This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Japanese internet company DeNA announced today that it has acquired Iemo, the Tokyo-based startup behind a curation media focused on home improvement. Acquisition details have not been disclosed but it is understood Iemo raised billions of yen (tens of millions US dollars) from DeNA. See also: Riding a media curation trend, Japanese entrepreneur launches interior design photo service The service was launched back in December and raised an undisclosed amount of investment from B Dash Ventures in April. So they were acquired in less than ten months after the launch. Modeled after US-based Houzz, Iemo allows users to create pages using interior design images from its database of photos provided by homebuilders. As the service is new there is not much data on their business. In an interview in April, they said that almost 90% of their users were females who visit the website via mobile phone, many of them housewives. Iemo founder and CEO Mary Murata is a serial entrepreneur, previously one of the first hires by Japanese Internet giant CyberAgent. Prior to launching Iemo, she founded a startup called Control Plus in 2005 and subsequently sold its…
Iemo founder and CEO Mary Murata
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.
Japanese internet company DeNA announced today that it has acquired Iemo, the Tokyo-based startup behind a curation media focused on home improvement. Acquisition details have not been disclosed but it is understood Iemo raised billions of yen (tens of millions US dollars) from DeNA.
Modeled after US-based Houzz, Iemo allows users to create pages using interior design images from its database of photos provided by homebuilders. As the service is new there is not much data on their business. In an interview in April, they said that almost 90% of their users were females who visit the website via mobile phone, many of them housewives.
Iemo founder and CEO Mary Murata is a serial entrepreneur, previously one of the first hires by Japanese Internet giant CyberAgent. Prior to launching Iemo, she founded a startup called Control Plus in 2005 and subsequently sold its social game development business to Japanese gaming company Gumi. Upon this acquisition by DeNA, Murata joined the management board of DeNA as an operating officer.
Several months ago the company appointed search engine expert Yuji Kumagai as COO, but Yuto Suzuki, former community service developer at CyberAgent, joined to take over that position and former AllAbout.jp editor-at-large, Hisaki Tokushima, also joined the team in July.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Nana Music, the Japanese startup behind social music app Nana, launched an Android version for the service on Wednesday. This has been anticipated since the company launched its iOS version in August of 2012. CEO Fumihara equates the service with the invention of a musical instrument enabling users to produce new music. Nana Music founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara emphasizes the perspective of creating content with users. With the launch of the Android app at this time, they aim to acquire over 1 million users by this year-end and create the country’s largest online music community. See also: Nana app gets anime theme songs, available globally without location restriction The Nana app allows users to share and mix their audio with other users on the platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. The startup aims to bring new users the experience of singing along with someone else. Singers can even team up with a band or a choir in this way, even if your collaborators live on the other side of the world. What’s noteworthy about Nana is their users with a lot of energy and of action. They have…
Tokyo-based Nana Music, the Japanese startup behind social music app Nana, launched an Android version for the service on Wednesday. This has been anticipated since the company launched its iOS version in August of 2012.
CEO Fumihara equates the service with the invention of a musical instrument enabling users to produce new music.
Nana Music founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara emphasizes the perspective of creating content with users. With the launch of the Android app at this time, they aim to acquire over 1 million users by this year-end and create the country’s largest online music community.
The Nana app allows users to share and mix their audio with other users on the platform, all with voices and sounds recorded through smartphone microphones. The startup aims to bring new users the experience of singing along with someone else. Singers can even team up with a band or a choir in this way, even if your collaborators live on the other side of the world.
What’s noteworthy about Nana is their users with a lot of energy and of action. They have developed creative plans by themselves and involved other users. They invented new ways to play the app such as Renga (literally meaning ‘linked singing’) where every user sings a phrase in a song and then passes it on to the next user, and they also sing while mimicking popular anime characters.
Nana Music has given users an offline music experience as well. They recently held a user event celebrating their second anniversary in August that was attended by more than 230 teenage fans of the app. CEO Fumihara says that the service is comparable to the invention of a music instrument that give users a new musical experience. So it will be interesting to see how they will proceed from here.
See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s 3D printing startup Kabuku, a marketplace operator for 3D designs and prints, started a cloud-based 3D printing platform this week. The platform is called Rinkak 3D Print Cloud for business, and allows users to integrate apps or web services with the 3D printing feature provided by Kabuku. For companies operating platforms for 3D computer graphics and CAD data, users will be able to order 3D printing from their data through this integration. See also: New Japanese 3D Printing Marketplace Officially Debuts Notable examples integrated with the platform include 3D Pipo, developed in Taiwan and recently launched in Japan. This app has won the top spot in the Taiwan app store with 500,000 downloads. It allows for the creation of 3D model data from a photo and the ordering of 3D printing via smartphone. Kabuku plans to provide an API for the 3D Pipo global edition (known as Insta3D) to integrate with the 3D printing platform. Kabuku aims to strengthen partnerships with game developers, social app providers, and other companies operating platforms for 3D computer graphics and CAD data. 3D game titles like Infinity Blade III provide players with online ordering of 3D-printed figures…
Japan’s 3D printing startup Kabuku, a marketplace operator for 3D designs and prints, started a cloud-based 3D printing platform this week. The platform is called Rinkak 3D Print Cloud for business, and allows users to integrate apps or web services with the 3D printing feature provided by Kabuku. For companies operating platforms for 3D computer graphics and CAD data, users will be able to order 3D printing from their data through this integration.
Notable examples integrated with the platform include 3D Pipo, developed in Taiwan and recently launched in Japan. This app has won the top spot in the Taiwan app store with 500,000 downloads. It allows for the creation of 3D model data from a photo and the ordering of 3D printing via smartphone. Kabuku plans to provide an API for the 3D Pipo global edition (known as Insta3D) to integrate with the 3D printing platform.
Kabuku aims to strengthen partnerships with game developers, social app providers, and other companies operating platforms for 3D computer graphics and CAD data. 3D game titles like Infinity Blade III provide players with online ordering of 3D-printed figures of main characters. So Kabuku sees synergy with more apps and services.
See the original story in Japanese. Nikkei’s Sept. 25 morning edition reported earlier today that Tokyo-based Fablic, the startup behind Japanese flea market app Fril, has fundraised about 1 billion yen (or $9.2 million) from Japanese online recipe site Cookpad, gaming company Colopl, and VC firm Jafco. Fablic is earmarking the funds to enhance promotional activities with TV commercials as well as to hire in new employees. See also: CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Mobile C2C flea market apps – Fril and Mercari Fablic, established in 2012, is a fourth batch graduate of Tokyo-based seed accelerator Open Network Lab. The company introduced a C2C (consumer to consumer) marketplace app in September 2012, an early entrant in the Japanese market which started its business about an year before Japan’s Mercari. In July of 2014, Fablic CEO Shota Horii unveiled that the company has acquired over 1.5 million downloads, handling deals worth over $5 million via the platform every month. But today’s Nikkei report says that the downloads have already exceeded 1.9 million. Fablic has not fundraised except for a small portion of seed funding from Open Network Lab. It is also understood that they have grown to date without much promotional…
Nikkei’s Sept. 25 morning edition reported earlier today that Tokyo-based Fablic, the startup behind Japanese flea market app Fril, has fundraised about 1 billion yen (or $9.2 million) from Japanese online recipe site Cookpad, gaming company Colopl, and VC firm Jafco. Fablic is earmarking the funds to enhance promotional activities with TV commercials as well as to hire in new employees.
Fablic, established in 2012, is a fourth batch graduate of Tokyo-based seed accelerator Open Network Lab. The company introduced a C2C (consumer to consumer) marketplace app in September 2012, an early entrant in the Japanese market which started its business about an year before Japan’s Mercari.
In July of 2014, Fablic CEO Shota Horii unveiled that the company has acquired over 1.5 million downloads, handling deals worth over $5 million via the platform every month. But today’s Nikkei report says that the downloads have already exceeded 1.9 million.
Fablic has not fundraised except for a small portion of seed funding from Open Network Lab. It is also understood that they have grown to date without much promotional efforts.
Yokohama-based Orkney, the company that provides fieldwork-focused customer relationship management tools called Orkney Upward, announced Tuesday that it has fundraised 90 million yen ($839,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and SMBC Venture Capital on August 29. Prior to this the company had obtained about $1 million in loans from Japan’s state-run loan company Japan Finance Corporation in June. They will use the funds and loans for sales force enhancement and for adding more features to the tools. Orkney Upward is a web-based platform that allows salespeople on the go to easily check the profiles of their customers via smart devices. The platform works with a mapping solution that the company has been developing since its launch, providing the best route for visiting clients in fragmented locations. Based on a partnership with Salesforce.com last year, Orkney Upward is now available on the Salesforce cloud environment as well (see video below). Orkney was founded in 2002, a bit old to be called a startup. They had been focused on entrusted systems development, serving the mapping industry, before they launched the Orkney Upward (previously known as Orkney Geograph) platform in 2011. Oakney CEO Toru Mori previously worked at Alps Mapping (acquired by Yahoo Japan in…
Yokohama-based Orkney, the company that provides fieldwork-focused customer relationship management tools called Orkney Upward, announced Tuesday that it has fundraised 90 million yen ($839,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and SMBC Venture Capital on August 29. Prior to this the company had obtained about $1 million in loans from Japan’s state-run loan company Japan Finance Corporation in June. They will use the funds and loans for sales force enhancement and for adding more features to the tools.
Orkney Upward is a web-based platform that allows salespeople on the go to easily check the profiles of their customers via smart devices. The platform works with a mapping solution that the company has been developing since its launch, providing the best route for visiting clients in fragmented locations. Based on a partnership with Salesforce.com last year, Orkney Upward is now available on the Salesforce cloud environment as well (see video below).
Orkney was founded in 2002, a bit old to be called a startup. They had been focused on entrusted systems development, serving the mapping industry, before they launched the Orkney Upward (previously known as Orkney Geograph) platform in 2011. Oakney CEO Toru Mori previously worked at Alps Mapping (acquired by Yahoo Japan in 2008). Looking back on his early days at the company, he said that he had wanted to start a business in the geographic information systems sector at a time when there was no service like Google Maps.
He explained:
Mapping costs a lot and is also technically difficult. I founded Orkney to remove such barriers in 2002. I initially thought we want to do business in the open source integration space.
But the debut of the iPhone in 2008 was a major turning point in their business. While receiving many orders from academic institutions at that time, they began to plan a new mapping service for business use. That was the predecessor of the present Orkney Upward platform.
Why are there no other services providing this feature in a space with so many competitors? Mori explained that his company has an advantage in providing a better user experience through a web browser and a mobile app thanks to their years of continuous R&D.
As they have acquired over 100 clients, they are in the early to middle stage in their business development. What is interesting about Orkney is that such a company with a long history in R&D stepped forward to start a new business and made it a success.
Because CyberAgent Ventures led this round, are they becoming more focused on investing in enterprise businesses? CyberAgent Ventures SVP Terry Hayashiguchi explained:
Because the smart device penetration is rapidly rising in the business scene, I think some of conventional products, which were originally designed for PC use, are not enough to serve users.
Therefore, we are assuming that people who experienced to manage a business in a big company are becoming more interested in launching their own startups. In addition, compared to the US, we think there’s a huge space to innovate in the enterprise and other B2B sectors in Japan. Based on these perspectives, we aim to invest in more B2B startups.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based online learning service startup Mana.bo has raised 330 million yen (approximately $3.4 million) from Japanese education business conglomerate Benesse, Nissay Capital, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. This follows their previous funding last year in a seed round from investors including CyberAgent Ventures. Coinciding with the funding, the company unveiled that it will start a new consumer-focused learning service this fall. The funds will be used to hire more staff and promote the new service. Several funding rounds have occurred in the online education service sector. In August, online cram school startup online cram school startup Aoi.Co. raised $1.2 million from Jafco, and computer programming camp operator Life is Tech raised $3 million from several investors. In contrast with the declining birth rate in Japan and the news that a major cram school chain will shut down the majority of their schools, emerging educational service companies are showing good growth. Since its launch in April 2012, Mana.bo has been managing business based on a B2B2C model, where they provide their online tutor service in partnership with client companies in the educational industry. Benesse, which led the funding at this time, and Mana.bo jointly launched in…
Tokyo-based online learning service startup Mana.bo has raised 330 million yen (approximately $3.4 million) from Japanese education business conglomerate Benesse, Nissay Capital, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. This follows their previous funding last year in a seed round from investors including CyberAgent Ventures.
Coinciding with the funding, the company unveiled that it will start a new consumer-focused learning service this fall. The funds will be used to hire more staff and promote the new service.
Since its launch in April 2012, Mana.bo has been managing business based on a B2B2C model, where they provide their online tutor service in partnership with client companies in the educational industry. Benesse, which led the funding at this time, and Mana.bo jointly launched in April a service called Real-time Katei Kyoshi (real-time online tutor service). (See their promotional video below)
Mana.bo initially aimed to provide their service under their own brand. However, educational services are typically paid for by parents, who take into consideration the brand name of a service operator. In this regard, Mana.bo made the right choice and has been showing great success by leveraging big brands.
While seeing good growth in the service, Mana.bo succeeded in attracting talented people from the startup community in Tokyo, such as Daisuke Yamashita (previously with Japan’s online recipe site Cookpad, joined Mana.bo as CTO in 2013) and Junji Kondo (previously with Japan’s augmented reality startup Tonchidot, joined the Mana.bo team in July this year).
Mana.bo’s business is stable thanks to partnerships with big companies, but they will become just one of many outsourced companies rather than a startup if remain dependent upon that business model. We can also assume that funding at this time suggests Mana.bo are looking to exit by an acquisition by big companies like Benesse. However, the more massively Mana.bo runs businesses on a partnership basis, the more complicated benefit sharing between Mana.bo and their partnering companies will be because Mana.bo depends on these companies in acquiring students and procuring online tutors.
The company aims to solve this key issue with the new service starting this fall. According to Mana.bo CEO Katsuhito Mitsuhashi, they have more than 500 online tutors registered, chiefly students attending top universities like the University of Tokyo or Keio University, and they can teach students without assistance from the company. In a booth at the Mana.bo office, several tutors are on standby to receive questions from students.
In addition to preparing for Q&As from teachers and students online, the company has been developing a new app for the new service. The new app in a paper prototype has a sophisticated interfacbeyond reduce confusion when they ask a question. It also incorporates social media components. Further details when the app goes live.
The company needs to acquire students for the new service without partnering companies, so they have to gain brand awareness among parents. CEO Katsuhito Mitsuhashi will proceed on this issue while exploring new marketing channels, but he did not divulge much information on this point.
From the left: Mana.bo CEO Katsuhito Mitsuhashi and engineer Junji Kondo
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Standing Ovation launched a fashion item management app called XZ (pronounced as Closet) earlier this week. XZ helps users mix and match clothing items in a user’s wardrobe. A survey of 300 women from 18 to 34 living in Tokyo shows that while they have, on average, fashion items worth 345,000 yen ($3,200), they typically only wear 30% of these items while the rest (about 80 items) have never been worn and sit unused in a closet. It is unfortunate that so many pieces of clothing go unworn. The XZ team says this happens because many women lack the skill to mix and match items: We want to help women discover items in their closets and propose new mix and match outfits. By sharing what users have in their closets, the app allows a user to see how other users coordinate their outfits and consider how to arrange an outfit based on what other users have done. How does XZ differ from other outfit coordination services like iQon and Wear? CEO Yoshihiro Ogita explained: Services like Wear and iQon are a reference tool that helps users polish their fashion skills, plus they…
Tokyo-based startup Standing Ovation launched a fashion item management app called XZ (pronounced as Closet) earlier this week. XZ helps users mix and match clothing items in a user’s wardrobe.
A survey of 300 women from 18 to 34 living in Tokyo shows that while they have, on average, fashion items worth 345,000 yen ($3,200), they typically only wear 30% of these items while the rest (about 80 items) have never been worn and sit unused in a closet.
It is unfortunate that so many pieces of clothing go unworn. The XZ team says this happens because many women lack the skill to mix and match items:
We want to help women discover items in their closets and propose new mix and match outfits.
By sharing what users have in their closets, the app allows a user to see how other users coordinate their outfits and consider how to arrange an outfit based on what other users have done. How does XZ differ from other outfit coordination services like iQon and Wear?
CEO Yoshihiro Ogita explained:
Services like Wear and iQon are a reference tool that helps users polish their fashion skills, plus they include a catalog function. However, to absorb that knowledge completely, a user only uses them as a reference but must consider a suitable outfit by themselves. XZ offers advice based on what a user has in their closet, so they can start adopting proposed outfits as soon as the next day.
The XZ team is establishing a community addressing the fashion mix and match problem as well as acquiring influential stylists and fashion bloggers. Once the community is established it will create new fashionistas and cater to a user’s self-expression.
The company plans to develop a marketplace where users will be able to sell and buy and rent their fashion items. The team also plans to launch a B2C business where fashion brands can propose their newly-shipped items to users by considering what other items these users have in their wardrobe.
The company aims to attain five million downloads from Japan as well as 25 million downloads from the rest of the world in three years, as well as reach over 100 million users worldwide within five years.
The XZ service is available for iOS and Android platforms.
See the original story in Japanese. FiNC is a Tokyo startup that provides online weight loss and dietary advice based on a scientific approach such as genetic testing. The company announced today that it has raised a series A round of an undisclosed sum from Itochu Technology Ventures, Gree Ventures, Link and Motivation, MID Venture Capital, former Mixi CEO Yusuke Asakura and former Opt CEO Tomohito Ebine. The company also unveiled that it has obtained large loans from Mizuho Bank and other financial institutions. Coinciding with the funds, Asakura and Ebine joined the company as strategic advisors. Asakura said the company represents a great advancement in the fitness industry and has a highly-talented engineering team and that he will aggressively support the company expand in Japan and globally. Ebine said the company is well-balanced with fresh talent and skilled people. In a view of Japan’s aging population, he sees a huge market and a great potential business in developing solutions that improve people’s health and increase life expectancy. The FiNC online diet coach service helps users achieve their weight-loss goals. When a user mails their genetic and blood samples along with their lifestyle and dietary information to FiNC, they will…
From the left: Yusuke Asakura (advisor), CFO Fumio Norimatsu, CEO Yji Mizoguchi, and Tomohito Ebine (advisor)
FiNC is a Tokyo startup that provides online weight loss and dietary advice based on a scientific approach such as genetic testing. The company announced today that it has raised a series A round of an undisclosed sum from Itochu Technology Ventures, Gree Ventures, Link and Motivation, MID Venture Capital, former Mixi CEO Yusuke Asakura and former Opt CEO Tomohito Ebine. The company also unveiled that it has obtained large loans from Mizuho Bank and other financial institutions.
Coinciding with the funds, Asakura and Ebine joined the company as strategic advisors. Asakura said the company represents a great advancement in the fitness industry and has a highly-talented engineering team and that he will aggressively support the company expand in Japan and globally. Ebine said the company is well-balanced with fresh talent and skilled people. In a view of Japan’s aging population, he sees a huge market and a great potential business in developing solutions that improve people’s health and increase life expectancy.
The FiNC online diet coach service helps users achieve their weight-loss goals. When a user mails their genetic and blood samples along with their lifestyle and dietary information to FiNC, they will receive dietary and fitness advice from certified dietitians and fitness trainers via smartphone.
FiNC CEO Yuji Mizoguchi expects that within five years the company will have an IPO and that one person in ten in Japan will be using their service.
He added:
We welcome Asakura and Ebine on board, both having launched and IPO-ed their startups. Akukura is the same generation as us and greatly motivates us in our work. He will provide us with his extensive knowledge in cutting-edge areas in the world, which is definitely required for our global business expansion. Ebine is good at establishing alliances between startups and established companies. There will be many things that we can learn from him. We want to leverage his vast network in the healthcare industry.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Dely, a food delivery service operating in Tokyo, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese seed investor Anri. This follows their seed funding in July led by Beenos with participation from East Ventures and Party Factory. Dely CEO Yusuke Horie explained his business: Our system is well organized, and we have had no trouble in our delivery service. When we started our service, it is provided only for a lunch time on weekdays but we added a dinner time and Saturday to our operating hours in August. We’ll try to partner with more restaurants and acquire more users from now on. The company sees a steadily growth in acquiring partnering restaurants. Their service is currently available only in Shibuya but plans to add Ebisu and Roppongi to the delivery areas. See also: Japan’s ‘Uber for logistics’ launches food delivery service in central Tokyo Coinciding with the funding, Anri general partner Anri Samata, Beenos managing partner Hiro Maeda, and FreakOut COO Yusuke Sato, who will join the board of Dely as an advisor, spoke on the potential of on-demand delivery services in Japan. Samata explained why his fund has…
From the left: Anri partner Anri Samata, Dely CEO Yusuke Horie, Beenos partner Hiro Maeda, and Dely COO Yusuke Sato in the laptop screen
Tokyo-based startup Dely, a food delivery service operating in Tokyo, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese seed investor Anri. This follows their seed funding in July led by Beenos with participation from East Ventures and Party Factory.
Dely CEO Yusuke Horie explained his business:
Our system is well organized, and we have had no trouble in our delivery service. When we started our service, it is provided only for a lunch time on weekdays but we added a dinner time and Saturday to our operating hours in August. We’ll try to partner with more restaurants and acquire more users from now on.
The company sees a steadily growth in acquiring partnering restaurants. Their service is currently available only in Shibuya but plans to add Ebisu and Roppongi to the delivery areas.
Coinciding with the funding, Anri general partner Anri Samata, Beenos managing partner Hiro Maeda, and FreakOut COO Yusuke Sato, who will join the board of Dely as an advisor, spoke on the potential of on-demand delivery services in Japan.
Samata explained why his fund has invested in Dely:
We have invested in startups providing infrastructure-focused services like Coiney (payments), Raksul (printing), Crowdworks (crowdsouricing), so logistics is also one of our interest. I’ve talked with many logistics startups in Japan. Since Horie is the most interesting man among them, I decided to invest in his startup. We see a market because Japan’s GDP and land area are sufficiently large. Existing logistics services work well but don’t provide on-demand delivery. Disrupting an existing industry structure is my mission. So we expect that they will evolve further.
Beenos has invested in US-based same-day food grocery service Instacart. From that perspective, Beenos managing partner Hiro Maeda predicts that on-demand services will become more common in Japan in five to ten years. He said:
Thanks to mobile technology, delivery services can detect the exact location of their delivery persons in real time, which allows anyone to become a delivery person for these services. In addition to delivery services, it will be inevitable that individuals will be able to provide their personal values as a service.
According to Horie, Maeda’s mentoring was very helpful in developing the product because he is familiar with Instacart through his investment.
Horie said:
Maeda’s feedback on the service was to the point. It was really helpful that he joined our team in a seed round. Thanks to him, we can aim to develop a much better product.
In response to him, Maeda added:
I think we’ll need an on-demand service like Postmates. But it’s not easy so a crazy man should do it. In terms of that, I think Horie is suitable because he is young and beyond our mind and has no prejudice.
Sato analyzed the Japanese logistic industry and explained that it will be impossible for major logistic companies to roll out an on-demand delivery service despite the fact that they have a huge and efficient delivery network system.
He said:
However, thanks to a surge of smartphone users, there is huge potential to build a high cost-performance delivery network comprised of non-professional delivery persons.
I think we can turn the impossible into the possible. That’s what only a crazy man like Horie can do. That’s why I decided to bet on him.
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Japan’s peer-to-peer parking lot sharing platform Akippa announced on Friday that it has launched a joint promotion campaign with Uber so that Akippa users can receive a complimentary first ride worth 4,000 yen (about $38) with Uber hired cabs. See also: Japan’s Airbnb for parking spaces ‘Akippa’ fundraises from DeNA and angel investors This campaign aims to give users more options to transport in central Tokyo areas. When you are going to a big event or conference in these areas by car, you may not always easily find an avaiable parking lot near the venue. However, if you alternatively park a car a bit far from the venue, you will need to take time to move from the parking lot to the venue. With the campaign, Uber wants to propose a new user experience where you can park a car at a parking lot using Akippa and then use Uber get to the final destination. As many city dwellers in Japan know, parking a car in the central urban areas may cost as high as more than $10 per hour, which is difficult to use to park over several…
This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.
Japan’s peer-to-peer parking lot sharing platform Akippa announced on Friday that it has launched a joint promotion campaign with Uber so that Akippa users can receive a complimentary first ride worth 4,000 yen (about $38) with Uber hired cabs.
This campaign aims to give users more options to transport in central Tokyo areas. When you are going to a big event or conference in these areas by car, you may not always easily find an avaiable parking lot near the venue. However, if you alternatively park a car a bit far from the venue, you will need to take time to move from the parking lot to the venue. With the campaign, Uber wants to propose a new user experience where you can park a car at a parking lot using Akippa and then use Uber get to the final destination.
As many city dwellers in Japan know, parking a car in the central urban areas may cost as high as more than $10 per hour, which is difficult to use to park over several hours. Akippa wants to address parking issues for car owners in the urban areas, so both companies have agreed to launch this promotion campaign together. The campaign is effective until the end of October.
Takeshi Hirano
Junya Mori
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Miyako Yoshizawa
Shintaro Eguchi
