See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based internet company Cocon, previously known as Panda Graphics, announced this week the acquisition of Ierae Security, a Japanese internet security diagnosis startup. Although the company has not yet disclosed the transaction value, Ierae Security became a wholly-owned Cocon subsidiary upon Cocon buying up the company’s total outstanding shares. Ierae Security was founded in 2011 by Makoto Makita, a security engineer, who started up a security diagnosis team at SoftBank (TSE:9984) and CyberAgent (TSE:4751). The company’s competitive edge is vulnerability assessment for web/smartphone apps and IoT (Internet of Things) among others, and they offer security consulting to security system vendors and leading companies in Japan. Their clients include Cybertrust Japan, Sammy Networks, CyberAgent and S&P (not Standard & Poor’s but a Japanese mobile gaming developer), in addition to Photosynth, which is behind smart lock solution Akerun as well as other firms. See also: Japan’s Akerun smart lock to start shipping soon, expecting to reach 10,000 orders in a year Meanwhile, as indicated by the company’s former name, Cocon is derived from Panda Graphics, an illustration-focused crowdsourcing platform. The company, established in February of 2013, secured 140 million yen from East Ventures and Opt in…
Tokyo-based internet company Cocon, previously known as Panda Graphics, announced this week the acquisition of Ierae Security, a Japanese internet security diagnosis startup. Although the company has not yet disclosed the transaction value, Ierae Security became a wholly-owned Cocon subsidiary upon Cocon buying up the company’s total outstanding shares.
Ierae Security was founded in 2011 by Makoto Makita, a security engineer, who started up a security diagnosis team at SoftBank (TSE:9984) and CyberAgent (TSE:4751). The company’s competitive edge is vulnerability assessment for web/smartphone apps and IoT (Internet of Things) among others, and they offer security consulting to security system vendors and leading companies in Japan. Their clients include Cybertrust Japan, Sammy Networks, CyberAgent and S&P (not Standard & Poor’s but a Japanese mobile gaming developer), in addition to Photosynth, which is behind smart lock solution Akerun as well as other firms.
Meanwhile, as indicated by the company’s former name, Cocon is derived from Panda Graphics, an illustration-focused crowdsourcing platform. The company, established in February of 2013, secured 140 million yen from East Ventures and Opt in July of 2014 while also raising undisclosed-amount funds from China’s SIG Asia Investments and this company’s closely-related Japanese firm, MS Capital. After entering into a capital tie-up with Tokyo-based 3DCG production Mox Mortion in June of 2014, and with UI/UX design agency Ohako in January of 2015, they purchased crowdsourcing platform Voip covering the voice-acting sector in May of 2015. Thus, they are active for tie-ups and acquisitions involving startups.
Ierae Security moved their headquarters to Cocon’s office in September 2015; therefore we can presume the process of this acquisition is based on their continued and close cooperative relationship.
When asked about the business synergies between two companies upon this acquisition, Yuya Kuratomi, CEO at Cocon, explained that the company is dealing with many game developers, and the demand for security solutions against cheating and such has increased. They aim to offer mobile app security solution and also expect mutual introductions among their clients.
This business expansion method, in which startups invest in or acquire another startups, has been recently seen in the case of Japan’s c2c (consumer to consumer) marketplace app Mercari or our neighbor South Korea’s Yello Mobile. How will Cocon develop their business? This is going to be very interesting.
Translated by Minako Ambiru via Mother First Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
This is a guest post authored by Mayumi Ishikawa. She is working as a writer and public relations manager for FabCafe, the fabrication studio by Tokyo-based digital creative agency Loftwork. This is part of our coverage of The Bridge Fes 2016. See the original story in Japanese. In collaboration with e27, Singapore-based startup news blog covering the startup scene in Southeast Asia, five startups from Japan and the Asia Pacific region delivered their pitch at The Bridge Fes, The Bridge’s flagship showcase event which took place in Tokyo last month. This session was emceed by Antti Sonninen, CEO of Slush Asia. PawnHero (the Philippines) PawnHero provides locals with pawnshop services online. In the Philippines, there are about 18,000 pawnshops nationwide but their typical monthly interest is as high as 10 percent. Only jewelries and such articles can be accepted for pawning while bringing articles to a pawnshop is usually time-consuming. PawnHero allows one to get a rough estimate by sending a snapshot of an item for pawning via their smartphone. When one is satisfied with the price presented, one can send it to the PawnHero center by courier so one can get the cash when PawnHero completes evaluating the exact…
This is a guest post authored by Mayumi Ishikawa. She is working as a writer and public relations manager for FabCafe, the fabrication studio by Tokyo-based digital creative agency Loftwork.
In collaboration with e27, Singapore-based startup news blog covering the startup scene in Southeast Asia, five startups from Japan and the Asia Pacific region delivered their pitch at The Bridge Fes, The Bridge’s flagship showcase event which took place in Tokyo last month.
This session was emceed by Antti Sonninen, CEO of Slush Asia.
PawnHero (the Philippines)
PawnHero provides locals with pawnshop services online. In the Philippines, there are about 18,000 pawnshops nationwide but their typical monthly interest is as high as 10 percent. Only jewelries and such articles can be accepted for pawning while bringing articles to a pawnshop is usually time-consuming.
PawnHero allows one to get a rough estimate by sending a snapshot of an item for pawning via their smartphone. When one is satisfied with the price presented, one can send it to the PawnHero center by courier so one can get the cash when PawnHero completes evaluating the exact price. Dealing with $645 worth’s per hour in the Philippines, the company plans to expand to China and Vietnam.
The company provides users with cards so that they can withdraw money at a teller machine, use it for paying utility bills, make e-commerce purchases, mobile top-up and money remittance to other people. Making the most of this service, PawnHero Chairman David Margendorff says that he wants to promote financial inclusion in emerging markets.
WOVN.io (Japan)
WOVN.io instantly turns a website into a multilingual environment just by adding a single Javascript code to a website source. The platform has translated over 120,000 webpages to date. Jeff Sandford, co-founder of WOVN.io, demonstrated how instantly users can do so on the stage.
When website owners simply enter the URL for their website following signing up for the service, WOVN.io will fetch the content of the website and list elements comprising it such as buttons and texts on a screen. The owners can choose from two types of translation – machine translation using Google Translate and human-powered crowdsourced translation using Gengo, supporting up to more than 26 languages.
The team is aiming to make all websites around the world accessible by anyone on the planet, surmounting language barriers.
SELLinALL (Singapore)
SELLinALL is a cloud-based system that allows retailers to submit their merchandise to nine different e-commerce platforms including Amazon, eBay and Facebook, manage these inventories in an integrated manner.
Founded by engineers and others who had been working for the Singapore office of eBay for ten years, SELLinALL wants to expand into the entire Asian market while extensively exploring potential local partners, according to the company’s founder Vikraman Ilango.
BorderPass (Malaysia)
Upon foundation of the ASEAN Economic Community late last year, market expansion and human mobility in the region became facilitated, causing much congestion at international airports. BorderPass is a solution for simplifying the immigration process at airports within the region for ASEAN inhabitants, enabling them to set foot on foreign soil without forming a long queue.
BorderPass records profiles and travel history of users. When they book a flight to a certain country, their profiles and history are transferred to the country’s immigration authority in advance so that they can streamline the process when entering the country. Making the most of image recognition technology, the platform can recognize faces of travelers at passport control to help the authority fulfill their duties.
Aiming to be adopted at airports in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Bangkok, the company’s plans to conduct pilot programs with two airline companies and four airports in the three relevant countries.
Cropital (the Philippines)
Cropital is a crowdfunding platform for farmers in the Philippines. Ruel Amparo, CEO and founder of Cropital, explained by citing the story of a local farmer using the service. The farmer is 56 years old with a monthly income of less than $50 but has a lot of debts. There are about 10 million farmers in the Philippines, but two thirds of them such as the cited farmer are forced to live below the poverty line.
Cropital allows backers to choose farmers and gardens to invest in. Leveraging the funds from backers, farmers can invest in farm equipment and productivity improvement. Benefits from that will be returned to the backers after harvesting crops.
Regarding the distribution ratio of the revenue given by the Cropital platform, farmers and backers take 70% and 20% respectively while Cropital holds 10% as commission plus 5% transaction fee. It also has an aspect of a social impact investment to improve the local society in the Philippines. Thanks to community partners helping farmers launch their crowdfunding campaign, farmers don’t need to have a high IT literacy to use it.
Following these five pitches, this session’s MC Antti Sonninen, CEO of Slush Asia, introduced this year’s Slush Asia event taking place on 13th and 14th of May in Tokyo’s suburb. Slush Asia became one of Asia’s largest global startup events and attracted more than 3,000 people attending the one-day event last year. He claimed that this year’s event will be larger than that of last year, scheduling a big hackathon event for startups from 6th to 8th of May.
See the original story in Japanese. Fukuoka-based Sefuri, the Japanese startup that provides the Yamap app for mountain climbers and hikers, announced today that it has fundraised 170 million yen (about $1.5 million) in series A funding round. This round was led by Japanese mobile gaming publisher Colopl (TSE:3668), with participation from Daiwa Corporate Investment and Fukuoka-based VC firm Dogan. Sefuri claims that they will continue being focused on improving their services rather than pursuing profitability for over an year from now at least, so the funds will be used for operation during the period. Yamap is a mobile app that allows users to check where they are without mobile data access as well as provides a platform for sharing posts and updates about mountain climbing and hiking with other users. Since its launch back in March of 2013, the app has acquired 260,000 downloads, 160,000 registered users, 2.2 million photos and 9 million monthly page views to date. In July, the company launched an insurance service for hikers, Yamap Geers (a price comparison site that reviews outdoor gears), and .Hyakkei (an online media site focused on outdoor activities). They recently partnered with manufacturers of camera, smartphones and smartwatches to…
Fukuoka-based Sefuri, the Japanese startup that provides the Yamap app for mountain climbers and hikers, announced today that it has fundraised 170 million yen (about $1.5 million) in series A funding round. This round was led by Japanese mobile gaming publisher Colopl (TSE:3668), with participation from Daiwa Corporate Investment and Fukuoka-based VC firm Dogan. Sefuri claims that they will continue being focused on improving their services rather than pursuing profitability for over an year from now at least, so the funds will be used for operation during the period.
Yamap is a mobile app that allows users to check where they are without mobile data access as well as provides a platform for sharing posts and updates about mountain climbing and hiking with other users. Since its launch back in March of 2013, the app has acquired 260,000 downloads, 160,000 registered users, 2.2 million photos and 9 million monthly page views to date. In July, the company launched an insurance service for hikers, Yamap Geers (a price comparison site that reviews outdoor gears), and .Hyakkei (an online media site focused on outdoor activities). They recently partnered with manufacturers of camera, smartphones and smartwatches to diversify revenue streams.
The user community of the Yamap platform recently participated in a joint development project of camera accessories for outdoor use in association with Olympus’ open-platform camera Air A01(as showcased at CP+ show in Yokohama, for example). In addition, the Yamap app will be pre-installed on Kyocera’s outdoor smartphone Torque and Casio’s smartwatch WSD-F10 (on sale in late March).
The Yamap app preinstalled on Torque.The Yamap app preinstalled on WSD-F10.
Yoshihiko Haruyama, CEO of Sefuri, claims that they have categorized their business development phases into three categories: 1. offering easy-to-use and convenient measures, 2. offering exciting and novel experiences, and 3. becoming a good partner for users. They will be focused on Phase 2 from now on where his team wants to add new functions like giving users stickers upon reaching the top of a mountain or access a FireChat-like streetpass communication among users. We expect that Sefuri will soon add geolocation-based gamified experiences to the app with support from Colopl which is novel in this category.
Furthermore, Sefuri has been conducting a field test in Niseko, a renowned ski resort on the northernmost island of Hokkaido, in partnership with a local tourism association where the company is offering visiting skiers an offline map through the app to prevent them from straying off a set course (especially back country ones) in aaddition to letting them enjoy discovering as to how they may typically enjoy experiences in the resort by leveraging big data analysis. Since these updates are provided in English as well, more than 400 updates have been posted by domestic and inbound overseas visitors.
Upon this funding, The Bridge asked Haruyama about his business exit strategy. He told us that he’s aiming at an IPO by summer of 2020, however he will be exploring other exit options including M&A while considering a way to provide a positive impact on their users and services. He said the company wants to get involved in supporting inbound tourism demands at globally popular destinations in Japan such as another renowned ski resort Hakuba Area and the southern world heritage Yakushima Island.
See the original story in Japanese. The awareness of “Health and Productivity Management” in which corporations can expect better results in management upon focusing on employees’ health, has recently been enhanced. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has tied up with Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) and announced “Health and Productivity Stock Selection”: corporations considering employee health in terms of management and strategically work thereupon. Meanwhile, employee stress check-ups have been mandatory since last December in Japan. Corporations have to deal with various health items but most of them do not have sufficient measures against these due to lack of resources. Tokyo-based healthcare startup iCARE has released Carely, a newly developed healthcare platform for corporates in resolving this situation. In addition, the company recently announced that it has secured 100 million yen (about $880,000) from Japanese VC firm Incubate Fund. iCare was founded by three students at the Keio University Graduate School of Business Administration. Launch back in June of 2011, the company had been conducting the activities for the iCARE platform for over the first two years while continuing their previous jobs. They subsequently introduced a medical record management platform called Catchball in 2013. At that time,…
The awareness of “Health and Productivity Management” in which corporations can expect better results in management upon focusing on employees’ health, has recently been enhanced. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has tied up with Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) and announced “Health and Productivity Stock Selection”: corporations considering employee health in terms of management and strategically work thereupon.
Meanwhile, employee stress check-ups have been mandatory since last December in Japan. Corporations have to deal with various health items but most of them do not have sufficient measures against these due to lack of resources.
Tokyo-based healthcare startup iCARE has released Carely, a newly developed healthcare platform for corporates in resolving this situation. In addition, the company recently announced that it has secured 100 million yen (about $880,000) from Japanese VC firm Incubate Fund.
iCare was founded by three students at the Keio University Graduate School of Business Administration. Launch back in June of 2011, the company had been conducting the activities for the iCARE platform for over the first two years while continuing their previous jobs. They subsequently introduced a medical record management platform called Catchball in 2013.
At that time, people were still less interested in health management and cloud tools.
recalls Yamada Yota, CEO of iCARE. Yamada, an occupational physician, general internist and psychotherapist, asked corporates to adopt the Catchball platform when offering the medical service.
The awareness of health management or cloud tools has changed with the times. At the same time, they have developed the Carely platform. The team’s awareness of the issues has not changed since they launched the Catchball platform. Health information of employees is dispersed and discontinued if the representative changes. They aim to improve this inefficiency which even occupational physicians cannot understand, and to visualize such health information.
Carely dashboard
Carely offers centrally integrated management on cloud, visualization and analysis of employees’ health information. Companies can manage personnel / labor information including their attendance, results of medical / stress check-ups and information of occupational physician’s consultation.
By visualizing employees’ personal health information, Carely can specifically respond to users’ needs via chat function based on the health data when a problem occurs or they need to consult a specialist. With this chat function, doctors and public health nurses respond to employees’ health issues based on personal health data. They also provide the content of health-related information such as health guidance after medical checkup or stress check-up via chat.
Carely is, so to speak, an “online infirmary.” Corporates can use the platform for tiresome scheduling of employees’ medical checkup with medical centers or conducting stress check-up and it becomes a medical touchpoint for the employees. In addition to these system uses, iCARE provides Carely PRO which offers health agent service or consulting for health and productivity management. To promote the practical use of Carely they carry out the tasks related to the medical checkup and the stress check-up that are the company’s obligations.
Checkup data is managed on Carely as health information and is utilized for health consulting chats. Moreover, it thoroughly supports the industrial hygienic activities contributing to the health and productivity management such as starting up a system of industrial hygiene or operating daily health committee. Health items are largely divided into the physical and the mental, and each of these are divided into three steps: medical examination task, related task like agent services and consulting task. To date, there is no other platform which covers all of these tasks, told Yamada.
The field of ‘related task’ including agent services is a very difficult part to improve in terms of efficiency and systemization as the task is mostly within the purview of medical centers and thus can be communicated only by fax. Therefore, health platform developers have not worked on this field. We will brush up on our operation in this sector while offering Carely service.
iCARE’s Yamada (left) receives an award at Rising Expo 2014, the annual startup showcase event by CyberAgent Ventures in Tokyo.
The management team at iCARE has experience dealing with business improvement or in enhancing efficiency for the medical sector and leading companies. By optimizing their experience and know-how, they aim to improve their operation of Carely. Their business model has several operational weak points that need to be improved. The related task as mentioned above is one of these, and how the doctors as well as public health nurses respond to chat consulting is also an important point which requires meticulous improvements.
Yamada says,
The time slots employees consult via chat are not during business hours but before/after work or during break time. Therefore, we offer the consulting service for those time periods in addition to holidays upon arranging the work schedule of doctors.
Currently we are repeating the tests to ensure the quality of our service. The advantage of this chat consulting is that we can implement PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Action) by leveraging the history of chat text. It becomes easier to improve the service by visualizing the ‘black boxed’ points of telephone consulting.
Carely has already been introduced into several companies. Rizap, a well-known Japanese chain of weight-loss gyms, is also one of them. According to Rizap, the consultation rate of employees’ medical checkups has been improved from 50% to more than 90%, since they introduced Carely.
iCARE is prioritizing the brush-up of their service for the moment, and will aim to acquire 100 companies. Carrying out a medical act is not part of iCARE’s goal; the fact is under Japanese law they cannot engage in medical practice. The company has a concept of “cloud hospital” which offers programs related to “prevention and improvement” via cloud. They consolidate the health care data held by corporations, and conduct medical consulting via chat based on health data. In the future, they estimate that they will be able to recommend solutions that meet user’s demands.
By brushing up on Carely, this cloud service will enable small and mid-sized companies that cannot afford to invest in employee health issues, to carry out health support activities. With this fundraising, iCARE will enhance their system of management, development and marketing, while improving their service.
Translated by Minako Ambiru via Mother First Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Financial Innovation Business Conference (FIBC) is an annual FinTech startup event which has been offered by Information Services International-Dentsu (TSE:4812, ISID) since 20112012. On 26 February, the 6th batch, FIBC 2016 was held in Tokyo, and domestic and international startups gathered there. At FIBC, the Financial Technology startups pitch, the so-called “FinPitch,” is a tradition. After tight battles between 22 teams, a trading platform in which users can develop and share investment algorithm through deep learning, called “Capitalico,” won the top prize. In this article, we pick up on the prize-winning startups only. The following were the judges of “FinPitch”: Masakazu Masujima (Mori Hamada & Matsumoto Law Office, Partner & Lawyer) Mio Takaoka (Executive Director at Monex Group / Managing Director at Monex Ventures) Tetsuya Isozaki (Certified Public Accountant, General Partner at Femto Growth Capital) Makoto Shibata (Principal Analyst, Global Innovation Team, eBusiness & IT Initiatives Division at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ) Hisanori Ogawa (Director, Strategic Research Office at Mizuho Securities) Top Award winner: Capitalico by Alpaca (USA / Japan) Prizes: $120,000 worth of free Microsoft Azure cloud credit, Tickets for 2 people and 1-day exhibition booth pass at Tech in Asia Singapore,…
At FIBC, the Financial Technology startups pitch, the so-called “FinPitch,” is a tradition. After tight battles between 22 teams, a trading platform in which users can develop and share investment algorithm through deep learning, called “Capitalico,” won the top prize. In this article, we pick up on the prize-winning startups only.
The following were the judges of “FinPitch”:
Masakazu Masujima (Mori Hamada & Matsumoto Law Office, Partner & Lawyer)
Mio Takaoka (Executive Director at Monex Group / Managing Director at Monex Ventures)
Tetsuya Isozaki (Certified Public Accountant, General Partner at Femto Growth Capital)
Makoto Shibata (Principal Analyst, Global Innovation Team, eBusiness & IT Initiatives Division at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ)
Hisanori Ogawa (Director, Strategic Research Office at Mizuho Securities)
Top Award winner: Capitalico by Alpaca (USA / Japan)
Prizes: $120,000 worth of free Microsoft Azure cloud credit, Tickets for 2 people and 1-day exhibition booth pass at Tech in Asia Singapore, and artwork by Mr. Iida
Capitalico allows users to develop investment algorithm leveraging the deep-learning technology without having having advanced programming skills. Users can create their own algorithm, and based on it they can receive the trading signals or conduct automated trading. The team is planning to open a marketplace where users can sell their created algorithm during this year.
They will offer the service for $99/month and will target $240 million sales per year. On 7 March, they will release an iOS app to create algorithm on smartphones with several taps. Capitalico is based on Alpaca’s Labellio, an image recognition deep-learning platform, and Alpaca sold Labellio to Kyocera Communication Systems (KCCS) earlier this year.
ISID Special award winner: I’m IN by SMILABLE (Japan)
Prize: Sphero Android BB-8
It is tiresome to collect small sums of money from a lot of people by bank transfer or crowdfunding. “I’m IN” supports users to collect small sums by leveraging social network functions to realize projects. Conceivable use cases are to send birthday presents jointly with several other people or to collect fees at parties.
In the future, they are planning to apply it to the fields of ticket sales or auction, to open a projects gathering marketplace called Ideamall, to add a new function to enable offering a present from several persons by configuring an “I’m IN” button on the top page of e-commerce platforms and develop mobile apps.
Mitsubishi Estate’s Finolab award winner: Shift Payments by Shift Financial (USA)
Prize: Finolab tenancy rights
Y Combinator-backed Shift Payments issues VISA cards which can be settled using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Users can shop or withdraw money at stores or ATMs accepting the VISA card. The used sum will be debited from users’ wallet such as Coinbase linked to Shift Payments account.
Added to this, it is possible to link all sort of store values such as reward cards to Shift Payments Card. The system is integrated with Dwolla for bank account-to-account remittance service via mobile as well as Mint.com for financial account aggregation and analytics service.
Special Award winner: ConsenSys by Consensus Systems (USA)
Prize: Portable Video Projector Sony LSPX-P1
Consensus Systems is working on Ethereum, the foundation of Decentralized Applications (DApps), and Smart Contract (Contacts realized by electronically securing authenticity). Their solution ConsenSys uses private keys and can prove one’s authenticity with blockchain technology. On the other hand, by using public keys, users can retrieve required personal data items for contracts from a previously registered store and both of the parties concerned in the contract can make sure of their authentic presence for each other, upon using smart contracts.
In a demonstration of ConsenSys, they introduced the procedure to conclude a contract for Total Return Swap (a sort of Swap transaction) between two parties by smart contract, and explained the mechanism to follow the changes of each other’s reputation in transactions.
Special Award winner: Eversafe by Everspin (Korea)
Prize: Portable Video Projector Sony LSPX-P1
Everspin’s Eversafe is a server-side security solution for mobile apps and provides security modules that change with time to mobile app developers. By applying different security modules every time the users start apps, it can prevent hacking of mobile services or apps. There are two types of tariff: selling out to app developers as an on-premise environment OR charging users depending on the number of callouts from the module as a cloud-based service.
As the result of 3,245 hacking tests conducted by the South Korean security agency, they scored perfectly as to evaluation of efficiency. In Korea, they are cooperating with local security solution vendors linke Asiana IDT, Koscom and SK Inforsec, and for the global development they tied up with an a worldwide cloud service vendor although they have not yet disclosed the company name. Currently they are seeking a business partner in Japan.
Sony Bank Innovation Award winner: PlugAir Secure by Beatrobo (Japan)
Prize: Personal 3D Printer MakerBot ReplicatorMini
The total annual amount of phishing damage for individuals is 290 million yen (about $2.6 million) in Japan and has increased 60fold over the last 2 years. The annual damage caused by information leakage from companies are $1.27 billion. The causes of phishing and information leaks are primarily password cracking. As smartphones become used more as touchpoints than PCs, securing the smartphone is an urgent issue.
PlugAir Secure is applied from PlugAir, a music gadget developed by Beatrobo, for security purpose and it functions as a security key by plugging this gadget into the earphone jack of smartphones. It can be used as an authentication tool for various mobile apps or services without inputting password. In one PlugAir, users can put authentication keys for up to 30 different services.
Audience Award winner: Shift Payments by Shift Financials (USA)
Prize: Creation right of promotional video
Description omitted here because it was introduced above.
Including FinTech association affiliated startups, several dozen companies exhibited their booths.FiBC original Dorayaki (Japanese sweets) distributed at exhibit venue.
Tokyo-based LifeRobotics, the Japanese startup behind a cooperative working robot called Coro, announced today that it has closed a series A round having fundraised about 5 million yen ($4.4 million). The company had secured 270 million yen ($2.2 million) before they announced the start of the series A fundraising last November. In addition to existing investors, Japan’s leading industrial electronics manufacturer Koden Holdings, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Omron Ventures participated in this round to invest 230 million yen ($2 million). Hence, the total amount fundraised in this round has surpassed the company’s initial target of 4 million yen ($3.5 million). LifeRobotics was founded in December 2007 by Dr. Woo-Keun Yoon, who has been studying livelihood-support robot arms at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and other research institutions for over 15 years. His team has been developing cooperative working robots, which allow users to let the robot learn motions using a 3D mouse, or a game pad without complex programming skills. The company is developing a co-robot called Coro for small manufacturing spaces where conventional robots are difficult to position, as well as to improve people’s productivity and to automate manufacturing. LifeRobotics will use the funds…
Tokyo-based LifeRobotics, the Japanese startup behind a cooperative working robot called Coro, announced today that it has closed a series A round having fundraised about 5 million yen ($4.4 million). The company had secured 270 million yen ($2.2 million) before they announced the start of the series A fundraising last November. In addition to existing investors, Japan’s leading industrial electronics manufacturer Koden Holdings, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Omron Ventures participated in this round to invest 230 million yen ($2 million). Hence, the total amount fundraised in this round has surpassed the company’s initial target of 4 million yen ($3.5 million).
LifeRobotics was founded in December 2007 by Dr. Woo-Keun Yoon, who has been studying livelihood-support robot arms at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and other research institutions for over 15 years. His team has been developing cooperative working robots, which allow users to let the robot learn motions using a 3D mouse, or a game pad without complex programming skills. The company is developing a co-robot called Coro for small manufacturing spaces where conventional robots are difficult to position, as well as to improve people’s productivity and to automate manufacturing.
LifeRobotics will use the funds to boost its technology development and hire sales staff. The company is also hiring software and hardware engineers as well as interns who want a career in robotics.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Repro, the provider of mobile analytics tool under the same name, announced today that the company has fundraised 300 million yen (about $2.6 million) from Jafco (TSE:8595), Voyage Ventures, and several angel investors. This follows their previous funding round where they raised 100 million yen (about $835,000) from DG Incubation, Brain Pad (TSE:3655), and Shift (TSE:3697) back in May of last year. Repro provides an SDK (software development kit) to support the development of apps for improved retention rate of users and UI (user interface) based on user behavior on mobile apps. When a user operates an app with an SDK installed, information such as the user’s method of operating the interface, the track record of that operation and the user’s facial expressions during that time are recorded. Based on these functions, the platform provides developers with not only quantitative analysis such as funnel and retention analysis but also qualitative analysis like reproducing user actions in the app leveraging recorded play-by-play video so that developers can instantly find what the problem is. Implementing in-app marketing features like push notification and in-app messaging, the platform helps developers improve the retention and conversation rates of…
Tokyo-based Repro, the provider of mobile analytics tool under the same name, announced today that the company has fundraised 300 million yen (about $2.6 million) from Jafco (TSE:8595), Voyage Ventures, and several angel investors. This follows their previous funding round where they raised 100 million yen (about $835,000) from DG Incubation, Brain Pad (TSE:3655), and Shift (TSE:3697) back in May of last year.
Repro provides an SDK (software development kit) to support the development of apps for improved retention rate of users and UI (user interface) based on user behavior on mobile apps. When a user operates an app with an SDK installed, information such as the user’s method of operating the interface, the track record of that operation and the user’s facial expressions during that time are recorded.
Based on these functions, the platform provides developers with not only quantitative analysis such as funnel and retention analysis but also qualitative analysis like reproducing user actions in the app leveraging recorded play-by-play video so that developers can instantly find what the problem is. Implementing in-app marketing features like push notification and in-app messaging, the platform helps developers improve the retention and conversation rates of their apps.
Since its official release in April of 2015, the platform has been adopted by major e-commerce sites, games, news media and other various apps from the IT industry, according to Repro CEO Yusuke Hirata.
The lastest funding is to strengthen the foundation of our system development and hiring talents. At the same time, we would like to start our global expansion efforts, planning to conduct a test marketing in the overseas market followed by launching an overseas office next year.
Repro CEO Yusuke Hirata
While many users are app developers in Japan, the company has been receiving numerous inquiries from overseas developers despite no massive promotion and adopted by more than 1,400 mobile apps from 18 countries. Upon funding at this time, the company wants to expand the implementation of its mobile app growth hack solution to fashion, real estate, automotive, human resources, marriage counseling, among other non-IT sectors.
Leveraging their past experience of developing and implementing the solution, Repro provide wants to provide app developers with a more comprehensive solution rather than just offering an SDK.
Hirata explained:
When developers release their app, many of them definitely want to gain sales, customer satisfaction, or touch points with their users. Based on these strategies, we will offer a growth hacking expertise for mobile app development such as setting KPIs (key performance indicators) or magic numbers, which we have learned through serving 1,400 mobile apps.
Repro recently introduced a new API (application program interface) supporting mobile push notification. This allows business owners to integrate statistics from other sales channels like a website or a real store with their mobile app so that they can conduct more personalized marketing to each and every customer.
Hirata continued:
For e-commerce sites offering both a website and a mobile app, they can push a mobile notification via our platform to the smartphone of the users who have selected items to buy but not yet completed the purchase on the website. By connecting the two interfaces, we can allow e-commerce sites to offer a cross-channel experience for their customers.
As of now Repro is focused on mobile growth hacking, but they may expand its support to a desktop or website interface in the future. Using the funds, the company plans to prepare for a global expansion without pause.
Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Venture Business Creation Council, Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, The Tokyo New Business Conference (Connect!), and Japan New Business Conferences held the award-presenting ceremony for the 2nd Nippon Venture Awards last week in Tokyo, where Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, economy minister Mikio Hayashi, and eight winners of the awards were invited. At the beginning of the ceremony, Abe gave the following speech highlighting Peptidream’s history, the company having won the Prime Minister award. The company chosen for the Prime Minister award had realized an innovation for fighting ailments such as cancers and infections. I was told that they started from a garage-like office filled with used laboratory tables. By putting technologies for pinpoint attacks on cancer cells into practical use, it has grown into a huge company with a market capitalization of more than 200 billion yen (about $1.75 billion) in just ten years. […] I would like to conclude my remarks by wishing Japan to become a major startup power led by you the winners as a new force and by other entrepreneurs who will follow you. The following are the details of the award winners. Prime minister’s award winner:…
Venture Business Creation Council, Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, The Tokyo New Business Conference (Connect!), and Japan New Business Conferences held the award-presenting ceremony for the 2nd Nippon Venture Awards last week in Tokyo, where Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, economy minister Mikio Hayashi, and eight winners of the awards were invited.
At the beginning of the ceremony, Abe gave the following speech highlighting Peptidream’s history, the company having won the Prime Minister award.
The company chosen for the Prime Minister award had realized an innovation for fighting ailments such as cancers and infections. I was told that they started from a garage-like office filled with used laboratory tables. By putting technologies for pinpoint attacks on cancer cells into practical use, it has grown into a huge company with a market capitalization of more than 200 billion yen (about $1.75 billion) in just ten years. […]
I would like to conclude my remarks by wishing Japan to become a major startup power led by you the winners as a new force and by other entrepreneurs who will follow you.
The following are the details of the award winners.
Prime minister’s award winner: Peptidream
Kiichi Kubota, CEO of Peptidream, receives the testimonial from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Image credit: Cabinet Public Relations Office
Peptidream is a University of Tokyo-originated venture focusing on research and development of drugs under academia-industry cooperation. By utilizing a special peptide developed at RCAST (Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology) of the University of Tokyo, which improved the disadvantages of the conventional peptide having poor in-vivo stability or no cell membrane permeability, Peptidream has been creating new peptide pharmaceuticals.
Economy minister’s award winners (partnership of venture and established company): ZMP, DeNA, and Sony Mobile Communications
ZMP has been developing platforms for development of autonomous driving technologies and sensor systems, or engaging in development support of autonomous driving technologies for automakers. It established Robot Taxi, aiming to facilitate mobility in cooperation with DeNA, in May of 2015. With Sony Communications, it had started Aerosense last August for the survey and analysis business using drones.
Economy minister’s award winner (female entrepreneur): Genequest
GeneQuest is a startup focusing on gene analysis, established by researchers at the University of Tokyo and others in 2013. Sending back one’s saliva collected by the sampling kit which was sent from the lab after the order, one can receive evaluation with 300 items regarding congenital onset risks of diseases or constitutions based on the results of gene analysis.
Special jury award winner (global expansion): Mercari
Mercari, providing a mobile marketplace app for C2C (consumer-to-consumer) under the same name, established a branch office in San Francisco in March 2014 and entered the US market. Recently, it has tried to strengthen its services and to secure human resources as well through investment in other startups. On 1 February, it revealed that the app achieved seven million downloads just within the US.
Special jury award winner (social problem solution): Surala Net
Tokyo-based Surala Net developed educational materials utilizing interactive animation that enable learning with a game feel via the Internet, targeting children from the higher grades of elementary school to high school. Tying up with domestic cram schools, the service has realized an education model consisting of both self-learning support using these materials and follow-ups by tutors.
Special jury award winner (intrapreneurship): Sony
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based Mercari, the Japanese startup behind C2C (consumer-to-consumer) marketplace app under the same name, announced today that it has fundraised 8.4 billion yen ($74 million) in a series D round. Participating investors include Globis Capital Partners, World Innovation Lab (WiL), Global Brain, Mercari’s board members, Mitsui & Co., Development Bank of Japan, and Japan Co-invest Limited Partnership. With the latest funding, the company has fundraised a total of 1.26 billion yen ($110 million) since its launch in February 2013. Coinciding with this announcement, the company disclosed that the app has surpassed 25 million downloads in Japan and 7 million downloads in the US, and has transacted more than 10 billion yen ($88 million) in deals through the platform. They claim that the primary purpose of this round is to boost global expansion, especially in the US. In addition, they will use the funds to develop new business at Souzou, a subsidiary of Mercari, as well as strengthening the team for mergers and acquisitions, and investing in other businesses. See also: Japanese mobile flea market app Mercari raises $14 million, will expand to US market Japanese flea market app Mercari…
This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.
Tokyo-based Mercari, the Japanese startup behind C2C (consumer-to-consumer) marketplace app under the same name, announced today that it has fundraised 8.4 billion yen ($74 million) in a series D round. Participating investors include Globis Capital Partners, World Innovation Lab (WiL), Global Brain, Mercari’s board members, Mitsui & Co., Development Bank of Japan, and Japan Co-invest Limited Partnership. With the latest funding, the company has fundraised a total of 1.26 billion yen ($110 million) since its launch in February 2013.
Coinciding with this announcement, the company disclosed that the app has surpassed 25 million downloads in Japan and 7 million downloads in the US, and has transacted more than 10 billion yen ($88 million) in deals through the platform. They claim that the primary purpose of this round is to boost global expansion, especially in the US. In addition, they will use the funds to develop new business at Souzou, a subsidiary of Mercari, as well as strengthening the team for mergers and acquisitions, and investing in other businesses.
See the original story in Japanese. Astroscale, a Singapore- / Tokyo-based startup developing satellites to remove space debris from Earth’s orbit, announced today that it has fundraised up to $35 million from Japanese government-backed investment fund Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) and Jafco in a series B round. INCJ will undertake an investment worth up to $30 million while Jafco will invest $5 million from their fund raised from other several investors. The latest funding round is followed by securing a $7.7 million series A round back in February of 2015 where Jafco, Mistletoe as well as angel investors like Kotaro Yamagishi (Gree co-founder), Kenji Kasahara (Mixi co-founder), Shuhei Morofuji (SMS founder) and Kiyoshi Nishikawa (Netage founder) paid in. At the beginning of the press conference in Tokyo today, Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki made a keynote speech to elaborate the danger of space debris which she experienced through her space shuttle Discovery mission STS-131. Ground-based radar telescopes can detect the Earth’s debris down to 10 centimeters in size so that a space shuttle or the International Space Station (ISS) can be warned to avoid space debris. However, space debris are so fast (circling the Earth at a velocity of…
From the left: Shigeyuki Tsuchida (Senior Executive Officer, Innovation Network Corporation of Japan), Naoko Yamazaki (astronaut), Mitsunobu Okada (CEO, Astroscale)
Astroscale, a Singapore- / Tokyo-based startup developing satellites to remove space debris from Earth’s orbit, announced today that it has fundraised up to $35 million from Japanese government-backed investment fund Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) and Jafco in a series B round. INCJ will undertake an investment worth up to $30 million while Jafco will invest $5 million from their fund raised from other several investors. The latest funding round is followed by securing a $7.7 million series A round back in February of 2015 where Jafco, Mistletoe as well as angel investors like Kotaro Yamagishi (Gree co-founder), Kenji Kasahara (Mixi co-founder), Shuhei Morofuji (SMS founder) and Kiyoshi Nishikawa (Netage founder) paid in.
At the beginning of the press conference in Tokyo today, Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki made a keynote speech to elaborate the danger of space debris which she experienced through her space shuttle Discovery mission STS-131. Ground-based radar telescopes can detect the Earth’s debris down to 10 centimeters in size so that a space shuttle or the International Space Station (ISS) can be warned to avoid space debris. However, space debris are so fast (circling the Earth at a velocity of about 7.5 kilometers per second) that even tiny space debris smaller than 10 centimeters and larger than 1 centimeter, which cannot be detected with ground-based radar telescopes, may greatly damage rockets, artificial satellites and the ISS.
Receiving sponsorship from Japanese cutting tool manufacturer OSG (TSE:6136), Astroscale started developing a space debris detection satellite called IDEA OSG 1 last year, which aims to detect small space debris which cannot be detected with ground-based radar telescopes. To remove space debris, they will develop capturing satellites called ADRAS 01 which is to use lightweight but sticky adhesives to capture space debris which is relatively smaller and located at a relatively lower altitude, and then reenter the atmosphere to burn the captured debris out. For ones larger or located at a higher altitude, these will be decongested from a heavy traffic orbit rather than being removed because it will require higher energy consumption to move them. Capturing satellites are to incorporate advance technologies from Japanese ultra-microsatellite series Hodoyoshi, have an ion engine, hydrogen peroxide solution-based attitude control system and ESP (Electric Solid Propellent) thrusters.
From the left: Space-debris capturing satellite ADRAS 1, space-debris detection satellite IDEA OSG 1
Mitsunobu Okada, CEO of Astroscale, emphasized that his company has been receiving cooperation from 11 laboratories at 9 universities, two technical colleges, JAXA (Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency) and 50 other private-sector companies including machine manufacturing company Yuki Precision. Okada named a team of these people involved in this Space Sweepers project, and stated his aspiration that they all unite together to lead the project to success.
Astroscale plans to launch the first IDEA OSG 1 satellite from Russia between 2016 and early 2017. Following that, they will launch ADRAS 01 in the first half of 2018 to begin conducting proof of concept (PoC) tests. Represented by Japanese space startup Axelspace, the upcoming trend of satellite business will be shifting to satellite constellation, which allows users to observe many parts of the planet without timing constraints. Astroscale wants to monetize by acquiring these satellite business operators as clients and receiving entrusted tasks such as removing failed satellites or securing orbits.
Masaru Ikeda
The Bridge
Junya Mori
Shintaro Eguchi
Takeshi Hirano
