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CyberAgent rebrands investment arm, looks at synergies between core biz and portfolio

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See the original story in Japanese. CyberAgent (CA) announced today that CyberAgent Ventures (CAV), a consolidated subsidiary of the company to develop its VC business, has been rebranded into CyberAgent Capital (CAC). Hirofumi Kondo, who served as the Japan Lead for CAV, is being appointed as CEO of CAC. Established as CyberAgent Investment (CAI) back in 2006, the company subsequently rebranded itself CAV in 2010. This marks the 2nd rebranding for the company. Growth in the company and the fund are behind these changes. Additionally, as the saying “CAV mafia” goes, the company has produced many venture capitalists, who then went on to join other VCs or establish new, independent VCs. With the birth of CAC, the company appears to be organizing the roles of new team members and increasing its presence. In 2010 when CAI was rebranded CAV, they only had about 100 portfolio startups (including 20 overseas), but now the number has increased to about 350 startups across 8 countries (the cumulative number, including those that have exited). Including the headquarters in Tokyo, CAC has offices in 10 locations in 8 countries mainly in Asia. Along with the establishment of CAC, the company announced that 3rd generation Japanese…

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The CAC team. Front row, center: CEO Hirofumi Kondo; To his right: Riho Hayama managing the Fujita Fund. 2nd row, center: new team member Mauricio Omura.
Image credit: CyberAgent Capital

See the original story in Japanese.

CyberAgent (CA) announced today that CyberAgent Ventures (CAV), a consolidated subsidiary of the company to develop its VC business, has been rebranded into CyberAgent Capital (CAC). Hirofumi Kondo, who served as the Japan Lead for CAV, is being appointed as CEO of CAC.

Established as CyberAgent Investment (CAI) back in 2006, the company subsequently rebranded itself CAV in 2010. This marks the 2nd rebranding for the company. Growth in the company and the fund are behind these changes. Additionally, as the saying “CAV mafia” goes, the company has produced many venture capitalists, who then went on to join other VCs or establish new, independent VCs.

With the birth of CAC, the company appears to be organizing the roles of new team members and increasing its presence. In 2010 when CAI was rebranded CAV, they only had about 100 portfolio startups (including 20 overseas), but now the number has increased to about 350 startups across 8 countries (the cumulative number, including those that have exited). Including the headquarters in Tokyo, CAC has offices in 10 locations in 8 countries mainly in Asia. Along with the establishment of CAC, the company announced that 3rd generation Japanese Brazilian Mauricio Omura will join the team.

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CyberAgent CEO Susumu Fujita commenting at Monthly Pitch
Image credit: CyberAgent

On top of this, the company is also restarting investment activity from so-called Fujita Fund, which was established in 2013 but has remained less active in recent years. Fujita Fund is an investment initiative for seed/early-startups by CA CEO Susumu Fujita in order to support young executives. For the sake of convenience, the term fund is used, but there are no limited partners and the investment comes straight from CA’s main accounts.

Fujita Fund has successfully invested in numerous Japanese startups that reached IPO including Wantedly, CrowdWorks, and Base, but all investment activities were frozen after the fall of 2014 due to the startup bubble. The first company to receive funds after the resumption of activities is Taimee, which launched a work share app of the same name in August of last year. Last year Taimee raised a total of 56 million yen (about $501K US) from Genesia Ventures, CAV (at the time), and Gaiax.

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The new Fujita Fund collaborates with CAC in making an investment. CyberAgent CEO Office’s Investment Planning Headquarters manages Fujita Fund, but CAC’s CEO Kondo will also be in charge of this Headquarters, while Riho Hayama, who previously worked as a producer at CyberAgent’s entertainment livestreaming service Abema TV, will manage the Fujita Fund full time. Fujita Fund’s ticket size is around 100 million yen (about $895K US) to several hundred million yen and if the startup is internet related the vertical does not matter. So far, the company has decided to invest in four projects including Taimee (the remaining three are unpublished) while CAC has already invested in two of them including Taimee.

CA and CAC are planning to progressively manage Monthly Pitch, a monthly meet-up focused on helping startups get funds, from here on out. With the redevelopment of Shibuya, CA and CAC are planning transfer to a new building, which could mean that events to encourage startups and entrepreneurs will be held more frequently than last year. The number of companies participating in Monthly Pitch has exceeded 160 and it appears the company may be considering global development of the event (in the same manner as the Rising Expo conference).

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s DogHuggy, Airbnb for dogs, secures funding from CyberAgent Ventures

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based DogHuggy provides a service to replace kennels for dog owners, making it possible by matching them with reliable pet sitters (or hosts) online in a way like Airbnb that connects those in need of staying with others offering a place to stay. DogHuggy, the company behind the service under the same name, announced in March that they have fundraised an undisclosed sum from CyberAgent Ventures. DogHuggy lets users sign up as a dog owner or sitter (host) so that owners who go out of town can find someone reliable and affordable to take care of their pooch. In this space, we’ve seen startups like US-based DogVacay raising $25 million last November as well as Tokyo-based inDog which recently launched a teaser site. For dog owners, DogHuggy shows you a list of available hosts in your neighborhood so that you can choose one of them as your host by checking their profiles and the reason why they have registered. Once your booking is made, you need to take your pooch to the host’s venue and later pick him up according to the schedule that you have agreed with the host. Planning to start its…

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From the left: DogHuggy CEO Shogo Nagatsuka, CTO Yohei Someya

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based DogHuggy provides a service to replace kennels for dog owners, making it possible by matching them with reliable pet sitters (or hosts) online in a way like Airbnb that connects those in need of staying with others offering a place to stay. DogHuggy, the company behind the service under the same name, announced in March that they have fundraised an undisclosed sum from CyberAgent Ventures.

DogHuggy lets users sign up as a dog owner or sitter (host) so that owners who go out of town can find someone reliable and affordable to take care of their pooch. In this space, we’ve seen startups like US-based DogVacay raising $25 million last November as well as Tokyo-based inDog which recently launched a teaser site.

For dog owners, DogHuggy shows you a list of available hosts in your neighborhood so that you can choose one of them as your host by checking their profiles and the reason why they have registered. Once your booking is made, you need to take your pooch to the host’s venue and later pick him up according to the schedule that you have agreed with the host.

Planning to start its operation in Japan’s major city areas, DogHuggy will offer the service for 4,000 to 5,000 yen (about $33 to $42) per night while conventional kennels usually charge 6,000 to 7,000 yen ($50 to $58). Hosts can partially donate their income from the platform to selected animal welfare NPOs upon request.

In our recent interview with DogHuggy CEO Shogo Nagatsuka and CTO Yohei Someya, they told us what has triggered them to launch the service.

What’s the problem with conventional kennels?

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Aged 18 years now, CEO Nagatsuka has loved animals since childhood. So he took a class of animal welfare while attending a high school attached to a college of veterinary medicine. In contrast with the US and UK where people obtain pets from breeders, he learned that pets in Japan are typically being sold at pet shops as a commodity.

Uncovering the fact that this type of trade practice results in a tendency to abuse pets which is especially on rise in Japan, Nagatsuka felt a sense of urgency with increased awareness of the problem to be dealt with. He thought how he can make a greater contribution through work to the society than by just becoming a veterinarian helping animals at hand. So he started with solving common problems that many pet owners face while attending high school.

When out of town, dog owners typically entrust their pets to kennels. But the service quality of kennels in Japan is inferior to that in Western countries, and not merely that dogs are penned in a very small cage. The DogHuggy team interviewed 200 people walking with their dogs in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo’s huge green area known for having several dog run facilities. As a result, the team learned that many dog owners use kennels because there’s no other choice when leaving home.

Nagatsuka explained:

I have entrusted my pooch to kennels, but he returned in an unwell condition when I picked him up at the kennel because he was forced to spend long hours in a small cage and got stressed. I then came to avoid taking long day trips because I was afraid that the same thing would happen again.

Caring for beloved animals, not just making money

DogHuggy prioritizes improving the quality of their pet sitters. Only qualified sitters upon interview are allowed to sign up as a host, and many of them have a publicly-certified license. Nagatsuka and Someya have taken advantage of their network since school to attract licensed pet sitters.

In addition, using DogHuggy, their pet sitters are obliged to send at least three daily snapshots of your pooch per night so that it will keep you updated about how your pooch spends a good time even when being apart. The team also has a system enabling rapid response to your possible anxiety about your pooch as needed.

In terms of the demographics of hosts, many of them are people in their late 20s to early 30s who typically have a pooch at their parents’ home but are unable to do in their apartment in urban areas.

Nagatsuka elaborated:

Many of our hosts agree with our vision of wanting to help animals and make them happier. Because of the platform allowing them to donate animal welfare NPOs, they are participating in our activities upon supporting our vision rather than just making money.

DogHuggy is planning to launch pretty soon. They want to acquire 500 hosts by the end of this June.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by Masaru Ikeda & “Tex” Pomeroy

Japanese-led sports-betting startup Kibow snags $840K from CyberAgent Ventures

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This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. Singapore-based Kibow, a Japanese-led startup behind a sports-betting service focused on the mobile sector, has fundraised about 100 million yen (about $838,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and unnamed angel investors. Prior to launching Kibow, the company’s CEO Fumitada Naoe launched a funeral service company called Sanctuary and subsequently sold off the company. Kibow has received a license for sports-betting in the Philippines, and is now working to obtain a license in UK. According to Naoe, there are several online sports-betting companies in UK but many of them cannot keep up with the mobile shift. So this is the space that Kibow wants to get into. Kibow is developing a platform where people can enjoy participating in sports-betting more casually. We expect to launch the service and obtain a license in UK by this year’s end, planning to expand to North America, mainland China, and other Asian markets. Naoe wants to promote minor sports and extreme sports through his sports-betting business. He elaborated: Since minor sports and extreme sports have had limited chance in connecting with core fans, it has been difficult to find a market for monetization. But the higher penetration of the Internet has made…

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

Singapore-based Kibow, a Japanese-led startup behind a sports-betting service focused on the mobile sector, has fundraised about 100 million yen (about $838,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and unnamed angel investors.

Prior to launching Kibow, the company’s CEO Fumitada Naoe launched a funeral service company called Sanctuary and subsequently sold off the company. Kibow has received a license for sports-betting in the Philippines, and is now working to obtain a license in UK.

According to Naoe, there are several online sports-betting companies in UK but many of them cannot keep up with the mobile shift. So this is the space that Kibow wants to get into.

Kibow is developing a platform where people can enjoy participating in sports-betting more casually. We expect to launch the service and obtain a license in UK by this year’s end, planning to expand to North America, mainland China, and other Asian markets.

Naoe wants to promote minor sports and extreme sports through his sports-betting business. He elaborated:

Since minor sports and extreme sports have had limited chance in connecting with core fans, it has been difficult to find a market for monetization. But the higher penetration of the Internet has made it possible to connect core sports with core fans. There’s no organization supporting this movement, so we’d like to establish a scheme helping such activities in the future.

According to Naoe, his team will also focus on branding, aiming to change the past image of conventional industries in the way Red Bull or GoPro have been doing. The Kibow team considers to host sports events in the future.

Naoe continuted:

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Kibow CEO Fumitada Naoe

We are aiming to be a betting platform where users can enjoy betting but can support athletes at the same time. I think that we can make it possible by leveraging the gamification method.

Whether or not betting on sports has a good impact on society depends on what the concept behind the service is. We want to carefully respect our concept upon development.

I am betting odds will be equalized in the future due to the adoption of artificial intelligence. When it happens, I think that people will want to bet their money based upon which team or player they want to support rather than pursuing profitability.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

CyberAgent Ventures now accepting startups from Asia to pitch at Rising Expo 2015 in Tokyo

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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese startup-focused VC firm CyberAgent Ventures announced earlier this week that it has started accepting applications for pitches at Rising Expo 2015 in Japan, the company’s annual startup conference to be held in Tokyo on 7 August. Prior to that, they will hold regional qualifier events in Southeast Asia and South Korea in June. See also: 15 startups pitch at Rising Expo 2014 finals, regional winners from around Asia take part Venue rental marketplace Space Market wins top prize at Rising Expo 2014 The Southeast Asia edition invited 13 startups, 30 VC firms, and 10 business enterprises in Jakarta last year while eight startups and 15 VC firms participated in the South Korea edition in Seoul last year. From Japan, 15 startups, 60 VC firms and 60 enterprises participated in the Tokyo edition last year. According to CyberAgent Ventures, startups having participated in the last year’s event fundraised over 4 billion yen ($33 million), meaning each participating company fundraised over 300 million yen ($2.5 million) on average. Regional events and finals are scheduled to take place on the following dates: Rising Expo in Southeast Asia (Jakarta) … 25 June 2015, Thursday Rising Expo in…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese startup-focused VC firm CyberAgent Ventures announced earlier this week that it has started accepting applications for pitches at Rising Expo 2015 in Japan, the company’s annual startup conference to be held in Tokyo on 7 August. Prior to that, they will hold regional qualifier events in Southeast Asia and South Korea in June.

See also:

The Southeast Asia edition invited 13 startups, 30 VC firms, and 10 business enterprises in Jakarta last year while eight startups and 15 VC firms participated in the South Korea edition in Seoul last year. From Japan, 15 startups, 60 VC firms and 60 enterprises participated in the Tokyo edition last year.

According to CyberAgent Ventures, startups having participated in the last year’s event fundraised over 4 billion yen ($33 million), meaning each participating company fundraised over 300 million yen ($2.5 million) on average.

Regional events and finals are scheduled to take place on the following dates:

  • Rising Expo in Southeast Asia (Jakarta) … 25 June 2015, Thursday
  • Rising Expo in Korea (Seoul) … In June 2015 but no exact date yet announced
  • Rising Expo in Japan (Tokyo) … 7 August 2015, Friday

They have started receiving applications for Rising Expo 2015 in Southeast Asia, which will take place in Jakarta on 25 June. Startups exploring funding opportunities or business partnerships should not miss this opportunity.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson

Japanese subculture flea market app A2mato secures funding to accelerate user growth

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This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. A2mato (pronounced as ‘ani-mart’) is a C2C flea market app focused on goods relating to Japanese subculture. Tokyo-based 7-bites, the company behind A2mato, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed amount from several Japanese investors. This round was led by CyberAgent Ventures with participation from East Ventures and angel investors like Ryu Okada (DeNA co-founding member) and Osamu Shibata. This follows their previous funding of $295,000 in June 2013. A2mato allows users to sell and buy their anime goods, fanzines, manga books, games, cosplay costumes, figures, and cards. Since its launch in January, the marketplace has listed over 250,000 items. An iOS app is available here. Upon this funding, 7-bites has partnered with Aucfun, the Japanese company behind a price comparison site under the same name. Aucfun acquired an undisclosed amount of 7-bites shares from shareholders in this round. Through this partnership, the two companies will integrate their systems – leveraging Aucfan’s database of prices and profiles for more than 20 million items. 7-bites CEO Shota Sawada explained: As our integration proceeds, users will be allowed to find items listed on A2mato through Aucfan.com. C2C users are less…

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

A2mato (pronounced as ‘ani-mart’) is a C2C flea market app focused on goods relating to Japanese subculture. Tokyo-based 7-bites, the company behind A2mato, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed amount from several Japanese investors. This round was led by CyberAgent Ventures with participation from East Ventures and angel investors like Ryu Okada (DeNA co-founding member) and Osamu Shibata. This follows their previous funding of $295,000 in June 2013.

A2mato allows users to sell and buy their anime goods, fanzines, manga books, games, cosplay costumes, figures, and cards. Since its launch in January, the marketplace has listed over 250,000 items. An iOS app is available here.

Upon this funding, 7-bites has partnered with Aucfun, the Japanese company behind a price comparison site under the same name. Aucfun acquired an undisclosed amount of 7-bites shares from shareholders in this round. Through this partnership, the two companies will integrate their systems – leveraging Aucfan’s database of prices and profiles for more than 20 million items.

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7-bites CEO Shota Sawada

7-bites CEO Shota Sawada explained:

As our integration proceeds, users will be allowed to find items listed on A2mato through Aucfan.com. C2C users are less internet-literate and less familiar with market values. So we will list market quotes in item lists on the A2mato website through the integration.

Nearly a year has passed since our launch, and we’ve seen heavy users spending as much as 100,000 yen ($865) a month. They are mostly fangirls who buy goods of their favorite anime characters.

However, it was slow going for A2mato in its early days and has been struggling to grow the first three months since the launch.

Sawada continued:

We have drastically improved the user interface to enhance the perspicuity, changing one column to two. Results were good, and our users has been increasing in number since April. Today the user growth has reached 20% to 25% on a month-over-month basis, and their retention rate hit more than 40%. After a user submits an item on our app, it takes about five minutes to close the deal. We aim to shorten this time.

Sellers want to sell their items faster; buyers want to buy their items faster. So more users will use various flea market apps, and a fast selling market will win. We will enlarge our user base and accelerate the speed from the discovery of an item to its purchase for users. Because our app is focused on a niche market, it is more likely to matchmake sellers and buyers than other Japanese flea market apps like Mercari and Fril.

7-bites aims to transact 100 million yen a month in six months, 200 million yen a month by November of 2015. They expect their user base to grow by increasing public exposure through advertisements, etc.

The company will use the funds to strengthen marketing, user support, as well as enhance functionality.

Japanese venue rental marketplace Space Market secures $936,000 in funding

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See the original story in Japanese. Space Market lists unused or idle venues and allows users to pick one to rent on demand for business needs such as corporate meetings, shareholder meetings, training courses or other events. They won the top prize at Rising Expo 2014, an annual startup showcase event held by CyberAgent Ventures this August. The company announced today that it has fundraised 100 million yen (or $936,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and Mizuho Capital. According to Space Market’s CEO Daisuke Shigematsu, they will use the funds to strengthen engineering as well as sales forces, including developing apps and acquiring more venues, in addition to providing a concierge service. Furthermore, they plan to promote partnering with in-company training providers, event planners, ad agencies plus  catering service providers. They have listed more than 775 venues to date, including sailing vessel Miraie, Excel Air Service‘s heliport, Tokyo Bay’s uninhabited island Sarushima, and old Japanese-style houses in the historic village of Shirakawa-go. They have partnered with established companies like Sumitomo Fudosan, Tokyu Land, and Culture Convenience Club. It will be interesting to see how they will proceed towards their vision where they want to create a new value by giving users access to any venue in the world.

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See the original story in Japanese.

Space Market lists unused or idle venues and allows users to pick one to rent on demand for business needs such as corporate meetings, shareholder meetings, training courses or other events. They won the top prize at Rising Expo 2014, an annual startup showcase event held by CyberAgent Ventures this August.

The company announced today that it has fundraised 100 million yen (or $936,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and Mizuho Capital. According to Space Market’s CEO Daisuke Shigematsu, they will use the funds to strengthen engineering as well as sales forces, including developing apps and acquiring more venues, in addition to providing a concierge service.

Furthermore, they plan to promote partnering with in-company training providers, event planners, ad agencies plus  catering service providers. They have listed more than 775 venues to date, including sailing vessel MiraieExcel Air Service‘s heliport, Tokyo Bay’s uninhabited island Sarushima, and old Japanese-style houses in the historic village of Shirakawa-go.

They have partnered with established companies like Sumitomo FudosanTokyu Land, and Culture Convenience Club. It will be interesting to see how they will proceed towards their vision where they want to create a new value by giving users access to any venue in the world.

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An old Japanese-style house in the historic village of Shirakawa-go.

Japan’s Orkney secures funding, strengthens tools development freeing up frontline salespeople

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Yokohama-based Orkney, the company that provides fieldwork-focused customer relationship management tools called Orkney Upward, announced Tuesday that it has fundraised 90 million yen ($839,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and SMBC Venture Capital on August 29. Prior to this the company had obtained about $1 million in loans from Japan’s state-run loan company Japan Finance Corporation in June. They will use the funds and loans for sales force enhancement and for adding more features to the tools. Orkney Upward is a web-based platform that allows salespeople on the go to easily check the profiles of their customers via smart devices. The platform works with a mapping solution that the company has been developing since its launch, providing the best route for visiting clients in fragmented locations. Based on a partnership with Salesforce.com last year, Orkney Upward is now available on the Salesforce cloud environment as well (see video below). Orkney was founded in 2002, a bit old to be called a startup. They had been focused on entrusted systems development, serving the mapping industry, before they launched the Orkney Upward (previously known as Orkney Geograph) platform in 2011. Oakney CEO Toru Mori previously worked at Alps Mapping (acquired by Yahoo Japan in…

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Yokohama-based Orkney, the company that provides fieldwork-focused customer relationship management tools called Orkney Upward, announced Tuesday that it has fundraised 90 million yen ($839,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and SMBC Venture Capital on August 29. Prior to this the company had obtained about $1 million in loans from Japan’s state-run loan company Japan Finance Corporation in June. They will use the funds and loans for sales force enhancement and for adding more features to the tools.

Orkney Upward is a web-based platform that allows salespeople on the go to easily check the profiles of their customers via smart devices. The platform works with a mapping solution that the company has been developing since its launch, providing the best route for visiting clients in fragmented locations. Based on a partnership with Salesforce.com last year, Orkney Upward is now available on the Salesforce cloud environment as well (see video below).

Orkney was founded in 2002, a bit old to be called a startup. They had been focused on entrusted systems development, serving the mapping industry, before they launched the Orkney Upward (previously known as Orkney Geograph) platform in 2011. Oakney CEO Toru Mori previously worked at Alps Mapping (acquired by Yahoo Japan in 2008). Looking back on his early days at the company, he said that he had wanted to start a business in the geographic information systems sector at a time when there was no service like Google Maps.

He explained:

Mapping costs a lot and is also technically difficult. I founded Orkney to remove such barriers in 2002. I initially thought we want to do business in the open source integration space.

But the debut of the iPhone in 2008 was a major turning point in their business. While receiving many orders from academic institutions at that time, they began to plan a new mapping service for business use. That was the predecessor of the present Orkney Upward platform.

Why are there no other services providing this feature in a space with so many competitors? Mori explained that his company has an advantage in providing a better user experience through a web browser and a mobile app thanks to their years of continuous R&D.

As they have acquired over 100 clients, they are in the early to middle stage in their business development. What is interesting about Orkney is that such a company with a long history in R&D stepped forward to start a new business and made it a success.

Because CyberAgent Ventures led this round, are they becoming more focused on investing in enterprise businesses? CyberAgent Ventures SVP Terry Hayashiguchi explained:

Because the smart device penetration is rapidly rising in the business scene, I think some of conventional products, which were originally designed for PC use, are not enough to serve users.

Therefore, we are assuming that people who experienced to manage a business in a big company are becoming more interested in launching their own startups. In addition, compared to the US, we think there’s a huge space to innovate in the enterprise and other B2B sectors in Japan. Based on these perspectives, we aim to invest in more B2B startups.

Orkney_Upward_01 Orkney_Upward_02

15 startups pitch at Rising Expo 2014 finals, regional winners from around Asia take part

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See the original story in Japanese. On Friday, Japans CyberAgent Ventures held its annual Rising Expo 2014 event which showcased up-and-coming 15 startups to a crowd of local investors and entrepreneurs [1]. Unlike past editions, the investment firm held preliminary events at their regional offices in Seoul, Beijing, and Jakarta prior to the finals where 15 teams, including 5 foreign startups, competed by pitching their product to attendees. Last year smartphone-based livestreaming app TwitCasting won the top prize, and the startup subsequently fundraised $5 million. Among the 15 participating startups this time, Space Market was chosen as the audience favorite. Top prize winner: Space Market (also winning the Recruit Career prize and the Sumitomo Fudosan prize) Space Market lists unused or idle venues and allows users to pick one to rent on demand for business needs such as corporate meetings, shareholder meetings, training courses, and other events. Reservations are made online. 2nd Prize winner: Hachimenroppi (also winning the AGS Consulting prize) Hachimenroppi buys fish from markets and brokers across the country and delivers it to Japanese restaurants or diners, according to specific needs. It was previously outlined in specific details about how it works, so please check it out ….

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Rising Expo 2014 prize winners

See the original story in Japanese.

On Friday, Japans CyberAgent Ventures held its annual Rising Expo 2014 event which showcased up-and-coming 15 startups to a crowd of local investors and entrepreneurs [1].

Unlike past editions, the investment firm held preliminary events at their regional offices in Seoul, Beijing, and Jakarta prior to the finals where 15 teams, including 5 foreign startups, competed by pitching their product to attendees.

Last year smartphone-based livestreaming app TwitCasting won the top prize, and the startup subsequently fundraised $5 million. Among the 15 participating startups this time, Space Market was chosen as the audience favorite.

Top prize winner: Space Market (also winning the Recruit Career prize and the Sumitomo Fudosan prize)

spacemarket-wins-top-award-at-risingexpo

Space Market lists unused or idle venues and allows users to pick one to rent on demand for business needs such as corporate meetings, shareholder meetings, training courses, and other events. Reservations are made online.

2nd Prize winner: Hachimenroppi (also winning the AGS Consulting prize)

rising_expo_hachimenroppi

Hachimenroppi buys fish from markets and brokers across the country and delivers it to Japanese restaurants or diners, according to specific needs. It was previously outlined in specific details about how it works, so please check it out . They recently fundraised $4.5 million last month following the previous round back in October.

3rd Prize winner: VIP Plaza (from Indonesia)

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Co-founded by former Rakuten Indonesia director Tesong Kim and former investment banker Yoga S. Sugiharto. VIP Plaza lists fashion items from international and Indonesian brands at daily discounts of 30% to 80%. They plan to add other categories like men’s fashion, beauty and home products, aiming for expansion into other countries in Southeast Asia.

The Tohmatsu prize winner: Utagoe

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Utagoe’s Moment Diary is a free journal app with a calendar, allowing users to make notes with timestamps, adding texts, images, videos, and audio. Since its launch in January 2011, the app has acquired over 5 million unique users with 30 million downloads from 211 countries on iOS and Google Play. Women in Asia region make up the majority of users. The company plans to integrate the app with wearable devices. They fundraised from KLab and KLab Ventures in January.

The SMBC Nikko Securities Prize winner: iCare

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ICare provides a cloud-based medical record management platform for occupational physicians called Catchball. It helps physicians better serve patients and share updates with the companies that these patients are working for to improve their working conditions.

The Intelligence Prize winner: Glider Associates

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Glider Associates provides news curation app Antenna, which delivers over 600 articles from over 230 news media oulets. Big companies had been allocating promotion budgets for mass media advertising for many years, but the company thinks it can encourage these companies to partially set it aside to run native ad promotions on the news app. They plan to launch an English version for global expansion.


The following startups did not win but gave interesting pitches.

PurpleCow

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PurpleCow provides a crowdsourcing service called Crevo specializing in animated videos. The service was launched in March and acquired 100 video production requests in the first two weeks.

iCook (Taiwan)

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iCook provides an online recipe sharing service in Taiwan. The startup fundraised from CyberAgent Ventures in October 2012 and subsequently partnered with Rakuten in January 2013.

Bequ.com (China)

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Bequ.com is a travel-focused social networking service, allowing users to connect with official tour guides and fellow travelers. It also provides tools to create travel plans and record travel experiences.

Pocket Supernova

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Pocket Supernova provides a video clip decoration and sharing app called Unda, which allows users to create 20-second video message clips for private use as well as for sharing with other users. They graduated from 500 Startups. See our previous interview with the Pocket Supernova team.

Oriflamme

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Developers of the Oriflamme team previously worked at DeNA where they produced the global hit game Blood Brothers. They want to overwhelm the global market with castle building RTS (real-time strategy) games as well as social games casting popular characters.

Toyro

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Toyro provides a comparison platform focused on life insurance and medical insurance products called Insnext, gwhich gives the best answer to consumers using the life expenses simulator. The company fundraised an undisclosed sum of investment from CyberAgent Ventures in November.

Kabuku

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Kabuku provides a 3D printing marketplace called Rinkak, where anyone with 3D data can open shops on the platform and sell products based on their designs. The startup fundraised $2 million from CyberAgent Ventures, Fuji Startup Ventures, and Nissay Capital in June.

Japanese beverage company Calpis runs a time-limited promotion campaign using the Rinkak 3D printing platform where a user can win a “miniature statue” with his or her face by uploading their portrait.

Tunedra (Korea)

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Tunedra is an iOS app that allows users to create original songs. When singing or humming a tune while launching the app, it will automatically add chords or an accompaniment to the melody and allow the user to share it with others.

Matchmove Global (Indonesia)

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Matchmove Global provides an entertainment platform for international brands. As credit cards are not common in Southeast Asia, the company issues pre-paid cards approved by global credit card brands and sells them to consumers at convenience stores or retail stores.

Similar to regular credit cards, their pre-paid cards have unique card numbers so that users can settle online payments at e-commerce or in-game app purchases by entering the numbers.


Rising Expo 2014 all finalists
All finalists pitched at Rising Expo 2014

  1. Disclaimer: The author was one of the selection judges.  ↩

Japan’s job search startup LiB raises $700,000, offering more options for working women

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-baed LiB, an executive job search site for women, announced today that it has raised 70 million yen ($688,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and East Ventures. Since its launch two months ago, LiB will soon surpass 4,000 users, mainly women who earn an annual income of more than 4 million yen ($39,000). In my recent interview with LiB planner Rina Takei, she said that LiB is an IT company rather than a human resources company, so they will hire more engineers to strengthen their team. She elaborated: From our experience over the last couple of months, we realized that women users tend to acclaim a service that gets many inputs from users and provides good agents to consult with. Our website allows users to easily send a message to our agent just by clicking a button, and this function is popular. To make up for a declining workforce in Japan, the Japanese government has been pushing for more women to join the workforce. As a result, many companies are keen to see how the LiB platform fares in cultivating the women’s labor market. She said: Our platform can reach many people not covered by conventional…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-baed LiB, an executive job search site for women, announced today that it has raised 70 million yen ($688,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and East Ventures. Since its launch two months ago, LiB will soon surpass 4,000 users, mainly women who earn an annual income of more than 4 million yen ($39,000).

In my recent interview with LiB planner Rina Takei, she said that LiB is an IT company rather than a human resources company, so they will hire more engineers to strengthen their team. She elaborated:

From our experience over the last couple of months, we realized that women users tend to acclaim a service that gets many inputs from users and provides good agents to consult with. Our website allows users to easily send a message to our agent just by clicking a button, and this function is popular.

To make up for a declining workforce in Japan, the Japanese government has been pushing for more women to join the workforce. As a result, many companies are keen to see how the LiB platform fares in cultivating the women’s labor market. She said:

Our platform can reach many people not covered by conventional job search sites. They are not looking for an immediate job change, but want to think further about their carrier path in order to prepare a better future.

Coinciding with the fundraising, LiB set up an in-house research project aiming to assist companies in hiring more women and offering advice to the government.

A recent survey by the company shows that 80% of users want to keep working after the age of 50 and 90% prefer working at a job that is fulfilling rather than working at a job just to make money. Takei pointed out how LiB supports the needs of working women:

Many people expect companies to have well-organized welfare systems. 80% of working women want options, such as working from home or part-time work after getting married or having a baby. […] So, we aim to support them by giving them more work-style options.

CyberAgent Ventures forms $50 million fund to invest in more startups

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See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s startup-focused investment firm CyberAgent Ventures announced today that it has formed a new fund worth 5 billion yen (about $50 million) called CA Startup Internet Fund No.2. This is because of closing their previous fund CA Startup Internet Fund No.1. Comparing to the previous one worth about $24 million, the new fund is almost double in size and is planned for investment of an amount ranging from $100,000 to $1 million in every single startup they choose. The company’s vice president Tomoki Shirakawa explained how they plan to proceed from here: We’ll keep looking to companies in the internet business space but planning to expand our coverage beyond it. I don’t mean we will lower a threshold. We’ll be on the lookout for interesting startups and try to discuss with more entrepreneurs. Increasing opportunities to meet up with aspiring and active entrepreneurs is one of their focus. As part of such an effort, they will hold a meetup event called Startup Workout on July 2nd, where Takaya Shinozuka, CEO of Japan’s members-only hotel booking site operator Loco Partners, will share his success and failure experiences with an audience. Shirakawa says his team is…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s startup-focused investment firm CyberAgent Ventures announced today that it has formed a new fund worth 5 billion yen (about $50 million) called CA Startup Internet Fund No.2. This is because of closing their previous fund CA Startup Internet Fund No.1.

Comparing to the previous one worth about $24 million, the new fund is almost double in size and is planned for investment of an amount ranging from $100,000 to $1 million in every single startup they choose. The company’s vice president Tomoki Shirakawa explained how they plan to proceed from here:

We’ll keep looking to companies in the internet business space but planning to expand our coverage beyond it. I don’t mean we will lower a threshold. We’ll be on the lookout for interesting startups and try to discuss with more entrepreneurs.

Increasing opportunities to meet up with aspiring and active entrepreneurs is one of their focus. As part of such an effort, they will hold a meetup event called Startup Workout on July 2nd, where Takaya Shinozuka, CEO of Japan’s members-only hotel booking site operator Loco Partners, will share his success and failure experiences with an audience.

Shirakawa says his team is always looking forward to hearing from entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs. So if you have any good idea in your mind, I’d recommend you not to hesitate to drop him a line.