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From Monozukuri Hub Meetup: Accelerators vs. Incubators, which one should you go for?

The Bridge 2016.09.17

This is a guest post by Chi Chia Huang, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka. With the good weather and a couple of nice beers in MTRL Kyoto on September 12th, we kicked off the meetup with a presentation from Naonobu Yamamoto, who is the CEO of Kpnetworks. Following the second presentation by Daigo Sakaida, an open innovation initiative senior principal at Accenture, anchoring the meetup, John Kat, a technology specialist from the British government in the Department of International Trade, shared his insights about what a government can do to support startups and the ecosystem. We were also glad to have our last speaker Keiji Tokuda, the founder and CEO of Keigan, with Keigan’s establish day on this day. Yamamoto presented on the business model of Kpnetworks, and talked about the importance of accelerator program in the startup ecosystem. He also shared his experience with several accelerators. Sakaida discussed the difference between accelerators and incubators. With his clear explanation, we could understand the concept of these two different…

This is a guest post by Chi Chia Huang, an intern of Kyoto-based hardware startup accelerator Makers Boot Camp. The accelerator holds the Monozukuri Hub Meetup event in Kyoto on a monthly basis.

Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by professional photographer Kengo Osaka.

With the good weather and a couple of nice beers in MTRL Kyoto on September 12th, we kicked off the meetup with a presentation from Naonobu Yamamoto, who is the CEO of Kpnetworks. Following the second presentation by Daigo Sakaida, an open innovation initiative senior principal at Accenture, anchoring the meetup, John Kat, a technology specialist from the British government in the Department of International Trade, shared his insights about what a government can do to support startups and the ecosystem. We were also glad to have our last speaker Keiji Tokuda, the founder and CEO of Keigan, with Keigan’s establish day on this day.

monozukuri-hub-meetup-20160912-kpnetworks — Naonobu Yamamoto, CEO of Kpnetworks

Yamamoto presented on the business model of Kpnetworks, and talked about the importance of accelerator program in the startup ecosystem. He also shared his experience with several accelerators.

monozukuri-hub-meetup-20160912-accenture-2 — Daigo Sakaida, open innovation initiative senior principal at Accenture

Sakaida discussed the difference between accelerators and incubators. With his clear explanation, we could understand the concept of these two different programs. Accelerators are usually a short term program for several months; in contrast, Incubators are mostly long term programs from one to three years. He suggested startups still in seed stage to join incubator programs, and startups in early stage to consider joining accelerator programs. Also he brought up to date numbers showing the startup ecosystem in Japan, pointing out there is still an opportunity for growth.

monozukuri-hub-meetup-20160912-british-investment-trade — John Kat, technology specialist from the British government in the Department of International Trade

Kat shared his tips and tricks to overcome the common challenges of startups including networking, funding, management, and marketing. He also emphasized that British government has developed great program to connect researchers from academic world with industrial experts to assist startups and innovation.

monozukuri-hub-meetup-20160912-keigan-2 — Keiji Tokuda, founder and CEO of Keigan

Tokuda gave several advice to startups from his business experience and suggested to seek opportunity of collaboration with government.

During the panel discussion, presenters had different insights about how to manage the fund they raised and about how to convince investors to invest them.

Kat gave an interesting comment:

After meeting several venture capitalists, talking with potential investors but you got turned down by all of them…instead of keep trying more to convince the sharks, you should find out the reasons why you got rejected. That is to say, your business model is not completed yet. Try to figure out the bugs and revise them, then seek for the investors again.

Special thanks to Makers Boot Camp and Kyoto city government for holding the amazing meetup. I can’t wait for the next Monozukuri meetup on 12th October, to discuss the major failure for hardware startups: “Design for Manufacture.”

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Japanese curated news app company Uzabase to IPO with $177M market cap

UzaBase

Masaru Ikeda 2016.09.15

Tokyo-based Uzabase, the startup behind curated news app NewsPicks and company/industry database service Speeda, announced today hat its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on 21 October with plans to offer 543,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 114,000 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 193,300 shares. It expects an initial market cap of 17.78 billion yen (about $177 million). The underwriting will be led by Mizuho Securities while Uzabase’s ticker code will be 3966. Founded in 2008, Uzabase started offering the NewsPicks app back in September 2013. The company has differentiated NewsPicks from other similar apps by curating news topics by notable economics news outlets. Prior to today’s announcement, the company secured $4.5 million from several Japanese companies and VC firms in a series C round in August of 2014. Led by the company’s Co-CEO and founder Yusuke Umeda (a 28.34% stake) and Co-CEO and founder Ryosuke Shino (a 28.34% stake), their major share holders include Global Capital Partners (11.43%), COO Yusuke Inagaki (9.91%), and Hong Kong-based financial information provider FISL (4.82%), according to the submission to the stock exchange. In…

d10548-1-374143-1 — R to L: Yusuke Umeda (Uzabase Co-CEO), Norihiko Sasaki (Managing Director & NewsPicks Editor-in-Chief)

Tokyo-based Uzabase, the startup behind curated news app NewsPicks and company/industry database service Speeda, announced today hat its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has been approved.

The company will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market on 21 October with plans to offer 543,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 114,000 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 193,300 shares. It expects an initial market cap of 17.78 billion yen (about $177 million). The underwriting will be led by Mizuho Securities while Uzabase’s ticker code will be 3966.

Founded in 2008, Uzabase started offering the NewsPicks app back in September 2013. The company has differentiated NewsPicks from other similar apps by curating news topics by notable economics news outlets. Prior to today’s announcement, the company secured $4.5 million from several Japanese companies and VC firms in a series C round in August of 2014.

Led by the company’s Co-CEO and founder Yusuke Umeda (a 28.34% stake) and Co-CEO and founder Ryosuke Shino (a 28.34% stake), their major share holders include Global Capital Partners (11.43%), COO Yusuke Inagaki (9.91%), and Hong Kong-based financial information provider FISL (4.82%), according to the submission to the stock exchange.

In this vertical, Uzabase’s competitor Gunosy (TSE:6047) IPO-ed with an initial market cap of $263 million in March last year while Japan’s 5th most-funded startup SmartNews recently secured $38 million in a series D round but is also expected to go IPO within this year.

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Japan’s InstaVR gets $2M to support 360-degree content creation for virtual open house tours

InstaVR

Takeshi Hirano 2016.09.15

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based InstaVR, providing a VR (virtual reality) authoring tool capable of creation / distribution / analysis of 360-degree view content under the same name, this week announced that it has secured about 200 million yen (about $2 million) in the latest round. This round was led by Gree Ventures with participating from Colopl VR Fund, the investment arm of Japanese mobile gaming developer Colopl (TSE:3668) but details of the allotment ratio of shares or payment date have been undisclosed. The firm had been born from the first batch of Tokyo VR Startups, an acceleration program led by Japanese gaming developer Gumi (TSE:3903) and focused on nourishing VR / AR (augmented reality) startups. InstaVR is a web-based creation tool for 360-degree content. For example, it is available for virtual preliminary inspection of apartment rooms to be constructed, by combining image videos or 360-degree image materials. It enables setting of various call-to-action buttons to play YouTube videos when clicked or to link them to next scenes / places as if ‘warping’ and thereby allows more interactive materials to be created. The completed contents are outputted as apps playable on a unique player and are available for…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based InstaVR, providing a VR (virtual reality) authoring tool capable of creation / distribution / analysis of 360-degree view content under the same name, this week announced that it has secured about 200 million yen (about $2 million) in the latest round.

This round was led by Gree Ventures with participating from Colopl VR Fund, the investment arm of Japanese mobile gaming developer Colopl (TSE:3668) but details of the allotment ratio of shares or payment date have been undisclosed. The firm had been born from the first batch of Tokyo VR Startups, an acceleration program led by Japanese gaming developer Gumi (TSE:3903) and focused on nourishing VR / AR (augmented reality) startups.

InstaVR is a web-based creation tool for 360-degree content. For example, it is available for virtual preliminary inspection of apartment rooms to be constructed, by combining image videos or 360-degree image materials. It enables setting of various call-to-action buttons to play YouTube videos when clicked or to link them to next scenes / places as if ‘warping’ and thereby allows more interactive materials to be created.

The completed contents are outputted as apps playable on a unique player and are available for iOS, Android or GearVR. Also the contents can be embedded into webpages as in the following image (it can shift right and left by clicking).

As one of the InstaVR’s characteristic functions, it supports heat map analysis enabling optimization of click-link buttons arrangement or investigation for the next content through analysis of points ‘where users looked,’ which may be determined only with VR experience.

Until now, InstaVR has been used by 1,800 companies in 100 countries around the world since its launch in January of 2016, and been implemented in a wide range of business fields such as tourism industry including Smithsonian Museum, construction industry, content creation companies for marketing and advertising agencies.

The firm was established by CEO Hiroyuki Haga in 2015 December. The InstaVR tool is originated in a ‘free tool’ developed by him in 2014; he had formerly played important roles as an engineer at 3D authoring tool developer Autodesk and Gree (TSE:3632).

Haga commented:

As the free tool is downloaded, sometime I have been asked from users to help with creation of VR content due to its difficulty. The tool was for creating VR content just by using Excel, and I incorporated all of these know-how into InstaVR.

Authoring tool is one of the major fields in the VR / AR industry landscape.

There are various creation platforms, like high-end type providing high-performance camera / stitching (joining 360-degree contents together) / distribution as vertical integration service such as Jaunt or NextVR, or a type available for lots of 3D objects similar to Marxent, but there are no tools that equal InstaVR in enabling creation / distribution of lighter content on the web.

The monthly charge for the premium version of InstaVR is $199. The firm will continue with development using the secured funds and aims at implementation in 10,000 companies within this year.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Conversate brings new on-demand element to English language marketplace in Tokyo

The Bridge 2016.09.14

This is a guest post authored by Amanda Imasaka. Toronto, Canada based Shiny Barnacle, who specializes in on-demand marketplace products, officially launched the new online platform Conversate on August 1st of this year. The 5 co-founders Mike Lee, Alex Stiglick, Steve Stiglick, Adam Quast, and Greg Vorobyev in designing Conversate set out to build a full, integrated social network platform for education that gives power to the students while supporting a community of personable English tutors. Co-founder Mike Lee said in a statement exclusively for The Bridge. Learning and helping others learn by way of teaching is something we are very familiar with. With many of us having taught before, we know what the market is like, and every site out there is lacking in some way. We want to bring better experience and offer students and teachers alike a new way to teach and learn. To elaborate, let’s discuss what Conversate means for English teachers looking to take control of their own schedules, set their own pay, and essentially become their own boss. They simply register online, create their professional profile including where in Tokyo they are based, and record a one minute introductory message to sell their brand….

This is a guest post authored by Amanda Imasaka.

Toronto, Canada based Shiny Barnacle, who specializes in on-demand marketplace products, officially launched the new online platform Conversate on August 1st of this year. The 5 co-founders Mike Lee, Alex Stiglick, Steve Stiglick, Adam Quast, and Greg Vorobyev in designing Conversate set out to build a full, integrated social network platform for education that gives power to the students while supporting a community of personable English tutors.

Co-founder Mike Lee said in a statement exclusively for The Bridge.

Learning and helping others learn by way of teaching is something we are very familiar with. With many of us having taught before, we know what the market is like, and every site out there is lacking in some way. We want to bring better experience and offer students and teachers alike a new way to teach and learn.

To elaborate, let’s discuss what Conversate means for English teachers looking to take control of their own schedules, set their own pay, and essentially become their own boss. They simply register online, create their professional profile including where in Tokyo they are based, and record a one minute introductory message to sell their brand. The team has also built a teacher network with a social network feel that provides support through lesson planning, even offering crowdsourced discussions on lessons built onto the site.

Next we can examine it from the perspective of a student. After registering online, they can be paired with tutors through proximity-based matching with Google Maps. It is also possible to narrow the search by specifying a desired ethnicity (corresponding to accent), skill set (i.e. TOEIC, TOEFL, etc.), price range, overall feedback rating, and so on. Students can keep track of their progress with online feedback directly on the app from their tutor. Find a teacher you like and all you have to do is adjust your tutor frequency to see them more often, giving students the power to choose their teacher unlike in English conversations schools or traditional sites that operate on a “request and wait” model. In addition, the Conversate team created their system to encourage physical meetups (as opposed to say online video tutoring) between students and teachers as they believe it is essential to language acquisition in that it puts pressure on learners to speak naturally.

Perhaps what most sets this platform apart is the up and coming on-demand aspect, much like hiring through Uber, they plan to upgrade to a “true real-time availability system” in the near future. Also akin to Uber is their two-way review system, allowing Student-Tutor reflections as well as Tutor-Student ones. Again, like Uber, money exchanges between students and teachers are also unnecessary as Conversate relies on Stripe, a leading secure payment processing portal.

conversate-2 — Conversate’s searchable map showing teachers in real time.
Image credit: Shiny Barnacle

When asked about the goals for Conversate in the future Lee had this to say:

We want to help students with language learning, but at the same time combine that with presentation skills, and everything needed to truly interact in a business or real-world setting. On-demand, in-person, integrated lesson materials, we will bring the classroom directly to you.

With Conversate only recently launched, there is a need to focus on building up their client base and teacher pool. But have no fear, they’ve got it covered. Students who sign up now get a 4,000 yen (about $40) credit to use toward future lessons and for every new student they refer another 4,000 yen is credited to them. Additionally, teachers who help bring in new tutors receive a percentage of the services that the referees provide through the system.

conversate-3 — Shiny Barnacle presents at the Tokyo Innovation Studio.
Back row L to R: Ryunosuke Fujinomaki, Seiichi Shirane, Mike Lee and Steven Stiglick
Front row L to R: Advisor to Shiny Barnacle John Kojiro Moriwaka, Ai Kusabee
Image credit: Shiny Barnacle

The team from Conversate attended Tech in Asia Tokyo on the 6th and 7th of September, and were the guest speakers at Tokyo Innovation Studio’s International Startup Pitch & Meetup Tokyo vol. 8 in August of this year, as well as presented at Startup Dating (coincidentally same with The Bridge’s previous name before rebranding) co-hosted with Japan Venture Show. They are planning to expand into Seoul, South Korea and other Asian countries, with the long term goal of eventually supporting the educational marketplace for multiple languages.

With the Tokyo Olympics only a few years away and the demand for English educational platforms high, we look forward to seeing what momentum Conversate picks up.

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Japan, Thai startups unite to support younger selves; Inaugural meeting held with ministers

The Bridge 2016.09.12

This is a guest post authored by Bangkok-based Japanese entrepreneur Kazuki Kamiya. This article was first appeared in Japanese on Bsearch News but translated and edited by The Bridge for republication. Since 2014, he has been running a startup called HubAsia in Thailand for offering crowdsourced translation and interpretation services. In June of 2016 he released Thai-focused Japanese-language business portal site BSearch. Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by photographer Fumi Tanaka aka Bunshow. On Friday, a group of Japanese and Thai startups responsible for generating new industries, along with their respective governments, established the Japan-Thailand Innovation Support Network (hereafter referred to as JTIS) in order to promote cooperation between startups and larger companies. 10 startups from each country participated along with more than twenty big names including Toyota Motor Thailand and Thailand’s largest supplier of raw materials, Siam Cement Group (SCG). The government of Thailand has been supporting startups as an essential means of economic growth by hosting events throughout the country and creating a fund of several billion baht (tens of millions US dollars). In order to reach the objectives for both countries, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) and the Japanese Embassy…

This is a guest post authored by Bangkok-based Japanese entrepreneur Kazuki Kamiya. This article was first appeared in Japanese on Bsearch News but translated and edited by The Bridge for republication.

Since 2014, he has been running a startup called HubAsia in Thailand for offering crowdsourced translation and interpretation services. In June of 2016 he released Thai-focused Japanese-language business portal site BSearch.

Additionally, all photos in this article were taken by photographer Fumi Tanaka aka Bunshow.

On Friday, a group of Japanese and Thai startups responsible for generating new industries, along with their respective governments, established the Japan-Thailand Innovation Support Network (hereafter referred to as JTIS) in order to promote cooperation between startups and larger companies. 10 startups from each country participated along with more than twenty big names including Toyota Motor Thailand and Thailand’s largest supplier of raw materials, Siam Cement Group (SCG).

The government of Thailand has been supporting startups as an essential means of economic growth by hosting events throughout the country and creating a fund of several billion baht (tens of millions US dollars). In order to reach the objectives for both countries, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) and the Japanese Embassy in Thailand also recently held (August 31st) Embassy Pitch, a separate event that helps connect Thai startups with Japanese and Thai large corporations.

After attending Embassy Pitch, the Thai Minister of Science and Industry, Dr. Pichet Durongkaveroj shared his impressions on social media.

I’m with (Japanese) Ambassador Sadoshima in thinking that ‘innovation’ is what will drive the economic development of our country. We believe by connecting startups and big business Thailand will be able to continue its economic growth.

Dr. Durongkaveroj described the event as, “an event that should be admired” and reportedly rushed to be a part of the inaugural JTIS event on Friday.

JTIS is served by Omise’s CEO and founder Jun Hasegawa, who took the position of President, working on fostering an environment to aid the growth of Thai startups, and will continue to play a role in recommending the relaxation of regulations and the development of laws to the government.

See also:

Omise secures $17.5M to become Southeast Asia’s largest online payments gateway

On the same day, the Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Hiroshige Seko, Thailand’s Minister of Science and Industry Dr. Durongkaveroj, and Japanese Ambassador Sadoshima oversaw the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with Thailand Tech Startup Association (TTSA), as well as entered into cooperation.

In addition, prior to the signing ceremony Minister Seko had an opportunity to exchange opinions with Japanese entrepreneurs working in Thailand, with the entrepreneurs explaining the current state of the Thai startup scene to the minister. Participants were also able to make demands for deregulation and support measures.

The minister himself actively questioned the entrepreneurs, and conveyed that he recognizes it is in the national interest for the government to boost Japanese big business and startups abroad, encouraging them.

JTIS intends to prepare for the next Embassy Pitch event by strengthening their call for large companies and startups from both countries and recruiting broadly for interested parties.

JTIS executives:

President: Jun Hasegawa (Omise)
Administration officers: Shinsuke Wakai (BuzzCommerce), Hiroyuki Okamoto (Withfluence)
Secretaries: Secretary-General Yojiro Koshi (TalentEx), Kazuki Kamiya (HubAsia)

JTIS secretaries:

Secretary-General: Yojiro Koshi (TalentEx)
Deputy secretary: Kazuki Kamiya (HubAsia)

Startup members:

Japanese startups: Omise, BuzzCommerce, Withfluence, TalnetEx, HubAsia, etc.
Thai startups: Drivebot, Anywhere 2 Go, Siamsquared Technologies, etc.

Supporting companies and organizations:

Japanese companies: Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp, dmLab (Dentsu Media Laboratory), Panasonic, NTT Communications, Fuji Film, Mitsui & Co., Itochu, Sumitomo Corporation, Nomura Research Institute, ABeam Consulting, etc.
Thai companies: Siam Cement Group (SCG), ThaiBev, Saha Group, AIS, True, Singha Group, Amata Group, Charoen Pokphand Group, etc.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

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Japanese data-driven web and native app optimization startup secures $4M

Takeshi Hirano 2016.09.12

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Uncover Truth, the company offering a data analytics-based web and native app optimization service called Userdive, announced on Tuesday that it has secured around 400 million yen (about 4 million) in the latest round. This round was led by Draper Nexus Ventures with participation from Nippon Venture Capital, Cyper Agent, Accord Ventures, and Mizuho Capital. The company has not disclosed any financial details including shareholdings ratio and payment date upon fundraising. Userdive shows UI/UX (user interface and user experience) problems in a website for its owners by plotting them in a heat map. There are two services provided, Userdive for web apps (for desktop and mobile) and Userdive for native apps (for mobile). With these tools, as one example, it is possible to see where users mostly leave in an e-commerce site. In addition, the company consults businesses using these tools, offering support services starting from identifying challenges to solving them through a PDCA cycle. These businesses include over 300 big names, such as Fuji Film (TSE:4901), Benesse Corporation (TSE:9783), and Nifty. Uncover Truth plans to use the funds raised to advance their services by strengthening their consulting personnel, directors, and developers. To…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Uncover Truth, the company offering a data analytics-based web and native app optimization service called Userdive, announced on Tuesday that it has secured around 400 million yen (about 4 million) in the latest round. This round was led by Draper Nexus Ventures with participation from Nippon Venture Capital, Cyper Agent, Accord Ventures, and Mizuho Capital. The company has not disclosed any financial details including shareholdings ratio and payment date upon fundraising.

Userdive shows UI/UX (user interface and user experience) problems in a website for its owners by plotting them in a heat map. There are two services provided, Userdive for web apps (for desktop and mobile) and Userdive for native apps (for mobile). With these tools, as one example, it is possible to see where users mostly leave in an e-commerce site.

In addition, the company consults businesses using these tools, offering support services starting from identifying challenges to solving them through a PDCA cycle. These businesses include over 300 big names, such as Fuji Film (TSE:4901), Benesse Corporation (TSE:9783), and Nifty.

Uncover Truth plans to use the funds raised to advance their services by strengthening their consulting personnel, directors, and developers. To this aim they plan to double their current number of 30 team members.

Beginning with Google Analytics, using analytics tools as a means to improve websites is only natural. On the other hand, we have merely heard of website managers making full use of these tools to improve the day to day usage of their website. Instead, in nearly all cases it seems customary to outsource to web production companies, ad agencies, or consulting firms for the optimization process.

According to Keizo Ishikawa, the CEO of Uncover Truth, the company has grown by offering customers with these analysis tools to visualize challenges and then providing consulting services.

Take IDOM (formerly Gulliver International) for example, a used car sales company that put effort into their digital marketing. Through website improvements and accompanying support from Userdive, they succeeded in improving their monthly gross profit by 10 million yen (nearly $100,000). Although, for this level of support the large numbers of analysts and directors necessary for consulting are not very scalable, which is unsuitable for internet business.

uncover-truth-keizo-ishikawa — Uncover Truth CEO Keizo Ishikawa

Ishikawa also understands this drawback. He explained:

Our company so far is supporting everything from log analysis to the execution of plans A and B. The inability of companies to improve their websites is either due to the lack of skills or the lack of time. On the other hand, as you indicated, human consulting will not disappear, and so the automation of that will become our challenge to scale for the future.

Thus the team came up with a route to uncover problems in an efficient manner. According to Ishikawa, it usually takes an analyst anywhere from 20 to 50 hours to analyze one user flow of one website. If they can find a way to reduce this time even by a few seconds, it would lead to a considerable bump in efficiency.

From examples of past improvement cases, it has become possible for Userdive to some extent to grasp what kinds of data are produced and what kind of challenges websites face. Utilizing these types of data, they plan to use the funds to further develop a new system. In the event that this works well, they will be able to point out a website’s problems during the sign-up stage (before a full-scale detection of problems after the sign-up process), and possibly even more easily attract prospective users.

So to speak, they aim for early detection of website “cancer”, much in the same way a doctor recognizes it in his patients.

Their service is available for 700,000 yen (about $7,000) monthly, for companies looking to become a leading website and increase their monthly revenue on a million yen scale (around $10,000), as the aforementioned IDOM did.

Translated by Amanda Imakaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

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Japan’s Novars lands $1.2M to get anything battery-powered under control with ‘smart’ coppertop

Masaru Ikeda 2016.09.11

See the original story in Japanese. In a crowdfunding campaign back in November, the MaBeee dry cell-shaped IoT (Internet of Things) gadget raised more than $60,000, over 12 times the initial target. Tokyo-based Novars, the hardware startup behind the gadget, announced on Tuesday that it raised 120 million yen (or about $1.2 million) from Nissay Capital and Mizuho Capital. For Novars, this follows their previous funding of an undisclosed sum from Inclusion Japan in a seed round. The company claims that it will use the latest funds to develop apps for and new models of the gadget as well as promoting their business by adding people for sales and marketing efforts. MaBeee is an AA battery-shaped IoT device. By installing it into a dry cell-powered item, users can take a full control of the item using mobile via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). An example of use case is that putting the gadget into a Mini 4WD miniature model, where users can run or stop the model car by shaking their smartphone. The gadget has been available at Amazon.co.jp and other e-commerce platforms as well as major electronics retailers across Japan since this August. Navars was founded back in April of…

See the original story in Japanese.

In a crowdfunding campaign back in November, the MaBeee dry cell-shaped IoT (Internet of Things) gadget raised more than $60,000, over 12 times the initial target. Tokyo-based Novars, the hardware startup behind the gadget, announced on Tuesday that it raised 120 million yen (or about $1.2 million) from Nissay Capital and Mizuho Capital.

For Novars, this follows their previous funding of an undisclosed sum from Inclusion Japan in a seed round. The company claims that it will use the latest funds to develop apps for and new models of the gadget as well as promoting their business by adding people for sales and marketing efforts.

MaBeee is an AA battery-shaped IoT device. By installing it into a dry cell-powered item, users can take a full control of the item using mobile via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). An example of use case is that putting the gadget into a Mini 4WD miniature model, where users can run or stop the model car by shaking their smartphone. The gadget has been available at Amazon.co.jp and other e-commerce platforms as well as major electronics retailers across Japan since this August.

Navars was founded back in April of 2015 by CEO Akihiro Okabe. He was previously working at Seiko Instruments, a leading precision machinery maker in Japan, where he was involved in defining the communication standard of BT-Watch, a generic name of intelligent watches connecting via Bluetooth. Navars has been running a cross-company community for innovation called Yamiken (or 100-day lab), where the MaBeee device was born out of a participating engineer’s wish to play the “Plarail” toy train track system with his child by remotely controlling it.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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Japan’s Robofund gets $1M to help mutual fund brokerages better serve customers

Masaru Ikeda 2016.09.10

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based FinTech startup Robofund unveiled on Monday that they have raised 100 million yen (nearly $1 million) from Japanese startup-focused VC firm Incubate Fund. The company has developed an IVRS (interactive voice response system) for call centers for mutual fund customers. By introducing the system to securities companies and banks, customers will be able to check percentage changes and dividends of invested funds by automated voice over the phone. This system can adopt caller ID to automatically authenticate customers and update them on the status of their funds. For those unfamiliar with the use of internet or smartphones such as elderly investors, checking updates through web services or apps is difficult, but this service seeks to improve support for them. Satoshi Noguchi, previously having worked at SBI Veritrans, SBI Holdings, and Pictet Asset Management, established Robofund in May of 2016. Graduating from the first batch of Tokyo-based seed accelerator program Supernova (co-produced by Draper Nexus, Slogan, Coent Venture Partners, and Viling Venture Partners), Robofund then went on to win the program’s Demo Day back in July. In addition to IVRS, the company is also in the process of developing a chatbot to make it…

robofund-incubate-fund-team — From the left: Yusuke Murata (Managing Partner, Incubate Fund), Satoshi Noguchi (CEO, Robofund), Yudai Yamada (Associate, Incubate Fund)

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based FinTech startup Robofund unveiled on Monday that they have raised 100 million yen (nearly $1 million) from Japanese startup-focused VC firm Incubate Fund. The company has developed an IVRS (interactive voice response system) for call centers for mutual fund customers. By introducing the system to securities companies and banks, customers will be able to check percentage changes and dividends of invested funds by automated voice over the phone. This system can adopt caller ID to automatically authenticate customers and update them on the status of their funds. For those unfamiliar with the use of internet or smartphones such as elderly investors, checking updates through web services or apps is difficult, but this service seeks to improve support for them.

Satoshi Noguchi, previously having worked at SBI Veritrans, SBI Holdings, and Pictet Asset Management, established Robofund in May of 2016. Graduating from the first batch of Tokyo-based seed accelerator program Supernova (co-produced by Draper Nexus, Slogan, Coent Venture Partners, and Viling Venture Partners), Robofund then went on to win the program’s Demo Day back in July.

In addition to IVRS, the company is also in the process of developing a chatbot to make it possible to know fund distribution ratios and percentage changes. However, it appears the foundation for the business they are aiming for is elsewhere.

Noguchi explained:

Sales representatives of securities companies need to make the optimal choices from all 5,800 mutual funds available in Japan and propose them to the visiting customers over the counter on the spot. Without understanding those customer’s portfolios and investment strategies, it is difficult for these representatives to present the optimal options.

Robofund is developing, with these securities companies in mind, a service that by simply choosing conditions in line with the customers wishes, brings up combinations of the optimal mutual funds (see picture below).

Firstly, the company hopes to expand to securities companies looking to target customers seeking aggressive fund management (as opposed to customers concerned with saving), in addition to regional banks that carry out investment trust sales. Due to prolonged negative interest rates, for bankers from banks who have been selling financial products it is difficult to sell risky new goods. But with the use of Robofund’s services it will become easier for not only securities companies, but also banks to sell investment funds.

robofund-dashboard — Click to enlarge: The dashboard for securities companies’ representatives (under development)

In contrast with robo-advisors, a renowned business in the FinTech startup space which typically makes a direct approach to individual investors, Robofund takes a B2B business model and works with securities companies. Eventually, Noguchi wants to develop a robo-advisor, but there is an intentional reason he started with the B2B (business-to-business) model.

Noguchi continued:

I want mass data. If we would start with a B2C model, it would be impossible to collect statistics enough to analyze because we would be forced to start with the small number of customers and small trading transactions. Furthermore, I assume it’s skeptical about if robo-advisors can give customers truly-appropriate choices of funds back only by answering just a few questions.

By communicating over and over with customers it is necessary to teach the engine “what answer should be returned for people with this sort of problem”. From my previous job experience I have knowledge of example answers like those found in a dictionary, but in order to make them more objective, I thought it was necessary to put the dictionary into a chatbot and train it.

In other words, he started as a B2B business and cultivate the intelligence and communication knowhow, and then he appears to be planning to continue to expand into the B2C space．In order to provide to sell mutual funds as an extension from advisory services in Japan, companies have to be registered as a financial instruments business by the Japanese financial services agency. The time and expense required for completion of this registration process becomes a heavy burden for startups dealing with these businesses. Even from such a point of view, we could say taking a B2B approach makes sense.

Robofund is currently looking for promising engineers from the machine learning field, UI/UX designers, and database engineers specializing in NoSQL and RDB to assist in the acceleration of its service development.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

news

Japan’s SmartDrive unveils DriveOps to help optimize work efficiency with automobile big data

Takeshi Hirano 2016.09.03

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based SmartDrive, providing connected-car related services, this week announced the official launch of DriveOps which enables safe driving support through automobile condition management by connecting specialized devices to the cloud. DriveOps is a single-packaged cloud service including visualization of driving data or safe driving support for employees, as well as normal business support like expenditure management. Business operators that often use automobiles in daily work such as distribution companies can improve fuel consumption or work efficiency with it. The device for acquiring data from automobiles has become available for cigar sockets which does not depend on vehicle type, in addition to the conventional type for OBD (on-board diagnostics) port. The acquired data will be sent via smart devices installed specialized app with Bluetooth, or be directly sent with 3G network in another model. The monthly charge is 1,480 yen (about $15) at least per device and users must purchase a data communication device for each automobile. The SmartDrive team had been exploring business opportunities leveraging acquired automobile data by connecting communication devices onto OBD port for maintenance since 2014. As a result, the possibility seems to be expanding widely. CEO of the firm Retsu…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based SmartDrive, providing connected-car related services, this week announced the official launch of DriveOps which enables safe driving support through automobile condition management by connecting specialized devices to the cloud.

DriveOps is a single-packaged cloud service including visualization of driving data or safe driving support for employees, as well as normal business support like expenditure management. Business operators that often use automobiles in daily work such as distribution companies can improve fuel consumption or work efficiency with it.

The device for acquiring data from automobiles has become available for cigar sockets which does not depend on vehicle type, in addition to the conventional type for OBD (on-board diagnostics) port. The acquired data will be sent via smart devices installed specialized app with Bluetooth, or be directly sent with 3G network in another model. The monthly charge is 1,480 yen (about $15) at least per device and users must purchase a data communication device for each automobile.

The SmartDrive team had been exploring business opportunities leveraging acquired automobile data by connecting communication devices onto OBD port for maintenance since 2014. As a result, the possibility seems to be expanding widely. CEO of the firm Retsu Kitagawa explains the rise of the connected-car business.

Automobile data is required by insurance companies, automobile dealers, car lease companies, after-sales services or the semiconductor industry. The SmartDrive’s platform concept is to customize and provide big data on automobiles for such markets. For example, one of our partner Axa Direct Life Insurance provides a telematics insurance as its own product including the app, so we are a backroom boy completely.

The acquirable data covers a variety of information: driving distance, urgent brake usage history, speed excess and engine information about failure or fuel. The firm customizes these data as needed for each partner upon provision. This time, DriveOps was launched based on expectation of such a large demand.

See also:

Kitagawa comments on this:

For example, to business operators that need to use automobiles for business promotion, we provide information on how employees drive or whether they should use public transportation and then take automobile at the next office for better work efficiency by measuring driving distance or tracking routes (route search function is under development). There is a case where a 100-car company succeeded in cost reduction of 20 million yen (about $200,000) annually using our current information provision.

This does not mean there had been no way to know of automobile operation status. However, conventional devices like drive recorders or digital tachometers require troublesome mounting work and also cost hundreds of thousands of yen (thousands of dollars).

According to Kitagawa, the service interests major convenience store chains or distribution companies as he surmised. The firm plans to expand data coverage range utilizing on-vehicle camera and aims to realize a cloud service to increase efficiency of persons or businesses around automobiles in the future.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

news

Japanese flea market app Fril to be acquired by Rakuten: Nikkei

Takeshi Hirano 2016.09.03

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Fablic, the Japanese startup behind flea market app Fril, will be acquired by Rakuten for several billion yen (or several tens of million US dollars) and turned into an affiliate, as Nikkei reported early this morning. Combining with its own existing flea market app Rakuma, the e-commerce giant expects to grow its total trading volume up to about 3 billion yen (about $30 million). Founded in April of 2012, Fablic was born out of the 4th batch of the Open Network Lab accelerator and launched the app in September of the same year. The company introduced the concept of ‘flea market app’ for the first time in Japan. Followed by unveiling their trading volume hitting 500 million yen back in July of 2014, they secured a $10 million funding from Cookpad, Colopl and Jafco in October of said year. Fablic recently launched a new flea market app focused on trading motorcycles between individuals, called Ride, in an attempt to expand beyond fashion item peer-to-peer trading. While the app has been seeing a good growth, Mercari… another marketplace app from Japan launched in July of 2013… leapt forward and opened up a lead by…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Fablic, the Japanese startup behind flea market app Fril, will be acquired by Rakuten for several billion yen (or several tens of million US dollars) and turned into an affiliate, as Nikkei reported early this morning. Combining with its own existing flea market app Rakuma, the e-commerce giant expects to grow its total trading volume up to about 3 billion yen (about $30 million).

Founded in April of 2012, Fablic was born out of the 4th batch of the Open Network Lab accelerator and launched the app in September of the same year. The company introduced the concept of ‘flea market app’ for the first time in Japan. Followed by unveiling their trading volume hitting 500 million yen back in July of 2014, they secured a $10 million funding from Cookpad, Colopl and Jafco in October of said year.

Fablic recently launched a new flea market app focused on trading motorcycles between individuals, called Ride, in an attempt to expand beyond fashion item peer-to-peer trading. While the app has been seeing a good growth, Mercari… another marketplace app from Japan launched in July of 2013… leapt forward and opened up a lead by reaching 10 billion yen (about $100 million) in deals through the platform.

See also:

CNet Japan Startup Award nominees: Mobile C2C flea market apps – Fril and Mercari

We’ve contacted Fablic for comment and will update when we hear back.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

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