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Japan’s Qiita, Q&A site for programmers, acquired by gaming giant Ateam for $13M

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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese social gaming giant Ateam (TSE:3662) announced today that it has acquired the entire stake in Tokyo-based Increments, the Japanese startup offering the Qiita knowledge-sharing platform for programmers, for 1.45 billion yen (about $13 million US). Qiita was launched back in September of 2011 by Hiroshige Umino, who had worked for Google and Japanese internet company Hatena as a programming intern while attending Kyoto University. The team graduated from Tokyo-based seed accelerator Open Network Lab‘s 4th batch, over the 2011-12 period. The platform has served more than half the population of all programmers in Japan. In addition to the Qiita open community platform, the company launched Qiita:Team back in 2013, designed for a company’s in-house use upon knowledge-sharing among their programming employees. According to the consolidated statement as of December 2016, the company posted revenue of 89.95 million yen (about $793,000), with a final deficit of 80.22 million yen (about $708,000). Ateam said in a statement: Qiita is very active in the sector where we cannot easily expand into on our own. By gaining the entire stake in Increments, we think we can accelerate our business expansion effort through leveraging of their assets and…

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese social gaming giant Ateam (TSE:3662) announced today that it has acquired the entire stake in Tokyo-based Increments, the Japanese startup offering the Qiita knowledge-sharing platform for programmers, for 1.45 billion yen (about $13 million US).

Qiita was launched back in September of 2011 by Hiroshige Umino, who had worked for Google and Japanese internet company Hatena as a programming intern while attending Kyoto University. The team graduated from Tokyo-based seed accelerator Open Network Lab‘s 4th batch, over the 2011-12 period. The platform has served more than half the population of all programmers in Japan. In addition to the Qiita open community platform, the company launched Qiita:Team back in 2013, designed for a company’s in-house use upon knowledge-sharing among their programming employees. According to the consolidated statement as of December 2016, the company posted revenue of 89.95 million yen (about $793,000), with a final deficit of 80.22 million yen (about $708,000).

Ateam said in a statement:

Qiita is very active in the sector where we cannot easily expand into on our own. By gaining the entire stake in Increments, we think we can accelerate our business expansion effort through leveraging of their assets and experience. We are certain this acquisition will contribute to our growth over the mid- to long-term perceptive in addition to improving our corporate value.

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Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

New app helps Japanese women looking to get pregnant

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In addition to photo sharing and decoration apps, a genre of apps popular among women here in Japan is the utility category. Specifically, many of these are apps that provide a convenient way for women to track their menstrual cycles. Apps like Luna Luna and Lalu are particularly popular with Japanese users. Luna Luna began as a dedicated feature phone service, and it had more than 4.5 million users as of April 2013. Lalu is a product by Ateam, a company located in Nagoya, Aichi prefecture. This app had over one million users as of Feburary of 2013. Ateam recently released a new community app for the same target demographic. It’s called Urara. This particular community is aimed at women who want to get pregnant or those in fertility treatment. The app was born out of a growing need seen among the existing users of Lalu. Although the app’s main users are women, partners or spouses can register to use the app. Users can find answers to their questions thanks to contributions from other community members. This is especially useful since many such users may not feel comfortable discussing this sort of topic openly with friends. Within the app, users…

Urara-web

In addition to photo sharing and decoration apps, a genre of apps popular among women here in Japan is the utility category. Specifically, many of these are apps that provide a convenient way for women to track their menstrual cycles. Apps like Luna Luna and Lalu are particularly popular with Japanese users. Luna Luna began as a dedicated feature phone service, and it had more than 4.5 million users as of April 2013. Lalu is a product by Ateam, a company located in Nagoya, Aichi prefecture. This app had over one million users as of Feburary of 2013.

Ateam recently released a new community app for the same target demographic. It’s called Urara. This particular community is aimed at women who want to get pregnant or those in fertility treatment. The app was born out of a growing need seen among the existing users of Lalu. Although the app’s main users are women, partners or spouses can register to use the app.

Users can find answers to their questions thanks to contributions from other community members. This is especially useful since many such users may not feel comfortable discussing this sort of topic openly with friends. Within the app, users can also turn to professional counselors to receive monthly advice. Other content, such as recipes that may help with fertility, are available in the app.

According to data from the Japanese Ministry of Health, the amount of financial aid provided for fertility treatment has grown by six times when compared to seven years ago. This is, of course, part of the reason behind the country’s aging population, and Urara aspires to provide a solution for this very urgent problem.

Urara is available for download over on Google Play and will cost a monthly fee of 350 yen. (or about $3.50)

Urara-mobileapp