See the original story in Japanese. Santa Company, an anime production team led by Japanese filmmaker Kenji Itoso, recently met its funding goal of $50,000 goal on Kickstarter. This fundraising effort comes after the team attempted to raise money on Japanese crowdfunding site Anipipo earlier this year, falling short of its target. Itoso has produced animations, films and music videos, and his works have been featured at many international film festivals and won prominent awards from them. With this new project, he hopes to complete a 30 minute anime and present it for children and families in affected areas of the 2011 earthquake. The video below gives a more detailed introduction. Here are a few other Japanese projects that have leverage Kickstarter to raise funds. October 2012 – ‘Kick-Heart’ raised $201,164. Directed by Masaaki Yuasa of Product I.G. June 2013 – ‘Are you enjoying the time of EVE?’ raised $215,433. Directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura of Studio Rikka and Directions. This project aimed to produce an English-subtitled version of the anime. It raised more than 10 times than its target goal of $18,000. August 2013 – ‘Little Witch Academia’ raised $625,518. Directed by Yo Yoshinari of Trigger. This project reached its…
Santa Company, an anime production team led by Japanese filmmaker Kenji Itoso, recently met its funding goal of $50,000 goal on Kickstarter. This fundraising effort comes after the team attempted to raise money on Japanese crowdfunding site Anipipo earlier this year, falling short of its target.
Itoso has produced animations, films and music videos, and his works have been featured at many international film festivals and won prominent awards from them. With this new project, he hopes to complete a 30 minute anime and present it for children and families in affected areas of the 2011 earthquake. The video below gives a more detailed introduction.
Here are a few other Japanese projects that have leverage Kickstarter to raise funds.
October 2012 – ‘Kick-Heart’ raised $201,164. Directed by Masaaki Yuasa of Product I.G.
June 2013 – ‘Are you enjoying the time of EVE?’ raised $215,433. Directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura of Studio Rikka and Directions. This project aimed to produce an English-subtitled version of the anime. It raised more than 10 times than its target goal of $18,000.
August 2013 – ‘Little Witch Academia’ raised $625,518. Directed by Yo Yoshinari of Trigger. This project reached its target goal of $150,000 in just five or six hours after launching its project on Kickstarter.
Summing up the three projects above, and this most recent Santa Company project, Kickstarter has helped Japanese filmmakers raise over $110 million in total. We’ll see more Japanese anime projects raising money on Kickstarter, but I still wonder if it’s impossible for them to do so on Japanese crowdfunding sites.
Santa Company is looking for partners to work with them on collaborative businesses. If you are interested, we can encourage you to contact them.
Japan’s Nikkei reported today that Silicon Valley-based investment company WiL (World Innovation Lab) has formed a new fund focused on startups in Japan and the Valley, raising $300 million from a number of Japanese companies: All Nippon Airways, NTT Group, Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, Hakuhodo DY Group, Daiwa Securities, JVC Kenwood, Benesse Holdings, and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan [1]. Their potential investees are startups developing new products and services in fields like consumer electronics, e-commerce, or motor vehicles, making the most of smartphone and big data technologies. They expect the size of each investment to be in the range from $5 million to $50 million, with about six to eight investments being made per year. The Nikkei says that $300 million is a figure that equate to 30% of all startup investments in Japan in FY 2012. The investment fund was founded by Japanese venture capitalist Gen Isayama, who previously worked at the investment firm DCM, where he invested in Renren, a social network service in Mainland China. According to his recent Facebook posting, this new effort was made possible by working with co-founding members Shiichi Saijo and Masataka Matsumoto [2]. Innovation Network Corporation of Japan is the country’s state-run…
Image credit: Big Stock Photo
Japan’s Nikkei reported today that Silicon Valley-based investment company WiL (World Innovation Lab) has formed a new fund focused on startups in Japan and the Valley, raising $300 million from a number of Japanese companies: All Nippon Airways, NTT Group, Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, Hakuhodo DY Group, Daiwa Securities, JVC Kenwood, Benesse Holdings, and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan [1].
Their potential investees are startups developing new products and services in fields like consumer electronics, e-commerce, or motor vehicles, making the most of smartphone and big data technologies. They expect the size of each investment to be in the range from $5 million to $50 million, with about six to eight investments being made per year. The Nikkei says that $300 million is a figure that equate to 30% of all startup investments in Japan in FY 2012.
The investment fund was founded by Japanese venture capitalist Gen Isayama, who previously worked at the investment firm DCM, where he invested in Renren, a social network service in Mainland China. According to his recent Facebook posting, this new effort was made possible by working with co-founding members Shiichi Saijo and Masataka Matsumoto [2].
Shinichi Saijo was previously the CEOs of CyberAgent Ventures and CyberAgent America. He was appointed director at Japanese payment startup Coiney earlier this year, and has been helping Japanese startups expand their businesses. Masataka Matsumoto co-founded a web service company called P.I.M. in late 1990 and sold it off to Yahoo Japan back in 2000. He has held several executive posts at the portal company for almost ten years, but quit in 2012. ↩
BearTail, the startup behind the cloud-based household accounting solution Dr. Wallet, announced today that it has raised $100 million yen (approximately $955,000) from three Japanese investment firms: Incubate Fund, Nissay Capital, and SMBC Venture Capital. The service lets you keep track of your personal finances by simply scanning your receipts. It was officially launched back in August, and is now available for the Android and iOS platforms, as well on the desktop. To differentiate from similar services, the app does not use OCR (optical character recognition), but instead depends on human-powered data entry to ensuring accuracy. It also automatically sorts and classifies your purchases. With this human-powered processing, the startup could reach data entry accuracy of up to 99.98%, likely enough to ease any user concerns over erroneous inputs. Using the funds raised this time, they hope to develop a function that lets you know the best products to buy from partnering supermarkets or groceries, based on your purchase history. This feature resembles another budget app, Zaim, which started providing back in July. Also operating in this space is Toppan Printing, with its Shufoo service, allowing households to check the latest supermarket discounts online. BearTail was chosen for the fifth…
The service lets you keep track of your personal finances by simply scanning your receipts. It was officially launched back in August, and is now available for the Android and iOS platforms, as well on the desktop. To differentiate from similar services, the app does not use OCR (optical character recognition), but instead depends on human-powered data entry to ensuring accuracy. It also automatically sorts and classifies your purchases. With this human-powered processing, the startup could reach data entry accuracy of up to 99.98%, likely enough to ease any user concerns over erroneous inputs.
Using the funds raised this time, they hope to develop a function that lets you know the best products to buy from partnering supermarkets or groceries, based on your purchase history. This feature resembles another budget app, Zaim, which started providing back in July. Also operating in this space is Toppan Printing, with its Shufoo service, allowing households to check the latest supermarket discounts online.
BearTail was chosen for the fifth batch of KDDI’s incubation program, and will be featured at the program’s demo day event, along with four other startups, on January 24th.
Japanese internet company Netprice.com (TSE:3328) announced today that its Singapore-based investment arm, Beenos Asia, has invested in Indian payment processor Citrus. The investment was jointly made with Hong Kong-based econtext Asia (1390:HK), a payments solution company under Digital Garage (TSE:4819). Specific financial details of the investment are not disclosed. India is showing rapid growth in internet businesses these days, and broadband internet has been growing at an annual rate of 25% as of early 2013 [1]. The e-commerce market in India is growing by over 30% every year [2], and that trend has been helping Mumbai-based Citrus grow rapidly, as it provides e-commerce platforms and public service providers with credit card payments, bank transfers, debit payments, cash on delivery, and installment payments. Through this partnership, Netprice.com expects to stay ahead e-commerce trends and payment needs in the region. Our readers may recall that the company also recently invested in Turkish payment processor Iyzi Payments back in July, and made a joint investment in Jakarta-based payments processor PT MidTrans last year in partnership with Digital Garage. Citrus was founded back in 2011 by a group of software, UX, and finance professionals. They raised series B funding worth $5.5 million from Sequoia…
Japanese internet company Netprice.com (TSE:3328) announced today that its Singapore-based investment arm, Beenos Asia, has invested in Indian payment processor Citrus. The investment was jointly made with Hong Kong-based econtext Asia (1390:HK), a payments solution company under Digital Garage (TSE:4819). Specific financial details of the investment are not disclosed.
India is showing rapid growth in internet businesses these days, and broadband internet has been growing at an annual rate of 25% as of early 2013 [1]. The e-commerce market in India is growing by over 30% every year [2], and that trend has been helping Mumbai-based Citrus grow rapidly, as it provides e-commerce platforms and public service providers with credit card payments, bank transfers, debit payments, cash on delivery, and installment payments.
Through this partnership, Netprice.com expects to stay ahead e-commerce trends and payment needs in the region. Our readers may recall that the company also recently invested in Turkish payment processor Iyzi Payments back in July, and made a joint investment in Jakarta-based payments processor PT MidTrans last year in partnership with Digital Garage.
Citrus was founded back in 2011 by a group of software, UX, and finance professionals. They raised series B funding worth $5.5 million from Sequoia Capital earlier this month, following the previous $2 million in funding from the investment firm back in March.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based gaming company Gumi is expected to announced a comprehensive partnership with Fuji Media Holdings today, the stock holding company the Japanese TV network giant. The company plans to launch a joint venture worth 500 million yen (approximately $4.8 million) with Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of the media conglomerate. CNet Japan reports the new venture will be called Fuji & Gumi Games. In addition, the gaming company will announce significant funding from the media company and B Dash Ventures. We are told by sources we trust that it will be worth tens of millions of dollars. Gumi previously established Alim, a joint venture gaming company with Fuji Startup Ventures and B Dash Ventures back in July. Their first gaming title Brave Frontier has done quite well this year. Fuji TV has been seeking new revenue streams beyond its primary business. And as a result, both companies have agreed to an extensive business partnership at this time. Gumi has already started marketing many of its mobile games globally, including titles produced by their subsidiaries in Singapore and Korea. The funds raised at this time will be use to fuel the company’s global expansion….
Tokyo-based gaming company Gumi is expected to announced a comprehensive partnership with Fuji Media Holdings today, the stock holding company the Japanese TV network giant. The company plans to launch a joint venture worth 500 million yen (approximately $4.8 million) with Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of the media conglomerate. CNet Japan reports the new venture will be called Fuji & Gumi Games.
In addition, the gaming company will announce significant funding from the media company and B Dash Ventures. We are told by sources we trust that it will be worth tens of millions of dollars.
Gumi previously established Alim, a joint venture gaming company with Fuji Startup Ventures and B Dash Ventures back in July. Their first gaming title Brave Frontier has done quite well this year. Fuji TV has been seeking new revenue streams beyond its primary business. And as a result, both companies have agreed to an extensive business partnership at this time.
Gumi has already started marketing many of its mobile games globally, including titles produced by their subsidiaries in Singapore and Korea. The funds raised at this time will be use to fuel the company’s global expansion. We have reached out to Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu and Fuji Startup Ventures’ manager Yoshiro Taneda for more on this development. So please stay tuned.
See the original article in Japanese If you regularly read The Bridge, it’s not unlikely that you might be a programmer or have at least some peripheral interest in coding. You may have also heard of the Japanese website Dotinstall, where you can find many resources to help you learn to code. This service was launched by the well-known blogger, Gen Taguchi (@taguchi), who runs popular weblogs like 100SHIKI and IDEA*IDEA. Dotinstall offers short three-minute tutorial videos for beginners. The service is very popular, surpassing 100,000 members in October of 2013. Now two years since its initial launch, Dotinstall recently announced it that it will add a premium service as part of its monetization. This premium service allows users to read the text captions of videos and also to read and search through related source code. The differences between this and the regular service is described in the following table. The premium service comes with many benefits, such as the ability to overview contents without watching the entire video, or skip forward to key points. The monthly fee for the new service is 880 yen (about $9), which is lower than many similar services from overseas. We have previously reported…
If you regularly read The Bridge, it’s not unlikely that you might be a programmer or have at least some peripheral interest in coding. You may have also heard of the Japanese website Dotinstall, where you can find many resources to help you learn to code. This service was launched by the well-known blogger, Gen Taguchi (@taguchi), who runs popular weblogs like 100SHIKI and IDEA*IDEA.
Dotinstall offers short three-minute tutorial videos for beginners. The service is very popular, surpassing 100,000 members in October of 2013.
Now two years since its initial launch, Dotinstall recently announced it that it will add a premium service as part of its monetization. This premium service allows users to read the text captions of videos and also to read and search through related source code. The differences between this and the regular service is described in the following table.
The premium service comes with many benefits, such as the ability to overview contents without watching the entire video, or skip forward to key points. The monthly fee for the new service is 880 yen (about $9), which is lower than many similar services from overseas.
We have previously reported (on our Japanese site) about a high school that provides programming classes. In Japan, as with everywhere else, coding can be a great asset to just about anyone.
If Dotinstall succeeds in the monetizing its premium service, it will be possible to add even more educational content. I am sure this will be a welcome service to aspiring programmers in this country.
See the original article in Japanese Onemore Inc., the startup behind the crowdfunding platform Green Funding, and one Japan’s leading printing companies, Dai Nippon Printing, have jointly launched a crowdfunding site called Mirai Books Fund. It will specialize in book publication. This Mirai Books Fund is intended to support new publishing projects. The service provides companies and publishers with an online platform that includes all processes required to publish books. This includes planning, fundraising, and a consulting service on marketing and creating books. We have previously reported on a few vertical crowdfunding sites, designed to fill specific needs. For example, other crowdfunding platforms with a similar concept are Cerevo Dash and Zenmono. It is less challenging these days to publish book, since consumption of digital books is on the rise. This crowdfunding platform will make it even easier for individuals to publish a book, and it will also enables users to proceed with fundraising, pre-sales activities, and promotion. On the Mirai Books Fund website, you can check out some of the ongoing projects. One was launched by the crowdsourcing service Lancers, with the goal of publish a magazine-style book. This project will be open from December 5th to January 23rd,…
Onemore Inc., the startup behind the crowdfunding platform Green Funding, and one Japan’s leading printing companies, Dai Nippon Printing, have jointly launched a crowdfunding site called Mirai Books Fund. It will specialize in book publication.
This Mirai Books Fund is intended to support new publishing projects. The service provides companies and publishers with an online platform that includes all processes required to publish books. This includes planning, fundraising, and a consulting service on marketing and creating books.
We have previously reported on a few vertical crowdfunding sites, designed to fill specific needs. For example, other crowdfunding platforms with a similar concept are Cerevo Dash and Zenmono.
It is less challenging these days to publish book, since consumption of digital books is on the rise. This crowdfunding platform will make it even easier for individuals to publish a book, and it will also enables users to proceed with fundraising, pre-sales activities, and promotion.
On the Mirai Books Fund website, you can check out some of the ongoing projects. One was launched by the crowdsourcing service Lancers, with the goal of publish a magazine-style book. This project will be open from December 5th to January 23rd, with a funding target of 3 million yen ($30,000). The rewards for backers include the right to put ads in the book, tickets for the publication party, and establish collaborative projects with publishers.
For book projects, there is much room for customization, including the ability to offering various rewards. Mirai Books Fund could have an interesting effect on the future of books and the publishing process in Japan. So lets stay tuned to see what happens!
Tokyo-based AdInnovation, a startup providing ad consulting solutions for mobile developers, announced today that it has launched a performance analytics tool. It’s called Hitracking. Instead of conventional tools in this similar space, the new tool is more focused on giving mobile developers all they need to analyze the performance of their app. This means not only ad performance analytics but also what traffic sources best help the app turn a profit. Their project manager, Ryoma Hosokawa, tells me that the tool aims to show you all the ROI (return on investment) metrics for an app, rather than simple ad performance-focused ROI metrics. This would include overall profit or loss. In a way, the company wants to set app developers free from monetization concerns so that they can concentrate on development. There is also an SDK that can be embedded in your app to track stats. Pricing depends on the number of requests per month, but it is currently available free until the end of February as part of a promotion. According to the AdInnovation consultant Aya Yamada, they will make two key efforts to make this tool better known. One will be publishing a monthly report of mobile app trends, just…
Tokyo-based AdInnovation, a startup providing ad consulting solutions for mobile developers, announced today that it has launched a performance analytics tool. It’s called Hitracking. Instead of conventional tools in this similar space, the new tool is more focused on giving mobile developers all they need to analyze the performance of their app. This means not only ad performance analytics but also what traffic sources best help the app turn a profit.
Their project manager, Ryoma Hosokawa, tells me that the tool aims to show you all the ROI (return on investment) metrics for an app, rather than simple ad performance-focused ROI metrics. This would include overall profit or loss. In a way, the company wants to set app developers free from monetization concerns so that they can concentrate on development.
There is also an SDK that can be embedded in your app to track stats. Pricing depends on the number of requests per month, but it is currently available free until the end of February as part of a promotion.
According to the AdInnovation consultant Aya Yamada, they will make two key efforts to make this tool better known. One will be publishing a monthly report of mobile app trends, just like what AppAnnie does. The other option is exhibiting their service at as many international showcase events as possible. You will have a chance to meet with them next year at AppsWorld North America (February 5-6, San Francisco), Casual Connect Europe (February 11-13, Amsterdam), and SXSW Interactive (March 7-16, Austin).
The company raised 160 million yen (about $1.6 million) from DBJ Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital back in July.
As for other players in this space, there are services like HasOffers in the US, which secured $9.4 million from Accel Partners in a series A round back in May.
See the original story in Japanese. Goodpatch is a Tokyo-based startup focused on giving web companies a better user experience and user interface for their projects [1]. The company announced today that it has raised $100 million yen (approximately $1 million) from DG Incubation, the investment arm of Digital Garage (TSE:4819). The startup was launched back in August of 2011, and is known for its role in designing the slick Japanese news curation app Gunosy. Since investments in startups are usually made based on the scalability of their business, it is curious why a startup like this that has no product would receive funds. We spoke with the company’s co-founder and CEO Naofumi Tsuchiya to hear a little more about what’s behind this funding. The Bridge: What was the purpose of this funding? Isn’t it hard for companies like yours with no scalable product to do so? Tsuchiya: We faced tough times in the beginning, but your colleague Eguchi-san previously posted an article and it made many people aware of the fact that we designed Gunosy. Then we gradually started receiving more offers for work, far more than we could do. Our business became profitable, but we needed to pay…
Goodpatch is a Tokyo-based startup focused on giving web companies a better user experience and user interface for their projects [1]. The company announced today that it has raised $100 million yen (approximately $1 million) from DG Incubation, the investment arm of Digital Garage (TSE:4819).
The startup was launched back in August of 2011, and is known for its role in designing the slick Japanese news curation app Gunosy. Since investments in startups are usually made based on the scalability of their business, it is curious why a startup like this that has no product would receive funds.
We spoke with the company’s co-founder and CEO Naofumi Tsuchiya to hear a little more about what’s behind this funding.
Goodpatch CEO Naofumi Tsuchiya
The Bridge: What was the purpose of this funding? Isn’t it hard for companies like yours with no scalable product to do so?
Tsuchiya: We faced tough times in the beginning, but your colleague Eguchi-san previously posted an article and it made many people aware of the fact that we designed Gunosy. Then we gradually started receiving more offers for work, far more than we could do. Our business became profitable, but we needed to pay a lot of tax. It will require more time than we expected to save money to launch our next business.
We first thought production companies like us would have no chance to receive investments. However, our advisor Kimiyuki Suda told us that there was potential for our company to get investment from Digital Garage.
Digital Garage was co-founded by Kaoru Hayashi and Joi Ito (the director of MIT Media Lab), and they became one of the greatest global internet companies, coming from a tiny web production. Since my team is looking to do more global business, they are one of the role models we should follow. That’s why we were keen to receive investments from Digital Garage. They are a business company, and have many ways to exit other than IPO and M&As. That’s different from typical investment firms.
The Bridge: What do you expect from this investment?
Tsuchiya: I have been managing the company alone, and I know I’ll reach my limit soon. I’m keen to get advice from the folks at Digital Garage through the partnership.
In addition, Digital Garage acquired a company called Neo back in November of last year, which specializes in giving UX consultation for enterprises and governments. They have many offices around the world. The partnership with Digital Garage will help us collaborate with that UX consultancy, and also help us keep our clients updated with the best of cutting-edge UX methods from San Francisco. For example, if we can send some of our employees to San Francisco every several months and give them a chance to learn the best UX methods, it will also help us hire good talent at our Tokyo office too.
What we do is not web or app production outsourced from our clients, but we get directly involved in making their products. If our client’s concept has no potential to make a reputation in the market, we would refuse their project offer.
Tsuchiya told us the company is now working on a new service focused on improving user interface and user experience design. It will be launched by the end of this year.
Prior to launching this company, he was working as an intern at Btrax, a digital agency based out of San Francisco. Coinciding with these funds, we heard message from Tsuchiya’s former boss Brandon Hill, complimenting the milestone of his old colleague:
It is my great pleasure to see the success of one of our interns. At the same time, I feel a bit funny that although Mr. Tsuchiya did not have the shiniest resume, he definitely has the makings of an entrepreneur – passion, courage, action, and determination.I truly admire him for recovering from a disastrous situation back in 2012. Just over a year ago, he lost his founders, staff, and customers. At that time, I had asked him what he was going to do. He just said “I won’t give up.” Now with over 30 employees, he’s in the process of creating a real business.
It is said that ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’, but I’ve been skeptical how much impacts a news site like ours can have on real businesses. So I was pleased to learn my colleague’s article made a bit of an impact on this startup during its rough time, helping them back on the road to success.
Over two years passed since the launch, they are now an over 30-people team.A bunch of Ideas from employees for improving web designs for clients on the boards.
The company’s name is derived from Dogpatch Labs, a well-known incubation space based out of San Francisco. ↩
Japan-based internet giant Netprice.com (TSE:3328) recently announced that it has raised about 790 million yen (approximately $7.67 million) from fellow Japanese web conglomerate Digital Garage (TSE:4819). It will use the funds to intensify its efforts to discover new internet business opportunities in global markets. Both companies have been operating startup incubator Open Network Lab since 2010, and have also been working together on cultivating business opportunities in the Southeast Asian region, including co-investing in Indonesian payment processor Veritrans Indonesia back in 2012. Coinciding with this funding, the two companies intend to collaboratively discover more internet business opportunities in the US as well as emerging markets. Digital Garage purchased a multi-storey building in the heart of San Francisco last month, where it has set up an incubation space called DG717. To commemorate this, the city’s mayor Edwin Lee has declared November 5th as Digital Garage Day in San Francisco. Netprice.com is expected to make the use of the location to gain accessibility to high potential startups and other opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our readers may also recall that Netprice.com has established its own incubation program, Beenos, which is separate from the aforementioned Open Network Lab initiative.
Japan-based internet giant Netprice.com (TSE:3328) recently announced that it has raised about 790 million yen (approximately $7.67 million) from fellow Japanese web conglomerate Digital Garage (TSE:4819). It will use the funds to intensify its efforts to discover new internet business opportunities in global markets.
Both companies have been operating startup incubator Open Network Lab since 2010, and have also been working together on cultivating business opportunities in the Southeast Asian region, including co-investing in Indonesian payment processor Veritrans Indonesia back in 2012. Coinciding with this funding, the two companies intend to collaboratively discover more internet business opportunities in the US as well as emerging markets.
Digital Garage purchased a multi-storey building in the heart of San Francisco last month, where it has set up an incubation space called DG717. To commemorate this, the city’s mayor Edwin Lee has declared November 5th as Digital Garage Day in San Francisco. Netprice.com is expected to make the use of the location to gain accessibility to high potential startups and other opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Our readers may also recall that Netprice.com has established its own incubation program, Beenos, which is separate from the aforementioned Open Network Lab initiative.
Teppei Wai
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Junya Mori
