THE BRIDGE

tag B Dash Ventures

Japan’s outdoor leisure booking site Sotoasobi raises $1.6M from B Dash Ventures

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. These days e-commerce sites are commonplace, with almost everything available for purchase online with a click on a button. Since its launch back in August of 2004, Sotoasobi has been offering carefully-selected outdoor leisure packages for anyone including occasional adventure seekers. The company has fundraised 200 million yen (about $1.6 million) from Tokyo-based B Dash Ventures. Carefully-selected lineup We previously featured Sotoasobi back in July last year when the company rolled out a new website and appointed former Gaiax COO Yu Nakajima as new CEO. More than a year has passed since then, with the pace of bookings through the website doubled and over a thousand leisure plans from 30 kinds of activities available today. Regardless of the increased variety of tour plans readied, nothing has changed as to the concept of their business. Including Sotoasobi co-founder Takayoshi Yamamoto who has 15 years’ experience in the outdoor leisure industry as well as being a qualified guide for horse riding and rafting, the company has acquired mountain guides and round-the-world cyclists as curators to select and introduce interesting leisure plans. These curators actually visit leisure destinations to hear from plan organizers and publish articles about…

sotoasobi_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

These days e-commerce sites are commonplace, with almost everything available for purchase online with a click on a button. Since its launch back in August of 2004, Sotoasobi has been offering carefully-selected outdoor leisure packages for anyone including occasional adventure seekers. The company has fundraised 200 million yen (about $1.6 million) from Tokyo-based B Dash Ventures.

Carefully-selected lineup

sotoasobi_featuredimage2
From a snorkeling tour in Okinawa arranged via Sotoasobi.

We previously featured Sotoasobi back in July last year when the company rolled out a new website and appointed former Gaiax COO Yu Nakajima as new CEO. More than a year has passed since then, with the pace of bookings through the website doubled and over a thousand leisure plans from 30 kinds of activities available today.

Regardless of the increased variety of tour plans readied, nothing has changed as to the concept of their business. Including Sotoasobi co-founder Takayoshi Yamamoto who has 15 years’ experience in the outdoor leisure industry as well as being a qualified guide for horse riding and rafting, the company has acquired mountain guides and round-the-world cyclists as curators to select and introduce interesting leisure plans. These curators actually visit leisure destinations to hear from plan organizers and publish articles about them in their own words and photos.

In order to provide good tour plans, Nakajima told us that knowing destinations like the back of one’s hand and having leisure activity professionals are key elements.

When it comes to outdoors, many people may have an image that excursion participants have to move about a lot while getting sweaty. However, there are also other types of plans, which let users enjoy nature with their senses on weekends in comfort. Examples include plans that allow one to ride a horse or go out to a treehouse for coffee there, in addition to a plan which takes one to an uninhabited island by sea kayak for BBQ and snorkeling. Our site offers the exceptional experiences one cannot find anywhere else.

Age-specific search interface

sotoasobi_featuredimage3

Since the content is well curated on the Sotoasobi website, it helps even outdoor beginners to find preferable tour plans regardless of background knowledge. That’s why their users are diverse generationwise, with particular concentration from singles in their 20s and 30s as well as family households. Elderly participants are also increasing, such as an 80-year-old member experiencing one’s first horse ride as well as an elderly couple who have been eager to fly in the sky together with a paraglider.

After Nakajima joined the team, Sotoasobi has been making great efforts to improve user interfaces. The company rolled out a new website design twice over the past year, adding an advanced search function so that users can more easily find a relevant tour option matching their needs.

The new search function is designed for family users, enabling them to find tour plans by specifying the minimum age of an accompanying minor, such as ranging from 0 year old to older than 16 years of age. In response to the recent increase in elderly users, the company has also added checkboxes in the search menu, such as ‘Participants aged over 60 allowed’ or ‘single participants allowed’ not to mention ‘pets allowed’ so that participants can better find their optimal options.

Strengthening human resources

The Sotoasobi team
The Sotoasobi team. Yu Nakajima stands in the upper left.

Sotoasobi will use the latest funds to strengthen recruiting new curators and further improve their website plus develop a booking management tool which will be availed to leisure plan providers. The company plans to double the number of their curators, while polishing up the expertise of neighborhood guides and outdoor activities.

As part of their main portal, the company recently launched a new blog site called Outfitter. It provides visitors with useful information such as the most-recommended trekking shoes for female mountaineers and the best gears for sea kayaking.

They comprise a ten-person team which includes curators, but they are hiring designers and engineers as well as someone who can keep updating the aforementioned blog site. Looking forward, they aim to expand services to help more people enjoy nature.

See also:

Translated by Chieko Frost via Mother First
Edited by Masaru Ikeda and “Tex” Pomeroy

Japan’s Fukurou Labo secures funds from B Dash Ventures to deep link mobile apps

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Fukurou Labo, a startup providing marketing solutions for smartphone apps, today officially launched a ‘deep link’ optimization platform called Circuit. Coinciding with this, the company announced that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese investment firm B Dash Ventures. See also: Japan’s Fukurou Labo launches ‘deep linking’ solution for mobile developers Deep link lets users jump to a specific page on a mobile app rather than its top page. By using the Circuit platform and embedding its JavaScript tag on your website, it allows users to show your content via your mobile app rather than a web browser if users have installed your app on their handset. For instance, this solution can be adopted to a service that requests you to input your profile in the login process despite the fact that a native mobile app for the service has already acquired your profile through Facebook login, etc. So if you have an account for the service, a native mobile app rather than a web app allows you to skip several input processes, which improves the user experience. This is how Circuit can benefit users. Launching the solution in beta last year,…

sho-shimizu-at-fukurou-labo
Fukurou Labo CEO Sho Shimizu

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Fukurou Labo, a startup providing marketing solutions for smartphone apps, today officially launched a ‘deep link’ optimization platform called Circuit. Coinciding with this, the company announced that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese investment firm B Dash Ventures.

See also:

Deep link lets users jump to a specific page on a mobile app rather than its top page. By using the Circuit platform and embedding its JavaScript tag on your website, it allows users to show your content via your mobile app rather than a web browser if users have installed your app on their handset.

For instance, this solution can be adopted to a service that requests you to input your profile in the login process despite the fact that a native mobile app for the service has already acquired your profile through Facebook login, etc. So if you have an account for the service, a native mobile app rather than a web app allows you to skip several input processes, which improves the user experience. This is how Circuit can benefit users.

deeplink_diagram
Image credit: Facebook Developers

Launching the solution in beta last year, Fukurou Labo is offering the official version with a twist in distribution tactics since they learned there are very few deep link-enabled apps in Japan.

Fukurou Labo CEO Sho Shimizu explained:

After analyzing the top 200 sites by access traffic in the US and Japan, we learned that only 3% of mobile apps support deep linking in Japan, in contrast to 28% in the US.

That’s why the company provides SDK (software development kit) from the official version instead of offering a Java Script tag in the beta version, allowing third-party developers to integrate the solution with their mobile apps. Only a freemium plan is available now, which supports up to 1 billion requests through the SDK.

20150406_circuit_press_img01_circuit

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson

Japan’s luxury brand consignment app Reclo secures $2 million funding

SHARE:

This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based Active Sonar, the startup behind luxury brand consignment app Reclo, announced today that it has fundraised 245 million yen (about $2 million) from B Dash Ventures and Future Investment. Coinciding with the funds, the company unveiled that it will set up their information distribution channel in Japanese news curation app Gunosy with aiming to better reach their potential customers. In addition, Reclo announced today that it will launch an app called Flip on December 9th. Flip is a 48-hour flash sales app for mobile users, providing time-limited deals on trending and affordable items. According to Active Sonar CEO Koji Aoki, the company has acquired 170,000 dowonloads of the mobile app since its launch six months ago. They boast a high repeat customer ratio, where almost a half of their users have come back to the app again to buy another item. Aoki explained why their users are well satisfied: The main reason is obviously we provide luxury brand items for overwhelmingly low prices. We give 60% to 90% discounts for selected items. In consignment business, a key issue is how to fill an inventory with collected items from…

active-sonar-koji-aoki
Active Sonar CEO Koji Aoki

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

Tokyo-based Active Sonar, the startup behind luxury brand consignment app Reclo, announced today that it has fundraised 245 million yen (about $2 million) from B Dash Ventures and Future Investment.

Coinciding with the funds, the company unveiled that it will set up their information distribution channel in Japanese news curation app Gunosy with aiming to better reach their potential customers.

In addition, Reclo announced today that it will launch an app called Flip on December 9th. Flip is a 48-hour flash sales app for mobile users, providing time-limited deals on trending and affordable items.

According to Active Sonar CEO Koji Aoki, the company has acquired 170,000 dowonloads of the mobile app since its launch six months ago. They boast a high repeat customer ratio, where almost a half of their users have come back to the app again to buy another item. Aoki explained why their users are well satisfied:

The main reason is obviously we provide luxury brand items for overwhelmingly low prices. We give 60% to 90% discounts for selected items.

reclo_screenshot
Reclo

In consignment business, a key issue is how to fill an inventory with collected items from the market. Reclo serves more than 2,500 items for now. They had been buying items from second-hand distributors at their launch, but now over a half of their inventory is being submitted from users.

I have heard that a massive and continuous community development is very important to encourage individuals to sell their luxury items via online consignment services such as TheRealReal Japan. With this kind of continuous efforts, Aoki thinks that they can expand their business from luxury fashion clothing beyond to furniture. Almost 80% of their users come from mobile, mostly females in around the age of 30 or 40.

While they are steadily growing in both app downloads and user acquisition, they need some more gimmick for overwhelming growth. So they focused on Gunosy because of its high user traffic and partnered for creating the Recro channel in the Gunosy app. However, given that a unique user demographics on the Recro app, they will have to add something more to boost their growth.

That’s why they decided to develop flash sales app Flip. Their team has some former Groupon Japan employees who have many experiences on flash marketing. Aoki elaborated:

On Flip, we will sell items which are unlikely to let users decide whether or not buy. As described in the name, we will list new items fast and furiously.

Prior to launching Active Sonar in 2012, the company’s CEO Aoki has been previously running a mineral water distribution company.  He quit the previous company to launch Active Sonar with aiming to create a new business at his own risk.

flip_screenshots
Flip

Japan’s B Dash Ventures to form $60M second fund by yearend

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2014. At the reception party for the B Dash event, we heard from the organizer and B Dash Ventures CEO Hiroyuki Watanabe that they are currently forming a new fund. He told us it will be valued at around 6 billion yen (about $59 million) and has secured almost 50% of funding towards its planned closing by end of 2014. Their previous fund formed in September 2011 was worth 2 billion yen ($20 million) and attracted investment from big companies like Docomo Ventures, Gree, Septeni, Biglobe, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. The have invested to date in startups including Gumi (game publishing), Gunosy (news curation app), Oh My Glasses (glasses-focused vertical e-commerce), and our readers may recall their portfolio startup ScaleOut was acquired by Mediba, a KDDI company, back in August last year. The Bridge: Are investors in the new fund the same as those for the previous one? Watanabe: We can’t disclose that yet. But our investors include internet companies and their executives. We’ll let more corporate investors join the fund from now on. The Bridge: Your portfolio companies range widely from…

watanabe

See the original story in Japanese.

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2014.

At the reception party for the B Dash event, we heard from the organizer and B Dash Ventures CEO Hiroyuki Watanabe that they are currently forming a new fund. He told us it will be valued at around 6 billion yen (about $59 million) and has secured almost 50% of funding towards its planned closing by end of 2014.

Their previous fund formed in September 2011 was worth 2 billion yen ($20 million) and attracted investment from big companies like Docomo Ventures, Gree, Septeni, Biglobe, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital.

The have invested to date in startups including Gumi (game publishing), Gunosy (news curation app), Oh My Glasses (glasses-focused vertical e-commerce), and our readers may recall their portfolio startup ScaleOut was acquired by Mediba, a KDDI company, back in August last year.


The Bridge: Are investors in the new fund the same as those for the previous one?

Watanabe: We can’t disclose that yet. But our investors include internet companies and their executives. We’ll let more corporate investors join the fund from now on.

The Bridge: Your portfolio companies range widely from undisclosed investees to rapidly growing companies like Gumi or Gunosy. Do you have a focus for the new fund?

Watanabe: While the previous fund was focused on seed-, early-, and later-stage companies, the fund will include middle-stage companies as our investee. Because of the huge funding needs from middle- and later-stage companies, we’ll invest several million dollars in them respectively, and strengthen relatively smaller investments in seed- and early-stage companies as well.

The Bridge: We’ve seen several exits like ScaleOut (acquired by Mediba) and FreakOut (recently IPO-ed) in the ad-tech space, and gaming publisher Gumi, one of your portfolio companies, is planning to go IPO by yearend. Do you have any focus on specific spaces to invest in?

Watanabe: I’m keeping my eyes on smartphone-based media startups like Gunosy and Iemo, as well as the other spaces like Adtech, gaming, and e-commerce. I’m sure that more new smartphone services will disrupt conventional businesses, so we’ll invest in various startups taking that approach.

The Bridge: Thank you.

News curation startup Gunosy secures $12M funding from three Japanese companies

SHARE:

Bloomberg reported earlier today that Tokyo-based Gunosy, the company behind the curation news app under the same name, has secured funds worth 1.2 billion yen ($12 million) from Japanese telco KDDI (TSE:9433), investment firm Jafco, and B Dash Ventures. This follows their previous funds worth $12 million from KDDI back in March. Regarding the money raised back in March, the company used over 80% of it to broadcast a TV commercial to increase penetration of their news app among Japanese consumers. They recently launched the app in the US and UK markets over the last few months, and it is told that they plan to use the funds raised at this time to intensify their global promotion efforts. In this sector of the Japanese market, we’ve seen a number of competitors like SmartNews, NewsPick, Antenna, and Kamelio. In the US market, we’ve also seen that Flipboard surpassed 85 million users last year and acquired news reader app Zite from CNN back in March. In our recent interview with the company’s co-CEO Shinji Kimura, he told us that they are targeting 80 million installs outside of Japan, and 100 million worldwide in three years.

gunosy2

Bloomberg reported earlier today that Tokyo-based Gunosy, the company behind the curation news app under the same name, has secured funds worth 1.2 billion yen ($12 million) from Japanese telco KDDI (TSE:9433), investment firm Jafco, and B Dash Ventures. This follows their previous funds worth $12 million from KDDI back in March.

Regarding the money raised back in March, the company used over 80% of it to broadcast a TV commercial to increase penetration of their news app among Japanese consumers. They recently launched the app in the US and UK markets over the last few months, and it is told that they plan to use the funds raised at this time to intensify their global promotion efforts.

In this sector of the Japanese market, we’ve seen a number of competitors like SmartNews, NewsPick, Antenna, and Kamelio. In the US market, we’ve also seen that Flipboard surpassed 85 million users last year and acquired news reader app Zite from CNN back in March.

In our recent interview with the company’s co-CEO Shinji Kimura, he told us that they are targeting 80 million installs outside of Japan, and 100 million worldwide in three years.