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Fuji Startup Ventures invests in US-based animation technology company Plumzi

Shintaro Eguchi 2014.12.05

See the original story in Japanese. Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment firm of Tokyo-based broadcaster Fuji TV’s stock holding company, announced on Thursday that it has invest in Plumzi, a US-based entertainment technology company. Funding details have not been disclosed but it’s likely worth around a six-digit number in US dollars. Plumzi is a platform for animation studios, allowing them to adapt TV anime series into other formats suitable for tablets or smartphones, by restructuring videos, graphics, and audios from an original format in an easy way. With the platform, animation studios can quickly create a variety of content for smart devices as well as provide reproduced content back to their original rights owners for their secondary use. Fuji Startup Ventures recently launched a game-focused crowdfunding platform in partnership with Sega Networks and Goopa, called Crowdrive. Through the partnership with Plumzi, Fuji wants to strengthen edutainment app developments leveraging their huge visual content library. This investment round was led by US-based Quest Venture Partners with participation from Walt Disney and Turner New Media Investments, which proves that the animation technology company draws great attention in the US. Starting with this investment, Fuji Startup Ventures aims to build an alliance across…

See the original story in Japanese.

Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment firm of Tokyo-based broadcaster Fuji TV’s stock holding company, announced on Thursday that it has invest in Plumzi, a US-based entertainment technology company. Funding details have not been disclosed but it’s likely worth around a six-digit number in US dollars.

Plumzi is a platform for animation studios, allowing them to adapt TV anime series into other formats suitable for tablets or smartphones, by restructuring videos, graphics, and audios from an original format in an easy way. With the platform, animation studios can quickly create a variety of content for smart devices as well as provide reproduced content back to their original rights owners for their secondary use.

Fuji Startup Ventures recently launched a game-focused crowdfunding platform in partnership with Sega Networks and Goopa, called Crowdrive. Through the partnership with Plumzi, Fuji wants to strengthen edutainment app developments leveraging their huge visual content library.

This investment round was led by US-based Quest Venture Partners with participation from Walt Disney and Turner New Media Investments, which proves that the animation technology company draws great attention in the US. Starting with this investment, Fuji Startup Ventures aims to build an alliance across media companies in Japan and the US.

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Fuji TV and Sega Networks invest in Goopa’s game-focused crowdfunding site Crowdrive

Masaru Ikeda 2014.09.25

Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of Japan’s Fuji TV Network, and Japanese gaming company Sega Networks announced today that they have invested in Tokyo-based startup Goopa. Investment details have not been disclosed. Goopa is best known for its anime-focused crowdfunding site Anipipo but is planning to launch a game-focused crowdfunding site called Crowdrive in late October. See also: Support your favorite anime artists: Crowdfunding site Anipipo finally launches Goopa was launched by Japanese entrepreneur Hiroaki Taira. In addition to Taira, the board members include two young Thai entrepreneurs Vincent Sethiwan and Permsiri Tiyavutiroj, who are known for running the LaunchPad incubation space in Bangkok. The startup primarily conducts business development in Tokyo, and system development in Bangkok. Goopa previously fundraised 4.5 million yen (approximately $45,000) from Tokyo startup incubator Samurai Incubate last year.

Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of Japan’s Fuji TV Network, and Japanese gaming company Sega Networks announced today that they have invested in Tokyo-based startup Goopa. Investment details have not been disclosed. Goopa is best known for its anime-focused crowdfunding site Anipipo but is planning to launch a game-focused crowdfunding site called Crowdrive in late October.

See also:

Support your favorite anime artists: Crowdfunding site Anipipo finally launches

Goopa was launched by Japanese entrepreneur Hiroaki Taira. In addition to Taira, the board members include two young Thai entrepreneurs Vincent Sethiwan and Permsiri Tiyavutiroj, who are known for running the LaunchPad incubation space in Bangkok. The startup primarily conducts business development in Tokyo, and system development in Bangkok.

Goopa previously fundraised 4.5 million yen (approximately $45,000) from Tokyo startup incubator Samurai Incubate last year.

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Japanese mobile game developer Gumi to partner with Fuji TV

Takeshi Hirano 2013.12.25

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based gaming company Gumi is expected to announced a comprehensive partnership with Fuji Media Holdings today, the stock holding company the Japanese TV network giant. The company plans to launch a joint venture worth 500 million yen (approximately $4.8 million) with Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of the media conglomerate. CNet Japan reports the new venture will be called Fuji & Gumi Games. In addition, the gaming company will announce significant funding from the media company and B Dash Ventures. We are told by sources we trust that it will be worth tens of millions of dollars. Gumi previously established Alim, a joint venture gaming company with Fuji Startup Ventures and B Dash Ventures back in July. Their first gaming title Brave Frontier has done quite well this year. Fuji TV has been seeking new revenue streams beyond its primary business. And as a result, both companies have agreed to an extensive business partnership at this time. Gumi has already started marketing many of its mobile games globally, including titles produced by their subsidiaries in Singapore and Korea. The funds raised at this time will be use to fuel the company’s global expansion….

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based gaming company Gumi is expected to announced a comprehensive partnership with Fuji Media Holdings today, the stock holding company the Japanese TV network giant. The company plans to launch a joint venture worth 500 million yen (approximately $4.8 million) with Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of the media conglomerate. CNet Japan reports the new venture will be called Fuji & Gumi Games.

In addition, the gaming company will announce significant funding from the media company and B Dash Ventures. We are told by sources we trust that it will be worth tens of millions of dollars.

Gumi previously established Alim, a joint venture gaming company with Fuji Startup Ventures and B Dash Ventures back in July. Their first gaming title Brave Frontier has done quite well this year. Fuji TV has been seeking new revenue streams beyond its primary business. And as a result, both companies have agreed to an extensive business partnership at this time.

Gumi has already started marketing many of its mobile games globally, including titles produced by their subsidiaries in Singapore and Korea. The funds raised at this time will be use to fuel the company’s global expansion. We have reached out to Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu and Fuji Startup Ventures’ manager Yoshiro Taneda for more on this development. So please stay tuned.

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Japan e-commerce startup Monoco partners with major broadcaster Fuji TV

Takeshi Hirano 2013.09.13

See the original story in Japanese. Monoco is a flash sales e-commerce site specializing in limited quantity fashions selected by curators and buyers worldwide. The company announced today that it has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of Japanese TV network Fuji TV. Coinciding with this funding, the two companies are expecting to work on collaborative product development and explore possible sales opportunities on Fuji TV’s own programs. Furthermore Monoco plans to launch a physical store in Shibuya, Tokyo on September 27th, to be called Monoco Showroom. The company has been seeing good progress of late as well. I spoke with the startup’s CEO Takehiro Kakiyama back in April of last year, when his team has just shifted their gears to become Monoco after its previous efforts under the FlutterScape banner. The team has devoted itself to growth since them, and raising funds (thought to be in the millions of dollars) from Japanese telco KDDI back in July. Monoco now has over 80,000 users, and has partnered with 1,100 product designers Kakiyama didn’t disclose any revenue figures, but he did say that the marketplace now has over 80,000 users, has partnered with 1,100…

See the original story in Japanese.

Monoco is a flash sales e-commerce site specializing in limited quantity fashions selected by curators and buyers worldwide. The company announced today that it has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Fuji Startup Ventures, the investment arm of Japanese TV network Fuji TV.

Coinciding with this funding, the two companies are expecting to work on collaborative product development and explore possible sales opportunities on Fuji TV’s own programs. Furthermore Monoco plans to launch a physical store in Shibuya, Tokyo on September 27th, to be called Monoco Showroom.

The company has been seeing good progress of late as well. I spoke with the startup’s CEO Takehiro Kakiyama back in April of last year, when his team has just shifted their gears to become Monoco after its previous efforts under the FlutterScape banner. The team has devoted itself to growth since them, and raising funds (thought to be in the millions of dollars) from Japanese telco KDDI back in July.

Monoco now has over 80,000 users, and has partnered with 1,100 product designers

Kakiyama didn’t disclose any revenue figures, but he did say that the marketplace now has over 80,000 users, has partnered with 1,100 product designers (both in Japan and around the world), and has over 50,000 items available on the platform.

Their headcount has reached 22, way up from five when the service was launched.

It will be interesting to see how Monoco will compete in this space now that it has the support of this Japanese media giant.

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Fuji Startup Ventures invests in Japanese online classifieds service

Rick Martin 2013.08.27

Fuji Startup Ventures recently announced it has invested an undisclosed sum in Japanese online classifieds service JMTY.jp (pronounced Jimoty). JMTY provides listings in a wide range of categories, including items for sale, job listings, services, and events. JMTY was initially launched by Infinity Venture Partners back in 2011, and subsequently raised funding from KDDI Open Innovation Fund and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. The web service is optimized for smartphones, and it is available as a native iOS app which has seen some success in the Lifestyle category in the Japanese App Store. It was also announced that JMTY will also be use to power Sankei Living’s Living Web classifieds page, located at mrs.living.jp/tokyo/classified, targeting female audiences. Sankei Living is a subsidiary of Fuji Media Holdings, which of course also is the parent of the aforementioned Fuji Startup Ventures. It’s interesting to see JMTY still doing well, as there has been some skepticism has to whether there is a market for classifieds services in Japan. But recently we have seen more players jumping into Japan’s C2C buy-and-sell market especially, including mobile services like Mercari and Fril.

Fuji Startup Ventures recently announced it has invested an undisclosed sum in Japanese online classifieds service JMTY.jp (pronounced Jimoty). JMTY provides listings in a wide range of categories, including items for sale, job listings, services, and events.

JMTY was initially launched by Infinity Venture Partners back in 2011, and subsequently raised funding from KDDI Open Innovation Fund and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. The web service is optimized for smartphones, and it is available as a native iOS app which has seen some success in the Lifestyle category in the Japanese App Store.

It was also announced that JMTY will also be use to power Sankei Living’s Living Web classifieds page, located at mrs.living.jp/tokyo/classified, targeting female audiences. Sankei Living is a subsidiary of Fuji Media Holdings, which of course also is the parent of the aforementioned Fuji Startup Ventures.

It’s interesting to see JMTY still doing well, as there has been some skepticism has to whether there is a market for classifieds services in Japan. But recently we have seen more players jumping into Japan’s C2C buy-and-sell market especially, including mobile services like Mercari and Fril.

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3 Japanese VCs team up to establish new mobile gaming studio

Takeshi Hirano 2013.07.03

See the original story in Japanese. Fuji Startup Ventures [1], Gumi Ventures [2], and B Dash Ventures have jointly announced (PDF) that they have teamed up to establish a new mobile gaming studio called A-lim. It has not been disclosed how much stake each party will hold in the company. This newly formed company also released its first mobile iOS game today, titled Brave Frontier. It’s available for free over on the App Store if you’d like to try it out. The company’s CEO Eiji Takahashi tells us that they are preparing to release an Android version and an international edition as well. More games will be coming later on. We had an opportunity to hear from Hironao Kunimitsu, the company’s executive director and the CEO at Gumi. He claimed that they company will try to produce games based on top-class IP in partnership with Fuji TV. It will be interesting to see what this new company has in store for mobile gamers! The investment arm of Tokyo’s private TV station Fuji TV. ↩ The investment arm of Japanese gaming giant Gumi. ↩

See the original story in Japanese.

Fuji Startup Ventures [1], Gumi Ventures [2], and B Dash Ventures have jointly announced (PDF) that they have teamed up to establish a new mobile gaming studio called A-lim. It has not been disclosed how much stake each party will hold in the company.

This newly formed company also released its first mobile iOS game today, titled Brave Frontier. It’s available for free over on the App Store if you’d like to try it out. The company’s CEO Eiji Takahashi tells us that they are preparing to release an Android version and an international edition as well. More games will be coming later on.

We had an opportunity to hear from Hironao Kunimitsu, the company’s executive director and the CEO at Gumi. He claimed that they company will try to produce games based on top-class IP in partnership with Fuji TV.

It will be interesting to see what this new company has in store for mobile gamers!

The investment arm of Tokyo’s private TV station Fuji TV. ↩
The investment arm of Japanese gaming giant Gumi. ↩