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Asian fashion e-commerce platform “60%” secures $3M for Hong Kong, Taiwan expansion

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Tokyo-based Sixty Percent (60%), the Japanese startup running a cross-border e-commerce platform focused on Asian fashion brands under the same name, announced on Wednesday that it has secured 460 million yen (about $3 million US) in a Series A round. Participating investors are KURONEKO Innovation Fund (managed by Yamato Holdings and Global Brain), Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, PE&HR, Hakobune, Frontier International, Japanese hip-hop music producer Verbal as well as unnamed individual investors. The amount includes debt from financial institutions. This follows the startup’s pre-series A round revealed in May of 2021 when KURONEKO Innovation Fund and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital participated. The latest round brought the startup’s funding sum up to date to about 650 million yen (about $4.4 million US). Since its launch back in July of 2018, Sixty Percent has been running a marketplace-styled online select store for Asian street fashion brands. Five years passed since its launch, and the platform has now 100,000 items from more than 1,500 brands. Compared to the previous funding round back in April of 2021, their monthly gross merchandise value was over quintupled while the number of brands was over tripled. Many of the brands dealt on the platform are niche indie ones that…

Image credit: Sixty Percent

Tokyo-based Sixty Percent (60%), the Japanese startup running a cross-border e-commerce platform focused on Asian fashion brands under the same name, announced on Wednesday that it has secured 460 million yen (about $3 million US) in a Series A round.

Participating investors are KURONEKO Innovation Fund (managed by Yamato Holdings and Global Brain), Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, PE&HR, Hakobune, Frontier International, Japanese hip-hop music producer Verbal as well as unnamed individual investors. The amount includes debt from financial institutions.

This follows the startup’s pre-series A round revealed in May of 2021 when KURONEKO Innovation Fund and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital participated. The latest round brought the startup’s funding sum up to date to about 650 million yen (about $4.4 million US).

Since its launch back in July of 2018, Sixty Percent has been running a marketplace-styled online select store for Asian street fashion brands. Five years passed since its launch, and the platform has now 100,000 items from more than 1,500 brands.

Compared to the previous funding round back in April of 2021, their monthly gross merchandise value was over quintupled while the number of brands was over tripled. Many of the brands dealt on the platform are niche indie ones that have been launched in Japan for the first time, while 90% of users are in their teens to 20s (Gen Z) with an average age of about 21 years old.

Since the platform is a marketplace where brands sell directly to consumers, but if their items were transported directly from their countries in Asia, they would have to go through customs procedures and shipping costs would be high. In order to eliminate these problems, The platform offers fulfillment, aggregation, logistics, and payment services based on technology, acting as an intermediary between brands and users as well.

According to founder and CEO Taiga Manabe, while the previous pre-series A round funding was intended to help the company mature e-commerce experience, it will now more focus more on strengthening marketing effort with the latest funding. The platform is designed for domestic sales in Japan but has confirmed purchases from users in about 50 countries.

Starting with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other Greater China countries, the platform is rolling out global expansion by making its mobile app multilingual, supporting multi-currency payments, and improving logistics. To optimize logistics, customs and shipping procedures, the company may collaborate with Yamato Holdings, one of the investors.

By joining the company as a individual investor and advisor, Japanese hip-hop music producer Verbal will assist the company in branding and business development. In addition, the company will strengthen its hiring effort for all positions including CxO candidates, engineers, product managers, marketing, and content planning.

Japanese DX solution provider BeBit raises $8.2M, acquires Tsunago in Malaysia

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Tokyo-based BeBit, the Japanese startup offering companies with digital transformation (DX) solutions through improving user experience (UX), has secured 1.2 billion yen (about $8.2 million) in a series B round.. San-in Godo Bank (TSE: 8381), Benesse Holdings (TSE: 9783), Mitsubishi Estate (TSE: 8801), Rakuten Securities and Turn Cloud Technology Service participated in the latest round. This follows the company’s previous funding round back in July of 2020. San-in Godo Bank follows their previous investment. The latest round brought the company’s funding sum to date up to 3.7 billion yen ($25.4 million). The company will use the funds to invest in solidifying their team structure, including strengthening solutions and recruiting personnel. Since its foundation back in March of 2000, BeBit has been helping companies create business results through strategic planning, design, and UX improvement using digital technologies. Since 2022, the company has been offering OmniSegment, an e-commerce-focused growth marketing solution, to which the company recently added a generative AI function, aiming to adopt cutting edge technologies into UX improvement. BeBit announced on Tuesday that it has completed the acquisition of Tsunago, an Malaysian startup offering OMO (online merges with offline) solutions. In terms of BeBit’s startup acquisition, this follows the one…

Tokyo-based BeBit, the Japanese startup offering companies with digital transformation (DX) solutions through improving user experience (UX), has secured 1.2 billion yen (about $8.2 million) in a series B round.. San-in Godo Bank (TSE: 8381), Benesse Holdings (TSE: 9783), Mitsubishi Estate (TSE: 8801), Rakuten Securities and Turn Cloud Technology Service participated in the latest round.

This follows the company’s previous funding round back in July of 2020. San-in Godo Bank follows their previous investment. The latest round brought the company’s funding sum to date up to 3.7 billion yen ($25.4 million). The company will use the funds to invest in solidifying their team structure, including strengthening solutions and recruiting personnel.

Since its foundation back in March of 2000, BeBit has been helping companies create business results through strategic planning, design, and UX improvement using digital technologies. Since 2022, the company has been offering OmniSegment, an e-commerce-focused growth marketing solution, to which the company recently added a generative AI function, aiming to adopt cutting edge technologies into UX improvement.

BeBit announced on Tuesday that it has completed the acquisition of Tsunago, an Malaysian startup offering OMO (online merges with offline) solutions. In terms of BeBit’s startup acquisition, this follows the one of Taiwanese MarTech startup Omniscient Cloud Technologies (now known as BeBit Tech).

The Malaysian startup offers Tsunago Store (showcasing goods but not selling them), Tsunago AI (AI camera-based behavioural analysis service on shop visitors), OMO consulting, app developments as well as operations. Since its foundation back in 2017, the company serves to Isetan Mitsukoshi department store, major local telco Celcom (Axiata Group), and The Social restaurant chain, among others.

In addition, Alphas CEO Hajime Hirose, Cinnamon AI Co-CEO Hajime Hotta and Datack CTO Yosuke Kimoto have joined the company as advisors. The acquisition will allow BeBit to expand its consulting and SaaS-integrated UX business into the Southeast Asia region with a focus on Singapore and Malaysia towards the global market.

Japan’s Degas secures $6.7M to serve more to unbanked small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa

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Tokyo-based Degas, the Japanese startup aiming to help improving the livelihoods of small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, announced last week that it has secured 970 million yen (about $6.7 million). Participating investors in the latest unspecified round are Animal Spirits, Global Catalyst Partners Japan, Hakuhodo DY Ventures, Nanto CVC (run by Nanto Bank and Nanto Capital Partners), and Primal Capital. The company has so far secured 240 million yen in the 1st close of the seed round revealed in November of 2020 (Primal Capital, Akatsuki’s Heart Driven Fund, and others participated) and subsequently 1 billion yen (round unknown; Deepcore, Monex Ventures, Inclusion Japan, and Ikemori Venture Support participated) in January of 2023. Since its launch back in 2018 by Doga Makiura, who was featured by TED as “one of the 12 young people around the world in 2014, the company has been offering financial services to more than 46,000 small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Through its mobile app and local operations, the company has been serving to small farmers not covered by traditional financial institutions leveraging data collection and AI-based credit decisions. Degas will use the funds to expand its existing farmer finance business and launch two new businesses. The…

Image credit: Degas

Tokyo-based Degas, the Japanese startup aiming to help improving the livelihoods of small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, announced last week that it has secured 970 million yen (about $6.7 million). Participating investors in the latest unspecified round are Animal Spirits, Global Catalyst Partners Japan, Hakuhodo DY Ventures, Nanto CVC (run by Nanto Bank and Nanto Capital Partners), and Primal Capital.

The company has so far secured 240 million yen in the 1st close of the seed round revealed in November of 2020 (Primal Capital, Akatsuki’s Heart Driven Fund, and others participated) and subsequently 1 billion yen (round unknown; Deepcore, Monex Ventures, Inclusion Japan, and Ikemori Venture Support participated) in January of 2023.

Since its launch back in 2018 by Doga Makiura, who was featured by TED as “one of the 12 young people around the world in 2014, the company has been offering financial services to more than 46,000 small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Through its mobile app and local operations, the company has been serving to small farmers not covered by traditional financial institutions leveraging data collection and AI-based credit decisions.

Degas will use the funds to expand its existing farmer finance business and launch two new businesses. The company will hire experts in carbon credits and data analysis to issue high-quality carbon credits to launch the decarbonization business while aiming to form a marketplace for academic loans, farm machinery leasing, and mobile phone contracts.

via PR Times

Gen AI startup EmbodyMe unveils new app, creates avatars responding to your motion in real time

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Tokyo-based EmbodyMe launched a new app called Xpression Avatar, which allows users to move their own avatars in real-time, available for iOS and Android. The app uses the company’s proprietary real-time video generative AI technology to instantly generate your avatar in different styles which responds to your facial expressions and head movements fin real time. Since its launch back in 2016, EmbodyMe has developed several apps in the generative video field, including the EmbodyMe VR app, the Xpression Camera face swap app, as well as the Xpression Chat VR- / ChatGPT-based app. In the new app, the AI technology allows you to generate your avatar in various styles from your photos. The avatar styles available include anime, ukiyoe, humanoid, 1990s, and hip-hop. The user can not only move the avatar in accordance with his/her own movements, but also make the avatar speak his/her favorite lines, and tap a button to make the avatar laugh or sing. The generated images can also be shared on social network services while the mobile screen with the avatar can be shared. The new app is the culmination of EmbodyMe in two ways. One is that, in addition to the preset styles mentioned above, you…

Tokyo-based EmbodyMe launched a new app called Xpression Avatar, which allows users to move their own avatars in real-time, available for iOS and Android. The app uses the company’s proprietary real-time video generative AI technology to instantly generate your avatar in different styles which responds to your facial expressions and head movements fin real time.

Since its launch back in 2016, EmbodyMe has developed several apps in the generative video field, including the EmbodyMe VR app, the Xpression Camera face swap app, as well as the Xpression Chat VR- / ChatGPT-based app. In the new app, the AI technology allows you to generate your avatar in various styles from your photos.

The avatar styles available include anime, ukiyoe, humanoid, 1990s, and hip-hop. The user can not only move the avatar in accordance with his/her own movements, but also make the avatar speak his/her favorite lines, and tap a button to make the avatar laugh or sing. The generated images can also be shared on social network services while the mobile screen with the avatar can be shared.

Image credit: EmbodyMe

The new app is the culmination of EmbodyMe in two ways. One is that, in addition to the preset styles mentioned above, you can freely specify your favorite style with text prompts; according to EmbodyMe CEO Issay Yoshida, your prompt is interpreted based on the customized version of the Stable Difussion LLM (Large Language Model).

The second is their proprietary AI technology that can generate video in real time. Moreover, video processing is not performed in the cloud but on the mobile, which makes the company stand out with its unrivaled technology. The company does not need to increase its computational resources as its user base grows because the experience does not rely on the cloud.

EmbodyMe is developing the app for consumers while offering business solutions using the same technology for video production, advertising, live streaming, games, and other applications.

In the generative video AI space, Meta and Stable AI have recently announced their own solutions respectively while Runway has partnered with Getty Images to develop generative AI video models for the film and advertising industries. Pika Labs has reached a $200 million valuation in just six months after its launch.

Japanese serial entrepreneurs secure $13M to launch Izumo VTuber project

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Singapore-based AnotherBall announced that it has secured 1.9 billion yen (about $13 million US) in a seed round to promote its VTuber project targeting the English-speaking market called Izumo. The latest round was led by ANRI with participation from Hashed, Global Brain, Globis Capital Partners (GCP), Sfermion, HashKey Capital, Everyrealm, Ethereal Ventures, Emoote, Crunchyroll founder Kun Gao, and other angel investors. This follows an angel round in May of 2023 and brought their funding sum up to 2.2 billion yen (about $15 million US). The company was founded in May of 2022 by CEO Shunsuke Oyu and CTO Tatsuro Shimada, both of whom are known for having founded businesses like VTuber agency Prism Project as well as mom-focused Q&A app Mamari (acquired by KDDI’s Syn. Holdings back in 2016). Izumo is said to aim to create a sustainable platform that enables everyone to live their lives in their own way. The platform has been working on initiatives that incorporate cutting-edge technologies and is using these experiences to allow individual creators to gain fans and monetize their work. It is scheduled to be launched in 2024. Oyu proposes a future in which people are becoming avatars, which in turn expands human…

Singapore-based AnotherBall announced that it has secured 1.9 billion yen (about $13 million US) in a seed round to promote its VTuber project targeting the English-speaking market called Izumo.

The latest round was led by ANRI with participation from Hashed, Global Brain, Globis Capital Partners (GCP), Sfermion, HashKey Capital, Everyrealm, Ethereal Ventures, Emoote, Crunchyroll founder Kun Gao, and other angel investors. This follows an angel round in May of 2023 and brought their funding sum up to 2.2 billion yen (about $15 million US).

The company was founded in May of 2022 by CEO Shunsuke Oyu and CTO Tatsuro Shimada, both of whom are known for having founded businesses like VTuber agency Prism Project as well as mom-focused Q&A app Mamari (acquired by KDDI’s Syn. Holdings back in 2016). Izumo is said to aim to create a sustainable platform that enables everyone to live their lives in their own way.

The platform has been working on initiatives that incorporate cutting-edge technologies and is using these experiences to allow individual creators to gain fans and monetize their work. It is scheduled to be launched in 2024. Oyu proposes a future in which people are becoming avatars, which in turn expands human potential where VTubers are the future of this.

via PR Times

Japan’s talent assessment platform HRBrain acquired by Swedish investment firm EQT

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Nikkei reported on Monday that EQT has agreed to acquire Japanese startup HRBrain for an undisclosed sum. Japanese startup database Initial reported the company was valued around 21.5 billion yen (about $145 million US) when it secured 1.8 billion yen (about $12 million yen in equity and loans in the previous round back in February of 2022. After the aquisition, founder and CEO Hiroki Hori will remain on board and as a shareholder while EQT will dispatch an outside director. Prior to HRBrain, Mori managed a media business unit at CyberAgent (TSE:4751). After recognizing the complexity and inefficiency of the personnel evaluation and goal management of many enrolled members using Excel and other tools, he launched the company in March of 2016 under its previous name of Moskytone. The company’s cloud-based platform under the same name has served over 2,500 companies since its launch back in January of 2017. HRBrain streamlines the workload of HR professionals in the evaluation process by putting everything from the filling out of goal sheets to the management of evaluations by HR professionals into the cloud system, which allows them to create effective data-driven strategies on human resource management. It consists of seven services: Talent…

The HRBrain Headquarters
Image credit: HRBrain

Nikkei reported on Monday that EQT has agreed to acquire Japanese startup HRBrain for an undisclosed sum. Japanese startup database Initial reported the company was valued around 21.5 billion yen (about $145 million US) when it secured 1.8 billion yen (about $12 million yen in equity and loans in the previous round back in February of 2022. After the aquisition, founder and CEO Hiroki Hori will remain on board and as a shareholder while EQT will dispatch an outside director.

Prior to HRBrain, Mori managed a media business unit at CyberAgent (TSE:4751). After recognizing the complexity and inefficiency of the personnel evaluation and goal management of many enrolled members using Excel and other tools, he launched the company in March of 2016 under its previous name of Moskytone. The company’s cloud-based platform under the same name has served over 2,500 companies since its launch back in January of 2017.

Image credit: HRBrain

HRBrain streamlines the workload of HR professionals in the evaluation process by putting everything from the filling out of goal sheets to the management of evaluations by HR professionals into the cloud system, which allows them to create effective data-driven strategies on human resource management. It consists of seven services: Talent Management, Organizational Diagnostic Survey, Pulse Survey, Personnel Evaluation, 360-degree evaluation, Labor Management, and In-house Chatbot.

To date, the company has secured funds from Seiga Asset Management (Hong Kong), Dai-ichi Life Insurance, Eight Roads Ventures Japan, Mizuho Capital, SCSK (TSE: 9719), Genesia Ventures, Beenext, Keisuke Honda’s KSK Angel Fund, Mitani Sangyo, CyberAgent’s Fujita Fund, Mizuho Capital, JA Mitsui Leasing, Sparx Group’s Mirai Creation Fund, and others.

Originally from Sweden’s Vallenberg family (it’s said to indirectly control one-third of the Nordic country’s gross national product), EQT currently has assets under management of approximately 232 billion euros, with offices in 20 countries across Europe, Asia, and North America. It has acquired companies like VetPartners and Billtrust.

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Tokyo Government launches center of exchange between entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders

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On Monday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government held a kick-off event to celebrate the opening of Tokyo Innovation Base or TiB for short, a center of exchange between entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in the startup landscape. Based on its startup strategy titled Global Innovation with Startups, the government uses the venue for activities in aim to help increase 10 folds in the number of unicorns, that of founding new businesses, and that of collaborative projects between the government and startups. It will serve as a base for activities to realize all these goals. The venue will host a variety of activities based on four keywords: Global, Growth, Collaboration, and Connect. In Global, the government will collaborate with Plug and Play, Startup Island Taiwan and other foreign initatives while in Growth, it will collaborate with the UTokyo Innovation Platform (UTokyo IPC) which has vast network with universities across the country through its 1st Round program. In Collaboration, the government works with Sony Innovation Fund and other corporate venture capital units to support open innovation while in Connect, it teams up with startup support organizations to hold one to three events a week at the venue. Most recently, Startup Genome and Dealroom are…

Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

On Monday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government held a kick-off event to celebrate the opening of Tokyo Innovation Base or TiB for short, a center of exchange between entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in the startup landscape.

Based on its startup strategy titled Global Innovation with Startups, the government uses the venue for activities in aim to help increase 10 folds in the number of unicorns, that of founding new businesses, and that of collaborative projects between the government and startups. It will serve as a base for activities to realize all these goals.

Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

The venue will host a variety of activities based on four keywords: Global, Growth, Collaboration, and Connect. In Global, the government will collaborate with Plug and Play, Startup Island Taiwan and other foreign initatives while in Growth, it will collaborate with the UTokyo Innovation Platform (UTokyo IPC) which has vast network with universities across the country through its 1st Round program.

In Collaboration, the government works with Sony Innovation Fund and other corporate venture capital units to support open innovation while in Connect, it teams up with startup support organizations to hold one to three events a week at the venue. Most recently, Startup Genome and Dealroom are scheduled to hold an event this coming Thursday.

Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

The government has conducted various initiatives to encourage entrepreneurship including a startup cafe for potential entrepreneurs near Tokyo Station, the Tokyo Startup Gateway program, and the Aoyama Startup Acceleration Center (ASAC), APT for Women, the initiative to especially encourage female entrepreneurs as well as the global conference.

Compared to these past initiatives encouraging entrepreneurs in their early phase, the new venue seems to be intended to further support those who have already started their own businesses and to further promote startup activities. Other examples of venues for entrepreneurs run by local governments include Fukuoka City’s Fukuoka Growth Next (FGN) and Aichi Prefecture’s STATION Ai (scheduled to open next year).

Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Tokyo Otaku Mode acquired by Japanese major publisher Shogakukan

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Tokyo Otaku Mode announced on Tuesday that it has been acquired by Japanese major publishing company Shogakukan. The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed. We haven’t confirmed that the company secured funding from VC firms and other sources after January of 2018. To date, the total amount of funds secured through the Series A and Series B rounds apparently surpasses 1.8 billion yen. Buffett Code estimated the company’s was valued at 3 billion yen as of August of 2022. The company was founded in March of 2011 by Naomitsu Kodaka, a former Merrill Lynch employee and former CFO of Gaiax, and then established a U.S. subsidiary in April of 2012 with global expansion in mind. Serving its global audience with updates on Japanese anime and manga in English, it has earned over 20 million followers on its Facebook fan page. After the acquisition, CEO Odaka and Vice Hajime Ataka will continue playing their role respectively. Shogakukan’s President Nobuhiro Oga and other directors join the board of Tokyo Otaku Mode as Chairman and directors respectively. Tokyo Otaku Mode kicked off its business with a media outlet offering Japanese anime and manga updates to the world, and now offers…

Image credit: Tokyo Otaku Mode

Tokyo Otaku Mode announced on Tuesday that it has been acquired by Japanese major publishing company Shogakukan. The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed. We haven’t confirmed that the company secured funding from VC firms and other sources after January of 2018. To date, the total amount of funds secured through the Series A and Series B rounds apparently surpasses 1.8 billion yen. Buffett Code estimated the company’s was valued at 3 billion yen as of August of 2022.

The company was founded in March of 2011 by Naomitsu Kodaka, a former Merrill Lynch employee and former CFO of Gaiax, and then established a U.S. subsidiary in April of 2012 with global expansion in mind. Serving its global audience with updates on Japanese anime and manga in English, it has earned over 20 million followers on its Facebook fan page. After the acquisition, CEO Odaka and Vice Hajime Ataka will continue playing their role respectively. Shogakukan’s President Nobuhiro Oga and other directors join the board of Tokyo Otaku Mode as Chairman and directors respectively.

Tokyo Otaku Mode kicked off its business with a media outlet offering Japanese anime and manga updates to the world, and now offers character goods, e-commerce, and a logistics outsourcing service that can deliver products from e-commerce and crowdfunding sites to all over the world. In September of 2014, the company became the first investee from Japan’s state-backed Cool Japan Fund. Through the acquisition, Shogakukan is expected to strengthen the overseas expansion of its intellectual property businesses.

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via Shogakukan

LA startup Cashi Cake secures $3.7M to promote seaweed-based functional sweets, beverages

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Los Angeles-based Cashi Cake, the Japanese startup behind the Misaky Tokyo seaweed confectionery brand and the OoMee seaweed beverage brand, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $3.7 million US in the 1st close of its Series A round. Participating investors include Mitsubishi Foods (TSE: 7451), Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and undisclosed venture capital firm(s) as well as angel investors including Masaki Yamamoto (CEO, Chatwork), Shinichi Takama, Kazutaka Mori (international attorney, One Aisa Lawyers), Yu Kaneko (qualified institutional investor), and Hiroyuki Miyake (CEO, Synergy Plus). For the company, this follows their two angel rounds (securing approximately 60 million yen in total) and the 1st close of its seed round back in 2022 (since the seed round’s 2nd close has not been announced, so in effect this appears to be the final close of the seed round). The latest round brought the startup funding sum up to date to $5.6 million US. Our readers may recall the company secured a seed round from Chiba Dojo Fund, Coconala Skill Partners (CSP), and Headline Asia as well as two angel investors: Hiromi Okuda, and Shin Murakami. The company revealed at this time that Japanese microalgae developer Euglena (TSE: 2931) also…

Misaky.Tokyo and OoMee
Image credit: Cashi Cake

Los Angeles-based Cashi Cake, the Japanese startup behind the Misaky Tokyo seaweed confectionery brand and the OoMee seaweed beverage brand, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $3.7 million US in the 1st close of its Series A round. Participating investors include Mitsubishi Foods (TSE: 7451), Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and undisclosed venture capital firm(s) as well as angel investors including Masaki Yamamoto (CEO, Chatwork), Shinichi Takama, Kazutaka Mori (international attorney, One Aisa Lawyers), Yu Kaneko (qualified institutional investor), and Hiroyuki Miyake (CEO, Synergy Plus).

For the company, this follows their two angel rounds (securing approximately 60 million yen in total) and the 1st close of its seed round back in 2022 (since the seed round’s 2nd close has not been announced, so in effect this appears to be the final close of the seed round). The latest round brought the startup funding sum up to date to $5.6 million US. Our readers may recall the company secured a seed round from Chiba Dojo Fund, Coconala Skill Partners (CSP), and Headline Asia as well as two angel investors: Hiromi Okuda, and Shin Murakami. The company revealed at this time that Japanese microalgae developer Euglena (TSE: 2931) also participated in the previous seed round.

Cashi Cake founder & CEO Alissa Miky

Founded in Los Angeles in September of 2019 by Alissa Miky, Cashi Cake uses technology to process seaweed agar to develop its high-end Japanese confectionery products. In addition to serving their products to the Academy Awards and Emmy Awards eve, the company collaborated with Kim Kardashian’s fragrance brand KKW and was featured in the Bon Appétit food magazine. The company has earned over 1.4 million followers on its Tiktok brand account (Misaky.Tokyo). They will use the funds to hire talents and administrative expenses for brand expansion, as well as product and patent development for selling functional seaweed powder to businesses.

In conjunction with the funding, the company also announced that it will apply for a joint patent with the Tottori Institute of Industrial Technology. The company will apply the institute’s technology for wrapping soy sauce in a membrane created from seaweed to wrapping highly concentrated alcohol, thereby providing a plastic substitute that can be used with any material. Until now, it has been difficult to encapsulate highly concentrated alcohol with the dietary fiber contained in seaweed, but the new technology will make it possible to encapsulate high-alcohol (tequila, gin, whiskey, sake, etc.) and low pH liquids (orange juice, etc.) in any shape or size. It is expected to realize a new texture with a film that pops when chewed in the mouth, and to develop edible containers.

via PR TImes

Fukuoka City helps shorten visa screening process for foreign IT engineers

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On Monday, Fukuoka City began operating the Engineer Visa program utilizing the National Strategic Special Zone. In 2019, the city requested the central government to approve a system to shorten and clarify the examination period for foreign IT engineers’ status of residence. Whereas the normal examination period for residency status for foreign nationals takes about one to three months, the special legislation can make it shorter to about one month with the city taking part of the examination process. This will lower the hurdle for Japanese startups based in the city to hire foreign engineers and for foreign startups to establish their base there. The first company to take advantage of the system is expected to be the Japanese subsidiary of VMO Holdings, an offshore development company in Vietnam. Fukuoka City has long been active in attracting overseas startups and encouraging local startups to expand overseas: in 2016, the city began collaborating with the French city of Bordeaux to support drone startups, and in 2017, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Taiwan’s Taipei city to support Fukuoka startups expand overseas and vice versa. In 2017, Fukuoka City established the Fukuoka Global Startup Center to strengthen mutual startup support between…

Photo by Syuichi Shiina via Unsplash

On Monday, Fukuoka City began operating the Engineer Visa program utilizing the National Strategic Special Zone. In 2019, the city requested the central government to approve a system to shorten and clarify the examination period for foreign IT engineers’ status of residence. Whereas the normal examination period for residency status for foreign nationals takes about one to three months, the special legislation can make it shorter to about one month with the city taking part of the examination process.

This will lower the hurdle for Japanese startups based in the city to hire foreign engineers and for foreign startups to establish their base there. The first company to take advantage of the system is expected to be the Japanese subsidiary of VMO Holdings, an offshore development company in Vietnam.

Fukuoka City has long been active in attracting overseas startups and encouraging local startups to expand overseas: in 2016, the city began collaborating with the French city of Bordeaux to support drone startups, and in 2017, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Taiwan’s Taipei city to support Fukuoka startups expand overseas and vice versa. In 2017, Fukuoka City established the Fukuoka Global Startup Center to strengthen mutual startup support between the city and other countries.

In 2012, the city declared “Startup City” and then established a startup support facility called  FUKUOKA Growth Next on the site of the former Daimyo Elementary School. This year, the Fukuoka Daimyo Garden City building was completed adjacent to the facility, and Fukuoka Financial Group (TSE: 8354) opened its open innovation center called GROWTH I in the terrace annex of the building.