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Japan’s Cookpad takes 16% stake in one-stop warranty management startup Warrantee

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See the original story in Japanese. The Bridge learned earlier this week that Warrantee, an Osaka-based startup that aims to digitalize product warranties, announced that Japanese recipe site Cookpad has taken a 16% stake in the former company. Details of the investment has not been disclosed but it’s likely to be a seed funding worth six-digits in US dollars. Warrantee proposes a one-stop process, registering personal data in advance on their service. In this way warranties for a specified user can be quickly registered regardless of products or companies. There are many cases where retail stores offer additional paid warranties, so the startup plans to earn a service charge from retailers by motivating users to opt into such additional warranties. Another business opportunity lies in tying up with retailers, allowing them to utilize user data accumulated on Warrantee for the retailer promotions. Warrantee CEO Yusuke Shono elaborated their business potential: By collecting warranty data users, we can learn when and what they have bought as well as predict their next replacement period. With warranty data inputs of multiple home appliances rather than a single one, we can even estimate how they use these appliances in their lives. Such information was out of reach for appliance manufacturers despite extensive partnering efforts with retailers. He thinks…

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See the original story in Japanese.

The Bridge learned earlier this week that Warrantee, an Osaka-based startup that aims to digitalize product warranties, announced that Japanese recipe site Cookpad has taken a 16% stake in the former company. Details of the investment has not been disclosed but it’s likely to be a seed funding worth six-digits in US dollars.

Warrantee proposes a one-stop process, registering personal data in advance on their service. In this way warranties for a specified user can be quickly registered regardless of products or companies. There are many cases where retail stores offer additional paid warranties, so the startup plans to earn a service charge from retailers by motivating users to opt into such additional warranties. Another business opportunity lies in tying up with retailers, allowing them to utilize user data accumulated on Warrantee for the retailer promotions.

Warrantee CEO Yusuke Shono elaborated their business potential:

By collecting warranty data users, we can learn when and what they have bought as well as predict their next replacement period. With warranty data inputs of multiple home appliances rather than a single one, we can even estimate how they use these appliances in their lives. Such information was out of reach for appliance manufacturers despite extensive partnering efforts with retailers.

He thinks that one possibility with the platform is proposing interior styling and decoration to potential furniture buyers.

Japan’s Cookpad to acquire Lebanese recipe portal Shahiya

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Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported today that Japanese recipe sharing site Cookpad (TSE:2193) will acquire Beirut-based NetSila SAL, the company behind community recipe board Shahiya. The acquisition will be closed by the beginning of next year. Cookpad will acquire a whole stake in the Lebanese company. Shahiya has acquired more than four million monthly visitors, and their sales reached $400,000 as of December 2013, mainly from advertising. In the Middle East, people have prefer to cook and dine at home. As the population of internet users grows, Cookpad sees great demand for recipe content in the region. The Shahiya service is free, but Cookpad is considering adding a premium membership to the service. With the acquisitions of Shahiya and other recipe sites around the world, Cookpad aims to grow the consolidated monthly user base from the company’s affiliated sites to 100 million visitors in a few years, which is 60 million visitors worldwide. See also: Japanese recipe sharing site Cookpad makes two key international acquisitions Japan’s Cookpad acquires Indonesia’s Dapur Masak

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Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported today that Japanese recipe sharing site Cookpad (TSE:2193) will acquire Beirut-based NetSila SAL, the company behind community recipe board Shahiya. The acquisition will be closed by the beginning of next year. Cookpad will acquire a whole stake in the Lebanese company.

Shahiya has acquired more than four million monthly visitors, and their sales reached $400,000 as of December 2013, mainly from advertising. In the Middle East, people have prefer to cook and dine at home. As the population of internet users grows, Cookpad sees great demand for recipe content in the region. The Shahiya service is free, but Cookpad is considering adding a premium membership to the service.

With the acquisitions of Shahiya and other recipe sites around the world, Cookpad aims to grow the consolidated monthly user base from the company’s affiliated sites to 100 million visitors in a few years, which is 60 million visitors worldwide.

See also:

Japan’s Cookpad acquires Indonesia’s Dapur Masak

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Tokyo-based recipe sharing service Cookpad (TSE:2193) announced yesterday that it has acquired Indonesian [1] recipe site Dapur Masak, buying a 60% stake for US$600,000 from founder Soegianto Widjaja. Cookpad announced back in January that it had invested an undisclosed amount for a 40% share of Dapur Masak. Our readers may recall Cookpad also acquired US-based Allthecooks and Spain’s Mis Recetas back in December. via Venture Now Based in Singapore.  ↩

cookpad-dapur-masak_logos

Tokyo-based recipe sharing service Cookpad (TSE:2193) announced yesterday that it has acquired Indonesian [1] recipe site Dapur Masak, buying a 60% stake for US$600,000 from founder Soegianto Widjaja. Cookpad announced back in January that it had invested an undisclosed amount for a 40% share of Dapur Masak.

Our readers may recall Cookpad also acquired US-based Allthecooks and Spain’s Mis Recetas back in December.

via Venture Now


  1. Based in Singapore. 

Users spend 30% more time on Cookpad’s Android app than before. Here’s why?

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See the original article written in Japanese Cookpad, the Japanese online recipe platform, is largely recognized as a “user first” service. The Cookpad app recently surpassed 20 million downloads, and their latest data shows nearly 70% of access to the service comes from smartphones. This past February, the company built a mobile-first team. Among the company’s 70 engineers, about 10% joined the team. Aside from app development and operations, the company is pushing towards a mobile-first policy, encouraging web engineers to focus on mobile-related work. I spoke with Toshihiro Yagi and Kentaro Takiguchi, who have just joined this mobile-first team. Both have experience developing Android apps, and both came to Cookpad less than a year ago. The development of the Android app started within the device division of the media department, which later turned into the mobile-first team. The project started in October of last year, and after half a year of development, the Android app officially launched this past March. The mobile version of Cookpad originally started as a website formatted for smartphones. At that time, even though the division had dozens of web engineers, it had only one Android engineer. To adapt to the increasing number of users…

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Toshihiro Yagi and Kentaro Takiguchi from the mobile-first team

See the original article written in Japanese

Cookpad, the Japanese online recipe platform, is largely recognized as a “user first” service. The Cookpad app recently surpassed 20 million downloads, and their latest data shows nearly 70% of access to the service comes from smartphones.

This past February, the company built a mobile-first team. Among the company’s 70 engineers, about 10% joined the team. Aside from app development and operations, the company is pushing towards a mobile-first policy, encouraging web engineers to focus on mobile-related work.

I spoke with Toshihiro Yagi and Kentaro Takiguchi, who have just joined this mobile-first team. Both have experience developing Android apps, and both came to Cookpad less than a year ago.

The development of the Android app started within the device division of the media department, which later turned into the mobile-first team. The project started in October of last year, and after half a year of development, the Android app officially launched this past March.

The mobile version of Cookpad originally started as a website formatted for smartphones. At that time, even though the division had dozens of web engineers, it had only one Android engineer. To adapt to the increasing number of users on smartphones, it was decided to offer Cookpad as a native app.

The team of four (three Android engineers and one designer) worked together to develop the Android app. They collaborated on the app’s UI and usability, using the engineer’s knowledge of things like OS guidelines. Based on the mockup created by the designer, they worked towards creating the best app they could.

Consistent UX/UI

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The iOS app for Cookpad had been already released, so the team had to be careful that the Android app design would not be influenced too much by that. To ensure that the app was easy to use, the team continued releasing small, incremental updates. One such update, for example, had the menu icon located in the left-top corner. The team learned that some users don’t recognize that the icon can be tapped to display a menu, and so they they implemented a tutorial message a the initial log-in to address the issue.

Takiguchi: It took much time to figure out to what extent the usability and UI of our iOS and Android apps should be unified. Many people say there should be a consistent user experience for iOS and Android, and the UI should be designed differently. But that’s a very difficult thing to do.

Through these small improvements, eventually the amount of time users spent on the Android app increased 30% more than they had seen with the previous version, which looked more like the service’s web interface. Swifter movement through content inside the app and improved tab display (such as today’s recipe and top recipe) also contributed much to this success. Yagi explained that one of the most important things to keep in mind during this kind of development is to keep asking if a feature is really necessary, and if it is easy to use.

Results that get attention

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Cookpad has an internal blog where members share ideas. Since last November the company has also organized a meeting called Potechi where engineers outside and inside the company get together to share technical tips. Potechi takes place every week within the company, and every month for the external meet. Each iOS or Android engineer is given five minutes to present their tips.

Yagi: Engineers at Cookpad are all highly motivated and have great technical skills. When we find a problem, we all do our best to solve it.

Takiguchi: Our CEO often says that each member has to keep a career goal in our mind when we work. He says we should create results that will attract headhunters’ attention.

Cookpad currently look for mobile engineers. To work on the mobile-first team, the most important thing is to have strong passion for app development rather than technical skills and experiences.

Yagi: We look to see if the candidate codes at home or outside the work place. We look for someone who looks like they cannot help but code at any occasion.

The value of female engineers

At present, all members of mobile-first team are men. Even in the company as a whole, female engineers amount to only 10% of the total. Engineers are expected to see things from the user’s perspective in order to find the best usability and UI by working with designers. Therefore, they hope they can add a force of female engineers as well.

Yagi: We interview users and hear their opinion. But when we reflect on app design, we might need to filter out perspectives that come from the male point of view. I believe that if the engineer is a woman, then it can effect the app design a lot. So we really hope female engineers can join our team.

It is not going to far to say that a major service like Cookpad could set the standard for app usability and UI. If you are passionate about creating apps, you might want to join their Potechi meeting. The next one takes place on May 14th.

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Japan’s Cookpad boasts 20M app downloads, 40M monthly users

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Cookpad, the operator of Japan’s leading recipe sharing website, announced today that downloads of its mobile apps (for iOS and Android) have surpassed 20 million. In addition, the service now boasts 40 million monthly users, of which six percent engage using smartphones. You can see the chart above for a more detailed breakdown of Cookpad user access across devices. Cookpad

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From Cookpad

Cookpad, the operator of Japan’s leading recipe sharing website, announced today that downloads of its mobile apps (for iOS and Android) have surpassed 20 million.

In addition, the service now boasts 40 million monthly users, of which six percent engage using smartphones. You can see the chart above for a more detailed breakdown of Cookpad user access across devices.

Cookpad

Japanese recipe sharing site Cookpad makes two key international acquisitions

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Japanese recipe sharing site Cookpad announced today that it has acquired two companies doing similar business: US-based Allthecooks and Spain-based Mis Recetas. Cookpad has no intention to integrate its services with these two, but plans to share knowledge about providing better user experiences and explore possible business synergies. Mis Recetas is a user-generated content platform for sharing recipes. It has 400 million users with about 6 million monthly visitors across Mexico, Argentina, Spain and other countries. Their iOS app is ranked tops in food and drink iOS category in 17 Spanish-speaking countries. It also provides an Android version. Allthecooks is a US-based recipe site that launched back in December of 2012, and their smartphone app has over 1 million users and is ranked number one in the recipe app category on Google Play. According to Japanese tech news sites CNet Japan and IT Media, Cookpad reportedly took over the Spanish company for 1.12 billion yen ($10.7 million), and the US company for a price ranging from $5 million to $10 million.

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Japanese recipe sharing site Cookpad announced today that it has acquired two companies doing similar business: US-based Allthecooks and Spain-based Mis Recetas. Cookpad has no intention to integrate its services with these two, but plans to share knowledge about providing better user experiences and explore possible business synergies.

Mis Recetas is a user-generated content platform for sharing recipes. It has 400 million users with about 6 million monthly visitors across Mexico, Argentina, Spain and other countries. Their iOS app is ranked tops in food and drink iOS category in 17 Spanish-speaking countries. It also provides an Android version.

Allthecooks is a US-based recipe site that launched back in December of 2012, and their smartphone app has over 1 million users and is ranked number one in the recipe app category on Google Play.

According to Japanese tech news sites CNet Japan and IT Media, Cookpad reportedly took over the Spanish company for 1.12 billion yen ($10.7 million), and the US company for a price ranging from $5 million to $10 million.

Prepare authentic Japanese food with Cookpad’s top 25 recipes

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We mentioned Japanese recipe portal Cookpad in our previous post 5 Internet services Japanese women can’t do without. With over 10 years of history since its launch way back in 1998, Cookpad perhaps is one of the most successful tech companies here in Japan with over 32 million users 1 Cookpad launched an English version of its website back in August, and after about four months of operation it now includes 8,000 recipes, attracting Japanese food fans from all over the world. In addition to the growing fan base of the English site, very recently, Japanese cuisine (or ‘washoku’) was granted UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage designation. To respond to the growing needs of washoku fans in the world, the company has now launched a special section called What is Washoku? The page introduces the top 25 classic homecooked dishes selected from the 1.59 million recipes in Cookpad’s database. The site adds one recipe to this list per day, and so far has five recipes available for viewing, such as how to make a good dashi broth, or cooking white rice using a pot instead of a rice cooker. The remaining 20 recipes are listed, accessible as they are added/linked through…

Washoku-Cookpad

We mentioned Japanese recipe portal Cookpad in our previous post 5 Internet services Japanese women can’t do without. With over 10 years of history since its launch way back in 1998, Cookpad perhaps is one of the most successful tech companies here in Japan with over 32 million users 1

Cookpad launched an English version of its website back in August, and after about four months of operation it now includes 8,000 recipes, attracting Japanese food fans from all over the world. In addition to the growing fan base of the English site, very recently, Japanese cuisine (or ‘washoku’) was granted UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage designation. To respond to the growing needs of washoku fans in the world, the company has now launched a special section called What is Washoku?

The page introduces the top 25 classic homecooked dishes selected from the 1.59 million recipes in Cookpad’s database. The site adds one recipe to this list per day, and so far has five recipes available for viewing, such as how to make a good dashi broth, or cooking white rice using a pot instead of a rice cooker. The remaining 20 recipes are listed, accessible as they are added/linked through the month.

Japanese cuisine is growing in popularity in many countries with over 55,000 Japanese restaurants overseas. This number has doubled in the past three years. And many of these Japanese restaurants are operated without any involvement from Japanese people. Thanks to Cookpad with the basics to traditional Japanese cuisine at hand, people can enjoy such authenticity in the comfort of their own home as well.

For those of you who are up to the challenge of cooking Japanese food, you might check out Cookpad’s Facebook page for a steady stream of tips as well.


  1. Current as of April 2013.

Japanese recipe sharing site Cookpad acquires private lesson marketplace Cyta.jp for $10 million

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Coach United, the startup behind private lesson marketplace Cyta.jp, announced today that it has been acquired by Japanese recipe sharing site Cookpad. Update: Several news sources say the acquisition price is 1 billion yen ($10 million). Since its launch back in June of 2011, it has grown to provide users with about 140 different private lessons (in fields such as language learning, music study, or qualification acquisition), available at 3,000 locations around the country. Unlike other marketplace services which typically connect potential students to teachers, the startup assures the quality of the lessons they introduce on the website by checking into will teach them or where it will take place. In our past interview with the startup’s CEO Nobuhiro Ariyasu, the company expected to have 20,000 users received private lessons (as of August). Prior to the acquisition, the two companies have worked with each other on some test marketing initiatives back in late 2012.

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See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Coach United, the startup behind private lesson marketplace Cyta.jp, announced today that it has been acquired by Japanese recipe sharing site Cookpad.

Update: Several news sources say the acquisition price is 1 billion yen ($10 million).

Since its launch back in June of 2011, it has grown to provide users with about 140 different private lessons (in fields such as language learning, music study, or qualification acquisition), available at 3,000 locations around the country. Unlike other marketplace services which typically connect potential students to teachers, the startup assures the quality of the lessons they introduce on the website by checking into will teach them or where it will take place.

In our past interview with the startup’s CEO Nobuhiro Ariyasu, the company expected to have 20,000 users received private lessons (as of August).

Prior to the acquisition, the two companies have worked with each other on some test marketing initiatives back in late 2012.

Japanese personal budget app Zaim now features local supermarket bargains

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See the original story in Japanese. After Zaim officially released its household accounting app back in 2011, it has gone on to partner with Japan’s largest recipe sharing community Cookpad, raising 42 million yen (approximately $420,000) from the company. They’ve also added an OCR feature to the app back in April, so users can record their expenses by taking pictures of their receipts. The startup will continue to work closely with Cookpad, as it has recently announced the Zaim app will integrate app with a specific Cookpad service to provide users with bargain updates from their local supermarkets. This bargain search service was launched back in February on Cookpad, and is currently serving about 500,000 users. It allows supermarket clerks to feature certain merchandise in a more quick and efficient manner than traditional hand-delivered fliers. In addition to monetizable streams like analyzing user data, the startup is likely to expand business by driving user traffic towards real purchase opportunities. According to a survey that Cookpad conducted back in July of 2012, 37% of its user base no longer subscribes to any newspaper, meaning they won’t see such supermarket fliers. Also operating in this space is a service from Toppan Printing…

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See the original story in Japanese.

After Zaim officially released its household accounting app back in 2011, it has gone on to partner with Japan’s largest recipe sharing community Cookpad, raising 42 million yen (approximately $420,000) from the company. They’ve also added an OCR feature to the app back in April, so users can record their expenses by taking pictures of their receipts.

The startup will continue to work closely with Cookpad, as it has recently announced the Zaim app will integrate app with a specific Cookpad service to provide users with bargain updates from their local supermarkets. This bargain search service was launched back in February on Cookpad, and is currently serving about 500,000 users. It allows supermarket clerks to feature certain merchandise in a more quick and efficient manner than traditional hand-delivered fliers.

In addition to monetizable streams like analyzing user data, the startup is likely to expand business by driving user traffic towards real purchase opportunities. According to a survey that Cookpad conducted back in July of 2012, 37% of its user base no longer subscribes to any newspaper, meaning they won’t see such supermarket fliers.

Also operating in this space is a service from Toppan Printing called Shufoo, which allows households to check the latest supermarket discounts online. The service is provided in partnership with NTT Broadband Platform using their WiFi access points, typically located at railway stations in urban areas.

zaim-cookpad

 

New Japanese mobile app promotes fun dinner conversation

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Japanese internet conglomerate Kakaku.com, the company behind price comparison site Kakaku.com and restaurant review site Tabelog, has just released a new food app called Gochi Reco. There are other food apps out there, but what differentiates Gochi Reco from the rest is that it is used only among a few family members (which are pre-set at the time of registration). Many families exchange emails everyday about what’s for dinner, what time they’re coming home, and whether there’s any grocery shopping to do. However, according to a study conducted by a marketing research company Macromill, almost half of wives cooking for husbands have felt some hostility towards them because of their comments on food. Gochi Reco is focused on making this sort of everyday food-focused communication a little more fun. Using the app, family members can exchange ideas about the dinner menu, or even take a photo of what they had as a record. The designated chef of the household can ask for what dishes other members prefer, and they can respond by sharing their preferences. On the ‘recipe’ tab, there are many recipes from other homes which you can propose to your family from within the app. For every recipe,…

Gochi-Reco-characters

Japanese internet conglomerate Kakaku.com, the company behind price comparison site Kakaku.com and restaurant review site Tabelog, has just released a new food app called Gochi Reco.

There are other food apps out there, but what differentiates Gochi Reco from the rest is that it is used only among a few family members (which are pre-set at the time of registration). Many families exchange emails everyday about what’s for dinner, what time they’re coming home, and whether there’s any grocery shopping to do. However, according to a study conducted by a marketing research company Macromill, almost half of wives cooking for husbands have felt some hostility towards them because of their comments on food. Gochi Reco is focused on making this sort of everyday food-focused communication a little more fun.

Gochi-Reco-chat

Using the app, family members can exchange ideas about the dinner menu, or even take a photo of what they had as a record. The designated chef of the household can ask for what dishes other members prefer, and they can respond by sharing their preferences. On the ‘recipe’ tab, there are many recipes from other homes which you can propose to your family from within the app. For every recipe, there is an “add to shopping list” button, where all necessary ingredients are added to your shopping list.

I would have imagined that Cookpad, the biggest recipe portal in Japan, would release an app like this. And in fact, the company did release an iOS app a while back called Omusubi Ken (‘omusubi’ means ‘rice balls’ in Japanese). The app allows its users to nurture a puppy that lives in your virtual kitchen by posting photos of home cooked meals. By posting more often, you receive clothes for your puppy and can even redecorate your kitchen.

The approach of enhancing communication among families around dinner is an approach we haven’t seen yet. If you’d like to try it out, Gochi Reco is available both on iOS and on Android.

Other popular food apps in Japan include Snapdish, which we’ve covered in the past. It works like a social network for exchanging photos and recipes for home cooked meals. A whopping 70% of the photos shared in the app are cooked at home.

Another food photo app, Miil, has 300,000 downloads since its initial release back in 2011. You can read more about Miil in a past article.