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DeNA hosts digital health startup pitch event with two major Japanese pharma firms

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This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. All photos in this article are courtesy of DeNA. Today, “Digital Health” is garnering attention as being applicable to health maintenance, preventative medicine, drug production and the like. Game giant DeNA (TSE:2432) together with pharmaceutical majors Daiichi Sankyo (TSE:4568) and Takeda Pharmaceutical (TSE:4502) held a meetup event focused on Digital Health called D2T on 24 July, 2016. The objectives of the meetup not only involve spotting promising startups in the Digital Health arena but also promoting joint work and tie-ups among various firms for further invigoration of this industry. Ten startups took center stage at D2T for appealing their company services to an audience ranging from medical device manufacturers to drug-related firms not to mention ICT/e-data startups gathered at the venue, DeNA’s headquarters in Shibuya, Tokyo. An audience numbering over a hundred - including venture capitalists and telecom outfits - packed the presentation room. DeNA Chairperson Tomoko Namba noted that D2T could contribute greatly to the networking within and furtherance of Digital Health industry in addition to the startups involved. Among the startups that made the presentations were: iCARE, offering…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.


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All photos in this article are courtesy of DeNA.

Today, “Digital Health” is garnering attention as being applicable to health maintenance, preventative medicine, drug production and the like. Game giant DeNA (TSE:2432) together with pharmaceutical majors Daiichi Sankyo (TSE:4568) and Takeda Pharmaceutical (TSE:4502) held a meetup event focused on Digital Health called D2T on 24 July, 2016. The objectives of the meetup not only involve spotting promising startups in the Digital Health arena but also promoting joint work and tie-ups among various firms for further invigoration of this industry.

Ten startups took center stage at D2T for appealing their company services to an audience ranging from medical device manufacturers to drug-related firms not to mention ICT/e-data startups gathered at the venue, DeNA’s headquarters in Shibuya, Tokyo. An audience numbering over a hundred - including venture capitalists and telecom outfits - packed the presentation room. DeNA Chairperson Tomoko Namba noted that D2T could contribute greatly to the networking within and furtherance of Digital Health industry in addition to the startups involved.

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DeNA Chairperson Tomoko Namba

Among the startups that made the presentations were: iCARE, offering Carely health advisory service; Qualia, offering CaloNavi nutritional information service; Kids Public, providing pediatrics-related advice online; Medcare, providing preventative medicine support; ReasonWhy, providing a specialist-focused professional networking service Whytlink; CureApp, promoting treatment apps to improve health; H2L offering self-care device PossessedHand; Unlog, offering intestinal flora amelioration support; and LPixel, involved in medical image analysis, as well as a Nagoya University spinoff named Prevent involved in an Internet-based lifestyle improvement provision.

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The pitches included some by medical doctors who started up companies due to doubts felt about the current state of medicine in Japan and the world. Such perspectives are likely shared by many involved in the healthcare field, which fortunately in these times see many “non-medical” companies entering it; the changes in society wrought by digital networks are certainly opening up new opportunities while bringing in changes necessary in “unclogging” the delivery system related to health.

Although it is true that utmost attention must be given to safety and security, participation of forward-looking corporations like Takeda (now headed by a German CEO in reflection of a global outlook) and merger-result Daiichi Sankyo from the Japanese pharma side bodes well for the future. Along with DeNA which as a group offers digital services like the personalized genetic check service Mycode as well as a health recommendation media named KenCoM in addition to its mainstay game-related activities new activities by these players behoove watching.

Interestingly, DeNA was originally named DNA when its founder Namba who is now Chairperson of the company started up, though not involved in DNA testing or the like at onset. The former management consultant gained an interest businesswise in healthcare following her attaining success for the company as President. In recent years, the successful former startup has expanded not only into the health field but also owns a professional baseball team in Yokohama, along with other diversified commercial operations such as travel services.

Thai handmade marketplace Blisby raises $300K from DeNA, East Ventures, 500 Startups

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See the original story in Japanese. Blisby, a Thailand-based handmade marketplace focused on serving the Southeast Asian region, announced today that it has raised $300,000 in a recent round. This round was led by Japan’s DeNA and East Ventures with participation from 500 Durians and 500 Tuk Tuks, regiocentric funds focused on Southeast Asia and Thailand by 500 Startups. Since its launch back in November 2013, Blisby has acquired 1 million pageviews and 350,000 monthly active users as of March, increasing a user base in a month-over-month growth rate of 20%. The company will use the funds to expand their business beyond Thailand to other neighboring markets in the Southeast Asia region. Blisby’s founder Phuvadol Thongthavorn was born and raised in the U.S.; prior to launching Blisby, he worked at Yahoo and Sony in California. In 2010, he decided to move from California to New York but stopped for a short break in Thailand to ordain as a Buddhist monk, where his experience during the visit prompted him to launch Blisby in Thailand without going back to the U.S. by establishing a business of Thai contemporary arts that Thongthavorn had been looking at for a long time. There are many players fiercely competing in…

blisby_screenshot

See the original story in Japanese.

Blisby, a Thailand-based handmade marketplace focused on serving the Southeast Asian region, announced today that it has raised $300,000 in a recent round. This round was led by Japan’s DeNA and East Ventures with participation from 500 Durians and 500 Tuk Tuks, regiocentric funds focused on Southeast Asia and Thailand by 500 Startups.

Since its launch back in November 2013, Blisby has acquired 1 million pageviews and 350,000 monthly active users as of March, increasing a user base in a month-over-month growth rate of 20%. The company will use the funds to expand their business beyond Thailand to other neighboring markets in the Southeast Asia region.

Blisby’s founder Phuvadol Thongthavorn was born and raised in the U.S.; prior to launching Blisby, he worked at Yahoo and Sony in California. In 2010, he decided to move from California to New York but stopped for a short break in Thailand to ordain as a Buddhist monk, where his experience during the visit prompted him to launch Blisby in Thailand without going back to the U.S. by establishing a business of Thai contemporary arts that Thongthavorn had been looking at for a long time.

There are many players fiercely competing in this space, including Etsy and Fab in the U.S., Pinkoi in Taiwan, in addition to Anders/Creema,Tenote and Minne, not to mention Iichi in Japan. Particularly, Etsy will be listed at NASDAQ next Wednesday, which may be the largest for a New York-based technology company in 16 years.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s parking lot sharing platform Akippa secures additional funding from DeNA

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See the original story in Japanese. Galaxy Agency, a Japanese startup behind peer-to-peer parking lot sharing platform Akippa, announced on Monday that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese Internet giant DeNA. Details about this round have not been disclosed, but the company has fundraised a total of 300 million yen ($3 million) since their launch, including 65 million yen ($650,000) from Jafco in September 2012, as well as an undisclosed sum from DeNA, Enigmo co-CEO Shokei Suda and other angel investors in 2014. See also: Japan’s Airbnb for parking spaces ‘Akippa’ fundraises from DeNA and angel investors Japan’s Akippa and Uber teamed up, proposing park-and-ride option for car owners Galaxy Agency will use the funds to strengthen marketing by increasing product listing ads and media exposure. Since its launch in April, they have acquired many parking lot owners. CEO Genki Kanaya said that the number of parking lots available on the platform as of September has tripled since August. We are focused on acquiring parking lots in areas where user demand is high, such as city centers and near sports stadiums. For instance, there were only three parking complexes available within 1.8 kilometers of Nagai Stadium, but via…

akippa_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Galaxy Agency, a Japanese startup behind peer-to-peer parking lot sharing platform Akippa, announced on Monday that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese Internet giant DeNA. Details about this round have not been disclosed, but the company has fundraised a total of 300 million yen ($3 million) since their launch, including 65 million yen ($650,000) from Jafco in September 2012, as well as an undisclosed sum from DeNA, Enigmo co-CEO Shokei Suda and other angel investors in 2014.

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Galaxy Agency will use the funds to strengthen marketing by increasing product listing ads and media exposure. Since its launch in April, they have acquired many parking lot owners. CEO Genki Kanaya said that the number of parking lots available on the platform as of September has tripled since August.

We are focused on acquiring parking lots in areas where user demand is high, such as city centers and near sports stadiums. For instance, there were only three parking complexes available within 1.8 kilometers of Nagai Stadium, but via our platform this number has increased fivefold to 15 parking complexes.

In addition to Akippa, Galaxy Company has been providing several online services such as part-time job board Rebaito, so they have an excellent reputation for strong sales. The company had been allocating almost 50% of their sales team to Akippa, but has raised this to 80% since August in order to boost marketing.

They plan to use the additional funding to launch a new C2C-based service in November to solve parking problems by leveraging the spare time of individuals, Kanaya said.

Finding a parking space is an issue everywhere in the world. It will be interesting to see how the Galaxy Agency team markets their solution to car owners not only in Japan but also the rest of the world.

Japan’s DeNA acquires young women-focused fashion curation site Mery

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This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. In addition to Iemo’s acquisition announcement today, Japanese young women-focused fashion curation site Mery also unveiled it has been acquired by Japanese internet company DeNA. They have avoided media exposure, so this is the first time we have covered the company. Peroli, the company behind Mery, is a new company and their shareholders include founders, East Ventures, Anri, and some other undisclosed investing companies. The company was launched in August of 2012 by Ayataro Nakagawa, who previously co-founded online art collection dictionary site Atokore with Crowdworks‘ managing director Shuzo Narita. Rumor has it that they have shown good growth, and we have learned that they have acquired over 1.2 million monthly unique users as of September. Some 90% of customers are mobile-phone users, indicating that Iemo and Mery successfully rode the wave of smartphone adoption. Typical curated media sites work to boost page views, but Nakagawa has found another way to drive his business, which is in a e-commerce fashion sector crowded with competitors like iQon, Zozotown, Stores.jp, Sumally, and Origami. Nakagawa explained his growth strategy: We want to give users a discovery-based shopping experience rather than one where…

mery_featuredimage

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.

In addition to Iemo’s acquisition announcement today, Japanese young women-focused fashion curation site Mery also unveiled it has been acquired by Japanese internet company DeNA. They have avoided media exposure, so this is the first time we have covered the company.

Peroli, the company behind Mery, is a new company and their shareholders include founders, East Ventures, Anri, and some other undisclosed investing companies.

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Peroli’s Ayataro Nakagawa

The company was launched in August of 2012 by Ayataro Nakagawa, who previously co-founded online art collection dictionary site Atokore with Crowdworks‘ managing director Shuzo Narita. Rumor has it that they have shown good growth, and we have learned that they have acquired over 1.2 million monthly unique users as of September. Some 90% of customers are mobile-phone users, indicating that Iemo and Mery successfully rode the wave of smartphone adoption.

Typical curated media sites work to boost page views, but Nakagawa has found another way to drive his business, which is in a e-commerce fashion sector crowded with competitors like iQon, Zozotown, Stores.jp, Sumally, and Origami.

Nakagawa explained his growth strategy:

We want to give users a discovery-based shopping experience rather than one where users find an item by name. What we have learned from our one year of experience is that people choose a product based on their sense of themselves. By strengthening our engineering force in partnership with DeNA, we want to cultivate this space from scratch.

Qualitative search methods for fashion e-commerce require high-level search technology and a tremendous amount of item data. For example, Mery’s competitor Sumally took nearly three years to build a database of over 50 million fashion items. For example, Summaly, Mery’s competitor, took nearly three year to build a database of over 50 million fashion items.

Mery has acquired 1.2 million users, and it will be interesting to see how they progress in such a saturated and highly competitive space.

mery_screenshot

Japan’s DeNA buys home improvement curated media site Iemo

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This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Japanese internet company DeNA announced today that it has acquired Iemo, the Tokyo-based startup behind a curation media focused on home improvement. Acquisition details have not been disclosed but it is understood Iemo raised billions of yen (tens of millions US dollars) from DeNA. See also: Riding a media curation trend, Japanese entrepreneur launches interior design photo service The service was launched back in December and raised an undisclosed amount of investment from B Dash Ventures in April. So they were acquired in less than ten months after the launch. Modeled after US-based Houzz, Iemo allows users to create pages using interior design images from its database of photos provided by homebuilders. As the service is new there is not much data on their business. In an interview in April, they said that almost 90% of their users were females who visit the website via mobile phone, many of them housewives. Iemo founder and CEO Mary Murata is a serial entrepreneur, previously one of the first hires by Japanese Internet giant CyberAgent. Prior to launching Iemo, she founded a startup called Control Plus in 2005 and subsequently sold its…

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Iemo founder and CEO Mary Murata

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.

Japanese internet company DeNA announced today that it has acquired Iemo, the Tokyo-based startup behind a curation media focused on home improvement. Acquisition details have not been disclosed but it is understood Iemo raised billions of yen (tens of millions US dollars) from DeNA.

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The service was launched back in December and raised an undisclosed amount of investment from B Dash Ventures in April. So they were acquired in less than ten months after the launch.

Modeled after US-based Houzz, Iemo allows users to create pages using interior design images from its database of photos provided by homebuilders. As the service is new there is not much data on their business. In an interview in April, they said that almost 90% of their users were females who visit the website via mobile phone, many of them housewives.

Iemo founder and CEO Mary Murata is a serial entrepreneur, previously one of the first hires by Japanese Internet giant CyberAgent. Prior to launching Iemo, she founded a startup called Control Plus in 2005 and subsequently sold its social game development business to Japanese gaming company Gumi. Upon this acquisition by DeNA, Murata joined the management board of DeNA as an operating officer.

Several months ago the company appointed search engine expert Yuji Kumagai as COO, but Yuto Suzuki, former community service developer at CyberAgent, joined to take over that position and former AllAbout.jp editor-at-large, Hisaki Tokushima, also joined the team in July.

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Editor-in-chief of Iemo:  Hisaki Tokushima

Japanese fish delivery startup Hachimenroppi secures $4.5 million funding

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Tokyo-based startup Hachimenroppi, which operates a fish delivery service for restaurants, announced today that it has fundraised about 450 million yen (or $4.4 million) from Recruit Holdings, YJ Capital, DeNA co-founder Shogo Kawada, DeNA (TSE:2432), and Monex Ventures.[1] This follows their previous funding worth $1.5 million in October. Since its launch in April 2011, the company has acquired over 1,000 restaurants as users. The company will use the funds to strengthen their teams in sales and system development as well as expanding logistics facilities. Coinciding with the funds raised at this time, Hachimenroppi also announced that they have partnered with Recruit Lifestyle, the Internet service-focused company under Recruit Holdings. Through the partnership, the fish delivery company will integrate their solution with Recruit’s tablet-based POS (point of sales) system AirRegi, where more than 20,000 restaurants using the POS system will have easy access to the startup’s fish ordering system. YJ Capital is the investment arm of Yahoo Japan (TSE:4689). Monex Ventures is the investment arm of Japanese online brokerage company Monex Group (TSE:8698).  ↩

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Tokyo-based startup Hachimenroppi, which operates a fish delivery service for restaurants, announced today that it has fundraised about 450 million yen (or $4.4 million) from Recruit Holdings, YJ Capital, DeNA co-founder Shogo Kawada, DeNA (TSE:2432), and Monex Ventures.[1] This follows their previous funding worth $1.5 million in October.

Since its launch in April 2011, the company has acquired over 1,000 restaurants as users. The company will use the funds to strengthen their teams in sales and system development as well as expanding logistics facilities.

Coinciding with the funds raised at this time, Hachimenroppi also announced that they have partnered with Recruit Lifestyle, the Internet service-focused company under Recruit Holdings. Through the partnership, the fish delivery company will integrate their solution with Recruit’s tablet-based POS (point of sales) system AirRegi, where more than 20,000 restaurants using the POS system will have easy access to the startup’s fish ordering system.


  1. YJ Capital is the investment arm of Yahoo Japan (TSE:4689). Monex Ventures is the investment arm of Japanese online brokerage company Monex Group (TSE:8698). 

Japan’s Airbnb for parking spaces ‘Akippa’ fundraises from DeNA and angel investors

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This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Osaka-based Galaxy Agency, the startup that operates online peer-to-peer parking lot sharing platform Akippa and several online job sites, announced today it has fundraised from DeNA (TSE:2432) and several angel investors including Shokei Suda, co-founder of Japanese internet service company Enigmo (TSE:3665). Details of the investment have not yet been disclosed but it’s likely be several hundred thousand US dollars. This follows their previous funding of 65 million yen (about $650,000) from Japanese investment firm Jafco back in September 2012. Akippa helps customers find an available parking space online. When you book a time slot for it using your desktop or smartphone, you will be allowed to park your car there by paying up to 500 yen ($5) a day. It also allows parking lot owners to easily manage their venues via the platform as well. At the time of its launch back in April, Akippa started offering over 30,000 available parking lots nationwide. Using the funds raised at this time, the company plans to intensify efforts to acquire new users, such as by offering discount codes to their existing users when their friends sign up for the service….

akippa_featuredimage

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese.

Osaka-based Galaxy Agency, the startup that operates online peer-to-peer parking lot sharing platform Akippa and several online job sites, announced today it has fundraised from DeNA (TSE:2432) and several angel investors including Shokei Suda, co-founder of Japanese internet service company Enigmo (TSE:3665). Details of the investment have not yet been disclosed but it’s likely be several hundred thousand US dollars. This follows their previous funding of 65 million yen (about $650,000) from Japanese investment firm Jafco back in September 2012.

Akippa helps customers find an available parking space online. When you book a time slot for it using your desktop or smartphone, you will be allowed to park your car there by paying up to 500 yen ($5) a day. It also allows parking lot owners to easily manage their venues via the platform as well.

At the time of its launch back in April, Akippa started offering over 30,000 available parking lots nationwide. Using the funds raised at this time, the company plans to intensify efforts to acquire new users, such as by offering discount codes to their existing users when their friends sign up for the service.

Galaxy Agency CEO Genki Kanaya explained how they will proceed with the business:

We’ll be focused on providing more parking lots in areas in high demand as well as user acquisition. […] Our platform is a web app for now, but we’re planning to hire several engineers to develop native apps for mobile. We’ll introduce an iOS app early next month, and an Android version will also follow soon.

The company is planning to partner with car-rental and car-sharing companies because their typical users have no parking space at home but frequently use rental or sharing services for short outings. It will be interesting to see how they will fare in the shared-economy industry.

akippa_screenshots

DeNA’s latest mobile puzzle game is a real peach!

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Japan’s DeNA launched a very unusual mobile game today. The title is really hard to translate [1], but suffice to say that it includes ‘Peach butts’, reflecting the fun, rotund characters featured in this title. DeNA seems pretty focused on its domestic activity these days (as our friend Serkan Toto recently pointed out), but I hope that a game as quirky as this one can someday make it into English too. Check out their video trailer for the title below. If you’d like to try it out (and if you’re in Japan), you can get it as a free download for iOS or Android. Give it a try, if for nothing else than to see the fun characters for yourself! So much awesome… The name is ももじりぞくの ぷるるんバルーン. Peach butts jelly shake balloon? I give up…  ↩

peach-butts

Japan’s DeNA launched a very unusual mobile game today. The title is really hard to translate [1], but suffice to say that it includes ‘Peach butts’, reflecting the fun, rotund characters featured in this title.

DeNA seems pretty focused on its domestic activity these days (as our friend Serkan Toto recently pointed out), but I hope that a game as quirky as this one can someday make it into English too.

Check out their video trailer for the title below. If you’d like to try it out (and if you’re in Japan), you can get it as a free download for iOS or Android. Give it a try, if for nothing else than to see the fun characters for yourself! So much awesome…


  1. The name is ももじりぞくの ぷるるんバルーン. Peach butts jelly shake balloon? I give up…  ↩

Japan’s DeNA and Mugenup team up for real time animated broadcasting

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This is an abridged version of our original report in Japanese. Our readers may recall when we recently reported about DeNA’s new Showroom app. It allows users to enjoy live performances with media personalities and stars on mobile. Now the company teamed up with the anime-focused crowdsoucing platform Mugenup to launch a new service today. It’s called ‘Showroom Anime’. It lets animated characters speak and move in synchronization with live performances or with the voices of actors using real time motion capture technology that Mugenup has developed. The animated show is called ‘Kochira Musumejima Kotogakko Hosobu’ (literally meaning ‘This is Broadcasting Club at Musumejima Island High school’) where several aspiring idol girls broadcast a pirate TV show from at a ficticious remote island off Japan. The program will air through the app every Monday at 9pm, Japan time. You can check out their promotional video below.

musumejima

This is an abridged version of our original report in Japanese.

Our readers may recall when we recently reported about DeNA’s new Showroom app. It allows users to enjoy live performances with media personalities and stars on mobile. Now the company teamed up with the anime-focused crowdsoucing platform Mugenup to launch a new service today. It’s called ‘Showroom Anime’.

It lets animated characters speak and move in synchronization with live performances or with the voices of actors using real time motion capture technology that Mugenup has developed. The animated show is called ‘Kochira Musumejima Kotogakko Hosobu’ (literally meaning ‘This is Broadcasting Club at Musumejima Island High school’) where several aspiring idol girls broadcast a pirate TV show from at a ficticious remote island off Japan.

The program will air through the app every Monday at 9pm, Japan time. You can check out their promotional video below.

DeNA’s Manga Box going strong, but the music stops for Groovy

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DeNA’s Manga Box app (see our previous review here) has just surpassed three million downloads, and the company points to a Nielsen Japan report highlighting the app’s high user engagement. The report (based on a sample of 4000 users split across iOS and Android) figures Manga Box to have about 1.8 million users, with average time of about 55 minutes spent on the app. It’s good to see one of DeNA’s non-gaming efforts doing well. The company’s Groovy music app experiment was not as fortunate, and it was recently announced that it will be coming to a close stopping many music features this month [1]. Update March 4: DeNA clarifies that they are not actually closing Groovy entirely, but rather stopping some features, like music purchase, streaming, and lyrics display. The app will actually remain so that users can play the music that they already own.  ↩

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DeNA’s Manga Box app (see our previous review here) has just surpassed three million downloads, and the company points to a Nielsen Japan report highlighting the app’s high user engagement. The report (based on a sample of 4000 users split across iOS and Android) figures Manga Box to have about 1.8 million users, with average time of about 55 minutes spent on the app.

It’s good to see one of DeNA’s non-gaming efforts doing well. The company’s Groovy music app experiment was not as fortunate, and it was recently announced that it will be coming to a close stopping many music features this month [1].


  1. Update March 4: DeNA clarifies that they are not actually closing Groovy entirely, but rather stopping some features, like music purchase, streaming, and lyrics display. The app will actually remain so that users can play the music that they already own.  ↩