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Japanese rocket developer Interstellar Technologies closes series D round with $30M

Interstellar Technologies

The Bridge 2023.01.16

Headquartered in Hokkaido, Japanese space startup Intersteller Technologies announced on Monday that it has closed a series D round with 3.8 billion yen (about $30 million US) in funding. The round brought the company’s funding sum up to date to over 5.4 billion yen (over $42 million US) as far as we know. Investors participating in the round, including those previously announced, are: SBI Investment Nisso Kosan (TSE: 6569) Satudra Holdings (TSE: 3544) Reiichi Sasaki (President, Ichigo Ventures) De Aardappeleters Norimasa Yamamoto (President, Heiwa Shuzo) Kazunori Asada (Chairman, Howdy) Hiroshi Yamamoto (Representative Director, Smaregi) Suncor Industries CyberAgent (TSE: 4751) Teruyasu Nishino (President, Yuko Kai) INCLUSIVE Makoto Fujita (CEO, Inclusive Seven Stars Capital Onsen Dojo Masaki Yamamoto (CEO, Chatwork) RDS Mizuki Nakajima (CEO, Coly) Anna Nakajima (Co-founder, Coly) IMV (TSE: 7760) Tomoya Nakano (President/CEO, i-plug) Kadokawa (TSE: 9468) Hagiwara Construction Industries Interstellar Technologies’ MOMO No. 7 and MOMO No. 6 rockets reached space in July of 2021, which let the company mark three successes in terms of reaching space with the MOMO No. 3 rocket launched back in May of 2019. The company is currently in full-scale development of the ZERO rocket which is aimed to be launched in FY2023. The…

The Interstellar Technologies team
Image credit: Interstellar Technologies

Headquartered in Hokkaido, Japanese space startup Intersteller Technologies announced on Monday that it has closed a series D round with 3.8 billion yen (about $30 million US) in funding. The round brought the company’s funding sum up to date to over 5.4 billion yen (over $42 million US) as far as we know. Investors participating in the round, including those previously announced, are:

SBI Investment
Nisso Kosan (TSE: 6569)
Satudra Holdings (TSE: 3544)
Reiichi Sasaki (President, Ichigo Ventures)
De Aardappeleters
Norimasa Yamamoto (President, Heiwa Shuzo)
Kazunori Asada (Chairman, Howdy)
Hiroshi Yamamoto (Representative Director, Smaregi)
Suncor Industries
CyberAgent (TSE: 4751)
Teruyasu Nishino (President, Yuko Kai)
INCLUSIVE
Makoto Fujita (CEO, Inclusive
Seven Stars Capital
Onsen Dojo
Masaki Yamamoto (CEO, Chatwork)
RDS
Mizuki Nakajima (CEO, Coly)
Anna Nakajima (Co-founder, Coly)
IMV (TSE: 7760)
Tomoya Nakano (President/CEO, i-plug)
Kadokawa (TSE: 9468)
Hagiwara Construction Industries

Interstellar Technologies’ MOMO No. 7 and MOMO No. 6 rockets reached space in July of 2021, which let the company mark three successes in terms of reaching space with the MOMO No. 3 rocket launched back in May of 2019. The company is currently in full-scale development of the ZERO rocket which is aimed to be launched in FY2023. The funds will be used for research and development, capital investment, hiring talents, and material costs to further accelerate the development of the ZERO rocket.

Interstellar Technologies aims to realize a future in which space is within reach for everyone by providing low-cost, convenient space transportation services. Establishing its satellite development-focused subsidiary Our Stars in early 2021, the company is working on offering rockets and satellites in an one-stop solution. In recent years, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Japan and Western countries have been unable to use Russian rockets, which used to account for about 20% of the world’s space transportation, and Interstellar Technologies sees this situation as a tailwind for its business.

via PR Times

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Japanese sake brewer Wakaze secures $7.6M series B to boost US, China expansion

Wakaze

The Bridge 2023.01.12

Japanese sake brewing startup Wakaze announced on Wednesday that it has secured about 1 billion yen (about $7.5 million) in a series B round. The round was led by Jafco Group (TSE:8595) with participation from Takara Holdings (TSE:2531), DBJ Capital, Egg Forward, SMBC Venture Capital in addition to an unnamed angel investor. This brought their funding sum to date up to about 1.5 billion yen ($11.3 million) as far as disclosed. Jafco Group followed their series A round investment. Wakaze will use the funds to expand its business in Europe, the U.S., and the Asian region centered on China through strenthening advertising, establishing an office and hiring personnel in the U.S. in addition to expanding its production facilities in France. The company has partnered with Takara Holdings, one of the investors in this round, to produce Wakaze’s sake products at the manufacturing facility of Takara’s US subsidiary, and will also consider similar expansion efforts in China. Wakaze aims to bring the wave of craft sake and D2C to the world of sake. Prior to founding the company back in 2016, CEO Takuma Inagawa studied at the École Centrale Paris as a French government scholarship student and then worked as a…

Japanese sake brewing startup Wakaze announced on Wednesday that it has secured about 1 billion yen (about $7.5 million) in a series B round. The round was led by Jafco Group (TSE:8595) with participation from Takara Holdings (TSE:2531), DBJ Capital, Egg Forward, SMBC Venture Capital in addition to an unnamed angel investor. This brought their funding sum to date up to about 1.5 billion yen ($11.3 million) as far as disclosed. Jafco Group followed their series A round investment.

Wakaze will use the funds to expand its business in Europe, the U.S., and the Asian region centered on China through strenthening advertising, establishing an office and hiring personnel in the U.S. in addition to expanding its production facilities in France. The company has partnered with Takara Holdings, one of the investors in this round, to produce Wakaze’s sake products at the manufacturing facility of Takara’s US subsidiary, and will also consider similar expansion efforts in China.

Wakaze aims to bring the wave of craft sake and D2C to the world of sake. Prior to founding the company back in 2016, CEO Takuma Inagawa studied at the École Centrale Paris as a French government scholarship student and then worked as a business strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. In addition to developing new sake brewing recipes in Japan’s eastern prefecture of Yamagata, the company established a sake brewery called Kura Grand Paris in Suburban Paris back in November of 2019 to offer locally brewed Japanese sake for the French market.

via PR Times

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Japanese founder-led employee benefit platform Venteny files for IPO in Indonesia

Venteny

SCORE 19,300,196

Masaru Ikeda 2022.11.24

Jakarta, Indonesia-based VENTENY Fortuna International announced on Thursday that its application to list on the Indonesia Stock Exchange has been approved. The company will be the first Japanese founder-led startup to be listed in the Southeast Asia region. It secured seed round funding back in February of 2017 followed by series A round funding from SV-FINTECH Fund managed by Voyage Group (now known as Carta Holdings, TSE:3688) and SV Frontier in December of 2017. It subsequently became an equity-method affiliate of Carta Holdings. In Southeast Asian countries, the lack of educational endowment insurance and health insurance systems means that many employees do not have the means to pay for their family’s higher education, medical care, or other needs. On the other hand, there are no financial services available for individuals to easily obtain loans, and corporate employees often tend to change jobs based simply on the amount of money they are paid, not on job content or job satisfaction. Financial inclusion, which aims to solve these money pains, is a bustling business area where fintech startups in the region are jostling for ideas. Venteny was founded in April of 2015 by Japanese entrepreneur Junichiro Waide, with headquarters in Singapore. Initially,…

Jakarta, Indonesia-based VENTENY Fortuna International announced on Thursday that its application to list on the Indonesia Stock Exchange has been approved. The company will be the first Japanese founder-led startup to be listed in the Southeast Asia region. It secured seed round funding back in February of 2017 followed by series A round funding from SV-FINTECH Fund managed by Voyage Group (now known as Carta Holdings, TSE:3688) and SV Frontier in December of 2017. It subsequently became an equity-method affiliate of Carta Holdings.

In Southeast Asian countries, the lack of educational endowment insurance and health insurance systems means that many employees do not have the means to pay for their family’s higher education, medical care, or other needs. On the other hand, there are no financial services available for individuals to easily obtain loans, and corporate employees often tend to change jobs based simply on the amount of money they are paid, not on job content or job satisfaction. Financial inclusion, which aims to solve these money pains, is a bustling business area where fintech startups in the region are jostling for ideas.

Venteny was founded in April of 2015 by Japanese entrepreneur Junichiro Waide, with headquarters in Singapore. Initially, the company launched a corporate benefits outsourcing service business in the Philippines, which had grown to include more than 200 companies thanks to successful partnerships with major local banks and other organizations in the country. User companies allow their employees to receive benefits and discounts at city facilities and stores, as well as short-term loans in advance of their payday. Needless to say, this is an effective way for companies to motivate their employees to keep working as long as possible.

Venteny’s Super App
Image credit: Venteny

Just when all was going well, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic hit them. With all companies forced to either shut down or slow down thei business, Waide decided to close his Philippine operations out of sheer desperation, as he saw no growth potential. He rebuilt Venteny’s business from scratch in Indonesia and expanded the business by serving local companies. The company was eventually permitted to go public, approximately as early as three and a half years after taking the helm in the new market (the headquarters was officially moved to Indonesia in January of 2021).

This service was made possible by allowing Venteny’s client companies to provide loans to their employees as long as the company’s creditworthiness could be verified. In Indonesia, the company has launched an unsecured low-interest loan service not only for individuals, but also for small and micro businesses. Having four offices in Indonesia, the company plans to increase it to 15 next year as well as reactivating in the Philippines and expansion into Thailand and Vietnam.

Added at 6pm J.S.T., Nov.24.:

According to the prospectus, Venteny plans to sell 939 million shares, or a 15% stake, through the IPO at a price of Rp350-450 per share (about $0.022-0.029 US), with a target maximum raise of Rp423 billion ($27 million US). The company’s market cap, based on these values, is assumed to be Rp2.8 trillion rupiah (approximately $180 million US).

Revised at 6pm J.S.T., Nov. 25.:

Led by Carta Holdings (TSE:3688, 24.77%), the company’s main shareholders include CEO Waide (24.51%), Ocean Capital (13.06%), SBI Holdings (TSE:8473, 11.62%), KK Fund (10.37%), Relo Club (8.83%), SV-FINTECH (2.91%), Karya Bersama Bangsa (1.22%), Makoto Takano (0.39%), and Mamoru Taniya (0.39%).

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Japan’s social publishing platform Note files for IPO

Note

SCORE 19,465,543

The Bridge 2022.11.19

Tokyo-based Note, the Japanese startup behind a social publishing platform under the same name, announced on Friday that its initial listing application on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on December 21 with plans to offer 210,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 191,800 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 1,069,300 shares. The underwriting will be led by Daiwa Securities while Note’s ticker code will be 5243. Based on the company’s estimated issue price is 300 yen (about $2.1) per share, its market cap is approximately 4.4 billion yen (about $31 million). The company apparently decided to have a down-round IPO, a steep discount from its private valuation of 33.8 billion yen (about $260 million in the currency exchange rate then) confirmed in a pre-IPO round back in May. Its share price range will be released on December 5 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on December 6 and pricing on December 12. The final public offering price will be determined on December 13. According to its consolidated statement as of December of 2021, the company posted revenue of 1.88 billion yen ($13.4 million) with an ordinary…

Tokyo-based Note, the Japanese startup behind a social publishing platform under the same name, announced on Friday that its initial listing application on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on December 21 with plans to offer 210,000 shares for public subscription and to sell 191,800 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 1,069,300 shares. The underwriting will be led by Daiwa Securities while Note’s ticker code will be 5243.

Based on the company’s estimated issue price is 300 yen (about $2.1) per share, its market cap is approximately 4.4 billion yen (about $31 million). The company apparently decided to have a down-round IPO, a steep discount from its private valuation of 33.8 billion yen (about $260 million in the currency exchange rate then) confirmed in a pre-IPO round back in May.

Its share price range will be released on December 5 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on December 6 and pricing on December 12. The final public offering price will be determined on December 13. According to its consolidated statement as of December of 2021, the company posted revenue of 1.88 billion yen ($13.4 million) with an ordinary loss of 434.5 million yen ($3.1 million).

Under its previous name of Piece of Cake, Note was founded in December of 2011 by Sadaaki Kato, previously a book editor at Japanese publishers like Ascii and Diamond. The company initially launched a service called Cakes, which had been providing users with content created by multiple authors on a subscription basis, but it terminated in 2022. The company then launched the Note platform, which allows users to sell user-generated content to readers in what’s called C2C (consumer-to-consumer) format.

The platform is often compared to Medium because of its appearance, but Medium asks readers to pay for good content while Note charges readers and also collects fees from content writers. In March of 2019, the company launched a service called Note Pro, which makes it easy for companies to create their owned media.

Led by founder and CEO Sadaaki Kato (34.87%), the company’s main shareholders include Femto Growth Capital holds (13.11% through two funds), Nikkei (6.07%), Tencent’s Image Frame Investment (5.94%), Jafco (5.82%), CyberAgent Capital (4.35%), UUUM (TSE: 3990, 2.51%), TV Tokyo Holdings (TSE: 9413, 2.51%), and SMBC Venture Capital (2.02%).

via JPX

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Japan’s brand enablement platform AnyMind Group files for IPO

AnyMind Group (previously AdAsia Holdings)

The Bridge 2022.11.16

Tokyo-headquartered AnyMind Group, running its business mainly in Japan and other Asian countries, announced on Tuessday that its IPO application to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on December 15 with plans to offer 885,300 shares for public subscription and to sell 403,400 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 1,804,200 shares. The underwriting will be led by Mizuho Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities while AnyMind’s ticker code will be 5027. Based on the company’s estimated issue price is 970 yen (about $7) per share, its market cap is approximately 55.3 billion yen (about $400 million). Its share price range will be released on November 29 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on November 30 and pricing on December 6. The final public offering price will be determined on December 7. According to its consolidated statement as of December of 2021, the company posted revenue of 19.3 billion yen ($138 million) with an ordinary loss of 53.1 million yen ($381,000). AnyMind was founded in Singapore in 2016 by Kosuke Ufuka (CEO) and Yukihiko Komutsumi (Chief Commercial Officer) under its original name of AdAsia Holdings. The…

Tokyo-headquartered AnyMind Group, running its business mainly in Japan and other Asian countries, announced on Tuessday that its IPO application to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved. The company will be listed on the TSE Growth Market on December 15 with plans to offer 885,300 shares for public subscription and to sell 403,400 shares in over-allotment options for a total of 1,804,200 shares. The underwriting will be led by Mizuho Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities while AnyMind’s ticker code will be 5027.

Based on the company’s estimated issue price is 970 yen (about $7) per share, its market cap is approximately 55.3 billion yen (about $400 million). Its share price range will be released on November 29 with bookbuilding scheduled to start on November 30 and pricing on December 6. The final public offering price will be determined on December 7. According to its consolidated statement as of December of 2021, the company posted revenue of 19.3 billion yen ($138 million) with an ordinary loss of 53.1 million yen ($381,000).

AnyMind was founded in Singapore in 2016 by Kosuke Ufuka (CEO) and Yukihiko Komutsumi (Chief Commercial Officer) under its original name of AdAsia Holdings. The company provides brands with a one-stop platform supporting production management, e-commerce, marketing, and logistics management, and currently has 19 offices in 13 countries and regions, mainly in Asia.

The company’s IPO application to the Mothers market was approved by the Tokyo Stock Exchange in February, but the listing was later postponed due to cooling investor sentiment in the wake of Russia’s invasion to Ukraine.

Led by co-founder and CEO Kosuke Sogo (37.21%), the company’s major shareholders include co-founder and CCO Otohiko Kozutsumi (9.54%), SMBC Trust Bank (6.77%), JATF VI (6.63%), JAFCO Asia (4.81%), JIC Venture Growth (3.92%), JP Investment (2.86%), Japan Growth Capital Investment (managed by Nomura Sparx Investment, 2.42%).

See also:

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Japan’s FinTech unicorn Opn acquires US payments startup MerchantE

Opn

The Bridge 2022.11.16

Tokyo-based payments startup Opn (formerly Omise, formerly Synqa) just announced that it has acquired acquired MerchaneE, the startup running the same business based out of Georgia, US. The deal is reportedly worth 50 billion yen (about $360 million). Nikkei says this is one of the largest acquisitions of a foreign company by a Japanese startup. While Opn has many clients in Japan and Southeast Asia, it aims to expand into the US and Europe with the acquisition. This will make Opn’s client base, including MerchantE, reach over 20,000 clients and help them hit over US$19 billion in total payment processing. Opn (formerly Omise, formerly Synqa) was founded in 2013 by CEO Jun Hasegawa and COO Ezra Don Harinsut. The company secured $120 million US in a Series C+ round in May, which made them become Japan’s 5th unicorn (excluding those which have already made exit). Their clients include Toyota Motor and Thai duty-free giant King Power. The company claims that it serves more than 7,000 merchants, mainly in Japan and Southeast Asia, including McDonald’s and Toyota Motor.

Tokyo-based payments startup Opn (formerly Omise, formerly Synqa) just announced that it has acquired acquired MerchaneE, the startup running the same business based out of Georgia, US. The deal is reportedly worth 50 billion yen (about $360 million). Nikkei says this is one of the largest acquisitions of a foreign company by a Japanese startup. While Opn has many clients in Japan and Southeast Asia, it aims to expand into the US and Europe with the acquisition. This will make Opn’s client base, including MerchantE, reach over 20,000 clients and help them hit over US$19 billion in total payment processing.

Opn (formerly Omise, formerly Synqa) was founded in 2013 by CEO Jun Hasegawa and COO Ezra Don Harinsut. The company secured $120 million US in a Series C+ round in May, which made them become Japan’s 5th unicorn (excluding those which have already made exit). Their clients include Toyota Motor and Thai duty-free giant King Power. The company claims that it serves more than 7,000 merchants, mainly in Japan and Southeast Asia, including McDonald’s and Toyota Motor.

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Video translation, subtitling platform Auris secures $1.3M to add synthesized voice-over function

Masaru Ikeda 2022.11.14

Singapore-based AI Communis, the startup behind the platform integrating speech recognition and natural language processing technologies, announced on Monday that it has raised $1.3 million US in a seed round. Participating investors include UTokyo Innovation Platform (UTokyo IPC), DG Incubation, The Seed in addition to several unnamed angel investors. This follows their extended angel round back in April when The Seed previously invested in the company. The latest round brought their funding sum up to $2.1 million US. AI Communis was founded in April of 2020 by Nobuhiko Suzuki, who has been dealing with the business of translating, adding subtitles, and editing video clips. These multilingulization processes, especially needed for global marketing, had been handled manually for a long time, but the significantly improved accuracy of automation tools such as Amazon Transcribe, DeepL, Google Translate has recently made it possible to be mostly automated. The company launched a web app called Auris last year, which allows users to handle a series of tasks such as translation, subtitling, and video editing in a cloud environment. It currently supports 16 languages spoken across the Asian region, and has 87,000 users from 110 countries as of this month. Leveraging the app, the company…

Singapore-based AI Communis, the startup behind the platform integrating speech recognition and natural language processing technologies, announced on Monday that it has raised $1.3 million US in a seed round. Participating investors include UTokyo Innovation Platform (UTokyo IPC), DG Incubation, The Seed in addition to several unnamed angel investors. This follows their extended angel round back in April when The Seed previously invested in the company. The latest round brought their funding sum up to $2.1 million US.

AI Communis was founded in April of 2020 by Nobuhiko Suzuki, who has been dealing with the business of translating, adding subtitles, and editing video clips. These multilingulization processes, especially needed for global marketing, had been handled manually for a long time, but the significantly improved accuracy of automation tools such as Amazon Transcribe, DeepL, Google Translate has recently made it possible to be mostly automated.

The company launched a web app called Auris last year, which allows users to handle a series of tasks such as translation, subtitling, and video editing in a cloud environment. It currently supports 16 languages spoken across the Asian region, and has 87,000 users from 110 countries as of this month. Leveraging the app, the company launched a new business where crowdsourced gig workers help influencers and company marketers turn their video clips into any of these different languages.

With the academic guidance from speech synthesis researcher Dr. Shinnosuke Takamichi, the company started a new development this summer to add an interpreted voice-over function to the platform. Dr. Takamichi is Assistant Professor at Saruwatari & Koayama lab., Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, University of Tokyo. If the implemntation comes true, this will enable interpreted voice dubbing as well as translation subtitling, which is expected to further expand its applications. It is unclear whether the phonemes of the dubbed synthetic voice will be based on on the original speaker’s audio.

AI Communis will use the funds to improve transcription and video editing functions for YouTubers and marketing video creators in aim to offer an easy localization experience when transmitting content in their non-native languages. The company aims to implement the voice-over function by next spring. Going forward, the company plans to expand its business in the markets having many heavy Auris users among Japan and Southeast Asian countries.

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Japan’s carbon emissions management platform expands into Singapore

The Bridge 2022.11.09

Japanese ClimateTech startup Asuene announced on Monday that it has established a subsidiary called Asuzero Singapore. The company will provide the Asuzero GHG (green house gas) emission management platform as well as one-stop service to companies in the region for their decarbonization effort. Asuzero was established in October 2019 by Kohei Nishiwada, who previously worked for Mitsui & Co. on renewable energy-related projects around the world. The company offers Asuene and Asuzero. Asuene offers clean power that enables 100% renewable energy, local production for local consumption, and cost reduction while Asuzero is a cloud service that visualizes CO₂ emissions and enables carbon offsets. To date, the company has secured approximately 2.9 billion yen (about $20 million US) in funding. Pavillion Capital under Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s state-run investment firm, and Axiom Asia, a private equity fund focused on the Asia-Pacific region, invested in the company in a Series B round this year. At the time of the funding, the company unveiled that it would start its Asian expansion. via PR Times

Japanese ClimateTech startup Asuene announced on Monday that it has established a subsidiary called Asuzero Singapore. The company will provide the Asuzero GHG (green house gas) emission management platform as well as one-stop service to companies in the region for their decarbonization effort.

Asuzero was established in October 2019 by Kohei Nishiwada, who previously worked for Mitsui & Co. on renewable energy-related projects around the world. The company offers Asuene and Asuzero. Asuene offers clean power that enables 100% renewable energy, local production for local consumption, and cost reduction while Asuzero is a cloud service that visualizes CO₂ emissions and enables carbon offsets.

To date, the company has secured approximately 2.9 billion yen (about $20 million US) in funding. Pavillion Capital under Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s state-run investment firm, and Axiom Asia, a private equity fund focused on the Asia-Pacific region, invested in the company in a Series B round this year. At the time of the funding, the company unveiled that it would start its Asian expansion.

via PR Times

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Japanese AR sports platformer Meleap raises $3.5M from China’s QC Investment, others

Hado
Meleap

The Bridge 2022.11.08

Tokyo-based Meleap, the Japanese startup offering the Hado Augmented Reality-powered sports in 39 countries, announced on Monday that it has secured 510 million yen (about $3.5 million US) in the latest round. The round is led by Shanghai-based QC Investment with participation from Incubate Fund, Horipro Group Holdings, Kiraboshi Capital, CiP Fund (managed by Eltes, Tokyu Land Corporation, Kajima Corporation, and East Investment Capital GP), and Waki Planning. This follows an investment from Interwars last December. In November last year, the company concluded a business and capital alliance with Horipro to create the “Talent League” (teams comprising of TV personalities as players) while having secured funds from Incubate Fund several times in the past. The latest round brought the company’s funding sum up to 2.2 billion yen ($15 million US). They will use the funds to accelerate its global expansion, market the Talent League, and strengthen its recruitment efforts. Hiroshi Fukuda (current CEO of Meleap), previously of Recruit, and Hitoshi Araki (current CTO of Meleap), previously of Fujitsu, established Meleap in 2014. The company has developed AR games that allow players to perform moves similar to the Kamehameha and Hadouken waves we have seen in animation series, and has 109…

Tokyo-based Meleap, the Japanese startup offering the Hado Augmented Reality-powered sports in 39 countries, announced on Monday that it has secured 510 million yen (about $3.5 million US) in the latest round. The round is led by Shanghai-based QC Investment with participation from Incubate Fund, Horipro Group Holdings, Kiraboshi Capital, CiP Fund (managed by Eltes, Tokyu Land Corporation, Kajima Corporation, and East Investment Capital GP), and Waki Planning.

This follows an investment from Interwars last December. In November last year, the company concluded a business and capital alliance with Horipro to create the “Talent League” (teams comprising of TV personalities as players) while having secured funds from Incubate Fund several times in the past. The latest round brought the company’s funding sum up to 2.2 billion yen ($15 million US). They will use the funds to accelerate its global expansion, market the Talent League, and strengthen its recruitment efforts.

Hiroshi Fukuda (current CEO of Meleap), previously of Recruit, and Hitoshi Araki (current CTO of Meleap), previously of Fujitsu, established Meleap in 2014. The company has developed AR games that allow players to perform moves similar to the Kamehameha and Hadouken waves we have seen in animation series, and has 109 directly managed and permanent franchise locations in 39 countries that embody these games as sports. The company has a cumulative total of 3.5 million players and more than 100 million households watching the game. In addition, the Talent League, launched in 2020, allows viewers to cheer on players through the Wow Live app.

via PR Times

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Dev Protocol raises $1.7M to facilitate creator economy leveraging crypto

dev
Frame00

The Bridge 2022.10.26

Tokyo-based Frame00 (pronounced ‘frame double oh’), the Japanese startup behind a blockchain-based monetization service for OSS (Open Source Software) developers called Dev Protocol, announced on Wednesday, that it has secured 250 million yen (about $1.7 million US) in a pre-series A round. For the company, this follows their seed round in June of 2022 and brought their funding sum up to about 310 million yen (about $2.1 million). This round was led by former MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito-led web3 fund gmjp with participation from B Dash Ventures, SKY Perfect JSAT (TSE:9412), rikka, and 01Booster Capital. Mayumi Hara, CEO of Frame00, is expected to speak at the New Context Conference 2022 Fall to be organized by Digital Garage (TSE:4819) next month. Joi is the co-founder of Digital Garage. In aim to support the prosperity of OSS and the sustainability of community management, FRAME00 has been developing Dev, a protocol for sharing revenue with OSS developers. Dev tokens are redeemable for Ethereum tokens on crypto exchanges. Since its mainnet launch in 2020, the protocol has attracted new financial support for OSS developers around the world. They won the CJK (China, Japan, Korea) OSS Special Contribution Award at the North-East Asia…

Tokyo-based Frame00 (pronounced ‘frame double oh’), the Japanese startup behind a blockchain-based monetization service for OSS (Open Source Software) developers called Dev Protocol, announced on Wednesday, that it has secured 250 million yen (about $1.7 million US) in a pre-series A round. For the company, this follows their seed round in June of 2022 and brought their funding sum up to about 310 million yen (about $2.1 million).

This round was led by former MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito-led web3 fund gmjp with participation from B Dash Ventures, SKY Perfect JSAT (TSE:9412), rikka, and 01Booster Capital. Mayumi Hara, CEO of Frame00, is expected to speak at the New Context Conference 2022 Fall to be organized by Digital Garage (TSE:4819) next month. Joi is the co-founder of Digital Garage.

In aim to support the prosperity of OSS and the sustainability of community management, FRAME00 has been developing Dev, a protocol for sharing revenue with OSS developers. Dev tokens are redeemable for Ethereum tokens on crypto exchanges.

Since its mainnet launch in 2020, the protocol has attracted new financial support for OSS developers around the world. They won the CJK (China, Japan, Korea) OSS Special Contribution Award at the North-East Asia Development Cooperation Forum last year.

Currently, the DEV protocol developer community has over 500 members. In response to the diversifying needs of the creator economy, including web3 and metaverse, the company will accelerate developing the Clubs no-code DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) tool. In September, the company set up a new office in Switzerland to comply with global regulatory and develop governance system.

via PR Times

Startups

Japanese rocket developer Interstellar Technologies closes series D round with $30M

Japanese sake brewer Wakaze secures $7.6M series B to boost US, China expansion

Japanese founder-led employee benefit platform Venteny files for IPO in Indonesia

Japan’s social publishing platform Note files for IPO

Japan’s brand enablement platform AnyMind Group files for IPO

Japan’s FinTech unicorn Opn acquires US payments startup MerchantE

Video translation, subtitling platform Auris secures $1.3M to add synthesized voice-over function

Japan’s carbon emissions management platform expands into Singapore

Japanese AR sports platformer Meleap raises $3.5M from China’s QC Investment, others

Dev Protocol raises $1.7M to facilitate creator economy leveraging crypto

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