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Excite Japan and Indonesia’s Sinar Mas to launch online mobile ad business

Masaru Ikeda 2013.06.25

Excite Japan, one of Japan’s leading internet portals, announced today that it has teamed up with Jakarta-based conglomerate Sinar Mas, to start working an online ad service in Indonesia. The companies previously established up a joint venture called Excite Indonesia earlier this month. The new company will launch an online ad service that gives rewards to mobile users of SmartFren Telecom, one of Indonesia’s largest mobile operators. They hope to acquire 100 advertisers by the end of this year, and expect the annual turnover to reach 600 million yen (about $6.12 million) in 2017. This is the first time for Excite Japan to launch a local office outside Japan. The company is expecting to explore more business opportunities in Southeast Asian region in the future. Excite Japan is a subsidiary of Japan’s largest trading company Itochu Corporation. In Taiwan, it has invested in two companies: e-commerce platform PCHome, and the review site Fashion Guide. Should this point rewards system prove successful in Indonesia, the company plans to bring it to the Philippines next.

Excite Japan, one of Japan’s leading internet portals, announced today that it has teamed up with Jakarta-based conglomerate Sinar Mas, to start working an online ad service in Indonesia.

The companies previously established up a joint venture called Excite Indonesia earlier this month. The new company will launch an online ad service that gives rewards to mobile users of SmartFren Telecom, one of Indonesia’s largest mobile operators. They hope to acquire 100 advertisers by the end of this year, and expect the annual turnover to reach 600 million yen (about $6.12 million) in 2017.

This is the first time for Excite Japan to launch a local office outside Japan. The company is expecting to explore more business opportunities in Southeast Asian region in the future.

Excite Japan is a subsidiary of Japan’s largest trading company Itochu Corporation. In Taiwan, it has invested in two companies: e-commerce platform PCHome, and the review site Fashion Guide. Should this point rewards system prove successful in Indonesia, the company plans to bring it to the Philippines next.

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Tokyo-based invoicing solution MakeLeaps is now used by 10,000 business

Rick Martin 2013.06.25

Tokyo-based invoicing system MakeLeaps has announced (PDF) today that the company has reached its previously stated goal of 10,000 business users. The service was initially launched back in 2009, and last year it acquired competing invoicing service Noroshi, a significant step for the company. At the time, the CEO of MakeLeaps’ parent company Webnet IT corporation, Jason Winder, hoped that the acquisition would bring them to 10,000 businesses by August 2013. Now they have reached that benchmark with time to spare. Companies in Japan have not been as quick to jump on the cloud computing band wagon as in the US market. But they’re coming around, says Winder, largely thanks to cloud success stories like Salesforce which is used by many prominent Japanese companies. He adds: Our biggest challenge is really just letting people know that these solutions now exist, and they’re low cost, and easily available. Our biggest competitor is not a competing software package, it’s still very much Microsoft Excel, since that’s what most Japanese companies are using to create/send their documents. Back in April MakeLeaps also added Evernote integration (PDF) so that users can sync their quotes and invoices into an Evernote notebook. About 20% of Evernote’s…

Tokyo-based invoicing system MakeLeaps has announced (PDF) today that the company has reached its previously stated goal of 10,000 business users.

The service was initially launched back in 2009, and last year it acquired competing invoicing service Noroshi, a significant step for the company. At the time, the CEO of MakeLeaps’ parent company Webnet IT corporation, Jason Winder, hoped that the acquisition would bring them to 10,000 businesses by August 2013. Now they have reached that benchmark with time to spare.

Companies in Japan have not been as quick to jump on the cloud computing band wagon as in the US market. But they’re coming around, says Winder, largely thanks to cloud success stories like Salesforce which is used by many prominent Japanese companies. He adds:

Our biggest challenge is really just letting people know that these solutions now exist, and they’re low cost, and easily available. Our biggest competitor is not a competing software package, it’s still very much Microsoft Excel, since that’s what most Japanese companies are using to create/send their documents.

Back in April MakeLeaps also added Evernote integration (PDF) so that users can sync their quotes and invoices into an Evernote notebook. About 20% of Evernote’s users come from Japan, so this is a pretty wise addition.

MakeLeaps has been growing an average of 18% each month this year (see chart below), and is now focused on reaching 25,000 companies by July of 2014.

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Clash of Clans is now Japan’s top free app, after Puzzle & Dragons collaboration goes live

Rick Martin 2013.06.25

Back on June 7th we wrote that Japan’s smash hit Puzzle & Dragons would be engaging in a collaborative promotion with Supercell’s Clash of Clans. The tie-up, which sees Clash of Clans characters like appear as special enemy monsters and playable cards, began yesterday with the new CoC dungeon going live in the game. It didn’t take long for this partnership to yield fruit, as Clash of Clans became the top free iOS app in the Japan app store at about 7pm last night [1]. Check out the chart above to see it’s recent progress. In the top grossing ranks, CoC is currently ranked 21st overall. I’ve collected a couple of CoC cards already in Puzzle & Dragons, and it’s going to be interesting to see if GungHo conducts similar promotions with Western gaming companies looking to break into the lucrative Japan mobile gaming market. Of course, Puzzle & Dragons has dominated the Japanese market like no other game, recently surpassing 15 million downloads back on June 8th. Update: Serkan Toto has more on this in a great post late last night. Clash of Clans is now also a featured staff pic in the Japanese app store, and that has…

Back on June 7th we wrote that Japan’s smash hit Puzzle & Dragons would be engaging in a collaborative promotion with Supercell’s Clash of Clans. The tie-up, which sees Clash of Clans characters like appear as special enemy monsters and playable cards, began yesterday with the new CoC dungeon going live in the game.

It didn’t take long for this partnership to yield fruit, as Clash of Clans became the top free iOS app in the Japan app store at about 7pm last night [1]. Check out the chart above to see it’s recent progress. In the top grossing ranks, CoC is currently ranked 21st overall.

I’ve collected a couple of CoC cards already in Puzzle & Dragons, and it’s going to be interesting to see if GungHo conducts similar promotions with Western gaming companies looking to break into the lucrative Japan mobile gaming market.

Of course, Puzzle & Dragons has dominated the Japanese market like no other game, recently surpassing 15 million downloads back on June 8th.

Update: Serkan Toto has more on this in a great post late last night.

Clash of Clans is now also a featured staff pic in the Japanese app store, and that has likely been a huge help for the app too. ↩

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Consumer rewards startup Kanmu partners with Credit Saison, raises $440,000 from investors

Takeshi Hirano 2013.06.25

See the original story in Japanese. Some of our readers may recall that we featured Kanmu in our previous article about finance apps. It’s a Tokyo-based startup that provides card-linked offers (CLO), a new marketing/loyalty technique for brands and merchants. Kanmu announced on Monday that it would launch the first CLO service in Japan in partnership with Credit Saison, one of the country’s largest credit card issuers/acquirers. The startup has raised about 43 million yen (about $440,000) from East Ventures, Anri, and other Japanese investors. CLO has been implemented by major credit card companies in the US since early 2010. It connects offers or discounts directly to a consumer’s credit or debit card, which can then be redeemed at the point of sale. How does it work? Credit card holders receive online discount coupons on the dashboard showing your credit card balance. The type of virtual coupons you see will be decided according to what you have bought in the past, by drawing from your purchase history. If you’re interested in using one of these coupons, you simply need to click the banner. Subsequently, when you visit a retailer and use a credit card registered with the program, you will…

See the original story in Japanese.

Some of our readers may recall that we featured Kanmu in our previous article about finance apps. It’s a Tokyo-based startup that provides card-linked offers (CLO), a new marketing/loyalty technique for brands and merchants.

Kanmu announced on Monday that it would launch the first CLO service in Japan in partnership with Credit Saison, one of the country’s largest credit card issuers/acquirers. The startup has raised about 43 million yen (about $440,000) from East Ventures, Anri, and other Japanese investors.

CLO has been implemented by major credit card companies in the US since early 2010. It connects offers or discounts directly to a consumer’s credit or debit card, which can then be redeemed at the point of sale.

How does it work?

Credit card holders receive online discount coupons on the dashboard showing your credit card balance. The type of virtual coupons you see will be decided according to what you have bought in the past, by drawing from your purchase history. If you’re interested in using one of these coupons, you simply need to click the banner.

Subsequently, when you visit a retailer and use a credit card registered with the program, you will receive rewards automatically, such as cash-back. For users of partner company Credit Saison, you will be able to earn reward points via the CLO program.

For retailers, you can better target customers and need not worry about any elaborate setup to deploy the program. Retailers will be charged based on a performance-basis, so it’s much easier for them to begin using the program for as part of their marketing efforts.

But what about security? Kanmu’s CEO Wataru Yamaki addressed that point:

Our users’ personal information stays with credit card companies, which guarantees your information is as secure as it was before. We’re also currently working on getting certification for information security as well. […] What we do is managing which user has clicked on which coupon. So personal information never leaves the credit card company. Using this type of purchase analysis, card companies have been sending direct mail to their customers. But now it becoming web-based. For retailers and card companies, it lets you to see how aggressively consumers react to each promotional activity, as soon as that activity is deployed.

Yamaki is a young entrepreneur in his 20s, and has so far been involved in many projects using distributed services and natural language processing. Prior to the launch of the CLO service, he has been exploring financial information services and managing a market cap ranking site called MarketGeek. With these new funds, he hopes to acquire more sales and analysis personnel.

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Tokyo’s Giftee launches new service, lets you mail a gift without any address

SCORE 1,495

Takeshi Hirano 2013.06.24

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Giftee is a service that allows you to send a gift voucher over the internet. For instance, when you receive such a voucher from someone, you could use it to redeem a complimentary cup of coffee at a partnering coffee shop, for example. For gift givers, the service gives you a great way to send a small token of thanks or appreciation to someone lives far away from you. However for the gift receiver, the process of redeeming the coupon is not always easy. But the startup has just taken a step to remedy this. Giftee announced the launch of a new service today which delivers your gift straight to your friend on your behalf. For gift givers, you can choose a present from among 60 products across 20 brands, such as Japanese teas, sweets, flower arrangements, and accessories. When you complete the purchase, you will receive a specific URL from the service. Subsequently, you can send that URL to the recipient over e-mail, by a Facebook private message, or via the Line messaging app. You never need to know the receiver’s mailing address because they will be prompted to enter it…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup Giftee is a service that allows you to send a gift voucher over the internet. For instance, when you receive such a voucher from someone, you could use it to redeem a complimentary cup of coffee at a partnering coffee shop, for example. For gift givers, the service gives you a great way to send a small token of thanks or appreciation to someone lives far away from you.

However for the gift receiver, the process of redeeming the coupon is not always easy. But the startup has just taken a step to remedy this.

Giftee announced the launch of a new service today which delivers your gift straight to your friend on your behalf. For gift givers, you can choose a present from among 60 products across 20 brands, such as Japanese teas, sweets, flower arrangements, and accessories. When you complete the purchase, you will receive a specific URL from the service. Subsequently, you can send that URL to the recipient over e-mail, by a Facebook private message, or via the Line messaging app. You never need to know the receiver’s mailing address because they will be prompted to enter it after receiving the URL from you.

181b499d69fb98c8b886dbe3994b91be — For recipients, you can choose your preferred color or type.

For those receiving gifts, when you click the URL in a message from a sender, you’ll be requested to accept the gift and enter your own address. Using his dashboard, the sender can see if you have already read the notification e-mail.

605eee4d41ff3c05e9f15b195a0809a7 — For senders, you can choose a gift card and attach a message.

Giftee’s co-founder/CEO Mutsumi Ohta explained what prompted him to launch this new service.

I learned one of our partnered merchants was selling very cute cookies. But the confectionery shop is located [relatively] far from any railway stations, so the coupon redemption rate was pretty bad. But the startup has an e-commerce channel and can ship their products from online orders. This means they are capable of delivering their products upon getting gift order requests. We started testing it last fall, and learned many people have repeatedly used the new service.

Mr. Ota thinks the service’s original concept to deliver small ‘thank yous’ over social media has been well understood among its users since the initial launch back in 2011. The only problem with this new delivery service is that it’s bit expensive to ship. But the startup is now trying to overcome this using a reasonably priced mail delivery service.

If you have some products that might be suitable for such a gifts, the startup welcomes your application to be a partner merchant. But they are careful about partner selection selection and there are a range of reasons why a product might not make the cut.

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Introducing our Japan Internet Map

Rick Martin 2013.06.23

Last week we unveiled a new ‘Japan Internet Map’ section on our website. It’s sort of an experimental effort for us, but we think you’ll like it. This interactive presentation can give you a better ‘wide-angle’ understanding of the notable players in Japan’s internet and mobile space. Check it out here: The Japan Internet Map When we speak to readers from overseas, a refrain we continue to hear is that Japan’s tech and startup industries are difficult to find out about, that it’s a sort of a ‘black box’ market. I think we’ve helped illuminate things a little bit in the few months since our English site came online back in February. But we’d like to do more. This Japan Internet Map, while still flawed in many ways, is part of our attempt to serve our readers better. We’re delighted that the early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re also very pleased that the good folks over on The Next Web thought it worthy of a mention. As always, we’re eager to hear what you think of SD Japan, so don’t hesitate to drop a line with your comments or ideas.

Last week we unveiled a new ‘Japan Internet Map’ section on our website. It’s sort of an experimental effort for us, but we think you’ll like it. This interactive presentation can give you a better ‘wide-angle’ understanding of the notable players in Japan’s internet and mobile space. Check it out here:

The Japan Internet Map

When we speak to readers from overseas, a refrain we continue to hear is that Japan’s tech and startup industries are difficult to find out about, that it’s a sort of a ‘black box’ market. I think we’ve helped illuminate things a little bit in the few months since our English site came online back in February. But we’d like to do more.

This Japan Internet Map, while still flawed in many ways, is part of our attempt to serve our readers better. We’re delighted that the early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re also very pleased that the good folks over on The Next Web thought it worthy of a mention.

As always, we’re eager to hear what you think of SD Japan, so don’t hesitate to drop a line with your comments or ideas.

news

Japanese Raspberry Pi robot reaches Kickstarter goal in 2 days

Masaru Ikeda 2013.06.23

Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer, capable of many of the same functions as your desktop PC. And Tokyo-based gadget creator Kiluck has unveiled a cool humanoid robot that can work with the miniature computer. On Thursday began a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for its production. As of right now, it has been more than three days since the launch on the crowdfunding site, and the robot ‘fanufacturing’ project has raised more than £25,000 (about $38,600), exceeding the original target of £20,000 ($30,900). The new robot is called Rapiro, and was developed by Kiluck in collaboration with three Japanese manufacturing companies. The startup’s founder, Shota Ishiwatari, is also known for having developed Necomimi, a wearable cat-ear device that moves in accordance with your brainwave activity. Some of our readers may have seen the device at various tech conferences around the world. In combination with Raspberry Pi, Kiluck’s new widget lets you create a new friend of your own for a total cost of less than $500. The the product is expected to ship at the end of this year.

Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer, capable of many of the same functions as your desktop PC. And Tokyo-based gadget creator Kiluck has unveiled a cool humanoid robot that can work with the miniature computer. On Thursday began a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for its production.

As of right now, it has been more than three days since the launch on the crowdfunding site, and the robot ‘fanufacturing’ project has raised more than £25,000 (about $38,600), exceeding the original target of £20,000 ($30,900).

The new robot is called Rapiro, and was developed by Kiluck in collaboration with three Japanese manufacturing companies. The startup’s founder, Shota Ishiwatari, is also known for having developed Necomimi, a wearable cat-ear device that moves in accordance with your brainwave activity. Some of our readers may have seen the device at various tech conferences around the world.

In combination with Raspberry Pi, Kiluck’s new widget lets you create a new friend of your own for a total cost of less than $500. The the product is expected to ship at the end of this year.

news

CocoPPa partners with Tokyo Otaku Mode on anime-themed decorations for your smartphone homescreen

Junya Mori 2013.06.22

See the original story in Japanese. CocoPPa, a smartphone wallpaper/icon decoration app from Japanese web conglomerate United, has tied up with Tokyo Otaku Mode (TOM) to allow Cocoppa users to bring their favorite illustrations from TOM to their smartphone homescreens. This is the first such collaborative business endeavor for Cocoppa. Both Cocoppa and TOM are popular sites among young people, and both have succeeded in spreading Japanese culture around the world. For TOM, this partnership gives its users more chances to show off their works as well. CocoPPa recently surpassed 8 million downloads worldwide, and TOM has accumulated more than 12.5 million likes on its Facebook. We expect that this partnership between two globally influential startups can bring about great results and more awareness about the two companies worldwide.. On a related note, we reported earlier today that has also just released a new smartphone app called Tokyo Otaku Mode mini. It’s a busy week for the up-and-coming company!

See the original story in Japanese.

CocoPPa, a smartphone wallpaper/icon decoration app from Japanese web conglomerate United, has tied up with Tokyo Otaku Mode (TOM) to allow Cocoppa users to bring their favorite illustrations from TOM to their smartphone homescreens.

This is the first such collaborative business endeavor for Cocoppa. Both Cocoppa and TOM are popular sites among young people, and both have succeeded in spreading Japanese culture around the world. For TOM, this partnership gives its users more chances to show off their works as well.

CocoPPa recently surpassed 8 million downloads worldwide, and TOM has accumulated more than 12.5 million likes on its Facebook. We expect that this partnership between two globally influential startups can bring about great results and more awareness about the two companies worldwide..

On a related note, we reported earlier today that has also just released a new smartphone app called Tokyo Otaku Mode mini. It’s a busy week for the up-and-coming company!

news

Japan’s Chatwork brings its business chat tool to Europe

Junya Mori 2013.06.21

See the original story in Japanese. Chatwork Inc., a Japanese startup that operates a cloud-based chat tool for business, has announced that it would start expanding service operations to the European region from Luxembourg. This follows its international expansion to North America last year, and the Asian region this past spring. The Chatwork app was launched back in March of 2011, providing a business chat environment for corporate users, with features like group chat, task management, file management, and video conferencing. Luxembourg is known for having a very low tax rate, and has succeeded in inviting a number of multinational companies to set up shop there. It’s surrounded by Germany, France, and Belgium, and most local citizens can speak English, Luxembourgish, German, and French. Chatwork has decided to start its European operations here because of these geographical and linguistic advantages. The company was in attendance at ICT Spring 2013, an annual tech startup conference in the country taking place this week. The startup recently unveiled that it has acquired more than 200,000 users as of this month. In terms of the ratio of paid to unpaid users, Chatwork has performed even better than services like Dropbox or Evernote, which are…

See the original story in Japanese.

Chatwork Inc., a Japanese startup that operates a cloud-based chat tool for business, has announced that it would start expanding service operations to the European region from Luxembourg. This follows its international expansion to North America last year, and the Asian region this past spring.

The Chatwork app was launched back in March of 2011, providing a business chat environment for corporate users, with features like group chat, task management, file management, and video conferencing.

Luxembourg is known for having a very low tax rate, and has succeeded in inviting a number of multinational companies to set up shop there. It’s surrounded by Germany, France, and Belgium, and most local citizens can speak English, Luxembourgish, German, and French. Chatwork has decided to start its European operations here because of these geographical and linguistic advantages. The company was in attendance at ICT Spring 2013, an annual tech startup conference in the country taking place this week.

The startup recently unveiled that it has acquired more than 200,000 users as of this month. In terms of the ratio of paid to unpaid users, Chatwork has performed even better than services like Dropbox or Evernote, which are said to be around 4 to 4.5%. More than 50,000 users visit the service every day, and more than 100 million messages have been exchanged using the platform.

The startup unveiled a screen-sharing feature called ChatWork back in May. And from here, it will be interesting to see how much traction it can build in the country where Skype started its journey.

News

Excite Japan and Indonesia’s Sinar Mas to launch online mobile ad business

Tokyo-based invoicing solution MakeLeaps is now used by 10,000 business

Clash of Clans is now Japan’s top free app, after Puzzle & Dragons collaboration goes live

Consumer rewards startup Kanmu partners with Credit Saison, raises $440,000 from investors

How does it work?

Introducing our Japan Internet Map

The Japan Internet Map

Japanese Raspberry Pi robot reaches Kickstarter goal in 2 days

CocoPPa partners with Tokyo Otaku Mode on anime-themed decorations for your smartphone homescreen

Japan’s Chatwork brings its business chat tool to Europe

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