news

Photo sharing app Snapeee raises series B funding from six Japanese VC firms

Masaru Ikeda 2013.05.13

Tokyo-based startup Mind Pallete, known for developing the very popular photo sharing app Snapeee, announced today that it has raised a round of series B funding from six Japanese VC firms: SMBC Venture Capital, Dentsu Digital Holdings, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, PSC, Sun Eight Investment, and Itochu Technology Ventures. Detailed figures were not disclosed but I assume the total is a multi-million dollar figure at least. The startup was launched with seed investment from CyberAgent Ventures in November of 2010, and subsequently the Snapeee photo app was launched in May of 2011. They previously fundraised an unknown amount of investment from GREE and Itochu Technology Ventures. The service has reached the top spot in the AppStore’s free photo category in 13 Asian countries including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and mainland China. The app has 80% of its 4 million strong user base outside its home market of Japan, with its core users being females in their teens and 20s. The startup has partnered with many apparel and music labels, helping them promote their products using the photo sharing platform. With the new funding, the startup expects to intensify this advertising partnership business, which has been showing good results thus far….

Tokyo-based startup Mind Pallete, known for developing the very popular photo sharing app Snapeee, announced today that it has raised a round of series B funding from six Japanese VC firms: SMBC Venture Capital, Dentsu Digital Holdings, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, PSC, Sun Eight Investment, and Itochu Technology Ventures. Detailed figures were not disclosed but I assume the total is a multi-million dollar figure at least.

The startup was launched with seed investment from CyberAgent Ventures in November of 2010, and subsequently the Snapeee photo app was launched in May of 2011. They previously fundraised an unknown amount of investment from GREE and Itochu Technology Ventures. The service has reached the top spot in the AppStore’s free photo category in 13 Asian countries including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and mainland China.

The app has 80% of its 4 million strong user base outside its home market of Japan, with its core users being females in their teens and 20s. The startup has partnered with many apparel and music labels, helping them promote their products using the photo sharing platform. With the new funding, the startup expects to intensify this advertising partnership business, which has been showing good results thus far.

For our readers not yet familiar with how the Snapeee app works, we encourage you to check out our previous story featuring Japan’s cutest mobile apps, which mentioned Snapeee.

news

Japan tech this week: Origami, funding, and fun in Fukuoka

Rick Martin 2013.04.28

It was a pretty busy week for us here at SD Japan. In addition to all the regular news that we typically cover, we took a shot at some live event coverage as well. Our team is small but we’re doing our best, and we hope you like some of the results. If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here. Features Stand up: Lessons on entrepreneurship and innovation from the Japan New Economic Summit 04/24 (also available in ePub format for Kindle or iBooks) Business Japanese online content marketplace raises $3 million from Jafco and Femto Growth Capital 04/24 Business card-based CRM startup Sansan raises $5M, planning global expansion 04/24 Japan’s Mobcast partners with 13 content providers, wants to dominate sports gaming on mobile 04/24 Stealth m-commerce startup Origami raises $5M from KDDI and DAC 04/24 Design EnchantMoon handwriting tablet unveiled, first orders sold out in an hour 04/26 Tokyo City Symphony: Fun 3D projection mapping marks Roppongi Hills’ 10th anniversary 04/25 Apps Moneytree gives Japanese consumers smarter access to their finances 04/27 Japanese microblog ‘Arrow’ lets you vent stress towards a single random stranger 04/25…

It was a pretty busy week for us here at SD Japan. In addition to all the regular news that we typically cover, we took a shot at some live event coverage as well. Our team is small but we’re doing our best, and we hope you like some of the results.

If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here.

Features

Stand up: Lessons on entrepreneurship and innovation from the Japan New Economic Summit 04/24 (also available in ePub format for Kindle or iBooks)

Business

Design

Apps

Startups

Events

B Dash Camp 2013 Fukuoka (04 22/23)

e27’s Echelon Tokyo Satellite event

Samurai Venture Summit

9 great ideas from the 7th Samurai Venture Summit 04/22

NTT Docomo Innovation Ventures kick-off event

NTT Docomo unveils the first 6 startups for its new incubation program 04/24

news

Japanese fashion e-commerce service Laso raises $2.1M from DCM

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.20

Laso, a Tokyo-based fashion e-commerce retailer specializing in high-end clothes and outfits from around the world, has announced it has fundraised 200 million yen (approximately $2.1 million) from US-based VC firm DCM. The company expects to use the fund to improve site design, further system development, hire new employees, and create O2O (online to offline) marketing approaches. To differentiate the service from others in this intensely competitive field, the company has imported more than 200,000 items from 2,000 brands in 50 countries worldwide. Their buyers handpicked items to showcase in accordance with global fashion trends. They have no physical inventory of these items in Japan, so a user’s purchase will be delivered one or two weeks after placing the order. In its announcement, the company highlights how much potential there is in this business: The Japanese fashion market has not matured yet, where some foreign fashion brands are struggling hard to find market potential and other brands have been forced to give up continuing their business expansion. We wish to give consumers more opportunities to encounter wonderful global fashion items and make themselves feel close to the world. Laso was founded in 2006 by Masatoshi Murota who was previously on…

laso_logo Laso, a Tokyo-based fashion e-commerce retailer specializing in high-end clothes and outfits from around the world, has announced it has fundraised 200 million yen (approximately $2.1 million) from US-based VC firm DCM. The company expects to use the fund to improve site design, further system development, hire new employees, and create O2O (online to offline) marketing approaches.

To differentiate the service from others in this intensely competitive field, the company has imported more than 200,000 items from 2,000 brands in 50 countries worldwide. Their buyers handpicked items to showcase in accordance with global fashion trends. They have no physical inventory of these items in Japan, so a user’s purchase will be delivered one or two weeks after placing the order.

In its announcement, the company highlights how much potential there is in this business:

The Japanese fashion market has not matured yet, where some foreign fashion brands are struggling hard to find market potential and other brands have been forced to give up continuing their business expansion. We wish to give consumers more opportunities to encounter wonderful global fashion items and make themselves feel close to the world.

Laso was founded in 2006 by Masatoshi Murota who was previously on the board of directors for J-Word, which provided a web browser plug-in and an alternative to Google Search. It later acquired by Yahoo Japan and GMO.

funding

Photo sharing app Snapeee raises series B funding from six Japanese VC firms