See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Vaqso revealed at a press conference held on Thursday that they have raised around $600,000 in a seed round from Weru Investment, the investment arm of Waseda University. a Waseda University VC. At the same time, the company announced the pre-release of the company’s product Vaqso VR (semi-prototype) to developers, and are aiming for a full launch in winter of 2018. The funds raised will be used to cover the initial cost for mass production, as well as for PR costs and exhibition exhibits. Since the launch back in January by Kentaro Kawaguchi who has been involved in promotional services for restaurants using smells, Vaqso has been developing VAQSO VR, a scent emitting device to attach to a head-mounted display (HMD). Vaqso VR is about the length and width of a Snickers bar and can be attached to a HMD using a magnet. It synchs up with VR contents and it is possible to set different odor cartridges. Three types of odor cartridges can been installed in the prototype, with plans to increase this to 5-10 cartridges in the finished product. Also, the device is equipped with a small fan, which is…
The participants lined up at a press conference held in Tokyo on Thursday From left: 2 representatives from Aoi Pro., Vaqso CEO Kentaro Kawaguchi, Weru Investment’s Keisuke Kikuchi, and a representative from Illusion
Tokyo-based startup Vaqso revealed at a press conference held on Thursday that they have raised around $600,000 in a seed round from Weru Investment, the investment arm of Waseda University. a Waseda University VC. At the same time, the company announced the pre-release of the company’s product Vaqso VR (semi-prototype) to developers, and are aiming for a full launch in winter of 2018. The funds raised will be used to cover the initial cost for mass production, as well as for PR costs and exhibition exhibits.
Since the launch back in January by Kentaro Kawaguchi who has been involved in promotional services for restaurants using smells, Vaqso has been developing VAQSO VR, a scent emitting device to attach to a head-mounted display (HMD).
Vaqso VR is about the length and width of a Snickers bar and can be attached to a HMD using a magnet. It synchs up with VR contents and it is possible to set different odor cartridges. Three types of odor cartridges can been installed in the prototype, with plans to increase this to 5-10 cartridges in the finished product. Also, the device is equipped with a small fan, which is currently under development, but by synchronizing the rotation speed of the fan with the VR content when the user moves closer to or away from the object in the virtual space it will be possible to strengthen or weaken the smell accordingly.
Coinciding with this funding announcement, the company also launched a smell production service for businesses where Vaqso is in charge of producing smells to be emitted in synch with VR content for content providers. Vaqso is mainly targeting ad agencies, gaming studios and companies, video production companies, etc. Corresponding to both VR 3D content and 360-degree video, it assumes use cases such as street promotion for food companies, science-fiction movie trailers, and simulating rescue operations at disaster scenes.
Vaqso will collaborate with Aoi Pro., a Japanese video production company that produces VR content title Wonderful World, and in addition to exhibiting at next week at the Content Tokyo 2017 confab. They will also join forces to Illusion, the adult game developer renowned for its signature game title VR Kanojo (literally meaning VR Girlfriend), to hold hackathon events, as well as exhibit at the Anime Expo in Los Angeles in July.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Sansan, the company offering cloud-based business card management platforms, announced on Thursday that a major update will be given to its app Eight, implementing the “company page” which displays user company content receivable on the feeds of Eight. Company users having their own pages will be allowed to place ads or recruiting information to targeted users based on their business card profiles on Eight. The next version of the Eight app having this function is planned for launch in late June, and will be available for desktop, iOS and Android from June 28th at the earliest. Eight is the business card management app for individuals officially launched in 2012. The app is provided in the freemium model; users can use basic functions for free except for data export function and so on. The number of users surpassed the million mark in 2015, while Sansan added functions such as feed (similar to timeline) or group message in order to promote communications between users. The current number of users has exceeded 1.5 million. The business card data registered by users is linked with company information on Eight. Based on the linked information, users can create…
From left: Kenji Shiomi (MD and co-founder of Sansan), Hiroshi Senju (Chief Producer of Eight Dept., Sansan)
Tokyo-based Sansan, the company offering cloud-based business card management platforms, announced on Thursday that a major update will be given to its app Eight, implementing the “company page” which displays user company content receivable on the feeds of Eight. Company users having their own pages will be allowed to place ads or recruiting information to targeted users based on their business card profiles on Eight. The next version of the Eight app having this function is planned for launch in late June, and will be available for desktop, iOS and Android from June 28th at the earliest.
Eight is the business card management app for individuals officially launched in 2012. The app is provided in the freemium model; users can use basic functions for free except for data export function and so on. The number of users surpassed the million mark in 2015, while Sansan added functions such as feed (similar to timeline) or group message in order to promote communications between users. The current number of users has exceeded 1.5 million.
The business card data registered by users is linked with company information on Eight. Based on the linked information, users can create their company pages via desktop. For company users, for example, recruitment staffs can send invitation messages directly to potential employees (Eight Talent Solution) or marketing staffers can put ads on the Eight Feed timeline (Eight Ads). Since the registered company data on Eight is also linked with database of Teikoku Databank, a Japanese corporate credit research company, Eight proposes the optimal targets for sending message or ad by analyzing registered data and business card information utilizing AI (artificial intelligence).
At the press conference held in Tokyo on Thursday, Kenji Shiomi (Managing Director / co-founder of Sansan) and Hiroshi Senju (Chief Producer of Eight Dept, Sansan) made comments. Both Eight Talent Solution and Eight Ads will be provided as paid services but the charge system is undecided at this moment. According to Shiomi, the price range will probably be much the same as conventional services. Regarding the additional functions including the “company page”, about 10 Japanese companies including Nissan Motor (TSE:7201), Okamura (TSE:7994), CyberAgent (TSE:4751), Cybozu (TSE:4776) and Lancers had expressed their intention to use these functions as soon as it is launched.
The launch of additional functions for Eight this time can also be viewed as Sansan the CRM (customer relationship management) startup having advanced into HRTech (Human Resource Tech) and AdTech fields. In contrast, another Japanese HRTech startup Wantedly had advanced into the CRM field with its app Wantedly People last November.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Money Forward, the Japanese startup offering cloud-based asset and accounting management services, announced on Tuesday that it has newly established a subsidiary called MF Kessai focusing on deferred payments service for B2B (business-to-business) transactions. Adopting the know-how of data-driven approach that they have been cultivated in Money Forward, MF Kessai aims to shorten the time to collect account receivables and to minimize the credit risk. In the press conference, CEO of Money Forward Yosuke Tsuji explained the purpose of both the new subsidiary and the new service is to clear up worries about money in business management and to increase B2B transactions. In respect to personnel matters of MF Kessai, Naomichi Toyama who joined Money Forward in 2014 and has been involved in promotion of MF Cloud to accounting firms or small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) across Japan was appointed to CEO of the new firm. The office of MF Kessai will be established within the Finolab FinTech startup hub in Tokyo’s financial district of Otemachi, not in Tamachi where Money Forward is headquartered due to the difference of each business condition and the necessity to focus on the business field with a view to…
R to L: Yosuke Tsuji (CEO of Money Forward) and Naomichi Toyama (CEO of MF Kessai)
Tokyo-based Money Forward, the Japanese startup offering cloud-based asset and accounting management services, announced on Tuesday that it has newly established a subsidiary called MF Kessai focusing on deferred payments service for B2B (business-to-business) transactions. Adopting the know-how of data-driven approach that they have been cultivated in Money Forward, MF Kessai aims to shorten the time to collect account receivables and to minimize the credit risk. In the press conference, CEO of Money Forward Yosuke Tsuji explained the purpose of both the new subsidiary and the new service is to clear up worries about money in business management and to increase B2B transactions.
Tsuji introduces the team members of MF Kessai
In respect to personnel matters of MF Kessai, Naomichi Toyama who joined Money Forward in 2014 and has been involved in promotion of MF Cloud to accounting firms or small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) across Japan was appointed to CEO of the new firm. The office of MF Kessai will be established within the Finolab FinTech startup hub in Tokyo’s financial district of Otemachi, not in Tamachi where Money Forward is headquartered due to the difference of each business condition and the necessity to focus on the business field with a view to future growth, according to Tsuji.
Toyama explained that five billing works arise when a seller sells any product or service to a buyer in an inter-enterprise trade: credit examination, billing information inputting, bill issuing / sending, depositing management, and payment urging. Among them, the new service MF Kessai automates the four works (90% of the entire billing works) except for billing information inputting by outsourcing on cloud and significantly reduces a burden of billing works which tend to concentrate on the beginning or the end of months.
As a recent business trend, implementation of cloud or direct sales can often be seen in every kind of business with the spread of internet. Since the implementation of cloud often causes a reduction of the sales per customer, sellers need to sell their products to more customers in order to secure the same sale as before. The direct sale forces pure retailers to engage in inexperienced works such as depositing management or credit examination even for customers who never be seen before. By performing billing works in these scenes for them, MF Kessai provides an environment where sellers can focus on their main work.
Among functions of MF Kessai, noteworthy points are the credit transfer as of completing billing data (early deposit) and the guarantee of account receivable collection. When a seller uses MF Kessai, it automatically performs a credit examination of a buyer. Although this process is not disclosed, transaction will be done in one minute at the shortest utilizing big data based on information obtained from external organizations and that Money Forward has accumulated. According to the results of the test operation, 98% of buyers has passed the examination so far.
After this, MF Kessai takes on the credit on behalf of the buyer and can pay to the seller as the seller completed the billing data in the shortest case. It is a similar service to the so-called factoring service, and the commission fee for MF Kessai will be set to about several present, according to Toyama. Since the charge system of MF Kessai has not been announced yet, it is not known at present whether this early deposit service will be provided for free as a default function or will be charged.
By shortening the time from billing to payment, it may generate various business merits; manufacturers will be released from necessity of the external dependence of funds required for stocking materials, or agricultural producers, whose business is basically promised on advance payment style, will get an opportunity to transact with unseen potential customers all over Japan. To provide this service, it is felt that MF Kessai needs a fixed fund. Tsuji commented on this matter giving an example of the firm’s financing service for enterprises MF Cloud Finance:
We are a tech company, so we will secure the fund through cooperating with external financial organizations, rather than depending on the balance sheet of MF Kessai.
Thus he implied the possibility of a fundraising from financial organizations. Since MF Kessai was established as a subsidiary independent of Money Forward, the possible cooperation scheme with financial organizations can be easily imagined whether it is equity-based, debt-based, or introduction of potential customers.
Kotaro Kurasaki (CEO of Rita Foods, running Kumamoto Basashi.com, an online marketplace for sashimi of horse meat) attended the press conference online and explained the merit of MF Kessai as a user.
The strength of MF Kessai must be the API (application programing interface); it greatly improves business efficiency with lots of information gathered by linking with users’ billing / account receivable management system or by linking with bank system. Although MF Kessai started its service that day, the API will be launched around this autumn so that its serious operation phase seems to start after that.
In the context of the credit / investment service for SMEs or proprietaries by data-driven approach, Japan’s CreditEngine had launched Lendy; in addition, a Japanese major account software developer Yayoi and ALT provided by d.a.t. plans to the service launch within this year as well.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Residence recently unveiled the open beta version of One Visa, the online visa applications management platform. It allows Japanese companies to submit visa applications for their employees and manage when their visas will become expired and must apply for a new one. Usage fee is 40,000 yen per company. Residence also announced that it has recently raised 36 million yen (about $324,000) from Primal Capital and Skyland Ventures. The platform allows companies to manage the profiles of their foreign employees. It will notify the personnel department when their visa expiration timing comes closer, then tell them automatically what kind of visa will be needed and take them into an automated visa application flow. Users can download forms in need for their visa application simply by asking questions, or can even ask a paralegal to conduct the entire process through the platform instead of doing themselves. According to the company, there’s an increased demand in managing visa applications for foreign employees at Japanese companies as the population of foreign visitors and residents in Japan are on the rise. About 1.6 million visa applications were made in Japan in 2015, which is 6% higher than…
Tokyo-based Residence recently unveiled the open beta version of One Visa, the online visa applications management platform. It allows Japanese companies to submit visa applications for their employees and manage when their visas will become expired and must apply for a new one. Usage fee is 40,000 yen per company. Residence also announced that it has recently raised 36 million yen (about $324,000) from Primal Capital and Skyland Ventures.
The platform allows companies to manage the profiles of their foreign employees. It will notify the personnel department when their visa expiration timing comes closer, then tell them automatically what kind of visa will be needed and take them into an automated visa application flow. Users can download forms in need for their visa application simply by asking questions, or can even ask a paralegal to conduct the entire process through the platform instead of doing themselves.
According to the company, there’s an increased demand in managing visa applications for foreign employees at Japanese companies as the population of foreign visitors and residents in Japan are on the rise. About 1.6 million visa applications were made in Japan in 2015, which is 6% higher than its previous year’s stats, while we also see a 18% increase in the number of foreign employees in Japan. There’s also the Japanese Health, Welfare and Labor Ministry’s predication that the population of foreign workers in Japan will hit 2.06 million by the year 2020.
Meanwhile, the visa application process requires expertise in application procedures and selecting a relevant visa type, as well as preparing relevant documents to attach for submission, while language barriers are also a huge obstacle in this process. It usually takes several weeks for preparing attaching documents only, and is likely to force applicants to wait for long hours at the immigration office.
The One Visa platform is now being used as closed beta by about 10 companies from restaurant chain operators and Internet service companies to financial institutions. Going forward, the team plans to enhance the service that will even allow users to report the employment status of foreign workers to the Japanese Health, Welfare and Labor Ministry.
Albert Okamura, founder and CEO of Residence, is an entrepreneur in his 20s, originally from Peru. Following his work experience at the Japanese immigration office where he has processed 20,000 visa applications, he made up his mind to tackle this issue.
Albert Okamura, founder and CEO of Residence, is an entrepreneur in his 20s, originally from Peru. Following his work experience at the Japanese immigration office where he has processed 20,000 visa applications, he made up his mind to tackle this issue.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Several news websites reported on Friday that Tokyo-based Z-Works, the Japanese startup developing IoT (Internet of Things) healthcare monitoring solutions especially for elderly care, has secured 400 million yen (about $3.6 million) in a series A round. Participating investors in this round are Spiral Ventures, Canon Marketing Japan (CMJ for short, TSE:8060), Infocom (TSE:4348), Lixil (TSE:5938), Kokusai Kogyo, plus the KSP Venture Investment Funds by Kanagawa Science Park. Coinciding with this funding, Spiral Ventures’ partner Hiroshi Oka, Infocom’s Open Innovation Center chief Yoichi Shirono and someone from CMJ will join Z-Works’ management board as external directors. Z-Works has developed an IoT-based platform called Life Engine, aiming to reduce the burden of professionals and family members caring for elderly people, by leveraging a variety of sensors and a cloud-based platform to remotely watch over the elderly without possible invasion of their privacy. It intends to prevent the elderly from becoming bedridden, especially during the period between life expectancy and health expectancy — 9 years for men, 12 years for women on average each. Using a heart rate monitoring sensor, motion sensors and other sensors which are not required to be attached to the elderly people’s…
Several news websites reported on Friday that Tokyo-based Z-Works, the Japanese startup developing IoT (Internet of Things) healthcare monitoring solutions especially for elderly care, has secured 400 million yen (about $3.6 million) in a series A round. Participating investors in this round are Spiral Ventures, Canon Marketing Japan (CMJ for short, TSE:8060), Infocom (TSE:4348), Lixil (TSE:5938), Kokusai Kogyo, plus the KSP Venture Investment Funds by Kanagawa Science Park. Coinciding with this funding, Spiral Ventures’ partner Hiroshi Oka, Infocom’s Open Innovation Center chief Yoichi Shirono and someone from CMJ will join Z-Works’ management board as external directors.
Z-Works has developed an IoT-based platform called Life Engine, aiming to reduce the burden of professionals and family members caring for elderly people, by leveraging a variety of sensors and a cloud-based platform to remotely watch over the elderly without possible invasion of their privacy. It intends to prevent the elderly from becoming bedridden, especially during the period between life expectancy and health expectancy — 9 years for men, 12 years for women on average each. Using a heart rate monitoring sensor, motion sensors and other sensors which are not required to be attached to the elderly people’s bodies so that they are unlikely to feel uncomfortable, the system can remotely monitor their heart rate, breath rate, getting out of bed, turning over in bed or taking an extra-long bathroom break so that caregivers will be notified when necessary or something unusual.
The company won Runways to Tech in Asia Singapore 2016 at Tokyo, subsequently became the runner-up at the Tech in Asia Singapore 2016 arena finals, as well as winning a pitch competition in Tokyo by Aging 2.0, a startup accelerating focused on elderly healthcare. Moreover, the team was selected for I-Challenge!, the ICT Innovation encouragement program hosted by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications back in 2016.
Among the investors participating in this round, Z-Works has been partnering with CMJ to develop a system that enables remotely monitoring elderly people’s rooms, planning to deploy it into 115 care homes in Japan run by Japanese nursery care provider Sompo Care Next. Alongside this, CMJ will also set up a new department specifically focused on an elderly care business. Meanwhile, another investor, Kokusai Kogyo, is supporting Z-Works by offering an indoor location detection technology which works without GPS (global positioning system).
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
Tatsuya Takahashi, co-CEO/co-founder of Z-Works, delivered their pitch at the Tech in Asia Singapore conference back in 2016. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS) 2017 Spring in Kobe. During the 10th edition of Infinity Venture Summit in Kobe, a semi-annual conference hosted by renowned startup-focused investment fund Infinity Venture Partners (IVP), the LaunchPad startup pitch competition was held on June 7th, where Tokyo-based Cluster developing the VR social room app won the top prize. here’s a quick rundown of the competition finals. Judges in the finals were as follows: Syogo Kawata (Advisor, DeNA) Takuya Kitagawa (Executive Officer, Rakuten) Yoshihiko Kinoshita (General Partner, Skyland Ventures) Hironao Kunimitsu (CEO, Gumi) Koki Sato (CEO, Septeni Holdings) Tetsuya Sanada (CEO, Klab) Ken Suzuki (CEO, SmartNews) Yoshikazu Tanaka (CEO, GREE) Kotaro Chiba (Angel Investor / CEO, The Ryokan Tokyo) Akiko Naka (CEO, Wantedly) Shinichiro Hori (CEO, YJ Capital) Ken Honda (Global CEO, FreakOut Holdings) Kotaro Yamagishi (CEO, Keio Innovation Initiative) James Riney (Head & Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan) In addition, well-known Japanese serial entrepreneur Takafumi Horie took part as a special commentator. The prizes of this competition were: Amazon Web Services activate coupon worth $3,000 for all participants, and “True wish list” for top prize winner (provided by Amazon Web…
This is a part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS) 2017 Spring in Kobe.
During the 10th edition of Infinity Venture Summit in Kobe, a semi-annual conference hosted by renowned startup-focused investment fund Infinity Venture Partners (IVP), the LaunchPad startup pitch competition was held on June 7th, where Tokyo-based Cluster developing the VR social room app won the top prize.
here’s a quick rundown of the competition finals. Judges in the finals were as follows:
James Riney (Head & Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan)
In addition, well-known Japanese serial entrepreneur Takafumi Horie took part as a special commentator.
The prizes of this competition were:
Amazon Web Services activate coupon worth $3,000 for all participants, and “True wish list” for top prize winner (provided by Amazon Web Services)
One year’s worth of Yebisu Beer for top prize winner (provided by AGS Consulting)
Use right of Freee worth 500,000 yen for top prize winner (provided by Freee)
Settlement fee of PayPal worth 1 million yen (provided by PayPal)
Cluster (top prize)
Cluster CEO Naoto Kato
Cluster provides a social VR (virtual reality) service under the same name, enabling large scale event in VR space gathering many users. By sharing URL, only invited users are allowed to enter a VR room and to share the experience there. The users can view the same virtual screen as other users in the VR room. The screen can display game plays or YouTube videos, so that users can discuss or share experiences while viewing the same video contents or sports matches.
iNAIL is an auto-nail art print service. The conventional nail art applying procedures at salons require the time and cost to design in handwriting by nail artists; on the other hand, this service provides smart nail art printing by the exclusive nail printer only within 15 seconds in the same method as 3D printer.
The firm plans to expand its service at hair salons, nail salons, or esthetic salons. Due to the high reputation for Japanese nail arts, the firm pursues global development eagerly as well.
Town WiFi (3rd place)
Town WiFi CEO Takehiro Ogita
Town WiFi (formerly provided with the name of WiFiShare) is a mobile app enabling smart devices to connect automatically to private and free WiFi services to reduce the data communication fee. Besides Japan, the firm provides its auto-WiFi logon service in 200 locations in the US, Korea, Taiwan, or Macau. The firm aims to monetize by the push advertising when logging on and the sales commission for charged WiFi services within the app.
Albert Okamura born in Peru, once encountered a scene where his friend was forcibly deported to Peru due to irregularities upon acquiring his visa, and that motivated Okamura to solve the problem of visa acquisition. Since Japan’s immigration inspectors are just public employees who basically only speak Japanese and the application documents are written in Japanese, it is difficult for foreigners who cannot understand Japanese to communicate using this language.
Okamura had himself worked for Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, and been involved in visa-issuance work. Leveraging the experience obtained there, he developed Residence, now known as One Visa. The service displays questions that are required for terms utilized upon visa acquisition in the users’ native language, and outputs them as a form written in Japanese.
The firm aims to monetize by credit clearance service for foreigners based on the registered information and launched the open beta version on June 6th. The firm was born out from Tech Lab Paak 4th batch.
Hyper8, also known for services such as Mespo or Tabeniiku, offers a new internet service called LION Project.
LION Project is a Uber-like service for hostess bars, allowing girls to be called up to parties after events.
The service shows the amount purchased by each user is 27,000 yen (about $240) and the repeat ratio within 30 days is 68%, with 40% month-on-month growth ratio since its launch back this February. More than 820 girls have registered the service.
Astool developed a “chain-reaction” type web browser Smooz available for iOS. Through text extraction, morpheme analysis, ranking and related term extraction for the current web page, it recommends search terms which will be required next by the user or suggests bookmarking to him / her by recognizing and reviewing reactions on social media.
Player! by Ookami
Ookami CEO Taiyo Ogata
Player! is a sports-centric social network app which provides information of ongoing status or results of live sports matches and allows users to share the excitement with other users viewing the same match in real-time.
HoloEyes aims to make an information revolution in the medical field using VR. Its technology will be helpful for the medical world by sharing information of human bodies in 3DVR form. The medical VR database will be constructed through collection of CT scan data and forming 3D human body models, then accumulating such data.
If a search on the terms “male, 60s, prostate cancer” is made, 3D images of matched cases will be output and doctors can utilize them for diagnosis references of similar cases or training upon surgical operations. The team expects a business model providing VR viewers for hospitals and selling collected data, after obtaining patients’ consent, to medical colleges or pharmaceutical companies.
APlay is a Bluetooth earphone having a voice assistant function capable of conveying smartphone notifications by voices. It notifies Twitter timelines or LINE messages while listening to music or telephone conversation.
Cansell
Cansell CEO Kyohei Yamashita
Cansell is a P2P (peer-to-peer) commerce platform for non-refundable accommodation reservation rights between guest users. In Cansell, exhibitor users who want to cancel reservations can sell accommodation rights for users who look for hotels.
The exhibitor users receive reselling money after deducting the commission for Cansell and can save the cancellation cost compared with paying the cancellation cost to travel agents or hotels; on the other hand, the purchaser users can make reservations in comparatively cheaper price.
Matcher is an “alumni visit” matching service for Japanese job hunting activities. With the watchword “do me a favor in return for advising about job hunting?”, the service connects students who want to consult about job hunting and businesspeople who have favor to ask on the web only by one-click.
For students, there is a merit that they can easily visit employees currently working at intended companies other than graduates of the university. For companies, they can use the service as an effective method for approaching incoming employees. Matcher, launched last February, acquired 10,000 users as of this April and has been adopted by more than 100 companies.
Scouty
Scouty
Scouty is a AI-powered human resource matching service, especially focused on engineers. Monitoring engineers’ information on social media and crawling open data on the web, the service integrates personal information about 800,000 engineers. It predicts the probability of retirement utilizing AI analysis for corrected data and matches them for the best companies.
For people potentially changing jobs, Scouty offers his / her profile email based on the template.
Receptionist by Delighted
Receptionist by Delighted
Receptionist provided by Delighted is a visitor reception service available for iPad. With this app, users can handle visitors using chat tool such as Chatwork or Slack. The app can also link with schedule / customer management system or labor management platform.
When a visitor is going to be late for an appointment, he / she can easily contact the intended person in charge via the app in a single operation. At a reception desk, any meeting procedure can be automated just by waving smartphone over the Receptionist app on iPad. Delighted plans to launch the app for smartphones in the future.
Translated by Taijoro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Kamakura Investment Management along with Japanese renowned investor Kotaro Chiba announced DroneFund, an investment fund focused on investing in drone startups, at a press conference held in Tokyo on Tuesday. June 1st marks the date of establishment of the fund on a scale of 1 billion yen (about $9 million US). There are six board members including Chiba and a number of drone experts; Yoshichika Sakamoto of ORSO, Motoaki Nishiwaki of Microsoft, Souki Oomae of Creative Hope, Daisuke Imai of Asratec, Shintaro Takahashi — special lecturer for Keio University’s Department of Media Studies, and Kazuhiro Obara — former executive director at Rakuten and former senior manager at Google Japan. At the time of establishment they are set to fund 11 drone startups: Drone Japan, Clue, Drone Department, iRobotics, Dron ë motion, Aerial Lab, Orone Iplab, Yodayoda.Inc, Kamomeya, FPV Robotics Inc., and Aeronext. Chiba had the following to say with regards to the circumstances behind the creation of DroneFund. I believe that from now drones will become an integral part of society. But, it will require the investment of risk money, internet based management methods, and the collaboration and production of good technology. The plan…
Kotaro Chiba, the man behind DroneFund, which is set to take the drone world by storm
Kamakura Investment Management along with Japanese renowned investor Kotaro Chiba announced DroneFund, an investment fund focused on investing in drone startups, at a press conference held in Tokyo on Tuesday. June 1st marks the date of establishment of the fund on a scale of 1 billion yen (about $9 million US).
There are six board members including Chiba and a number of drone experts; Yoshichika Sakamoto of ORSO, Motoaki Nishiwaki of Microsoft, Souki Oomae of Creative Hope, Daisuke Imai of Asratec, Shintaro Takahashi — special lecturer for Keio University’s Department of Media Studies, and Kazuhiro Obara — former executive director at Rakuten and former senior manager at Google Japan.
Board Members of DroneFund
At the time of establishment they are set to fund 11 drone startups: Drone Japan, Clue, Drone Department, iRobotics, Dron ë motion, Aerial Lab, Orone Iplab, Yodayoda.Inc, Kamomeya, FPV Robotics Inc., and Aeronext.
Drone startups funded by DroneFund
Chiba had the following to say with regards to the circumstances behind the creation of DroneFund.
I believe that from now drones will become an integral part of society. But, it will require the investment of risk money, internet based management methods, and the collaboration and production of good technology.
The plan is to clear these hurdles with the fund and disseminate Japanese drone technologies and services to the world.
Also, through a business collaboration with R&D company Leave A Nest, of which every member has a PhD., they will utilize a network of 3,500 small factories and university researched development technology. The company has already carried out a project to research and develop a manned hover bike (think flying motorcycle).
In terms of the technology related to drones developed through research, DroneFund revealed their plan to acquire patents through cooperation with the intellectual property management institution initiative Drone IP Lab, whose investment/establishment was also announced during this press conference.
According to Chiba, we can think of the fund as a kind of “Japanese Drone Co., LTD.”
In our image it will balance investment in all four layers: the development of core technologies, service offerings, software apps, and the hardware encasement to create one large company.
In his explanation, the drone market will reach about 140 billion yen (around $1.3 billion US) by 2022, and a 900% growth is expected, but Japan is lagging. Following these market backgrounds, the fund aims to increase the number of drone startups that can compete around the world by cooperating with them in terms of both hardware and software, and by promoting alliances with enterprises in Japan.
11 funded startups are as follows:
Dron ë motion: Offering an aerial shooting package for regional revitalization
iRobotics: Large-scale system integrator using 24-hour flying drones
Drone IP Lab: A company for special patent co-filing for drones
Yodayoda: Developing a location detecting technology without using global positioning system (GPS)
The following are summaries of three out of the companies that struck me the most.
Drone Japan: Agricultural remote sensing for rice
Aigamo: the drone for managing water quality (under development)
Drone Japan develops agricultural remote sensing specialized in rice. They are promoting using drones to produce rice.
The company aims for an IT conversion of the agricultural field, and creates a system that uses drones to carry out agricultural production all the way through to its promotion. As opposed to on-site management, the company manages water quality and the conditions of rice growth through data collected by drones, and then implements work such as the application of fertilizer. They also record the growth of the rice and take pictures of the farmer who produced it and include this information through the QR code attached on the package to increase PR.
The founder and CEO Kiichiro Katsumata aims to use drones as the opening to deliver Japanese rice to the world.
Aerial Lab develops a flying bike. The prototype made an appearance during the press conference.
It has a length of 4.3m and a breadth of 1.5 m. It is 1m tall and has a dry weight of 55kg. It can hold a maximum weight of 100kg. It is powered by a 2-stroke gasoline engine and is propelled through the air by a fan.
Although a projected date of sale and price are undecided as the project is under development, a future where people can fly in the sky by motorcycle may be close at hand.
Kamomeya: Land, sea, and sky drones for remote islands; comprehensive control system development
Kamomeya is a drone startup hailing from Japan’s western city of Takamatsu, Kagawa. They are developing a delivery system for remote islands using drones.
The company aims to provide transport services by drone for remote islands that it takes time to deliver goods to. They are creating a system capable of transporting parcels by unmanned transport ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, and unmanned transportation vehicles which are controlled by an integrated control system called Kazamidori. After asking the company, it appears they can currently transport one package of oranges.
At the time of the demonstration in the spring of 2017, their future development is underway with the goal to deliver medicines to remote islands combined with remote medical treatment.
At the press conference Chiba remarked, “Market development is expected in the areas of agriculture, inspection, and surveying.” With the establishment of DroneFund, I look forward to seeing what services will be provided and what their impact on the market will be in the future.
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Cluster, the Japanese startup behind the social VR (virtual reality) app under the same name supporting several thousand people-scale events in VR space, announced on Wednesday that it has secured 200 million yen (about $1.8 million) in a series A round. The participating investors in this round include Avex Ventures (the investment arm of Japanese showbiz giant Avex Holdings Group), United (TSE:2497), DeNA (TSE:2432) and Skyland Ventures, plus undisclosed individual investors. This funding succeeds the one with the total of 50 million yen (about $450,000) from Skyland Ventures, East Ventures and unnamed individual investors in its angel round in April of last year. Along with this, Cluster and Avex Holdings Group (TSE:7860) announced they have agreed to a business partnership. With this money, Cluster is going to advance business collaborations with enterprises having popular contents, as well as improve its product including the multi-device support covering smartphone or mobile VR. See also: Japan’s Cluster to launch social VR hangout rooms for live events and gatherings Cluster had taken part in the Demo Day of Avex Enter-Tech Pitch 1st batch and made a pitch there. Unlike typical accelerator Demo Days, this event was held in the…
Tokyo-based Cluster, the Japanese startup behind the social VR (virtual reality) app under the same name supporting several thousand people-scale events in VR space, announced on Wednesday that it has secured 200 million yen (about $1.8 million) in a series A round. The participating investors in this round include Avex Ventures (the investment arm of Japanese showbiz giant Avex Holdings Group), United (TSE:2497), DeNA (TSE:2432) and Skyland Ventures, plus undisclosed individual investors.
This funding succeeds the one with the total of 50 million yen (about $450,000) from Skyland Ventures, East Ventures and unnamed individual investors in its angel round in April of last year.
Along with this, Cluster and Avex Holdings Group (TSE:7860) announced they have agreed to a business partnership.
With this money, Cluster is going to advance business collaborations with enterprises having popular contents, as well as improve its product including the multi-device support covering smartphone or mobile VR.
Cluster had taken part in the Demo Day of Avex Enter-Tech Pitch 1st batch and made a pitch there. Unlike typical accelerator Demo Days, this event was held in the semi-closed style with only Avex staffers and invited guests such as people concerned in the startup ecosystem, in order to explore opportunities of the open innovation between Avex and startups. At the Demo Day, Cluster won the Masato Matsuura Award and the prize winning led the financial / business partnership this time.
Naoto Kato (CEO of Cluster, right) is awarded the prize from Masato Matsuura (CEO of Avex Holdings Group, left) at Avex Enter-Tech Pitch in April. Image credit: Masaru Ikeda
The detail of this business partnership is not disclosed yet, but Kato’s pitch and the conversation with the judges at the Demo Day suggest that Avex had held various real events all around Japan featuring artists belonging to Avex and it is considered that Avex will look for a way to offer these kinds of performances in VR with Cluster. In addition, an Avex-affiliated company Avex Pictures owns major animation titles such as Yuri on Ice or Osomatsu-san, the business tie-up leveraging VR is expected also in this field.
According to Cluster CEO Naoto Kato, a function enabling to sell tickets only to limited users to participate in closed-style VR events is already implemented to the Cluster app. Kato said the app matches Asian culture or animation voice actors well and he is expecting a lot from the partnership with Avex also as to this point.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Japanese leading telco KDDI (TSE:9433) held a Demo Day for its incubation program KDDI Mugendai Labo last week. Among the four teams newly allowed to participate in the three months-long program, AMI developing smart stethoscope won the KDDI Mugen Labo Award, and Warrantee won the Audience Award (refer to this article for details about Warrantee). The following introduces the content of the pitch competition by the four teams that joined the program from the 11th batch. Watcha Korea-based Watcha, supported by Toppan Printing (TSE:7911) and KDDI, is tackling the problems of the content search system. For conventional search methods, in particular for entertainment content, recommended information, advertising, review and query are provided with the search results. On the other hand, Watcha provides better recommendation utilizing machine learning and tag analyses. Analyzing the degree of each user’s preference based on rating data, it constructs patterns for machine learning. By combining tags extracted from content outlines and the results of user analysis, Watcha realized the high-accuracy recommendation. Due to joining the program, Watcha obtained a good result in development; the number of posts with important rating was increased six-fold. Watcha’s rating data is going to be…
Japanese leading telco KDDI (TSE:9433) held a Demo Day for its incubation program KDDI Mugendai Labo last week. Among the four teams newly allowed to participate in the three months-long program, AMI developing smart stethoscope won the KDDI Mugen Labo Award, and Warrantee won the Audience Award (refer to this article for details about Warrantee). The following introduces the content of the pitch competition by the four teams that joined the program from the 11th batch.
Watcha
Watcha’s Jaeok Lee Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
Korea-based Watcha, supported by Toppan Printing (TSE:7911) and KDDI, is tackling the problems of the content search system.
For conventional search methods, in particular for entertainment content, recommended information, advertising, review and query are provided with the search results. On the other hand, Watcha provides better recommendation utilizing machine learning and tag analyses. Analyzing the degree of each user’s preference based on rating data, it constructs patterns for machine learning. By combining tags extracted from content outlines and the results of user analysis, Watcha realized the high-accuracy recommendation.
Due to joining the program, Watcha obtained a good result in development; the number of posts with important rating was increased six-fold. Watcha’s rating data is going to be introduced in a video streaming service Videopass provided by KDDI from June 1st.
Smart Stethoscope by AMI
Shimpei Ogawa, CEO of AMI Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
AMI, behind a smart stethoscope Cho-Choshinki (literally meaning ‘super-stethoscope’ in Japanese) supported by Toppan Printing and KDDI, won KDDI Mugen Labo Award. Shimpei Ogawa, CEO of AMI, is a practicing medical doctor. The firm developed a stethoscope having an auto-assist function for diagnosis, aiming to find out particular heart diseases by analyzing digitalized heart sounds and combining this data with electrocardiogram.
There is no advanced medical instrument in medical care at disaster sites or remote places. Stethoscopes are useful medical devices especially in these situations, seen everywhere and remaining unchanged since invented in France 200 years ago. The firm focused on this point and aims to establish a device-linked type medical service in order to support home, remote and preventive medicine. The firm has been carrying out verification tests for the device and negotiating with medical organizations.
TeNKYU
Hideki Kan, CEO of TeNKYU Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
The TeNKYU team has been supported by Softfront Holdings (TSE:2321), Dentsu (TSE:4324), Hitachi (TSE:6521) and KDDI during the program.
TeNKYU is a light bulb-shaped IoT device capable of automatically notifying online information such as weather forecasts by blinking the light; the device shows whether it will rain or not by the color tone of the light using its motion sensor and color LED. The device can also cover pollen information, rate of exchange, garbage day or lucky color, and is switchable via app, so that users will no longer need to search these information with internet communication devices like smartphone.
VRize
Hideyuki Shoda, CEO of VRize Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
VRize has been supported by Supership, Dai Nippon Printing (TSE:7912), Microsoft Japan and KDDI. The firm offers CMS (content management system) under the same name for development of apps available for VR (virtual reality) platform, enabling distribution of 360-degree videos or 2D videos optimized for VR. This system improves work efficiency of VR app development, shortening a process requiring three months into one-tenth of that.
The firm carried out a test operation of VR videos at lounges in an airport and obtained positive feedbacks in which more than 90% of users answered they would like to use this service again. The firm will commence sales of the product via sales agents and plans to develop its business along with its advertising platform which will also be launched soon.
Participant startups graduated from the previous 10th batch
Katsunori Shimomura, CEO of Enowa Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
As for participant startups of the previous 10th batch, namely, Axelspace, Xshell, Enowa and Mamorio, they have been continuously supported and been performing verification tests with partnered companies over half a year.
Axelspace, which is behind a satellite image service, conducted various demonstration tests jointly with KDDI, aiming to turn satellite images into meaningful data available for business utilizing deep learning. For example, the firm has been carrying out tests analyzing images of parking spaces photographed by satellites and utilizing the data for research activities required for setting parking charges, in collaboration with Mitsui Fudosan (TSE:8801).
Xshell, behind an IoT (internet of things) device development / management platform enabling web service-like management, succeeded in funding and it is the first case to succeed in doing so during program participation.
Makoto Takahashi, Executive Vice President of KDDI Image credit: Takeshi Hirano
Adding TDK (TSE:6762) and Seibu Railway (TSE:9002), the number of partner companies to jointly develop business with startups will reach 36 from the next 12th batch. The 12th batch will be held over one year from this August to the end of July 2018 and accepts primary applications to entry the program from 18th May to 19th June. It can accept applications after this period but the support term may be shortened.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Serial entrepreneur, traveling entrepreneur, Yukimaru (to reference the Japanese anime series Naruto) — Yuki Naruse is a man of many names. It has been nearly six years since we met for the first time and since then he has published works such as “Jibun no shigoto wo tsukuru tabi” (Making travel your work) and “Tabi no houshuu” (Getting paid to travel), always making travel the center of the projects he works on. Four years ago he co-founded Tabi Labo, a media site specializing in travel. Last year Naruse entrusted Tabi Labo to his co-founder and left his position with the company. It appears his following movements stem from that decision. He is introducing a new service with travel at its core and hoping to attract people’s attention by changing how travel is experienced. “On The Trip” is an iOS app that turns your iPhone into an GPS-enabled audio travel guide. It was launched last week and is now available on the iTunes AppStore. Art and history museums around the world often provide audio guides in multiple languages for tourists. Of course, the exhibits have explanations written in the local language and English, but I…
Serial entrepreneur, traveling entrepreneur, Yukimaru (to reference the Japanese anime series Naruto) — Yuki Naruse is a man of many names. It has been nearly six years since we met for the first time and since then he has published works such as “Jibun no shigoto wo tsukuru tabi” (Making travel your work) and “Tabi no houshuu” (Getting paid to travel), always making travel the center of the projects he works on. Four years ago he co-founded Tabi Labo, a media site specializing in travel.
Last year Naruse entrusted Tabi Labo to his co-founder and left his position with the company. It appears his following movements stem from that decision. He is introducing a new service with travel at its core and hoping to attract people’s attention by changing how travel is experienced. “On The Trip” is an iOS app that turns your iPhone into an GPS-enabled audio travel guide. It was launched last week and is now available on the iTunes AppStore.
Art and history museums around the world often provide audio guides in multiple languages for tourists. Of course, the exhibits have explanations written in the local language and English, but I can’t be the only one who has experienced my depth of understanding deepen with the use of an audio guide. On The Trip takes the experience of viewing museum exhibits with an audio guide and applies it to sightseeing spots regardless of whether users are indoors or out.
The price of each audio content starts at 120 yen (about $1 US). For now you can buy and download content via in-app purchase, but in the future one example of an idea put forward is to sell it as a set with the admission fees to shrines and temples and then share the revenue. The content corresponds to a maximum of 5 languages (Japanese, English, Korean, Mandarin, and Cantonese), so there is no doubt of their ability to capture the demand of inbound tourists. They are currently working on content production with Niigata Prefecture’s “The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial” and the Nara City Tourism Association.
It’s not only an audio guide for sightseeing spots, but also the one that can convey the spiritual culture of Japan.
As far as audio guide apps for art and history museums, MyGuide exists in Japan and MyTours can be used overseas, though there has not been much thought on bringing this experience out of buildings. In the future, On The Trip is contemplating developing audio guides using AR (augmented reality). It may become possible to add a time-transcending experience to your journey when you visit historic buildings, sites and ruins.
L to R: Akihito Shiga (Creative Director), Yuki Naruse (Founder and CEO), Kohei Morishita (CTO)
Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Sekiko Suzuki
