time, or the lowest price throughout a year including surcharges.

Compared to similar services like Skyscanner connecting to GDS (global distribution systems) for airline companies, such as Amadeus, Sabre or Galileo, this HelloWings differentiates itself through acquisition of data by directly crawling the airlines’ website. Thus, it proposes the best ticket combination across a plurality of LCC companies only by inputting departure points, destinations, date and time. The team is backed by Kuala Lumpur-based Tune Labs, the startup incubator of Malaysian LCC company AirAsia Group.

The following are 14 teams which unfortunately did not make the final round but had made excellent pitches.

Chikyu (Japan)

Chikyu provides both CRM (customer relationship management) services focusing on management of customers/negotiations and MA (marketing automation) services focusing on SME-use mail distribution/lead scoring/workflow. Company founder Toshihiro Asai had formerly been involved in product sales for items that faced poor demands at his previous job. After he had conducted various analyses and tried improvement there, the monthly sales scales had increased by 3.6 times, and that made him realize that database marketing could produce results. On the other hand, only 15.9% of companies overall had implemented CRM. Judging that the cause of this poor implementation rate is the absence of simple and effective CRM services, Asai started this business.

Senses by Mazrica (Japan)

Eiji Kurosa, the founder of Mazrica, formerly had been in charge of supervisory manager of sales, marketing and customer support in UzaBase, the company behind Japanese curated news app Newspicks. In that company, he had keenly realized a problem: every personnel relocation requires handover of business knowledge or procedures, all work came to depend on individual skills of those who had become deeply versed in the work, and that motivated him to develop this business support tool Senses. Managing visit history, communication history or feedbacks by every item unit, it supports business handover or reduction of communication losses, and also links with groupware including Gmail.

SkyRec (Taiwan)

Taiwan-based SkyRec offers a Google Analytics-like service under the same name for real stores. It allows users to gain information about which spot, how often and how long customers stayed in at stores visually, and especially exhibits powers upon analyzing customer guideline/bestseller products, improving display methods or selecting items for elimination. According to the team, a certain store had shown a 10% improvement for traffic in-store plus an 18% improvement for monthly sales. SkyRec was born out of the 11th batch of AppWorks, a Taiwanese startup acceleration.

Jumpy (Taiwan)

Jumpy is a smartwatch targeting 5 to 8 year-old kids, installing interactive games pitting parents against children. In addition to being the first in the world, daily schedule notification or messaging functions have been included so that parents can grasp how their children are spending their time via smartwatch. By publishing open SDK (software developer kit), third parties besides development source JoyRay have been launching brand-new apps almost every month. Jumpy was established by Jerry Chang who had been involved in smartphone sector at Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn, and also born out from the 9th batch of AppWorks.

SevenHugs (France)

France-based IoT startup SevenHugs offers two products named HugOne and SmartRemote. HugOne is an IoT device for sleep tracking and one can purchase it at major retail stores in France. The latter SmartRemote is an easily remote- control device for smart home devices that works just by pointing.

The weakness of typical smarthome devices is the difficulty in intuitive operations which requires an app to be started by mobile devices or tablets. With position and acceleration sensors combined, SmartRemote recognizes where the user is pointing and enables control of targeted devices. Established in 2014 the Gallic firm has fundraised 2.25 million euros (about $2.5 million) for seed funding.

Collabee (Korea)

Generally, with communication tools such as Slack it is difficult to ascertain what issues are being discussed and if they have been solved, because messages are displayed in chronological order as posted. Collabee, developed by a Korea-based startup having the same name, classifies messages into threads by issues, and the discussion content about each issue are managed in individual windows. Therefore, it becomes easier to fathom states of discussion or progress of the situation. Retrieval function is not only available using keyword or file name but via task, decision or image as well. It can also operate seamlessly with e-mail.

Pocket SuperNova (Japan)

Pocket SuperNova developed a video edit app for mobile movie creators called PocketVideo. It aims to solve the problem of long tail creators hardly being monetizable due to the shortage of video apps focusing on specified use cases. As of now, 60,000 creators have been registered, and US-based Japanese actor Masi Oka has invested in this service as an angel investor. The post money valuation of the firm is estimated at $20 million, having secured $5 million so far. In addition, one Japanese investment company has also promised to invest $3.5 million.

See also:

Unda mobile messaging app rebrands to VideoSelfie, secures new funding round

Caster (Japan)

Caster aims to realize at-home dispatching business in order to form a suitable remote work environment. In an environment where the term “staff-shortage bankruptcy” appeared, shorthanded companies have been faced with a severe and critical situation. On the other hand, the number of registration of dispatched workers has been low due to the recently soiled image of conventional dispatching business.

Caster had obtained the online dispatching business license. For three months since launch in last November, the number of registrants has exceeded 1,000. Many of them are women in their 20s to 40s living in provincial towns. The major clients are mainly Japanese IT companies, namely Chartwork or SMS. The team’s goal is to acquire 100 new client companies during 2016, and to realize an environment where 10,000 registrants can make their living just through remote work until 2020.

Nutte by State of Mind (Japan)

Nutte is an apparel marketplace where one can order manufacturing of one-of-a-kind fashion items. In Japan, there are tens of thousands sewing craftsmen dealing with sample products or costumes for the stage. However, they have few opportunities to take on as work except for introduction from within the industry, so that their incomes are unstable.

Since its launch last February, Nutte has constructed a network of more than 500 craftsmen, and the current agreement rate of transactions exceeds 80%. If contracts are agreed upon, 20% of transaction amount is charged for mediation. 5,000 companies/people have been registered as Nutte users. It responds to not only business use; one can order a stage costume for a pop star, for example.

Ancar (Japan)

In the used car distribution industry in Japan, 30% of the price is charged as total handling fees from a point of trading-in to resale in stores. Nevertheless, 90% of used cars is distributed without being repaired and maintained. In order to eliminate unnecessary intermediary margins and consumption taxes, Ancar networks with maintenance factories throughout Japan, and has been enhancing the environment for advance evaluation and maintenance. At the moment, the service supports three prefectures in Kanto area including Tokyo.

Although the used car industry is an exclusive field, the founder/CEO of the firm Kazuhiro Joh’s grandfather was a founding member of the industry organization, and that made it possible to start this business smoothly. In addition to used car distribution business, it plans to enter the after-sales service market until 2016. Also it will launch a matching app for maintenance factories named Repea in March, and a business management tool for maintenance factories named BizMart in May.

ST Booking by Hakodate Ventures (Japan)

ST Booking, started by a former associate of East Ventures Shota Morikawa, is a matching platform for connecting students who desire to study abroad in East/Southeast Asia to Japanese educational institutions. Tying up with 50 language schools or business colleges in Japan, and more than 20 agencies in Thailand or Vietnam, ST Booking approaches with both B2B via agencies and B2C by directly acquiring students.

The recent Japanese government’s effort to attract 300,000 international students a year by 2020 is having a positive impact on the service. It monetizes with a “results reward” model; educational institutions will be charged 15 to 25% commission of the school fees. In the future, it aims to develop a CRM to optimize sponsorship relations with companies for employment after graduation or studying abroad processes. So far it has fundraised from Beenext or If Angel.

ODIN by Panair (Japan)

Due to liberalizing the electricity retail market this spring in Japan, ODIN supports reduction of operation costs for power companies. As API connection to wide area network became available, Japan’s Panair has developed an operation platform utilizing AI based on Ruby. Automatically gathering electricity consumption data from contractors’ smart meters, it predicts highly precise demand using AI.

With these dashboards, only one individual can run electric power business. Moreover, Panair also plans to construct “OEM power” chain, so that power companies as users can procure electric power from new major power generation at lower price than conventional power supplies.

Scorer by FutureStandard (Japan)

Scorer by Japan’s FutureStandard is a cloud service for image analysis automatically in real-time. With normal video cameras on the market, it allows easy analysis on visitors, number of people in procession, moving direction or number of passers near the store. Cooperating with distribution industry or power companies in order to construct camera networks, it has been installing cameras at large scale retailers or utility poles. Analyzing images photographed by one camera, it provides an environment where plural clients can utilize the acquired data for plural uses.

Since the application requires various kinds of image analysis technologies, FutureStandard has prepared a marketplace where third party can provide each technology. For a month since launch, it has been carrying out a trial with six companies. Having secured 130 million yen (about $1.1 million) from Incubate Fund, YJ Capital and Primal Capital, the firm aims at overseas expansion within this year. It was born out from the 8th batch of Incubate Camp.

Styler (Japan)

In the annual sales of fashion industry marking 180 billion yen (about $1.5 billion), most of these tradings are completed by offline. Styler proposes improvement of the experiences of purchasing fashion items offline. It launched a platform app under the same name for iOS on 10th December, and has achieved 10,000 results matching retailers with potential customers. It has acquired 130 stores registered so far.

At this pitch, STYLER also announced the cooperation with Yahoo Japan. While currently Styler is attracting customers from its owned media named Styler Mag, it will start providing these contents to Yahoo Japan in addition to partnering with Japanese fashion news portal FashionSnap.com. Also it plans business development to the vicinity of China including Taiwan in summer of 2016.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

translation

Surf’s up!

PADI’s wading in but…

Diving into new markets

Preparing for The Season

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Award Winners

Pitch Arena winner / Paypal Award winner: SmartHR by KUFU (Japan)

Pitch Arena Runner-up: Gozal by BEC (Japan)

Sakura Internet Award winner: Nine by Lip (Japan)

Finalist

HelloWings by Outland (Taiwan)

Chikyu (Japan)

Senses by Mazrica (Japan)

SkyRec (Taiwan)

Jumpy (Taiwan)

SevenHugs (France)

Collabee (Korea)

Pocket SuperNova (Japan)

Caster (Japan)

Nutte by State of Mind (Japan)

Ancar (Japan)

ST Booking by Hakodate Ventures (Japan)

ODIN by Panair (Japan)

Scorer by FutureStandard (Japan)

Styler (Japan)

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