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Japanese crowdsourcing marketplace Lancers raises $2.9 million

Takeshi Hirano 2013.05.21

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese crowsourcing marketplace Lancers announced today that it has raised 300 million yen ($2.9 million) from Globis Capital Partners (GCP) and GMO Venture Partners (GMO-VP). Coinciding with this funding, GCP partner Shinichi Takamiya has joined Lancers’ the board of directors. Readers may recall that we previously wrote about Lancers back in April. Since the service launched in 2008, it has acquired about 140,000 members (crowdsourced workers) and has transactioned about 7 billion yen ($68.3 million). The amount of the transactions reached 3.5 billion yen ($34.2 million) in the previous fiscal year, which is same amount as its total dealings up to that point (i.e. from 2008 and 2011). The company recently moved its headquarters from Shibuya to Kamakura, just outside of Tokyo. Why now? Lancers’ CEO Yosuke Akiyoshi explained why they raised funds at this particular point: Our business is growing well, and we’re not suffering from cash flow issues. However, we made up our minds to fundraise so we can massively speed up our business at this time. […] Now we need to focus on standardizing the format of crowdsourcing projects. By enhancing its database of crowdsourcing workers, the startup is now exploring…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese crowsourcing marketplace Lancers announced today that it has raised 300 million yen ($2.9 million) from Globis Capital Partners (GCP) and GMO Venture Partners (GMO-VP). Coinciding with this funding, GCP partner Shinichi Takamiya has joined Lancers’ the board of directors. Readers may recall that we previously wrote about Lancers back in April.

Since the service launched in 2008, it has acquired about 140,000 members (crowdsourced workers) and has transactioned about 7 billion yen ($68.3 million). The amount of the transactions reached 3.5 billion yen ($34.2 million) in the previous fiscal year, which is same amount as its total dealings up to that point (i.e. from 2008 and 2011).

The company recently moved its headquarters from Shibuya to Kamakura, just outside of Tokyo.

Why now?

Lancers’ CEO Yosuke Akiyoshi explained why they raised funds at this particular point:

Our business is growing well, and we’re not suffering from cash flow issues. However, we made up our minds to fundraise so we can massively speed up our business at this time. […] Now we need to focus on standardizing the format of crowdsourcing projects.

By enhancing its database of crowdsourcing workers, the startup is now exploring partnerships with other category-focused crowdsourcing services such as ADFlow (crowdsourcing banner ad design) or MugenUp (crowdsouring illustration or cartoon-drawing work).

Cultivating local workers in local markets

Regarding expanding their business in local markets, he explains:

In order to make our business grow further, I believe it’s also important to help freelancers grow. They aren’t our employees but we need to invest in cultivating these workforces. If you compare outsourcing tasks to overseas markets with doing so in local markets, there will be no significant gap in terms of cost. But there’s a big gap in the volume of the tasks between the two. We’d like to gather more users and partners by promoting the new freelance working style as well as our own platform.

The startup is planning to launch a new system in the future, where they will conduct interviews to find potential leaders among freelancers at many locations across the country. They will be approved as ‘qualified freelancers’ and lead projects with other workers located at various locations.

People typically see crowdsourcing as a sort of quick and dirty solution. To overcome this stigma, Akiyoshi plans to increase the amount of quality deals on the marketplace.

We actually get more offers from corporate users, [although] we’re haven’t intensified our sales efforts. Once a company uses our service, we’ve seen that its subsidiaries or group companies follow suit.

The company also plans to provide further support to workers, with health insurance or welfare services, and from a freelancer’s point of view that certainly helps make this sort of work become an attractive option.

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Japan’s Netprice.com invests in Turkey’s largest price comparison site Akakce.com

Masaru Ikeda 2013.05.20

Japanese e-commerce and incubation company Netprice.com announced today that it has invested in Turkey’s largest price comparison site Akakce.com, establishing a strategic partnership at the same time. Detailed figures about the investment were not disclosed. According Netprice, this will be the first investment by a Japanese company into a Turkish e-commerce business. Update: According to turk.internet.com, Netprice.com took a 20% stake in Akakce.com. Akakce.com was founded in 2000 in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, provides the nation’s consumers with prices and user opinions about a variety of products such as home appliances, health care products, and gaming products. Turkey’s population is around 75 million, and about 47% of them have access to the Internet [1]. The country has huge potential for e-commerce because payment and logistics infrastructure are already sufficient. Akakace.com has more than 4 million monthly unique visitors. Through this partnership, Netprice.com aspires to learn more about the Turkish e-commerce market, and plans to help the community grow by incubating local startups. Since Turkish entrepreneur Bora Savas joined the investment team at NetPrice.com back in January, I assume he involved in this investment — likely an important link in helping the Japanese company connect with the Turkish startup community….

Japanese e-commerce and incubation company Netprice.com announced today that it has invested in Turkey’s largest price comparison site Akakce.com, establishing a strategic partnership at the same time. Detailed figures about the investment were not disclosed. According Netprice, this will be the first investment by a Japanese company into a Turkish e-commerce business.

Update: According to turk.internet.com, Netprice.com took a 20% stake in Akakce.com.

Akakce.com was founded in 2000 in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, provides the nation’s consumers with prices and user opinions about a variety of products such as home appliances, health care products, and gaming products.

Turkey’s population is around 75 million, and about 47% of them have access to the Internet [1]. The country has huge potential for e-commerce because payment and logistics infrastructure are already sufficient.

Akakace.com has more than 4 million monthly unique visitors. Through this partnership, Netprice.com aspires to learn more about the Turkish e-commerce market, and plans to help the community grow by incubating local startups.

Since Turkish entrepreneur Bora Savas joined the investment team at NetPrice.com back in January, I assume he involved in this investment — likely an important link in helping the Japanese company connect with the Turkish startup community.

This is based on surveys from Eurostat and Turkstat. ↩

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Nana app gets anime theme songs, available globally without location restriction

SCORE 2,245

Junya Mori 2013.05.16

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese music collaboration app Nana has partnered with Joysound, one of the country’s biggest karaoke service providers, to provide anime theme songs for karaoke in its app. What’s most interesting here is that despite the fact that most music-related services have geographically limited availability due to copyright, Nana’s anime theme songs will be available to users the world over. The startup has an agreement with Joysound for the master license for these anime theme songs, with a blanket purchase agreement in place JASRAC, Japan’s copyright control authority. For readers not yet familiar with Nana, the 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. Nana launched its beta version last August, and its global version followed last November. According to the startup’s co-founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara, the app currently has about 25,000 users, and 70% of them…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese music collaboration app Nana has partnered with Joysound, one of the country’s biggest karaoke service providers, to provide anime theme songs for karaoke in its app.

What’s most interesting here is that despite the fact that most music-related services have geographically limited availability due to copyright, Nana’s anime theme songs will be available to users the world over. The startup has an agreement with Joysound for the master license for these anime theme songs, with a blanket purchase agreement in place JASRAC, Japan’s copyright control authority.

For readers not yet familiar with Nana, the 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. Nana launched its beta version last August, and its global version followed last November.

According to the startup’s co-founder and CEO Akinori Fumihara, the app currently has about 25,000 users, and 70% of them are teenage girls. More than 120,000 songs have been exchanged using the platform, and about 1,200 songs are being posted every day.

Japan’s karaoke giant Joysound provides anime theme songs to karaoke bars and nightclubs all across the country. They are also known for providing many user-created or Vocaloid songs, typically posted by amateur singers on Japan’s video sharing site Nico Nico Douga.

Nico Nico Douga has many videos tagged as ‘I’ve sung this song,’ a good indication that there’s actually a culture growing around users who record themselves singing popular songs on the platform. As the Nana app makes it easier for you to record yourself and post to the internet, this new Joysound partnership may encourage Nana users to sing and share even more. Fumihara notes:

The anime theme song genre is a suitable one that people will enjoy singing together. I hope the partnership will generate even more song-based communication among people.

If you’d like to try the Nana app for yourself, you can get it for iOS over on the App Store.

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Japanese fashion startup Muse & Co raises $3.4 million

Takeshi Hirano 2013.05.16

See the original story in Japanese. Here’s more news from Japan’s fashion commerce space. Apparel-focused, flash marketing startup Muse & Co has announced that it has raised series B funding worth 350 million yen, or about $3.4 million. Investors include Itochu Technology Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Infinity Ventures Partners (IVP). According to IVP’s managing partner Masashi Kobayashi, this round brings the total money raised by the startup to a sum of approximately 500 million yen ($5 million). Previously, IVP invested in the startup back in May of 2012. Consumers love fashion startups To see a seed-stage startup fundraise such a huge amount, it reminds us that there’s a real trend emerging at the intersection of fashion, e-commerce, and smartphones. Some of our readers will remember, for example, mobile commerce startup Origami also raised about the same amount last month. Muse & Co is a members-only flash sale site that gives users a substantial discount off the market price for a limited time. In Japan, there are some similar sites in this space. Gilt Groupe has been operating a joint venture with Softbank since 2008. Other competitors include Glamour Sales, Brands for Friends, and Monoco. According to startup’s CEO Hirotake…

See the original story in Japanese.

Here’s more news from Japan’s fashion commerce space. Apparel-focused, flash marketing startup Muse & Co has announced that it has raised series B funding worth 350 million yen, or about $3.4 million. Investors include Itochu Technology Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Infinity Ventures Partners (IVP).

According to IVP’s managing partner Masashi Kobayashi, this round brings the total money raised by the startup to a sum of approximately 500 million yen ($5 million). Previously, IVP invested in the startup back in May of 2012.

Consumers love fashion startups

To see a seed-stage startup fundraise such a huge amount, it reminds us that there’s a real trend emerging at the intersection of fashion, e-commerce, and smartphones. Some of our readers will remember, for example, mobile commerce startup Origami also raised about the same amount last month.

Muse & Co is a members-only flash sale site that gives users a substantial discount off the market price for a limited time. In Japan, there are some similar sites in this space. Gilt Groupe has been operating a joint venture with Softbank since 2008. Other competitors include Glamour Sales, Brands for Friends, and Monoco.

According to startup’s CEO Hirotake Kubo, Muse & Co targets the so-called ‘F1 layer’ in Japan (female users in their 20s and early 30s), thus differentiating from conventional competitors. In terms of differentiation from similar smartphones services, they expect to showcase items in the casual fashion category, which may be not so sophisticated but better suited to wearing on a day-to-day basis.

Over $500,000 in monthly sales, 70% traffic from mobile

Muse & Co sells merchandise on commission and has no inventory stocked at all. They showcase clothes from three brands every day, and in total about 30 new items are sold every day. The duration of the flash sale is usually about seven days, but most items sell out on the first day. Their flash marketing starts at 8pm every day, the peak time for user traffic.

Kubo explains that the site’s monthly revenue has reached around 50 million yen, with 50% coming from mobile, and 20% from the smartphone app. They’ve never made any promotion efforts for smartphone users, so it’s not unlikely that these access metrics (in terms of mobile/desktop ratio) are common for most e-commerce sites in Japan.

A good start

Muse & Co was established back in February of 2012. The startup’s founder, Hirotake Kubo, previously worked at global consulting firm AT Kearney, where he has been conducting due diligence on the apparel industry for five years.

From my experience seeing the apparel industry, I wanted to help domestic fashion brands solve the problems they’re facing. Beyond that, I also want to contribute to the strengthening of our economy.

Currently Muse & Co is 20-person team including 5 merchandising staffers. They have acquired approximately 200,000 users since launch, and are hoping to surpass 1 million users in the near future.

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In Japan, internet companies make weddings more affordable

SCORE 1,326

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.16

It can be hard to make Japanese weddings unique or special, since so many of them are held in the same kind of reception rooms in hotels or typical wedding venues. It’s not uncommon for couples about to be married to flip through wedding magazines like Recruit’s Zexy agonizing over the details of their ceremony. But recently we’re seeing newcomers who challenge the conventional ways of organizing weddings. Amazon just opened up its own sort of wedding store, which can be helpful for couples who might have little time to prepare for a wedding. Rakukon operated by Best Bridal, where couples can pay only 200,000 yen for their wedding in advance (about $1,957) and then pay the rest with congratulatory gift money (Goshuugi). This way, couples do not have to pay out of their own pocket. Rakukon’s pricing is unconventional considering that on average couples spend over 3 million yen on a wedding (about $29,355). Making it affordable Perhaps the biggest game changer in the wedding industry is Minna no Wedding (roughly be translated as ‘Everyone’s Wedding’) which launched back in Feburary of 2008. The service was originally a DeNA offering, but it was split from that company in October of 2010….

minna-no-wedding — *Minna no Wedding* has made weddings affordable for many in Japan

It can be hard to make Japanese weddings unique or special, since so many of them are held in the same kind of reception rooms in hotels or typical wedding venues. It’s not uncommon for couples about to be married to flip through wedding magazines like Recruit’s Zexy agonizing over the details of their ceremony.

But recently we’re seeing newcomers who challenge the conventional ways of organizing weddings. Amazon just opened up its own sort of wedding store, which can be helpful for couples who might have little time to prepare for a wedding. Rakukon operated by Best Bridal, where couples can pay only 200,000 yen for their wedding in advance (about $1,957) and then pay the rest with congratulatory gift money (Goshuugi). This way, couples do not have to pay out of their own pocket. Rakukon’s pricing is unconventional considering that on average couples spend over 3 million yen on a wedding (about $29,355).

Making it affordable

Perhaps the biggest game changer in the wedding industry is Minna no Wedding (roughly be translated as ‘Everyone’s Wedding’) which launched back in Feburary of 2008. The service was originally a DeNA offering, but it was split from that company in October of 2010. The site has about one million unique users and 10 million page views per month. This count is very impressive considering that visitors to the site are limited to couples planning to marry.

Minna no Wedding’s killer content — and what differentiates it from competitors — are the wedding venue reviews posted by couples after they marry. Previously, all wedding-related information was pretty favorable when describing venues, since the venues were the ones paying to be published. People post reviews for many reasons, but many do so share the excitement (or disappointment in some cases) of their wedding. There is also an incentive system called Goshuugi points where posting three reviews can be rewarded with over 1,000 yen (about $10) worth of points.

By reading genuine opinions and reviews about venues, the likelihood of a successful wedding is obviously much higher. Reviews must be detailed, though, and are required to be more than 300 characters.

Another interesting feature of Minna no Wedding is the bill statement. Couples are sometimes surprised by the difference in the initial estimate and the final cost as venues try to recommend additional options in the preparatory process. Since the actual statements are online, it helps to remove some anxiety for couples.

According to Nikkei, the number of marriages in Japan was about 700,000 in 2010, which is 36% lower than back in 1972 when we experienced the second wave of baby boom. Among those who get married, only 300,000 to 350,000 couples celebrate by having a wedding ceremony. For the rest of the couples who opt to skip the ceremony, Minna no Wedding offers an attractive service that might change their minds.

To see how the website works, check out the video below.

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Japan’s Mixi to appoint new CEO, co-founder Kenji Kasahara to step down

Masaru Ikeda 2013.05.15

Japanese social network giant Mixi (TYO:2121) announced today that its co-founder Kenji Kasahara would step down from the CEO position. Yusuke Asakura will take over in his place effective June 25th when the company’s next shareholder meeting is scheduled. Asakura started his career at McKinsey & Co, founding his startup Naked Technology in August of 2010 [1]. That company was subsequently acquired by Mixi. In the announcement, Mr. Kasahara expressed some parting thoughts: Mr. Asakura has two different backgrounds — working at a big consulting firm and running his own startup, and that experience will help guide him to make good decisions in a logical manner, with passion. He is still just 30 years old but has the great entrepreneurial drive needed to lead our business. 16 years has been passed since the launch of Find Job (a talent/job matching site by Mixi), and nine years has been passed since the launch of the Mixi social network platform. I’ll be stepping down as chairman, but our new CEO will evolve the entire company to bring more new services to the community. Last August Mixi set up an internal ‘innovation team’ to intensify service development efforts. So far their products include app…

Japanese social network giant Mixi (TYO:2121) announced today that its co-founder Kenji Kasahara would step down from the CEO position. Yusuke Asakura will take over in his place effective June 25th when the company’s next shareholder meeting is scheduled.

From the left: the current CEO Kenji Kasahara and upcoming CEO Yusuke Asakura — Current CEO Kenji Kasahara (left) and incoming CEO Yusuke Asakura (right)

Asakura started his career at McKinsey & Co, founding his startup Naked Technology in August of 2010 [1]. That company was subsequently acquired by Mixi. In the announcement, Mr. Kasahara expressed some parting thoughts:

Mr. Asakura has two different backgrounds — working at a big consulting firm and running his own startup, and that experience will help guide him to make good decisions in a logical manner, with passion. He is still just 30 years old but has the great entrepreneurial drive needed to lead our business.

16 years has been passed since the launch of Find Job (a talent/job matching site by Mixi), and nine years has been passed since the launch of the Mixi social network platform. I’ll be stepping down as chairman, but our new CEO will evolve the entire company to bring more new services to the community.

Last August Mixi set up an internal ‘innovation team’ to intensify service development efforts. So far their products include app testing service DeployGate and photo printing app Nohana. These are not derivatives from the social network, and they represent entirely new revenue streams for the company.

Mixi has also been aggressively acquiring high-profile startups and entrepreneurs, and this is a trend that can be seen across the entire Japanese tech scene, with Yahoo Japan being especially active.

Press briefing at Mixi Headquarters (May 15th, Tokyo)

We’ve recently written about another Naked Technology alum Miku Hirano, who is trying to conquer the Southeast Asia region with a unique photo sharing app. ↩

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Photo sharing app Snapeee raises series B funding from six Japanese VC firms

Masaru Ikeda 2013.05.13

Tokyo-based startup Mind Pallete, known for developing the very popular photo sharing app Snapeee, announced today that it has raised a round of series B funding from six Japanese VC firms: SMBC Venture Capital, Dentsu Digital Holdings, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, PSC, Sun Eight Investment, and Itochu Technology Ventures. Detailed figures were not disclosed but I assume the total is a multi-million dollar figure at least. The startup was launched with seed investment from CyberAgent Ventures in November of 2010, and subsequently the Snapeee photo app was launched in May of 2011. They previously fundraised an unknown amount of investment from GREE and Itochu Technology Ventures. The service has reached the top spot in the AppStore’s free photo category in 13 Asian countries including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and mainland China. The app has 80% of its 4 million strong user base outside its home market of Japan, with its core users being females in their teens and 20s. The startup has partnered with many apparel and music labels, helping them promote their products using the photo sharing platform. With the new funding, the startup expects to intensify this advertising partnership business, which has been showing good results thus far….

Tokyo-based startup Mind Pallete, known for developing the very popular photo sharing app Snapeee, announced today that it has raised a round of series B funding from six Japanese VC firms: SMBC Venture Capital, Dentsu Digital Holdings, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, PSC, Sun Eight Investment, and Itochu Technology Ventures. Detailed figures were not disclosed but I assume the total is a multi-million dollar figure at least.

The startup was launched with seed investment from CyberAgent Ventures in November of 2010, and subsequently the Snapeee photo app was launched in May of 2011. They previously fundraised an unknown amount of investment from GREE and Itochu Technology Ventures. The service has reached the top spot in the AppStore’s free photo category in 13 Asian countries including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and mainland China.

The app has 80% of its 4 million strong user base outside its home market of Japan, with its core users being females in their teens and 20s. The startup has partnered with many apparel and music labels, helping them promote their products using the photo sharing platform. With the new funding, the startup expects to intensify this advertising partnership business, which has been showing good results thus far.

For our readers not yet familiar with how the Snapeee app works, we encourage you to check out our previous story featuring Japan’s cutest mobile apps, which mentioned Snapeee.

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Driven by games and stamps, Line Corporation’s reports 1Q revenue of over $57M

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.10

Japan’s Line Corporation (whose chat app recently hit the 150 million users milestone) disclosed its latest sales figures yesterday, showing first-quarter revenue of 5.8 billion yen (or over $57 million). That’s up 92% compared to the same quarter in the previous year. Line’s sales consists of games, stamps, official accounts, and sponsored stamps. Games amount for about half of its sales, while its stamps business accounts for about 30%. The mobile chat app is now a sort of a global phenomenon, having expanded to places like Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, and Indonesia. But it’s interesting to see that the majority of its sales, about 80%, come from its home market in Japan. Micro-payments for digital contents are not new to Japanese people, going back even to the days of feature phones. We have always paid for music, ringtones, e-books, games, and dedicated carrier-dependent servies such as i-mode. Whether we’re using a feature phone or a smartphone, small and frequent purchases tend to hit your wallet hard. On a related note, there is great article over on Pando Daily from Tom Limongello titled The Japanese Art of Monetization where he explains that Japan’s mobile space has always been monetized. It’s very much…

Japan’s Line Corporation (whose chat app recently hit the 150 million users milestone) disclosed its latest sales figures yesterday, showing first-quarter revenue of 5.8 billion yen (or over $57 million). That’s up 92% compared to the same quarter in the previous year.

Line’s sales consists of games, stamps, official accounts, and sponsored stamps. Games amount for about half of its sales, while its stamps business accounts for about 30%. The mobile chat app is now a sort of a global phenomenon, having expanded to places like Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, and Indonesia. But it’s interesting to see that the majority of its sales, about 80%, come from its home market in Japan.

Micro-payments for digital contents are not new to Japanese people, going back even to the days of feature phones. We have always paid for music, ringtones, e-books, games, and dedicated carrier-dependent servies such as i-mode. Whether we’re using a feature phone or a smartphone, small and frequent purchases tend to hit your wallet hard.

On a related note, there is great article over on Pando Daily from Tom Limongello titled The Japanese Art of Monetization where he explains that Japan’s mobile space has always been monetized. It’s very much worth a read if you have a moment to spare.

Line Camera, one of Line’s 24 apps, is also doing very well, having accumulated 30 million downloads worldwide as of the end of April. The popular photo app launched its own stamp shop on April 2nd, helping reach the top of sales charts in Google Play’s photo category in 45 countries. On the iOS app store, it managed to grab the top spot in the photo category in 12 different countries.

For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

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NTT Docomo to acquire Japan’s largest medical database

Masaru Ikeda 2013.04.30

Japanese mobile giant NTT Docomo and medical information provider Nihon Ultmarc have jointly announced that the telco would acquire a 77.5% stake of the medical company for 2.6 billion yen (approximately $26 million) in May. Nihon Ultmarc was founded in 1962, and has built a database of medical doctors and nurses across the country, providing that information to the pharmaceutical industry. NTT Docomo announced in their business plan for this fiscal year that it expects to grow its medical and health care related business up to 40 billion yen ($400 million) by 2015, which is almost ten times than what it was in 2011. The telco aims to create three new markets by deploying mobile technologies: in health management and prevention support, in health insurance and welfare related services, and medical examination and treatment support. NTT Docomo had been operating a video service, MD+, for sharing surgical procedures and treatments among doctors. Along with the subsidization, Nihon Ulmarc has integrated with MD+ with the company’s knowledge sharing system for members/doctors, giving them an accumulation of useful intelligence that can go towards better medical services.

Japanese mobile giant NTT Docomo and medical information provider Nihon Ultmarc have jointly announced that the telco would acquire a 77.5% stake of the medical company for 2.6 billion yen (approximately $26 million) in May.

Nihon Ultmarc was founded in 1962, and has built a database of medical doctors and nurses across the country, providing that information to the pharmaceutical industry. NTT Docomo announced in their business plan for this fiscal year that it expects to grow its medical and health care related business up to 40 billion yen ($400 million) by 2015, which is almost ten times than what it was in 2011. The telco aims to create three new markets by deploying mobile technologies: in health management and prevention support, in health insurance and welfare related services, and medical examination and treatment support.

NTT Docomo had been operating a video service, MD+, for sharing surgical procedures and treatments among doctors. Along with the subsidization, Nihon Ulmarc has integrated with MD+ with the company’s knowledge sharing system for members/doctors, giving them an accumulation of useful intelligence that can go towards better medical services.

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Japanese online content marketplace raises $3 million from Jafco and Femto Growth Capital

Junya Mori 2013.04.24

See also the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Piece of Cake, the company behind online article/content marketplace called Cakes, announced today that it has fundraised 300 million yen (or about $3 million) from Jafco and Femto Growth Capital Fund. The fund is being jointly managed by the investment arm of Japan’s Shinsei Bank and notable Japanese CPA Tetsuya Isozaki. Cakes is an online marketplace where content authors can sell their articles to an audience. In partnership with notable magazine or comic publishing companies, the startup gathers popular content authors including best-selling novelists, scientists, famous bloggers, businessmen, photographers, and musicians. Articles or other content by all these authors will be presented on the platform every day. It’s free to view the lead excerpt, but to view the entire piece requires a subscription of 150 yen ($1.50) per week. They explain further about the pricing: You’re paying the same amount of a bottled drink, and in return you can enjoy as much content as you like throughout the week. With the new funding, the startup aspires to build up a framework to provide a better user experience for readers, content authors, and publishers, with the eventual goal of being a leader…

Tokyo-based startup Piece of Cake, the company behind online article/content marketplace called Cakes, announced today that it has fundraised 300 million yen (or about $3 million) from Jafco and Femto Growth Capital Fund. The fund is being jointly managed by the investment arm of Japan’s Shinsei Bank and notable Japanese CPA Tetsuya Isozaki.

Cakes is an online marketplace where content authors can sell their articles to an audience. In partnership with notable magazine or comic publishing companies, the startup gathers popular content authors including best-selling novelists, scientists, famous bloggers, businessmen, photographers, and musicians. Articles or other content by all these authors will be presented on the platform every day. It’s free to view the lead excerpt, but to view the entire piece requires a subscription of 150 yen ($1.50) per week. They explain further about the pricing:

You’re paying the same amount of a bottled drink, and in return you can enjoy as much content as you like throughout the week.

With the new funding, the startup aspires to build up a framework to provide a better user experience for readers, content authors, and publishers, with the eventual goal of being a leader in content distribution.

Our readers may recall back in February when GREE had launched a paid online magazine service called Magalry. They are having a tough time in the publishing industry, but it’s interesting to see if this kind of new publication platform can establish some solid growth.

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