See the original story in Japanese. Mobile payments startup Coiney and online shop builder Stores.jp — both of Japan — announced on Wednesday that the two companies have set up a stock holding company called Hey, in order to integrate their business operations. Yusuke Sato, Director of FreakOut Holdings (TSE:6094), and Naoko Samata, co-founder and CEO of Coiney, were respectively appointed President and Executive Vice President of this holding company. Both Coiney and Stores.jp started their services back in 2012. Total volume transacted on these two platforms have grown 10 times in three years since their launch back in January of 2015. With the business merger, both companies will expand their target to small companies in rural areas of Japan and popular influencers such as merchants. We were told that the two platforms are planning to launch new services with the aim of helping merchants improve their business and service experience. Japanese mobile payments startup Coiney raises $7.1 million Japanese payments startup Coiney looks back on key metrics from its first year Japanese mobile payment startup Coiney starts selling its card reader on Amazon Japan Japanese mobile payments processor Coiney secures $8M in funding Japanese mobile payments processor Coiney raises…
L to R: Hey’s executive team – Ayana Tsukahara, Naoko Samata, Yusuke Sato, Yusuke Mitsumoto
Mobile payments startup Coiney and online shop builder Stores.jp — both of Japan — announced on Wednesday that the two companies have set up a stock holding company called Hey, in order to integrate their business operations. Yusuke Sato, Director of FreakOut Holdings (TSE:6094), and Naoko Samata, co-founder and CEO of Coiney, were respectively appointed President and Executive Vice President of this holding company.
Both Coiney and Stores.jp started their services back in 2012. Total volume transacted on these two platforms have grown 10 times in three years since their launch back in January of 2015. With the business merger, both companies will expand their target to small companies in rural areas of Japan and popular influencers such as merchants. We were told that the two platforms are planning to launch new services with the aim of helping merchants improve their business and service experience.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Ginco, the Japanese startup developing a multi-cryptocurrency wallet app, announced on Wednesday that it raised 150 million yen (about $1.4M US) from Global Brain in the seed round. The company is currently developing a wallet app called Ginco that corresponds to the Ethereum key currency ETH (Ether), planning to release the iOS version in early February and the Android version in May. The funds raised this time will be devoted to development and the consolidation of a marketing system. News of Coincheck’s NEM leakage has made headlines around the world, but one reason the damage has grown is that much of the cryptourrency held by users was stored on the exchange. There are cases where exchanges provide wallets, but startups developing cold wallets and hardware wallets are drawing attention globally as they also make it possible to trade cryptocurrencies across multiple exchanges, optimize asset allocation, and provide a certain level of storage security of cryptocurrencies. The ecosystem created by a blockchain, like various systems and networks, is easy to understand if you organize it by layer and progression as follows: Infrastructure > Enhanced Technologies > dApp (decentralized apps) > On-Chain function > Off-Chain…
Tokyo-based Ginco, the Japanese startup developing a multi-cryptocurrency wallet app, announced on Wednesday that it raised 150 million yen (about $1.4M US) from Global Brain in the seed round. The company is currently developing a wallet app called Ginco that corresponds to the Ethereum key currency ETH (Ether), planning to release the iOS version in early February and the Android version in May. The funds raised this time will be devoted to development and the consolidation of a marketing system.
News of Coincheck’s NEM leakage has made headlines around the world, but one reason the damage has grown is that much of the cryptourrency held by users was stored on the exchange. There are cases where exchanges provide wallets, but startups developing cold wallets and hardware wallets are drawing attention globally as they also make it possible to trade cryptocurrencies across multiple exchanges, optimize asset allocation, and provide a certain level of storage security of cryptocurrencies.
The ecosystem created by a blockchain, like various systems and networks, is easy to understand if you organize it by layer and progression as follows:
Infrastructure > Enhanced Technologies > dApp (decentralized apps) > On-Chain function > Off-Chain function
The primary focus of Ginco, its cryptocurrency wallet app, is centered around dApp and the On-Chain function, and the company plans to expand its business in a multifaceted manner while watching trends in the ecosystem development. In the future, we were told that they have the possibility of developing with DEXs (decentralized exchanges).
Ginco Image credit: Ginco
Ginco’s predecessor AltaApps is a blockchain technology developer and consultancy headed by Muuto Morikawa. Our readers may recall Morikawa was previously introduced as the COO of the startup Onokuwa, which develops its own currency called CLAP. Morikawa is involved in various projects based on blockchain, among which Ginco is the closest to consumers, and whether accidental or inevitable, it can be described as the timely solution that cryptocurrency holders need. Although Ginco initially only supports ETH, it will correspond to ERC 20, BTC, BCH, XRP, Ripple and so on in the future.
In only about one month since the establishment of the company, and with a few days still left from the launch of the teaser site, already 1,000 people have completed the pre-registration for sign-up. Currently, about 20 employees, including full-time, outsourced and part-time workers, are working hard towards the release of the wallet app. Among them are three app designers, and Morikawa remarked that he is particularly interested in pursuing user experience.
Global Brain, the sole investor this round, founded the new subsidiary GB Blockchain Labs (GBBL) last year, and in addition to creating new funds focused on blockchain startups, along with Omise it is deeply involved in nurturing blockchain startups and fostering communities. The investment in Ginco is a reflection of this strategy. Morikawa also talked heatedly of his vision for the future, saying that the key to the success of blockchain businesses lies in participating in the community and that Ginco hopes to coexist and gain mutual prosperity with blockchain startups like Omise / OmiseGo and cryptocurrency apps like Bread.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Zeals, providing messenger-driven interactive ad service Fanp, announced on Monday that it had raised 420 million yen (about $3.9 million) from JAFCO (TSE:8595) and FreakOut Holdings (TSE:6094, hereafter called FreakOut) in its series B round. This round succeeds the fundraising for a total amount of 80 million yen (estimated to be series A around) conducted last May and the one for an undisclosed amount (estimated to be seed round) conducted in January of 2015. For FreakOut, it is a follow-on investment continued from the previous round. The total amount of investment in Zeals is considered to exceed 500 million yen (about $4.6 million). Zeals explained about the purpose of this fundraising is to enhance system development capacity, human resource including communication designer (a new job for designing the conversation between machines) or marketing through Fanp promotion activities and events. The Zeals team currently consists of 16 members (and 11 outsourced staffers). According to CEO of Zeals Masahiro Shimizu, the communication designers play a key role in the business related to interactive ad services as growth hackers for A/B testing-based growth hack tools. As the author wrote about Infinity Venture Summit (IVS) held last…
Japan’s Zeals, providing messenger-driven interactive ad service Fanp, announced on Monday that it had raised 420 million yen (about $3.9 million) from JAFCO (TSE:8595) and FreakOut Holdings (TSE:6094, hereafter called FreakOut) in its series B round. This round succeeds the fundraising for a total amount of 80 million yen (estimated to be series A around) conducted last May and the one for an undisclosed amount (estimated to be seed round) conducted in January of 2015. For FreakOut, it is a follow-on investment continued from the previous round. The total amount of investment in Zeals is considered to exceed 500 million yen (about $4.6 million).
Zeals explained about the purpose of this fundraising is to enhance system development capacity, human resource including communication designer (a new job for designing the conversation between machines) or marketing through Fanp promotion activities and events. The Zeals team currently consists of 16 members (and 11 outsourced staffers). According to CEO of Zeals Masahiro Shimizu, the communication designers play a key role in the business related to interactive ad services as growth hackers for A/B testing-based growth hack tools.
As the author wrote about Infinity Venture Summit (IVS) held last December and there ZEALS won the 4th position, the firm had shifted the direction of development from the chatbot management tool to the conversational ads. Not a few web-based companies create landing pages for marketing. Unlike listing ads that aim to reach potential customers, in-feed ads linked to landing pages do not work effectively in most cases (Conversion Rate; CVR 0.8%).
Fanp (click to enlarge) Image credit: Zeals
On the other hand, the Fanp platform transfers users from in-feed ads to messengers in order to reach potential customers, and then provides interactive ads by chatbot. Acquiring user profile, it can also follow withdrawn users and urge them to access repeatedly by shifting display timing or changing approach means. With this system, CVR can be improved to 5.7% by seven times that of landing pages. Fanp has taken up 82.7% of domestic share in chatbot service field utilized for advertising (as of December 2017). The accumulated number of messages between users and chatbots is more than 42 million and the sales growth rate in MoM (month over month) reached 136% during the past six months.
Zeals had been developing and providing two versions of Fanp in accordance with the degree of communication design (chatbot responses): normal version for general businesses and light version for media. However, the firm currently concentrates its development resource to normal version because the sales amount gained from conversion is higher in general businesses. The company has not revealed the number of its customer, but it includes excellent companies providing web services with high unit price for users, such as Atrae operating the job-advertisement media Green, Career Design Center operating the career change website @type, Advance Create operating the insurance information website Hoken Ichiba, Investors Cloud operating the apartment management platform Tateru, Ajinomoto’s marketplace of healthy drink Glyna and Parente, in addition to Wave Contact dealing with contact lens.
Zeals has commenced provision of a consistent service including in-feed ads from the securement of traffic path to user transfer, and is also considering a plan to create its own chatbot and transfer users to its advertisers using this in the future. In Japan, Indeed which was purchased by Recruit (TSE:6098) or Tenshoku EX provided by ZIGExN (TSE:3679) are leading players as web-based user-transfer media while Zeals may envision that it can dominate the chatbot field by a method similar to them.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Styler, the Japanese startup offering an O2O (offline to online) support service for fashion and apparel stores called Facy, announced today that it has set up an office in Taiwan, officially launching the Facy Taiwanese version. The app is available for iOS and Android. Some of our readers may recall that the company has seen a sign preparing the Taiwan expansion by hiring local employees and launching a Facebook fanpage in Traditional Chinese. It took over half a year to prepare for their first overseas launch but finally their effort has seen the light of day. Initially launched in open beta under the previous name of Styler, the Facy app allows users to ask fashion retailers for advice on picking out outfits. In response to these requests, sales representatives at participating retailers will recommend which items users should buy. For retailers, the app works as an O2O (online-to-offline) platform that drives potential customers to real stores. In May of 2016 the app added a new social communication function that allows users to comment and ‘like’ other user’s posts, followed by rebranding and adding the commerce function that allows physical fashion and apparel stores…
Tokyo-based Styler, the Japanese startup offering an O2O (offline to online) support service for fashion and apparel stores called Facy, announced today that it has set up an office in Taiwan, officially launching the Facy Taiwanese version. The app is available for iOS and Android.
Some of our readers may recall that the company has seen a sign preparing the Taiwan expansion by hiring local employees and launching a Facebook fanpage in Traditional Chinese. It took over half a year to prepare for their first overseas launch but finally their effort has seen the light of day.
Initially launched in open beta under the previous name of Styler, the Facy app allows users to ask fashion retailers for advice on picking out outfits. In response to these requests, sales representatives at participating retailers will recommend which items users should buy. For retailers, the app works as an O2O (online-to-offline) platform that drives potential customers to real stores.
Styler’s Taiwan team working in Impact Hub Taipei Image credit: Styler
In May of 2016 the app added a new social communication function that allows users to comment and ‘like’ other user’s posts, followed by rebranding and adding the commerce function that allows physical fashion and apparel stores to easily set up their online storefront back in September last year. The company says they now have acquired about 500,000 monthly active users and have made monthly 4,520 matches between retailers and users.
About 70 fashion retailers in Taipei and Taichung are participating in the Facy Taiwan platform while featured articles posted on Facy are expected to be reproduced on Taiwan’s major media outlets such as GQ Taiwan, Vogue Taiwan, Line Taiwan, and Niusnews. The total number of likes on their Facebook fan pages for male and female customers in Taiwan are nearly double that targeting Japanese users. Since the company has been developing services for Asia from an office in Vietnam for some time, their further regional expansion beyond Taiwan can be also expected.
See the original story in Japanese. Kyoto-based Bertland, offering a SaaS (Software as a Service) based shipping and invoice issuing platform named Ship&co, announced ealier this month that it had fundraised 100 million yen (about $920,000) from Spiral Ventures in its pre-series A round. The money will be spent for recruitment of human resources and additional development of the system. BERTLAND was founded in November of 2008 by French entrepreneur Bertrand Thomas whose base for his activity is in Kyoto. Thomas came to Japan in 2003 to study at Kyoto University, and started writing a blog around 2005. His blog, dealing with Japanese culture, gradually became popular as to acquire 800-1,000 daily visitors. One day, Thomas wrote a post about Bento (Japanese lunch box). The post was received favorably by French readers and his friends, but it was pointed out that there is no means to purchase beautiful Bento boxes for people living abroad and that they have to depend on mail orders like eBay. Thomas sensed a business opportunity in this comment, and three weeks later, he launched an online marketplace dealing in Bento boxes named Bento&co using Shopify, with support from his wife and friends. Subsequently, he opened…
Bertrand Thomas, CEO of Ship&co Image credit: Ship&co
Kyoto-based Bertland, offering a SaaS (Software as a Service) based shipping and invoice issuing platform named Ship&co, announced ealier this month that it had fundraised 100 million yen (about $920,000) from Spiral Ventures in its pre-series A round. The money will be spent for recruitment of human resources and additional development of the system.
BERTLAND was founded in November of 2008 by French entrepreneur Bertrand Thomas whose base for his activity is in Kyoto.
Thomas came to Japan in 2003 to study at Kyoto University, and started writing a blog around 2005. His blog, dealing with Japanese culture, gradually became popular as to acquire 800-1,000 daily visitors. One day, Thomas wrote a post about Bento (Japanese lunch box). The post was received favorably by French readers and his friends, but it was pointed out that there is no means to purchase beautiful Bento boxes for people living abroad and that they have to depend on mail orders like eBay.
Thomas sensed a business opportunity in this comment, and three weeks later, he launched an online marketplace dealing in Bento boxes named Bento&co using Shopify, with support from his wife and friends. Subsequently, he opened a real shop Bento&co Kyoto in the Shinkyogoku area of Kyoto in 2012, and also started to exhibit products at various overseas events. The online shop has grown bigger as to receive orders from more than 100 countries.
One of the big problems that most e-commerce operators faced when their businesses have grown is the remarkable increase of product dispatch work. Especially for e-commerce operators who have to handle a lot of orders from overseas, it is common to reduce shipping fees by choosing suitable delivery companies according to transport destination. However, since each transportation operator has a unique format as to the invoice to be attached to a package, it is complicated to issue an invoice in handwriting or to properly use multiple invoice printing software provided by transportation operators. Additionally, customs invoices are needed for shipping overseas.
Ship&co (click to enlarge) Image credit: Ship&co
Thomas also considered a way to simplify the complicated work, and then he himself constructed a system, as Ship&co. The delivery companies that Ship&co cooperate with through API (Application Programming Interface) include Japan Post (international post / Yu-pack), FedEx, DHL, UPS, Sagawa and Yamato Transport (currently only its invoice-issuing system ‘C2’ is supported but ‘B2’ will also be supported from next month). It also covers e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, eBay, Base, PrestaShop, Magento, Amazon Marketplace, Rakuten, Next Engine, Stripe and WooCommerce, and plans to support Yahoo Shopping of Japan from next month.
Japanese delivery companies had been providing discount services to their customers in exchange for large-lot delivery orders. However, due to labor shortage in the delivery industry and the resulting rise in price therein, overseas shipping fee eventually becomes comparatively expensive as dependence on a certain transportation operator was born even for discount services.
Looking at global trends in this field, Shippo which raised $20 million in series B round last October, ShipStation which was purchased by Stamps.com (NYSE:STAMP) or ShippingEasy have gained power in the U.S. and Temando which was purchased by Neopost (EPA:NEO) appear to be in ascendancy in Australia, but Europe and Asia including Japan are still blue ocean markets.
Ship&co plans to cover La Poste of France in addition to Singapore Post and Australia Post, and will launch API enabling third-party developers to incorporate Ship&co into their own services around this summer. Looking to start overseas expansion, the firm is aiming for series A round fundraising in early 2019.
Ship&co is the first service listed on Shopify’s app store as a Japanese startup and is also recognized as the first FedEx Compatible Provider in the Asia-Pacific region. The firm aims to acquire approval of UPS Ready Provider as well in the future. The service will be showcased at E-commerce Fair 2018 Tokyo which will be held in Tokyo Big Sight, February 13th through 14th.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Spiral Ventures Japan announced the final closing of Spiral Ventures Japan Fund 1 with 7 billion yen (about $64 million US) limited partner commitments on Monday. The fund raise surpassed its initial target of 6 billion yen (about $55 million). Participating limited partners include Asics Ventures, Seino Holdings (TSE:9076), Tosho Printing (TSE:7913), Mori Trust, Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation – JAPAN, in addition to unnamed Japanese securities companies and foreign hedge funds. Spiral Ventures Japan announced the final closing of Spiral Ventures Japan Fund 1 with 7 billion yen (about $64 million US) limited partner commitments on Monday. The fundraise run surpassed its initial target of 6 billion yen (about $55 million). Participating limited partners include Asics Ventures, Seino Holdings (TSE:9076), Tosho Printing (TSE:7913), Mori Trust and Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation – JAPAN, in addition to unnamed Japanese securities companies and foreign hedge funds. The first fund is intended to invest in startups with focusing on “X-Tech” (fusion areas between Internet/technology and real industry), especially in two areas: industry-changing business and industry-creating business. The fund has invested a total of 2.1 billion yen ($19.3 million)…
Spiral Ventures Japan announced the final closing of Spiral Ventures Japan Fund 1 with 7 billion yen (about $64 million US) limited partner commitments on Monday. The fund raise surpassed its initial target of 6 billion yen (about $55 million). Participating limited partners include Asics Ventures, Seino Holdings (TSE:9076), Tosho Printing (TSE:7913), Mori Trust, Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation – JAPAN, in addition to unnamed Japanese securities companies and foreign hedge funds.
Spiral Ventures Japan announced the final closing of Spiral Ventures Japan Fund 1 with 7 billion yen (about $64 million US) limited partner commitments on Monday. The fundraise run surpassed its initial target of 6 billion yen (about $55 million). Participating limited partners include Asics Ventures, Seino Holdings (TSE:9076), Tosho Printing (TSE:7913), Mori Trust and Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation – JAPAN, in addition to unnamed Japanese securities companies and foreign hedge funds.
The first fund is intended to invest in startups with focusing on “X-Tech” (fusion areas between Internet/technology and real industry), especially in two areas: industry-changing business and industry-creating business. The fund has invested a total of 2.1 billion yen ($19.3 million) in 19 startups including OpenLogi (logistics), BizReach (human resource), Nurve (preliminary inspection of apartment rooms using virtual reality solutions), Z-Works (elderly caregiving solutions powered by Internet of Things) and Future Standard (rapid hardware/software prototyping). The fund’s typical investment size is 50 to 300 million yen ($460,000 to $2.8 million) for an early/middle-stage startup and up to 500 million yen ($4.6 million) for a later-stage startup.
See the original story in Japanese. The Global EdTech Startup Awards (GESA) is the world’s largest pitch completion focused on EdTech startups whose global finals event annually take place in London. Led by Israeli EdTech startup incubator MindCET, the initiative was jointly founded by European Union’s EdTech incubator Open Education Challenge and EdTech UK. Tokyo-based Arcterus, the Japanese startup behind study notes organizer app Clear, won the Japanese regional preliminary in December, and then won the 4th GESA world finals in London last week. The Arcterus team won the awards for the first time as a Japanese startup followed by the runner-up, Kenya’s mobile learning management platform M-Shule, and the 3rd place winner, India’s MentorMind, which helps students work on real-time work situations in the form of challenges put forth by companies. This year’s GESA has received 600 2,000 applications from more than 70 countries and regions around the world. 18 teams including Arcterus were chosen as global finalists this year while many of the judges came from EdTech-focused VC firms and other education-related organizations in eight countries. I’m so impressed that a Japanese startup won the competition where Asian teams had a less strong presence. As winner awards from…
Arcterus CEO Goichiro Arai receives the award at GESAwards 2017 Global Finals in London. Image credit: MindCET
The Global EdTech Startup Awards (GESA) is the world’s largest pitch completion focused on EdTech startups whose global finals event annually take place in London. Led by Israeli EdTech startup incubator MindCET, the initiative was jointly founded by European Union’s EdTech incubator Open Education Challenge and EdTech UK.
Tokyo-based Arcterus, the Japanese startup behind study notes organizer app Clear, won the Japanese regional preliminary in December, and then won the 4th GESA world finals in London last week. The Arcterus team won the awards for the first time as a Japanese startup followed by the runner-up, Kenya’s mobile learning management platform M-Shule, and the 3rd place winner, India’s MentorMind, which helps students work on real-time work situations in the form of challenges put forth by companies.
GESAwards 2017 Global Finalists Image credit: MindCET
This year’s GESA has received 600 2,000 applications from more than 70 countries and regions around the world. 18 teams including Arcterus were chosen as global finalists this year while many of the judges came from EdTech-focused VC firms and other education-related organizations in eight countries. I’m so impressed that a Japanese startup won the competition where Asian teams had a less strong presence. As winner awards from the competition organizer, Arcterus will receive support for their global expansion efforts in the educational ecosystem plus for public relations, in addition to mentorship and business assistance opportunities.
The Clear app has been especially attracting users in Asian markets including Japan where classmates and friends have a culture of teaching and helping each others while their entrance exams are fiercely competitive. Winning at the Western community-based competition in Europe will definitely help them expand beyond the Asian region. Arcterus CEO Goichiro Arai understood there could be a possibility of meeting the demand of the app in UK, France and Russia given how students in these markets may think in line with the GESA event attendee perspective while the company’s judgment for expansion will be based on a market survey.
Attendees at GESAwards 2017 Global Finals in London Image credit: EduLab
Since its launch four years ago, the app has acquired over 1.6 million downloads in the Asian region including more than 1.2 downloads in Japan alone. Considering the 7 million population of middle and high school students in Japan, 1 out of 2 students there use Clear. In addition, the company is offering the service in Thailand, Taiwan, China, Indonesia and Malaysia while planning to expand into Brazil, India and Vietnam after this year.
Besides Clear, Arcterus is handling a teaching tool for tutor school named Caiz or a individual tutoring cram school in the residential area of Ota City, Tokyo named Shiki Gakuin. The company raised about 130 million yen (about $1.05 million) from Startia (TSE:3393) and other companies in July of 2015, followed by securing 110 million yen ($1 million) series B round funding from The Asahi Gakusei Shimbun and Z-kai in 2016. They recently partner with Yoyogi Seminar Education Research Institute, the R&D arm of Japan’s leading cram school chain, to offer them with ClearS, a lecture support tool optimized for educational organizations.
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Goichiro Arai with his commemorative shield at GESAwards 2017 Global Finals Image credit: EduLab
At an emergency press briefing held on Friday midnight, Tokyo-based Coincheck — one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan — confirmed that they had just been hacked and lost 58 billion yen (about $530 million) worth of NEM, a new cryptocurrency especially popular among Japanese and Chinese crypto investors. The exchange was yet to be registered as an official dealer with the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) since they say the registration process takes a while due to the number of cryptocurrencies (13) to be dealt with. The company is still investigating how many users have been affected by the incident but says all NEM tokens stored in the exchange’s digital wallets have been lost. They have reported the issue to FSA and the Japanese National Police Agency, and have started exploring possibilities about how they can compensate customers for their damages in discussions with NEM Foundation. The company is currently suspending all dealing operations for NEM and all other cryptocurrencies on their exchange, forcing their customers to lose access for cash withdrawals. See also: Japan’s ResuPress launches online bitcoin exchange and payment gateway Coincheck Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
At an emergency press briefing held on Friday midnight, Tokyo-based Coincheck — one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan — confirmed that they had just been hacked and lost 58 billion yen (about $530 million) worth of NEM, a new cryptocurrency especially popular among Japanese and Chinese crypto investors. The exchange was yet to be registered as an official dealer with the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) since they say the registration process takes a while due to the number of cryptocurrencies (13) to be dealt with.
The company is still investigating how many users have been affected by the incident but says all NEM tokens stored in the exchange’s digital wallets have been lost. They have reported the issue to FSA and the Japanese National Police Agency, and have started exploring possibilities about how they can compensate customers for their damages in discussions with NEM Foundation. The company is currently suspending all dealing operations for NEM and all other cryptocurrencies on their exchange, forcing their customers to lose access for cash withdrawals.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokushima, Japan-based Amegumi announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised a total of 20 million yen (about $183K US) from angel investors Shogo Kawada (DeNA Co-founder) and Yuzuru Honda (FreakOut Founder). This follows the company’s previous funding last year (funding round and amount unknown) from Skyland Ventures and angel investor Shinji Yamamoto (former Far East Asia Co-Chairperson for AT Kearney and former Representative in Tokyo for Bain & Company). Amegumi has developed Sunblaze OS, a smartphone operating system focused on supporting minimal functions. The company aims to develop inexpensive smartphones at around 5,000 yen (about $46 US) for markets such as Asia and Africa, specializing in users who do not use games or watch videos, and are satisfied with social network, search and other minimal functions. Amegumi completed the Sunblaze OS prototype in December of last year, and said that funds raised this time will be used to add talented people to its team who can be responsible for OS development and sales. Amegumi plans to utilize EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Service) in China to manufacture smartphones, but it faces the challenge of building sales networks around the world. It will search for possible alliances…
L to R: Shogo Kawada, Eisuke Tokiwa (Founder/CEO of Amegumi), and Yuzuru Honda Image credit: Amegumi
Tokushima, Japan-based Amegumi announced on Wednesday that it has fundraised a total of 20 million yen (about $183K US) from angel investors Shogo Kawada (DeNA Co-founder) and Yuzuru Honda (FreakOut Founder). This follows the company’s previous funding last year (funding round and amount unknown) from Skyland Ventures and angel investor Shinji Yamamoto (former Far East Asia Co-Chairperson for AT Kearney and former Representative in Tokyo for Bain & Company).
Amegumi has developed Sunblaze OS, a smartphone operating system focused on supporting minimal functions. The company aims to develop inexpensive smartphones at around 5,000 yen (about $46 US) for markets such as Asia and Africa, specializing in users who do not use games or watch videos, and are satisfied with social network, search and other minimal functions. Amegumi completed the Sunblaze OS prototype in December of last year, and said that funds raised this time will be used to add talented people to its team who can be responsible for OS development and sales.
Amegumi plans to utilize EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Service) in China to manufacture smartphones, but it faces the challenge of building sales networks around the world. It will search for possible alliances through open innovation in the future, especially with leading telcos, ad agencies, app developers, IoT product developers and other companies.
A smartphone prototype running on the Sunblaze OS Image credit: Amegumi
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Crowd Realty, which provides the real estate-specific crowdfunding platform under the same name, announced in late December that it has fundraised from Mitsubishi Estate (TSE: 8802), Shinsei Corporate Investment, Shinsei Bank, and Mizuho Capital. This is a follow-on of the series A round that the company announced last month (which raised a total of 350 million yen from Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Kabu.com Securities), and the amount of money procured this time around was 230 million yen (about $2.1M US). The total procurement for the series A round combined with last month’s is 580 million yen (around $5.2M US). Crowd Realty was established in December of 2014. The company secures seed funding (estimated to be in the tens of millions of yen) from Global Brain in November of 2015, followed by 20 million yen (about $181K US) from the SBI FinTech Fund in December of 2016. Regarding the meaning behind the funds raised this time, Crowd Realty Founder & CEO Takeshi Kito explained through a comparison to REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) in an interview for The Bridge. With REIT, when an estate (issuer) intends to raise funds, an…
The webpage of “Kyomachiya No. 2 Fund” that made use of Umamachi, Kyoto’s historical townhouses Image credit: Crowd Realty
Tokyo-based Crowd Realty, which provides the real estate-specific crowdfunding platform under the same name, announced in late December that it has fundraised from Mitsubishi Estate (TSE: 8802), Shinsei Corporate Investment, Shinsei Bank, and Mizuho Capital. This is a follow-on of the series A round that the company announced last month (which raised a total of 350 million yen from Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Kabu.com Securities), and the amount of money procured this time around was 230 million yen (about $2.1M US). The total procurement for the series A round combined with last month’s is 580 million yen (around $5.2M US).
Crowd Realty was established in December of 2014. The company secures seed funding (estimated to be in the tens of millions of yen) from Global Brain in November of 2015, followed by 20 million yen (about $181K US) from the SBI FinTech Fund in December of 2016.
Crowd Realty Founder & CEO Takeshi Kito Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
Regarding the meaning behind the funds raised this time, Crowd Realty Founder & CEO Takeshi Kito explained through a comparison to REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) in an interview for The Bridge. With REIT, when an estate (issuer) intends to raise funds, an investment bank intervenes to provide access to the market (investor). In real estate crowdfunding, Crowd Realty aims to create an environment where real estate properties and markets (investors) can trade.
The Real Estate Specified Joint Enterprise Act was partially revised in 2017, and as long as it is within the scope of small recruitment, the environment for new entrepreneurs to enter real estate crowdfunding has been set up. Kito believes that a number of successive new entrants may join real estate crowdfunding much like what occurred several years ago in the field of general crowdfunding.
When this happens, Crowd Realty will not only act as a real estate crowdfunding company, but also as a platform that can participate in the market on behalf of other real estate crowdfunding companies. As more and more businesses participate, the market for real estate crowdfunding will become increasingly liquid. As the name direct financing indicates, Kito said he would like to aim for the formation of a P2P market, which connects real estate properties directly with investors.
To realize Kito’s vision it becomes necessary to develop and introduce a dApp (decentralized app) so that proper transactions are guaranteed even in the absence of an authority. Kito is not one to be swayed by buzzwords, and during the interview he avoided terms like Blockchain and smart contracts, but in reality it seems these techniques will become the nucleus for the realization of Dapps.
Business collaboration scheme with major investors joining this round Image credit: Crowd Realty
In order to be a platformer, neutrality is required for all businesses that trade on that platform. Crowd Realty has so far procured funds from multiple companies and VC firms across varying industries, and such a background seems to be affecting the company. If the liquidity of securities cannot be secured in the market, transactions will not be established, but in the world of crowdfunding, it will become important for the company to foster communities that are frequently talked about with ICO (initial coin offering).
In the future, Crowd Realty would like to directly or indirectly engage in the formation of international nonprofit groups and consortiums to optimize the ecosystem, distributed networks, global institutions and regulations.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
Masaru Ikeda
