THE BRIDGE

Search artificial intelligence

Japan’s Abeja, Google Analytics for retail stores, secures $38M series C round

The Bridge The Bridge
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Abeja, the company offering solutions for retail stores to improve customer path or traffic based on image analysis and machine learning technologies, announced today that it has raised 4.25 billion yen (about $38.4 million) in a series C round. Participating investors are SBI Investment, Daikin Industries, TBS Innovation Partners, Topcon, Japan Post Capital and Musashi Seimitsu Industry, in addition to existing investors including PNB-Inspire Ethical Fund, Nvidia and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ). The company uses the funds to set up AI (artificial intelligence) management locations in ASEAN countries and the US for their flagship cloud Abeja Platform, enhance their vertical-focused SaaS (Software as a Service) platform Abeja Insight, strengthen R&D efforts and improve intellectual property management, plus hire talented staffers in the deep learning space. Founded in September of 2012, followed by graduation from the 1st batch of the Orange Fab Asia acceleration program, Abeja has raised an undisclosed sum in an angel and a seed round. Subsequently, the company has raised six figures in US dollars from Salesforce in a series A round back in 2014, followed by securing 700 million yen (about $7 million at the exchange rate then)…

Abeja CEO/CTO Yosuke Okada explains about Abeja Platform Partner Ecosystem
(Photographed at Docomo Innovation Village in November of 2016)
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Abeja, the company offering solutions for retail stores to improve customer path or traffic based on image analysis and machine learning technologies, announced today that it has raised 4.25 billion yen (about $38.4 million) in a series C round. Participating investors are SBI Investment, Daikin Industries, TBS Innovation Partners, Topcon, Japan Post Capital and Musashi Seimitsu Industry, in addition to existing investors including PNB-Inspire Ethical Fund, Nvidia and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ).

The company uses the funds to set up AI (artificial intelligence) management locations in ASEAN countries and the US for their flagship cloud Abeja Platform, enhance their vertical-focused SaaS (Software as a Service) platform Abeja Insight, strengthen R&D efforts and improve intellectual property management, plus hire talented staffers in the deep learning space.

Founded in September of 2012, followed by graduation from the 1st batch of the Orange Fab Asia acceleration program, Abeja has raised an undisclosed sum in an angel and a seed round. Subsequently, the company has raised six figures in US dollars from Salesforce in a series A round back in 2014, followed by securing 700 million yen (about $7 million at the exchange rate then) in a series B round from INCJ, Archetype, Inspire-PNB Partners. The funding at this time is seen making the amount raised to date total at 5 billion yen (about $45 million).

See also:

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Related news

  1. Japan’s Abeja, Google Analytics for retail stores, secures $5M in series B round
  2. Japanese deep learning startup Abeja raises series C extension round from Google
  3. Japan’s Abeja, analytics for retail stores, gets $2M funding for ASEAN expansion

Japan’s Recruit holds Tech Lab Paak Demo Day, teams from final batch present results

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098) earlier this month held a Demo Day for the 12th batch of Tech Lab Paak, the startup accelerator based in Shibuya, Tokyo. 11 teams gave 3-minute pitches presenting their six-months’ results since joining the program. In addition, 6 teams made 1-minute pitches (1 team was absence) and thereby it became a big pitch event totaling 17 teams. Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following were judges for the pitch competition. Yohei Sawayama (Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan) Madoka Sawa (Director, Microsoft Technology Lab., Microsoft Japan) Ken Nishimura (Journalist / ex. Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan) Goushi Yamaguchi (COO, ProtoStar) Hiroshi Hata (Principal Manager of Startup Business Development Department , Amazon Web Service) Ayumi Iwamoto (Chief, Tech Lab Paak) Tech Lab Paak has been managed for three and a half years since its launch in December of 2014, but it is going to be closed at the end of June. The accelerator program is also scheduled to be terminated with this 12th batch. Yoichi Aso, the first head of the venue and the program,…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Recruit Holdings (TSE:6098) earlier this month held a Demo Day for the 12th batch of Tech Lab Paak, the startup accelerator based in Shibuya, Tokyo.

11 teams gave 3-minute pitches presenting their six-months’ results since joining the program. In addition, 6 teams made 1-minute pitches (1 team was absence) and thereby it became a big pitch event totaling 17 teams.

Below, we introduce what kind of services were or are going to be born out from Tech Lab Paak, with a focus on prizewinners. The following were judges for the pitch competition.

  • Yohei Sawayama (Managing Partner, 500 Startups Japan)
  • Madoka Sawa (Director, Microsoft Technology Lab., Microsoft Japan)
  • Ken Nishimura (Journalist / ex. Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch Japan)
  • Goushi Yamaguchi (COO, ProtoStar)
  • Hiroshi Hata (Principal Manager of Startup Business Development Department , Amazon Web Service)
  • Ayumi Iwamoto (Chief, Tech Lab Paak)

Tech Lab Paak has been managed for three and a half years since its launch in December of 2014, but it is going to be closed at the end of June. The accelerator program is also scheduled to be terminated with this 12th batch. Yoichi Aso, the first head of the venue and the program, had left Recruit this April and started two business of Alpha Drive and Genome Clinic.

Tech Lab Paak Award winner: Residential facility in space by Outsense

Supplemental prize: AppleStore gift cards worth 30,000 yen

Outsense is developing technologies for constructing residential facility in space utilizing three-dimensional developable structure like Origami (Japanese folding papercraft). As the space development moves ahead globally and manned activities on the moon are expected to begin in around 2030, the team tackles designing of residential facility, mockup creation or business development.

Unlike the conventional residential facilities on the moon, Outsense devised a concept of a roofed house design and is applying for a patent on that technology. The team has been improving functions of the facility not only for the maintenance of life but also for a space to live a comfortable life.

Microsoft Award winner: Kazamidori

Supplemental prize: king crab 1.5kg

Kazamidori offers solutions for general problems related to infant education. To provide an environment where anyone can receive a proper educational opportunity regardless of birth or background, the team takes on research and development of a data-driven and socially implementable infant education method. The team approaches to infant education from three angles: giving advice about caring of children domestically, improving work efficiency at nursery schools or kindergartens and reforming social systems through lobbying of governmental authorities. The research part is planned to be conducted as a non-profit organization (NPO) set apart from its main body of business.

Kazamidori is going to launch an infant educational media soon. In the end, the team plans to manage its own nursery school bringing together the knowledge acquired from all business sectors but thinks it is not easy to achieve the exit in its all business sectors at once due to the size of the business theme ranging over various area, so that it is considering a way to pay return to investors as exiting each business one by one.

500 Startups Japan Award: TOLETTA by Hachitama

Supplemental prize: Matsusaka beef and Kobe beef set

Hachitama develops Toletta, the IoT (Internet of Things) toilet for cat capable of checking up urologic diseases. It cleans cat excrement automatically, identifies each cat by image recognition and records usage information including weight, urine quantity or urination / defecation frequency. When any abnormal findings are detected, the information will be sent to their owners’ app. The team monetizes its service based on three factors: device / smartphone app, periodic purchase of recognized organic cat food and online consultation.

The most common cause of cats’ death is kidney failure and Hachitama aims to prolong cats’ lifespan by enabling the owners to realize their cats’ initial symptoms such as polyuria or weight loss. Coincidentally, Sharp had also recently unveiled a similar smart cat toilet product, but Hachitama aims to maintain priority by establishing diversified business strategy leveraging cooperation with pet food / insurance companies and database about cats / owners.

Hachitama was founded in 2015 (the company name was Pet Board Healthcare then). It succeeded in a crowdfunding campaign at Green Funding and was subsequently chosen for Morinaga Accelerator 2016 which is managed / supported by 01booster and Tokyo Accelerator which is managed by Dai-ichi Kangyo Credit Cooperative. After that, the team raised a total of 40 million yen (about $380,000) from Morinaga, Kanshin Mirai Fund (managed by Dai-ichi Kangyo Credit Cooperative), Actcall and 01booster, in addition to obtaining the subordinated loan from Japan Finance Corporation. The team won the Monozukuri Hardware Cup competition in March and was recently invited to the Global Hardware Cup 2018 competition in Pittsburgh as a finalist.

ProtoStar Award / Audience Award winner: Kimakuri by BloomScheme

Supplemental prizes: pair of meal tickets of Cuisine[s] Michel Troisgros / Champagne Taittinger 6,000 ml

BloomSheme develops a virtual try-on service named Kimakuri. It solves fashion users’ worries that they do not know whether clothes suit their faces or body types just by seeing magazine photos and it is bothersome to go shop to try them on but takes time to order the clothes from e-commerce websites.

On Kimakuri, users upload their face photos and input body type data in advance. The face photos are translated into 3D model and it shows a try-on image in the well-fitted style to the body type with each user’s face when a user chooses any clothes. The team plans to support single item changing in an outfit and 360-degree imaging in the future.

Users can share try-on images on social network services and can access e-commerce sites directly from Kimakuri allowing them to purchase the items. The team allows end-users to use the service for free and is considering monetization by charging fashion operators for account use, coordinate listing fee or website guidance fee. The team also considers adding a coordinate suggestion by a professional stylist as a premium function in the future. The team is applying for a patent for the system and plans to launch the closed beta at the end of June.

Nishimura Award winner: Ostrich antibody food science by VitaLonga

Supplemental prize: three meal tickets at boat-style restaurant (Yakatabune)

VitaLonga is a nutraceuticals (nutrition+pharmaceuticals) startup focusing on technology to use antibodies acquired from ostriches into food. The ostrich antibodies are much cheaper, resident to heat and stable to acid / alkali than general antibodies, so that they can be easily to added to food. By introducing ostrich antibodies against pollen allergen or influenza virus into food, various disease preventing effects can be expected.

Since antibodies delivered via invasive methods are considered as drugs, clinical trials are required to be given marketing approval. On the other hand, since food comprising antibodies are treated as additives which act only from taking by mouth until discharging from the body, the market introduction may be easier. The antibodies are separated from ostrich egg york and has low possibility of causing side effects. The team begins with the food additives and has been considering the application to health functional food or pharmaceuticals in the future.

AWS Award winner: AI for security camera analysis by VAAK

Supplemental prize: Amazon gift cards worth 30,000 yen

VAAK develops crime prevention solution analyzing security camera images by AI (artificial intelligence). The total damage due to shoplifting is estimated to be 13 trillion yen (about $120 billion) in the world and 500 billion yen (about $4.5 billion) in Japan annually at least, and it is hard to fully stop just by introducing watchdog persons or prevention gates. The team utilizes existing security cameras or video recorders to provide cheap and efficient crime prevention measures.

This system analyzes shop visitors’ behavior scenario based on past crime data and shop visiting patterns such as their severe facial expression or furtive manner and notifies shop managers that shoplifting is likely to happen 60 seconds before that  happens. The system is applicable to suspicious person countermeasure or accident prevention, as well as to automatic settlement service without the cashier using the same technology. VAAK announced it had raised 50 million yen (about $450,000) from an undisclosed venture capital this April.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Related news

  1. Japan’s Recruit holds Tech Lab Paak Demo Day, teams from 4th batch present results
  2. Japan’s Recruit holds Tech Lab Paak Demo Day, teams from 9th batch present results
  3. Wrap up from Recruit’s Tech Lab Paak demo day; batch 1 teams present their results

Robotics process automation startup Cinnamon secures $8.3M in series B round

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Japanese startup Cinnamon, developing a document reading engine for “white collar” businesses, announced today that it has secured 800 million yen (about $7.4 million) in a series B round funding and 100 million yen (about $926,000) in loans. The latest round is led by SBI Investment with participation from FFG Venture Business Partners, Itochu Techno-Solutions, Sony Innovation Fund and TIS. Loans were secured from Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Bank this time. The latest round follows the previous funding from multiple institutional and individual investors back in January this year (the announcement was made in February). The sum of funding in the previous round has not been disclosed but Cinnamon revealed that it was part of a series A round in an interview with The Bridge. When Cinnamon changed its business model from developing photo-sharing apps to an AI (artificial intelligence) solution provider, their incorporated entity was also changed over from a Singaporean company into a Japanese one. Combined with the sum raised by the previous entity, this round saw Cinnamon having raised a total of over 1 billion yen (about $9.2 million) to date. The company will use the funds to strengthen hiring…

Cinnamon’s AI Lab members in Vietnam with CTO Hajime Hotta in the center of the front row.
Image credit: Cinnamon

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese startup Cinnamon, developing a document reading engine for “white collar” businesses, announced today that it has secured 800 million yen (about $7.4 million) in a series B round funding and 100 million yen (about $926,000) in loans. The latest round is led by SBI Investment with participation from FFG Venture Business Partners, Itochu Techno-Solutions, Sony Innovation Fund and TIS. Loans were secured from Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Bank this time.

The latest round follows the previous funding from multiple institutional and individual investors back in January this year (the announcement was made in February). The sum of funding in the previous round has not been disclosed but Cinnamon revealed that it was part of a series A round in an interview with The Bridge. When Cinnamon changed its business model from developing photo-sharing apps to an AI (artificial intelligence) solution provider, their incorporated entity was also changed over from a Singaporean company into a Japanese one. Combined with the sum raised by the previous entity, this round saw Cinnamon having raised a total of over 1 billion yen (about $9.2 million) to date.

The company will use the funds to strengthen hiring and fostering AI engineers, expanding sales channels, solidifying team structure and develop new products. The company is managing, developing business and sell products based on five offices in Asia – Tokyo, Hanoi (Vietnam), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Taipei (Taiwan) and Singapore. Among all of them, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Taipei locations have “AI Lab” functions to foster engineers and develop technologies with an aim to employ 500 AI engineers by 2022.

A briefing and lecture given to AI engineers and potential employees
Image credit: Cinnamon

The company’s main focus is the RPA (robotics process automation) class 2 solution Flax Scanner, which uses the document reading engine “Cinnamon AI” also developed by the company. Instead of simple OCR (optical character recognition), the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), which is one type of deep learning, finally achieves accurate document reading with a precision rate of 99% or more. The biggest feature is not only the document reading, but also a system that can understand the context of the document and capture information in a semantic manner that databases and other systems can easily handle.

Specific use cases include contracts, resumes, sales progress reports, medical charts, handwritten application forms, real estate property information, receipts, etc. In particular, it is expected to be utilized in the fields of finance and insurance where paper documents are abundant, and it set the general goals of quadrupling business speed and cutting costs to a quarter.

Among the investors participating this round, FFG Venture Partners (the investment arm of Fukuoka Bank) looks at synergy in streamlining document processing at banking operations while system integrators like Itochu Techno-Solutions and TIS are expected to provide the company with partner sales channels leveraging their vast network with potential corporate users.

Cinnamon is also developing Rossa Voice, a voice dictation solution based on an automated word correction technology used for Flax Scanner. Rossa Voice allows users to transcript records at call centers and correctly dictate proper nouns or technical terms in discussions between representatives and customers.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Related news

  1. Robotics process automation startup Cinnamon gets funds from renowned angel investors
  2. Japanese AI startup Cinnamon closes series B round with $13.7M in funding
  3. Japanese mobile developer Cinnamon raises $1.5 million, launching new photo app

AI medical startup Ubie gets estimated $2.7M from Osaka power company’s VC arm

SCORE 1,276 The Bridge The Bridge
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Ubie, providing AI (Artificial Intelligence)-driven medical services such as AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie, announced this month that it had raised funds from Kanden Venture Management (KVM) which is a corporate venture capital of The Kansai Electric Power Company headquartered in Osaka. The amount raised and the investment round have not been disclosed but are estimated to be about 300 million yen (about $2.7 million) in its series A round judging from the disclosed information and the previous round, the 60 million yen (about $550,000)-fundraising from D4V in its seed round conducted last September. The Japan version of KISS…Keep-It-Simple-Security method in vogue among overseas startups today… is said to have been utilized. Ubie was founded in May of 2015 by Dr. Yoshinori Abe, a medical practitioner who formerly worked at The University of Tokyo Hospital,  and engineer Kouta Kubo formerly serving at the Japanese medical information service major M3. So far, Ubie has launched two products: AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie. AI Monshin Ubie is the AI-driven medical inquiry SaaS (Software as a Service) targeting users at medical institutions, in order to support document creation of clinical records under supervision from…

Yoshinori Abe (center right), Kouta Kubo (center left) and the team member of Ubie.
Image credit: Ubie

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Ubie, providing AI (Artificial Intelligence)-driven medical services such as AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie, announced this month that it had raised funds from Kanden Venture Management (KVM) which is a corporate venture capital of The Kansai Electric Power Company headquartered in Osaka. The amount raised and the investment round have not been disclosed but are estimated to be about 300 million yen (about $2.7 million) in its series A round judging from the disclosed information and the previous round, the 60 million yen (about $550,000)-fundraising from D4V in its seed round conducted last September. The Japan version of KISS…Keep-It-Simple-Security method in vogue among overseas startups today… is said to have been utilized.

Ubie was founded in May of 2015 by Dr. Yoshinori Abe, a medical practitioner who formerly worked at The University of Tokyo Hospital,  and engineer Kouta Kubo formerly serving at the Japanese medical information service major M3. So far, Ubie has launched two products: AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie.

AI Monshin Ubie and Dr. Ubie

AI Monshin Ubie is the AI-driven medical inquiry SaaS (Software as a Service) targeting users at medical institutions, in order to support document creation of clinical records under supervision from specialists. The firm launched the beta version  last year and has been providing the product version to 50 institutions as of last December. Using natural language processing and question-setting algorithm, it automatically creates clinical document templates using AI-driven inquiry according to each patient’s answer type. It will contribute to time reduction in doctors’ desk work and patients’ wait time. From this month, it starts up operation at Hitachi General Hospital, and also planned for joint multi-center research with Miyazaki University commencing this summer.

Dr. Ubie is a disease prediction app for general users. This app was developed based on AI technology to detect future risk for diseases. It leverages Abe’s experience in latest medical treatment technology as well as knowledge of medical care for the elderly; it also adopted the disease name prediction algorithm based on probability / statistical model and machine learning technology.

Ubie was born out of the life science accelerator program Zentech Dojo Nihonbashi 4th batch, managed by the hardcore startup accelerator Indee Japan. With this fundraising, Ubie announced that it will enhance the function of AI Monshin Ubie for business expansion while carrying out overseas market development for Dr. Ubie.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Related news

  1. Mitsubishi UFJ showcases five prominent startups from its first FinTech accelerator batch
  2. ShareMedical, Fast Doctor join forces to launch physician house-call app for Japan
  3. Back pain management app Pocket Therapist wins Health 2.0 Asia-Japan pitch competition

Dr. Fellow wins OnLab Demo Day in Tokyo with clinical case sharing tool for doctors

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup incubator Open Network Lab last week held Demo Day for its Seed Accelerator Program 16th batch. From among 84 teams including 17 applicants from overseas, six teams were chosen to receive mentoring and support during a three-month period. Five of the six teams excepting one disclosed team gave pitches within the event, then awarded by votes of major mentors and the audience. The judges for the pitch session were as follows: Kaoru Hayashi (CEO / Group CEO, Digital Garage) Shonosuke Hata (CEO, Kakaku.com) Atsuhiro Murakami (Director, Kakaku.com) Rei Inamoto (Co-founder / Creative Director, Inamoto & Co.) Best Team Award winner: Dr. Fellow by Fellow Dr. Fellow is a clinical case-sharing platform for medical doctors. It is common to share clinical cases by case presentation through academic journals or academic conferences but these conventional methods are inefficient for busy doctors. By creating a non-anonymous doctor community, Dr. Fellow enables clinical case-sharing among doctors in the open for a wider range of medical fields. For example, although 200,000 stroke events are estimated to occur annually, only 2,000 cases (1% of the total cases) have been reported in the form of academic articles. In the…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup incubator Open Network Lab last week held Demo Day for its Seed Accelerator Program 16th batch. From among 84 teams including 17 applicants from overseas, six teams were chosen to receive mentoring and support during a three-month period.

Five of the six teams excepting one disclosed team gave pitches within the event, then awarded by votes of major mentors and the audience.

The judges for the pitch session were as follows:

  • Kaoru Hayashi (CEO / Group CEO, Digital Garage)
  • Shonosuke Hata (CEO, Kakaku.com)
  • Atsuhiro Murakami (Director, Kakaku.com)
  • Rei Inamoto (Co-founder / Creative Director, Inamoto & Co.)

Best Team Award winner: Dr. Fellow by Fellow

Dr. Fellow is a clinical case-sharing platform for medical doctors. It is common to share clinical cases by case presentation through academic journals or academic conferences but these conventional methods are inefficient for busy doctors. By creating a non-anonymous doctor community, Dr. Fellow enables clinical case-sharing among doctors in the open for a wider range of medical fields.

For example, although 200,000 stroke events are estimated to occur annually, only 2,000 cases (1% of the total cases) have been reported in the form of academic articles. In the conventional online doctor communities, information sharing based on Q&A style between doctors is available, but the strength of Dr. Fellow is that direct clinical case-sharing using images or text information of clinical cases.

The team aims to monetize through fixed-amount charging by issuing their official accounts targeting companies / academic societies and rate charging by in-feed ads targeting doctors.

Audience Award winner: ReShape by Navier

Navier, the team consisting of three engineers, develops AI (artificial intelligence)-driven image-editing service named ReShape. To edit digital images including shake correction, exposure correction or trimming, image-editing tools are commonly used but requires specialized skill or labor and cost.

ReShape enables easy use of advanced image-editing techniques by applying Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) technology. Not correcting target image but creating new one by GAN, ReShape can provide higher quality images rather than ones corrected by professionals. The team expects to charge 20 yen (about 20 cents) per edited image for individual users and a monthly flat-rate fee for amateur photographers or photo productions.

Brushing up the service as providing it through web or app during the early stage, the team will provide the service for business operators through cloud API (Application Programming Interface) in the future. Also it plans a quality improvement service of videos using GAN.

Hale by LINK

Hale, developed by LINK, is a nursing-care concierge service to realize wishes. Some persons in care have much wealth but cannot enjoy their hobbies such as going on a trip to an island, dining at a three-star restaurant or going to a favorite singer’s concert which require constant nursing care.

At Hale, its staffers conduct arrangement of welfare vehicles or preparatory investigation of facilities to visit, while interviewing users’ requests and confirming physical / disease conditions. Partnering restaurants, hotels or travel agencies, the team provides the service in two charging systems: a fixed rate system with the service of nurse under an exclusive contract with Hale and an optional charging system for each matter.

Pickupon by Pickupon

Generally, 64% of functions implemented in software have not been used on the average, although a great amount of labor was spent for the development. The Pickupon team thought the cause of this gap was that engineers did not collect users’ comments or impression directly so that they could not analyze user demands quantitatively, and the team developed a SaaS (Software as a Service) for transcribing / analyzing / recording users’ utterances.

Pickupon records primary information as is and enables sharing  among several people to realize correct information, preventing missed information. By analyzing multiple utterances integrally, it enables acquisition of tendencies and consideration of measures too. The team provides the service in a freemium system allowing users to hold data up to six hours for free.

ShareTable by ShareTable

ShareTable is sitter / nursery teacher matching service targeting households in which both partners working that have  elementary school children. An investigation by the team conducted through interviews of 70 households showed that most of them use private childcare support services, private schools or Family Support Centers, the childcare support service run by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare during work-hours. However, these services have drawbacks such as limited locations or requiring labor to pick up and drop children off.

To solve these problems, ShareTable offers an afterschool class to study home economics centered on food. The team offers  situational learning at teachers’ home close to users’ home on weekdays and somewhere outside on holidays or during long vacations. ShareTable matches households needing childcare and individuals / companies providing classes and charges 20% as commission fees.

According to Masahiko Sarukawa, Director of DG Incubation organizing Open Network Lab, the accelerator has produced 91 startups in total with the completion of this 15th batch. The rate of successful fundraising by startups being produced through 15 batches reached 57.5%.

Coinciding with the holding of this 16th Demo Day, Open Network Lab has started accepting applications to the 17th batch. It will provide 10 million yen (about $92,000) maximum as activity funding for this batch over three months. Also it plans to provide the right to use three bases (in Daikanyama of Tokyo and Kamakura, plus San Francisco) gratis for a year, and mentoring by managers of startups that came out of the past Seed Accelerator Program. The application deadline for the 17th batch is noon on May 21th (Japan Standard Time).

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Related news

  1. Clintal, “Michelin Guide” for medical care, boasts over 500 skilled doctors in Tokyo
  2. Buzzreach raises $450K to help Japanese pharma firms ease clinical trials for drugs
  3. Cloud-based personnel management tool SmartHR wins Open Network Lab 10th Demo Day

Medication SaaS for pharmacists Musubi wins B Dash Camp’s pitch arena in Fukuoka

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
SHARE:

This is part of our coverage of B Dash Camp 2018 Spring in Fukuoka. 18 companies passed the initial screening for the Pitch Arena competition of B Dash Camp 2018 Spring in Fukuoka, a semi-annual startup conference taking place in the western city of Japan, and of those, six companies were chosen as finalists. Kakehashi, the Japanese startup behind a cloud-based medication profiling system for pharmacists called Musubi, walked away with the grand prize. The judges for the final round were as follows: Yusuke Asakura (Signifiant) Yoshinori Fukushima (Gunosy) Shinji Kimura (DAS Capital) Hironao Kunimitsu (Gumi) Genki Shiota (Akatsuki) This article will give a rundown of each company and their pitches. Grand Prize, Caster Biz Special Award winner: Musubi by Kakehashi Musubi, provided by Kakehashi, is a cloud-based medication profiling system for pharmacies and pharmacists. There are 60,000 pharmacies in Japan, outnumbering even convenience stores. Filling out the medication history for each patient is one heavy task of pharmacies. On average, it is said that it takes two hours to fill in the medication history for 40 patients, but by introducing Musubi, this can be compressed down to 15 minutes (⅛). A patient comes to the pharmacy and medication is…

This is part of our coverage of B Dash Camp 2018 Spring in Fukuoka.

18 companies passed the initial screening for the Pitch Arena competition of B Dash Camp 2018 Spring in Fukuoka, a semi-annual startup conference taking place in the western city of Japan, and of those, six companies were chosen as finalists. Kakehashi, the Japanese startup behind a cloud-based medication profiling system for pharmacists called Musubi, walked away with the grand prize.

The judges for the final round were as follows:

  • Yusuke Asakura (Signifiant)
  • Yoshinori Fukushima (Gunosy)
  • Shinji Kimura (DAS Capital)
  • Hironao Kunimitsu (Gumi)
  • Genki Shiota (Akatsuki)

This article will give a rundown of each company and their pitches.

Grand Prize, Caster Biz Special Award winner: Musubi by Kakehashi

Musubi, provided by Kakehashi, is a cloud-based medication profiling system for pharmacies and pharmacists. There are 60,000 pharmacies in Japan, outnumbering even convenience stores. Filling out the medication history for each patient is one heavy task of pharmacies. On average, it is said that it takes two hours to fill in the medication history for 40 patients, but by introducing Musubi, this can be compressed down to 15 minutes (⅛).

A patient comes to the pharmacy and medication is dispensed based on the prescription. After this, the pharmacist instructs the patient about the medication, but with Musubi this medical instruction takes place on a tablet, and according to the buttons pushed by the pharmacist a medication history is recorded. In four months from the start of the service, the company received inquiries from 7,000 stores, accounting for 11% of the 60,000 pharmacies nationwide. In the future, after the ban on offering medication instruction remotely is lifted, the company is also considering offering a drug delivery service.

Special Award winner: Sumaho Hoken by JustInCase

JustInCase is an InsurTech startup founded in 2016 by Kazy Hata (current CEO), who has worked in the actuarial field at Milliman, a leading actuarial consulting firm, along with his team. The company is currently preparing Sumaho Hoken (literally meaning Smartphone Insurance), an insurance service to cover repair costs in the event of a malfunction for smartphone users.  It uses AI (artificial intelligence) algorithms to analyze user behavior patterns, and conducts a risk assessment for each user allowing the company to provide a service with optimum premiums.

Sumaho Hoken is classified as a P2P (peer-to-peer) insurance which applies the concept of a sharing economy to insurance, i.e. friends and groups of users (pools) who are interested in insurance against the same risk pay the insurance premiums, and a system is adopted whereby insurance money is paid out from this pool. To date, the company has raised seed funds from 500 Startups Japan, Naoki Aoyagi (CEO of Marcari’s payments-focused subsidiary Merpay), and others.

HERP by HERP

Herp provides a platform of the same name which automates the many tasks related to office work for recruitment. “Herp” automatically unifies tasks such as the creation of job listings, the creation of information on candidates, the notification of selection results, management of contact to the company, etc. By automating tasks that previously required an assistant employed by the company, employee costs can be reduced by 75% or more. Up to now, 500 companies have pre-registered.

The company believes the reason why recruitment options are not evolving is because platforms are separated by mediums and agents, which limits them. It will make Herp an open adoption marketing SaaS (software as a service) that can cooperate with multiple mediums and agents. In the future, the company plans to provide functions like predictions of investment effectiveness separate from the marketing channel, an automated AB test for job listings, and automated document selection.

LaboNavi by Inner Resource

Research department rules for purchasing are often put in place to ensure fraud prevention and optimization. Purchasing management requires a comparison of delivery prices from multiple vendors through competitive bidding, checking this with multiple people, sharing the results, and before ordering, one of the steps necessary in the process is to physically write it out. While some purchasing management systems have been introduced, the disadvantage remains that they are specialized systems, high in operation costs and difficult for users.

LaboNavi, developed by Inner Resource, is a general-purpose cloud service that enables users to complete business from purchase management to order placement strictly in accordance with the industry flow. Research departments that have introduced LaboNavi have seen workflow streamlined, the number of quotation requests sent to suppliers has been reduced to ⅓, and purchase prices have decreased by 8% on average. The company is backed by Tokyo-based VC firm Anri.

Logikura by NewRevo

NewRevo’s Logikura wants to tackle about $507B US problem of excess inventory at small and medium sized enterprises in Japan. Managers in charge of ordering for companies often place orders based on intuition and experience, which creates excess inventory. In order to deliver a data-driven ordering environment, Logikura provides demand forecasts based on economic trends, weather forecast, competitive analysis, damage rates, and other data.

There are no services in Japan there that offer everything from inventory control to demand forecasts in one package, so Logikura has an advantage in this respect. The company has received inquiries from more than 60 companies so far, and aims to acquire 5,000 companies in 5 years and reduce domestic excess inventory by 30%. It plans to offer the service at a rate of 600,000 yen (about $5,600 US) per year depending on the scale. In the future, NewRevo has plans to offer a marketplace function that allows users to trade excess inventory/stock shortage, as well as a lending function that uses stock as collateral.

The company participated in the 15th batch of Open Network Lab’s Seed Accelerator Program and raised 50 million yen (about $470K US) from Genesia Ventures in a pre-Series A round last December.

Yumerium by Subdream Studios

Yumerium, provided by Subdream Studios, is a platform that uses blockchain to reward users for playing, reviewing, and sharing games. By pouring the concept of the token economy into game players and communities, the company wants to create an ecosystem that will benefit not only game makers but also players and influencers while acquiring popular game titles.

In the meantime, the company will expand its services by producing its own titles and network, and will start to handle third party titles from 2019 onwards. Following this, it is planning to grow as a  crowdfunding platform. So far in its seed round, Subdream Studios has raised $1.6 million US from Genesia Ventures, DeNA, Cognitive Investment, HTC, and others.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Related news

  1. 18 startups from around the world compete at B Dash Camp pitch arena in Fukuoka
  2. Japan’s JustInCase snags another seed round to launch P2P insurance for mobile repairs
  3. Swingdo, to-do management app from Japan, automates prioritization of what to do

Japan’s Cyber Security Cloud is expanding cloud firewall solution into Southeast Asia

The Bridge The Bridge
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Cyber Security Cloud (CSC), the Japanese startup behind a cloud-based web application firewall (WAF) called Shadankun (originally called Kougeki Shadankun in Japanese), announced on Monday that it has partnered with Future Spirits to expand the solution into Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Future Spirits is a Japanese cloud solution company serving Southeast Asian markets through their regional subsidiary Future Spirits Asia, planning to sell the Shadanukun WAF solution in bundle with Future Spirit’s dedicated server or virtual private server solutions. CSC has been specialized in developing cloud-based WAF solutions to secure cloud-based web servers, launching Shadankun in December of 2013. The service has seen a steady increase in clients, including NTT Docomo, ANA (All Nippon Airways) and SBI Securities, and has been adopted by 4,000 websites in about three and a half years since the launch as of September in 2017. In response to our question about the latest trends on cyber attacks, CSC CEO Hikaru Ono told us that more than 1,121 cyber attacks had been detected on Future a Spirits Thailand’s corporate web server in February this year alone. To avoid these attacks, he said more preparation for server management and more…

From left: Hikaru Ono (CEO of Cyber Security Cloud), Takahiro Tani (CEO of Future Spirits)
Image credit: Cyber Security Cloud

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Cyber Security Cloud (CSC), the Japanese startup behind a cloud-based web application firewall (WAF) called Shadankun (originally called Kougeki Shadankun in Japanese), announced on Monday that it has partnered with Future Spirits to expand the solution into Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Future Spirits is a Japanese cloud solution company serving Southeast Asian markets through their regional subsidiary Future Spirits Asia, planning to sell the Shadanukun WAF solution in bundle with Future Spirit’s dedicated server or virtual private server solutions.

CSC has been specialized in developing cloud-based WAF solutions to secure cloud-based web servers, launching Shadankun in December of 2013. The service has seen a steady increase in clients, including NTT Docomo, ANA (All Nippon Airways) and SBI Securities, and has been adopted by 4,000 websites in about three and a half years since the launch as of September in 2017.

In response to our question about the latest trends on cyber attacks, CSC CEO Hikaru Ono told us that more than 1,121 cyber attacks had been detected on Future a Spirits Thailand’s corporate web server in February this year alone. To avoid these attacks, he said more preparation for server management and more secure coding efforts are needed. According to Future Spirits CEO Takahiro Tani, however, his company often receives requests for consulting or advice from Japanese companies in the Southeast Asia region after they face a security issue since many of them have no in-house IT personnel.

The dashboard for “Kougeki Shadan-kun”
Image credit: Cyber Security Cloud

Regarding how to promote global expansion, both companies will focus on expanding into Japanese companies in the aforementioned markets first, subsequently set up local subsidiaries as their users increase. CSC and Future Spirits are planning to promote the Shadankun solution as prevention countermeasure for possible cyber attacks, especially to local subsidiaries of Japanese companies in need of adjusting their security level with that of their headquarters in Japan.

Future Spirits also considering provision of IT infrastructure consulting in addition to proposing security countermeasures with the Shadankun solution. The two are targeting to acquire 500 companies as users out of all 4,800 Japanese companies in the region within two years.

Established in August of 2010 (under the name of Amitie), CSC raised around 100 million yen (about $883K US) from Ambition, Legend Partners, Epsilon Group, Real World and SBI Investment plus other investors in January of 2016. In October of last year, the company launched WafCharm, which uses artificial intelligence to automatically apply a WAF signature (rule set) setting for websites hosted on Amazon Web Services.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” POmeroy

Related news

  1. Japanese startup unveils AI-powered rule sets solution to secure AWS-hosted websites
  2. Japan’s in-car security startup Trillium secures series A funding from Global Brain
  3. Japan’s Cocon buys security risk diagnosis startup Ierae Security

Ascent Robotics raises $10.3M to accelerate AI development for autonomous driving

SCORE 1,049 The Bridge The Bridge
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Ascent Robotics, the Japanese startup developing AI (Artificial Intelligence) training software for autonomous driving, announced on Monday that it has raised about 1.1 billion yen (about $10.3 million US) in a series A round. This round was led by SBI Investment with participation from multiple angel investors including Bart Joseph Broadman. Regarding funding from SBI Investment, this is the first investment case from the company’s AI and Blockchain-focused fund. Following this funding, Ascent Robotics will prepare to set up new offices in Japan and the rest of the world to hire prominent researchers as well as engineers globally, aiming to realize PoC (proof-of-concept) on public roads in addition to accelerating R&D activities on their proprietary AI technologies. The firm has been developing autonomous driving software for Level 4 capable-vehicle (fully autonomous driving including steering, acceleration and braking without human input) under the Japanese road environment. The Tokyo company launched a beta version of the Atlas AI learning environment last November. By using both real and pseudo data for learning AI, the learning efficiency is increased to more than 50 times compared to that when using only real data. Utilizing the superiority of Atlas,…

Image credit: Ascent Robotics

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Ascent Robotics, the Japanese startup developing AI (Artificial Intelligence) training software for autonomous driving, announced on Monday that it has raised about 1.1 billion yen (about $10.3 million US) in a series A round. This round was led by SBI Investment with participation from multiple angel investors including Bart Joseph Broadman. Regarding funding from SBI Investment, this is the first investment case from the company’s AI and Blockchain-focused fund.

Following this funding, Ascent Robotics will prepare to set up new offices in Japan and the rest of the world to hire prominent researchers as well as engineers globally, aiming to realize PoC (proof-of-concept) on public roads in addition to accelerating R&D activities on their proprietary AI technologies. The firm has been developing autonomous driving software for Level 4 capable-vehicle (fully autonomous driving including steering, acceleration and braking without human input) under the Japanese road environment.

The Tokyo company launched a beta version of the Atlas AI learning environment last November. By using both real and pseudo data for learning AI, the learning efficiency is increased to more than 50 times compared to that when using only real data. Utilizing the superiority of Atlas, Ascent Robotics aims to realize Level 4 autonomy by 2020 when market competition is expected to intensify.

Image credit: Ascent Robotics

Since the Japanese or Asian road environment differ considerably from Western ones that DeepMind, Waymo and Uber are dealing with, Ascent Robotics focuses on Level 4 autonomy applicable for narrow streets with much traffic as is the case for conventional Japanese streets, and the team expects to lead the global market in this field. In particular, the industry’s expectation for the company will be increased because of the recent pedestrian fatality due to Uber’s autonomous driving vehicle.

Ascent Robotics was founded in September of 2016 by Fred Almeida, the Canadian engineer who had successively held high-level positions at Salesforce and Pasona Tequila. According to Nikkei Robotics, the firm has already concluded a business contract with one of the major Japanese automakers. Ken Kutaragi, known as the father of PlayStation, has also joined the firm as an Outside Director.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Related news

  1. Ascent Robotics unveils AI training platform, aiming for level 4 autonomous drive by 2020
  2. Japan’s SmartDrive, car telematics startup, nabs $9M series B to ramp up big data analysis
  3. Japanese ‘robotics legend’ joins telexistence startup Gitai as COO to create space robots

Korea’s braille smartwatch developer Dot wins HackOsaka 2018 pitch competition

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Osaka City held the annual startup conference HackOsaka 2018 last month, having about 100 participants including investors, entrepreneurs and media from home and abroad. As marking the sixth such event since being started in 2013, their way to introduce trends of global startup ecosystem to entrepreneurs in the Kansai area has become more cultivated. At the last phase of the event, 10 teams comprising domestic or foreign startups gave pitches. The judges for the pitch competition were as follow: Junko Nishimura (Co-founder, Silver Egg Technology) Oko Davaasuren (Regional Director of South East Asia, Techstars) Oscar Kneppers (Founder, Rockstart [Netherland]) Gidi Schmerling (Director of Media Relations, Tel Aviv-Yafo [Israel]) Shan Lu (Founding Partner / CEO, LeaguerX) Allen Miner (CEO, Sunbridge / HackOsaka Supervisor) Peter Rothenberg, Editor-in-Chief in Japan of Tech in Asia / Founder of Best Beer, acted as master of ceremonies. Gold Prize: Dot (Korea) Korea-based Dot developed the braille smartwatch under the same name. It enables the visually-impaired to exchange messages or to understand SNS posts as with general smartwatch. Costing only $290 which is much cheaper than conventional braille keyboards costing about $5,000, it will be welcomed as a gift item. The…

See the original story in Japanese.

Osaka City held the annual startup conference HackOsaka 2018 last month, having about 100 participants including investors, entrepreneurs and media from home and abroad. As marking the sixth such event since being started in 2013, their way to introduce trends of global startup ecosystem to entrepreneurs in the Kansai area has become more cultivated.

At the last phase of the event, 10 teams comprising domestic or foreign startups gave pitches. The judges for the pitch competition were as follow:

  • Junko Nishimura (Co-founder, Silver Egg Technology)
  • Oko Davaasuren (Regional Director of South East Asia, Techstars)
  • Oscar Kneppers (Founder, Rockstart [Netherland])
  • Gidi Schmerling (Director of Media Relations, Tel Aviv-Yafo [Israel])
  • Shan Lu (Founding Partner / CEO, LeaguerX)
  • Allen Miner (CEO, Sunbridge / HackOsaka Supervisor)

Peter Rothenberg, Editor-in-Chief in Japan of Tech in Asia / Founder of Best Beer, acted as master of ceremonies.

Gold Prize: Dot (Korea)

Korea-based Dot developed the braille smartwatch under the same name. It enables the visually-impaired to exchange messages or to understand SNS posts as with general smartwatch. Costing only $290 which is much cheaper than conventional braille keyboards costing about $5,000, it will be welcomed as a gift item. The firm succeeded in downsizing of the display on the face utilizing its 30 patents. The firm won the pitch competition at Slush Tokyo 2017 as well.

Dot also developed the braille tablet Dot Pad ($950), as well as the simplified version Dot Mini ($200, for educational use). The firm plans to distribute several million products in India, where there are 10 million visually-impaired people. In addition, the firm started the development of the braille kiosk as a new project targeting Smart City Project in Dubai and had tested it at PyeongChang Olympics. The firm has currently been doing business in the U.S. and China, and is going to enter the Japanese market soon.

Silver Prize: Eye Control (Israel)

It is estimated there are 160 million patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) having muscle and nerve disorder, and the number of ALS cases has been increasing. The Eye Control team knew the communication device for ALS patients costs too much, and had started developing a wearable device which is cheaper and easier to use than the conventional devices.

Eye Control detects motion of the pupil by mounted camera and sends the data to microcomputer to analyze the meanings that a user wants to transmit. The analyzed content is sent to smartphone via BLE and is read out or controlled. One of the biggest features of this system is to eliminate troublesomeness of using a large display. The team was born out from Startupbootcamp in 2011 and was chosen for Next Future Technology award by Israeli tech media Geektime.

Bronze Prize: Carbyne (Israel)

In emergency calls such as 911 in the US as well as 110 (police) and 119 (fire and ambulance) in Japan, some problems have been arising in recent years: long calling time, fake calling, incorrect location, difficulties in prioritization of multiple calls or nonexistence of images to confirm the situation.

Israel-based Carbyne transmits 110 / 119 emergency calls to its own system, and acquires detailed and well-summarized information including location or images to support prompt rescue or appropriate response. It has already been introduced to the Mexican teleco América Móvil, as well as national projects in Honduras and the Philippines.

Bronze Prize: Nature Remo (Japan)

Nature develops an IoT product for smart air-conditioner named Nature Remo. The firm secured more than 22 million yen (about $210,000) through three crowdfunding at Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Makuake. It was chosen for 500 Kobe Accelerator, the acceleration program hosted by Kobe City and 500 startups and had recently fundraised 100 million yen (about $940,000) from Daiwa Corporate Investment.

As its development and production system has been established, the firm started selling the product at Amazon, as well as electronics retail stores such as Bic Camera or Kojima, allowing general users other than early adopters to purchase. Through cooperation with Kansai Electric Power, the firm took part in the verification project of Virtual Power Plant, the energy self-sufficient system as a substitute of power resources in the energy peak time by utilization of internet / sensor technologies and diffusion of distributed type power resources.

Bloodhero (Philippines)

The blood transfusion system, required for accidents or surgery, is generally maintained by blood donation from 1% of the total population and yet blood is in short supply. As a result, there are not a few cases that the family of patients who need blood asks for blood donation of specific blood type in social network services. Bloodhero is a social platform of blood donation to solve these problems.

The Bloodhero users can acquire points for every blood donation and are given status according to stored points; the service prepares various privilege such as free ticket of spa in each status level. In a hospital which introduced Bloodhero, the retention rate of blood donors increased by 23%. The firm aims to reach 50,000 blood donations handling by December of 2018.

Ouireward (France)

One million people experience cancellation or delay of flights annually in the world. In Europe, airplane companies are required to compensate passengers for a delay of more than three hours under EU261 Law. Generally, passengers can receive $700 back in cash at the highest but need to negotiate with airplane companies to claim the right. This negotiation requires troublesome processes; they have to submit many documents and wait for several months, and sometimes their requests are refused.

Ouireward provides a simple online form where users can fill within three minutes and performs the negotiation procedure on behalf of them. It charges 25% of cashback money as intermediate fee. Since its launch six months before, the firm has dealt with customer requests from 37 countries, negotiations with 79 airplane companies and has collected $160,000 cashback. Considering cooperation with airplane companies, the firm aims at $2 million fundraising and tie-up with Japanese airplane / insurance companies.

Yiyuan (China)

Yiyuan offers a skin condition diagnosis service that AI (artificial intelligence) evaluates patients’ face photos taken by the mobile app. Making landmarking on specific spots on the face and diagnosing the conditions before and after the treatment using deep learning, it advices patients whether they are recovering nicely or need additional treatments.

In the future, the firm plans to monetize by providing API (Application Program Interface) or SDK (Software Development Kit) for cosmetic retailers or upgrading the telephone support service. It has been given an angel investment from LeaguerX, the accelerator supported by QF Capital and Tsinghua University.

Travelio (Indonesia)

Travelio, approximating the Airbnb in Indonesia, aims to provide a higher-class service than typical vacation rental services. The firm performs property management on behalf of real estate companies, and provides hotel-level services including cleaning and sheets changing to travelers having demands of long-stay, leisure or business.

The firm currently provides the service in 25 cities within Indonesia and handles 3,000 properties. The ratio of domestic / foreign users is 65 : 35. This service is used on average 4.95 nights per stay and is seemingly popular among long-stay travelers who tend to make much of cost performance. Although many buildings have been constructed recently in Jakarta, not a few properties are left unsold. The service also contributes to monetization of these properties for real estate developers.

BackTech (Japan)

The lower back pain improvement app Pocket Therapist, launched by Japan’s BackTech in 2016, suggests the best exercise plans or introduces good clinics for each user based on the lower back pain evaluation algorithm developed by Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University. The firm had raised funds from Cyber Agent.

Lower back pain is one of the common diseases of general workers and is also a severe problem for employers because it causes poor productivity. Pocket Therapist provides an environment where workers can easily receive advice from therapists, and enterprises or insurance companies pay the cost as their employers.

Protectiq (Russia)

Protectiq is a P2P (peer-to-peer) insurance service which applies the sharing economy concept. In developing countries, insurance services have not been improved much and that is one of major causes of death due to tumors or other forms of cancer. This service realized a cheaper charge system by utilizing blockchain technology into the insurance fee payment procedures and clarifying the cashflow.

Specifically, Protectiq users are charged $20 annually, and the insurance fee can be paid by third party donors or companies as a service to society. Targeting young and less wealthy adults in their teens to 40s, the service pays insurance premium of $350,000 at the highest based on users’ declaration.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Related news

  1. Korea’s Dot, Braille smartwatch and tablet startup, wins Slush Tokyo 2017 pitch finals
  2. Agribuddy, financial app for rural farmers in Cambodia, wins Nikkei FinTech competition
  3. 18 startups from around the world compete at B Dash Camp pitch arena in Fukuoka

Multi-functional mobile browser Smooz now on iTunes AppStore, Google Play globally

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Astool has globally launched their multi-functional mobile web browser app Smooz today. iOS and Androd versions are available on iTunes AppStore and Google Play respectively. The app was initially launched only for iOS on the Japanese market back in September of 2016. The company marked 20,000 downloads within as short as one week since that launch, also having driven 200,000 app installs organically to date. Because the app has been continuously adding functions via frequent updates according to user feedback, it has been updated about 40 times within 18 months since the launch. With the aim of “one-handed browsing” being enabled for users, the app has added functions like in-app QR code reading and gesture-based control (ver 1.6), character recognition and automated tab arrangement (ver 1.7), translation and ID/password saving (ver 1.9), bulk article generation from bookmarks (ver 1.16) in addition to three major functions available since the first version: search word prediction making use of artificial intelligence, functionally-thoughtful tab interface and smart bookmarks. The company said it has decided to start global expansion because it got a 4.7 star rating on average from Japanese users who are said to have strict user…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Astool has globally launched their multi-functional mobile web browser app Smooz today. iOS and Androd versions are available on iTunes AppStore and Google Play respectively. The app was initially launched only for iOS on the Japanese market back in September of 2016. The company marked 20,000 downloads within as short as one week since that launch, also having driven 200,000 app installs organically to date. Because the app has been continuously adding functions via frequent updates according to user feedback, it has been updated about 40 times within 18 months since the launch.

With the aim of “one-handed browsing” being enabled for users, the app has added functions like in-app QR code reading and gesture-based control (ver 1.6), character recognition and automated tab arrangement (ver 1.7), translation and ID/password saving (ver 1.9), bulk article generation from bookmarks (ver 1.16) in addition to three major functions available since the first version: search word prediction making use of artificial intelligence, functionally-thoughtful tab interface and smart bookmarks. The company said it has decided to start global expansion because it got a 4.7 star rating on average from Japanese users who are said to have strict user experience measurements.

The Smooz app targets a power user niche adhering to comfortable user interface rather than becoming mass favorites. In view of FireFox having won 12% market share in Japan despite being non-OS native desktop web browser, Astool is targeting about 2% of the entire global population of 2.2 billion smartphone users.

Astool, as founded back in February of 2016 by Yuichi Kato who was previously managing the Viber app at Rakuten and subsequently developed an AppleWatch for tennis players called TennisCore. The company raised about $140,000 US for a $930,000 valuation from Skyland Ventures and several angel investors back in August of 2016 (seed round), followed by securing about $790,000 US from Fan Communications (TSE:2461) and angel investor Masao Ito (pre-series A round), in addition to having been chosen as a finalist for the Launch Pad pitch competition at Infinity Ventures Summit 2017 Spring last year.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Related news

  1. From 10th Infinity Venture Summit in Kobe: Here’s 14 teams at Launchpad pitch finals
  2. 18 startups from around the world compete at B Dash Camp pitch arena in Fukuoka
  3. If Conference 2016 in NYC connects Japan, US tech scenes

Recent Articles

Trends

Next Page » « Previous Page