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Japanese business reporting tool Gamba fundraises $400,000

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See the original story in Japanese. Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup that provides business reporting tool under the same name, announced today it has raised 40 million yen (about $400,000) from two Japanese investment firms; East Ventures and Skyland Ventures. This follows their previous funding of $200,000 from Skyland Ventures back in October 2013. Gamba was launched back in December 2012 by Masahiro Morita, who previously worked for Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten as a business development producer. Gamba recently partnered with Japanese internet company Nifty, where Gamba’s cloud-based reporting tool was added to the series of Nifty’s business software packages called Hakokura, which is sold at more than 17,000 computer stores nationwide in Japan with the aim to give internet-unfamiliar SME owners more opportunities to learn and try a variety of cloud-based services. Gamba is in talks with other companies to create more sales channels to users they have not yet reached. From my point of view, most companies using cloud-based services typically have their CEOs or operations managers who are early adopters. However, startups have to reach late adopters as well in order to build a bigger user base. Thus, if you have developed an awesome service but are struggling…

get-gamba

See the original story in Japanese.

Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup that provides business reporting tool under the same name, announced today it has raised 40 million yen (about $400,000) from two Japanese investment firms; East Ventures and Skyland Ventures. This follows their previous funding of $200,000 from Skyland Ventures back in October 2013.

Gamba was launched back in December 2012 by Masahiro Morita, who previously worked for Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten as a business development producer. Gamba recently partnered with Japanese internet company Nifty, where Gamba’s cloud-based reporting tool was added to the series of Nifty’s business software packages called Hakokura, which is sold at more than 17,000 computer stores nationwide in Japan with the aim to give internet-unfamiliar SME owners more opportunities to learn and try a variety of cloud-based services. Gamba is in talks with other companies to create more sales channels to users they have not yet reached.

From my point of view, most companies using cloud-based services typically have their CEOs or operations managers who are early adopters. However, startups have to reach late adopters as well in order to build a bigger user base. Thus, if you have developed an awesome service but are struggling to acquire users, you should study and learn from Gamba as it increases touch points with potential customers.

Japanese business reporting tool Gamba raises $200,000 from Skyland Ventures

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See the original story in Japanese. Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup behind the business reporting tool of the same name, announced today that it has raised $20 million yen (approximately $200,00) from Skyland Ventures, a Japanese investment company focused on seed-stage startups. Some of our readers may recall when we reported back in July that their tool would be integrated with a number of code- and task-tracking tools: GitHub, BitBucket, Pivotal Tracker and Google Tasks. The company was launched last December by Masahiro Morita who previously worked with e-commerce giant Rakuten as a business development producer. As of July, it has acquired more than 1,000 corporate accounts in Japan across a wide range of companies. For sales representatives or engineers, the app provides an easy way to share your updates with colleagues or management, at the beginning and the end of business hours. For management who have difficulties finding time to speak with employees face-to-face, it provides information on the progression of tasks as well as information about what are employees are working on. Among social tools available for enterprises, we’ve recently seen big developments like corporate messaging tool Yammer’s, acquired last year by Microsoft, and Australian business tool startup Atlassian,…

get-gamba

See the original story in Japanese.

Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup behind the business reporting tool of the same name, announced today that it has raised $20 million yen (approximately $200,00) from Skyland Ventures, a Japanese investment company focused on seed-stage startups. Some of our readers may recall when we reported back in July that their tool would be integrated with a number of code- and task-tracking tools: GitHub, BitBucket, Pivotal Tracker and Google Tasks.

The company was launched last December by Masahiro Morita who previously worked with e-commerce giant Rakuten as a business development producer. As of July, it has acquired more than 1,000 corporate accounts in Japan across a wide range of companies. For sales representatives or engineers, the app provides an easy way to share your updates with colleagues or management, at the beginning and the end of business hours. For management who have difficulties finding time to speak with employees face-to-face, it provides information on the progression of tasks as well as information about what are employees are working on.

gamba_screenshot

Among social tools available for enterprises, we’ve recently seen big developments like corporate messaging tool Yammer’s, acquired last year by Microsoft, and Australian business tool startup Atlassian, currently preparing for an IPO.

In the Japanese market, Talknote raised $2 million earlier this week, and Chatwork is accelerating its global expansion efforts as well. We can expect this space to get even more interesting over the next year.

For Skyland Ventures, this is the largest of its investments to date. The company’s portfolio also includes Wonder Graphics, a company specializing in video explainers; Hachimenroppi, which does food distribution for restaurants; and Creofuga, a vertical social network for musical composers.

Business reporting tool Gamba now integrates with GitHub, BitBucket, and more

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Yokohama-based startup Gamba announced today that its business reporting tool has been integrated with four code- and task-tracking tools: GitHub, BitBucket, Pivotal Tracker and Google Tasks. Some of our readers may recall that we featured Gamba in our coverage of Samurai Venture Summit. Their app app was launched back last December by Masahiro Morita who previously work with Rakuten as a business development producer. To date it has acquired more than 1,000 corporate accounts in Japan ranging from listed companies to SMEs. For sales representatives or engineers, the app provides an easy way to share your updates with colleagues or management, at the beginning and the end of business hours. For management who has difficulty finding time to speak with employees face-to-face, it provides information on the progression of tasks and what are employees focusing on. In terms of differentiation from similar services, the app lets users post just an excerpt of their daily updates, which keeps things from being too troublesome. If you there are any additional details that you want to share with colleagues, that information will be submitted to the integrated third-party services mentioned above. In this way, coworkers get a brief update first can later explore…

gamba_logoYokohama-based startup Gamba announced today that its business reporting tool has been integrated with four code- and task-tracking tools: GitHub, BitBucket, Pivotal Tracker and Google Tasks.

Some of our readers may recall that we featured Gamba in our coverage of Samurai Venture Summit. Their app app was launched back last December by Masahiro Morita who previously work with Rakuten as a business development producer. To date it has acquired more than 1,000 corporate accounts in Japan ranging from listed companies to SMEs.

For sales representatives or engineers, the app provides an easy way to share your updates with colleagues or management, at the beginning and the end of business hours. For management who has difficulty finding time to speak with employees face-to-face, it provides information on the progression of tasks and what are employees focusing on.

In terms of differentiation from similar services, the app lets users post just an excerpt of their daily updates, which keeps things from being too troublesome. If you there are any additional details that you want to share with colleagues, that information will be submitted to the integrated third-party services mentioned above. In this way, coworkers get a brief update first can later explore more details if needed.

gamba_screenshot

I had a chance to speak with Morita, and he explained how they plan to improve the business moving forward.

We actually received many requests from users who expected us to launch mobile apps. We’re currently working on those, and the iOS app will go live next month, with Android following later on. Subsequently we’ll to add a paid service and exploring series A funding in October.

Regarding possible overseas service expansion, he believes there is a need for this kind of task tracking and reporting beyond Japan too. And in that case, possible competitors would include IDoneThis.com, a notable task tracking tool based in San Francisco.

The company aspires to acquire 5,000 corporate accounts. Here in Japan, we have seen more than a few possible competitors including Chatwork, Co-work, and Talknote.

Gamba is backed by Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate.

Samurai Incubate exhibits fun new startups and ideas in Tokyo

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Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate is planning to launch another co-working space at Odaiba, Tokyo’s waterfront area. The group already has a venue for incubating startups at another location, but the new one will focus on gadget and hardware manufacturing startups. It is jointly organized with a local architectural firm. The new incubation venue will be called MONO, and will be launched in the end of this month. To commemorate the opening the incubator recently held an exhibition and conference event for startups called Samurai MONO Festival Vol. 1, featuring a number of notable people from the gadget and hardware manufacturing scene. Let’s have a look at some of the interesting ideas and startups who we met at the event [1]. The Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology, Tokyo ¶ A team from this university showed us several interesting ideas including: Kansei Senkyoku – Mind Jukebox ¶ Kansei Senkyoku (literally ‘music selection by sense’) chooses a song that fits your current feeling by detecting your brain waves. It’s known that alpha brain waves emerge when you are stable before sleep, and the beta wave is usually seen when you are doing something that requires concentration. Accordingly, the app selects a song…

monofestival_birdview
February 16th 2013, at Telecom Center in Aomi, Tokyo

Tokyo-based startup incubator Samurai Incubate is planning to launch another co-working space at Odaiba, Tokyo’s waterfront area. The group already has a venue for incubating startups at another location, but the new one will focus on gadget and hardware manufacturing startups. It is jointly organized with a local architectural firm.

The new incubation venue will be called MONO, and will be launched in the end of this month. To commemorate the opening the incubator recently held an exhibition and conference event for startups called Samurai MONO Festival Vol. 1, featuring a number of notable people from the gadget and hardware manufacturing scene.

Let’s have a look at some of the interesting ideas and startups who we met at the event [1].

The Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology, Tokyo

A team from this university showed us several interesting ideas including:

Kansei Senkyoku – Mind Jukebox

kansei_senkyoku

Kansei Senkyoku (literally ‘music selection by sense’) chooses a song that fits your current feeling by detecting your brain waves. It’s known that alpha brain waves emerge when you are stable before sleep, and the beta wave is usually seen when you are doing something that requires concentration. Accordingly, the app selects a song to play, and help you get a better sleep or do your work more efficiently.

Recipit

recipit

This tablet app’s name is a combination of ‘recipe’ and ‘receipt’, and it helps you find a recipe for a meal the items you have just bought at the supermarket. By scanning the receipts for your groceries, the app will search for possible meals that can be cooked with these materials. You can then print out the recipe from Ricoh’s internet-enabled photocopiers. (The project is jointly conducted with Ricoh.)

Smart frosted-glass system

frostedglass

Large glass projection film, often used for digital signage systems at convenience stores and other public places, is usually very costly. But by combining normal frosted-glass and a camera-enabled Android handset, the team has developed a very cheap interactive touch panel system that allows users to control a screen with flicking motions over top of the glass, as your fingers are detected by the camera of the Android handset on the other side of the glass. The coodinate data for the screen is stored in a Google Docs file, and the app will show you the next screen which corresponds to your finger motion.

novelink

With this app users can create multiple parallel universes, based on someone else’s previous postings. This collective/collaborate writing results in a wide variety of novel endings, which sounds like a lot of fun. The app is expected to be available on iOS and Android soon.

This idea reminds me of the British-American film Sliding Doors, where the story alternates between two parallel universes.

Goeng, an iOS app that aims to help Japanese Facebook users communicate with foreigners

Goeng helps Japanese Facebook users find friends from outside the country who share the same hobbies and interests, or like the same things. Once you and that friend get along well, you can obtain their national flag and add it to your collection. Through this sort of collection you can also earn badges.

Gamba, an easier way to do daily reports

gamba

Making a report and submitting it to your boss on a daily basis can often be way too much hassle. Gamba allows employees to post daily reports to their bosses in a very easy way. I assumed this app was targeting SMEs or startups, but the app’s creator says they have many big Japanese companies as their users as well.

Elevator pitches with handheld megaphones

The festival also had an elevator-pitch session, where entrepreneurs were requested to pitch with a handheld megaphone (see picture below). When all was said and done, the winners were:

  • 3rd place: Shokunin-san, a job matching site for construction workers.
  • 2nd place: Anipipo, a crowdfunding site for animation content. It’s launching soon but still waiting for Paypal to approve them as a merchant.
  • 1st place: Craftstep, a how-to collection of handcraft matters, including things like Japanese paper foldings.
elevatorpitch
Tablet-focused web developer Social Agent pitches at Mono Festival

  1. Note that not all the startups introduced above have received fundraising from Samurai Incubate.  ↩