Japan’s Nikkei reported that Tokyo-based mobile payments processor Coiney will soon raise up to 800 million yen (approximately $8 million) from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, the country’s state-run investment fund which promotes emerging technology businesses. Our readers may recall that the startup raised 500 million yen ($5 million) back in August from Credit Saison, one of Japan’s top credit card companies. The company expects to transact more than 1 trillion yen ($10 billion) through its payment platform in the next five years. Coiney was launched back in March of 2012 by ex-PayPal Japan employee Naoko Samata, and has been providing mobile payments solutions using swipe card readers for smartphones. In Japan, other competitors in this space are Square, Paypal Here, and Rakuten Smartpay. On a related note, it was announced a couple of weeks ago that the aforementioned fund announced will also invest up to 1 billion yen ($10 million) in another payments processor company, Royal Gate.
Japan’s Nikkei reported that Tokyo-based mobile payments processor Coiney will soon raise up to 800 million yen (approximately $8 million) from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, the country’s state-run investment fund which promotes emerging technology businesses.
Our readers may recall that the startup raised 500 million yen ($5 million) back in August from Credit Saison, one of Japan’s top credit card companies. The company expects to transact more than 1 trillion yen ($10 billion) through its payment platform in the next five years.
Coiney was launched back in March of 2012 by ex-PayPal Japan employee Naoko Samata, and has been providing mobile payments solutions using swipe card readers for smartphones. In Japan, other competitors in this space are Square, Paypal Here, and Rakuten Smartpay.
On a related note, it was announced a couple of weeks ago that the aforementioned fund announced will also invest up to 1 billion yen ($10 million) in another payments processor company, Royal Gate.
See also the story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Coiney, a startup focused on providing mobile payments solutions in Japan, announced today that it has raised 500 million yen (over $5 million) from Credit Saison, one of Japanese top credit card companies. I believe the service is definitely making its way into consumers’ daily lives. Coiney was launched back in March of 2012 and has been providing mobile payments solutions using swipe card readers for smartphones. This, of course, puts them in the same space as Square, Paypal Here, and Rakuten Smartpay. Earlier this year, the startup also invited ex-CyberAgent COO Shinichi Saijo to its board of directors, a significant addition to its growing family. We had a chance to speak with the startup’s CEO Naoko Samata and asked her about how they plan to expand their business. Since our last conversation, the company has been focusing on user-safety systems and stability in rather than business expansion. We asked Naoko how they expect to compete against other big other players. She explained: If you see mobile payments as a disruption to the cash market, the potential is huge. I think every single player will evolve the market in different ways. Of course,…
From the left: Takamasa Matsumoto (software designer), Naoko Samata (CEO/founder), and David Asikin (CTO)
Tokyo-based Coiney, a startup focused on providing mobile payments solutions in Japan, announced today that it has raised 500 million yen (over $5 million) from Credit Saison, one of Japanese top credit card companies.
I believe the service is definitely making its way into consumers’ daily lives.
Coiney was launched back in March of 2012 and has been providing mobile payments solutions using swipe card readers for smartphones. This, of course, puts them in the same space as Square, Paypal Here, and Rakuten Smartpay.
Earlier this year, the startup also invited ex-CyberAgent COO Shinichi Saijo to its board of directors, a significant addition to its growing family.
We had a chance to speak with the startup’s CEO Naoko Samata and asked her about how they plan to expand their business. Since our last conversation, the company has been focusing on user-safety systems and stability in rather than business expansion. We asked Naoko how they expect to compete against other big other players. She explained:
If you see mobile payments as a disruption to the cash market, the potential is huge. I think every single player will evolve the market in different ways. Of course, this business needs a certain amount of a solid financial muscle. For us, it is very important to partner with other companies leveraging our business. By joining forces with appropriate partners, we will be able to reach out to more merchants who typically use our service on a daily basis.
According to Samata, more than a few consumers use mobile payments to buy high-value products or services in Japan, which is definitely different from what we’ve being seeing in the US. She shared some of their use cases and insights.
A big volume of our users are in their 40s, and 80% of them are male users. In terms of geographical metrics, it’s about a 50/50 split between urban and rural areas, which goes against our original hypothesis that Tokyoites in their 30s would be most of our user base. The average price per transaction using the service exceeds 10,000 yen ($100), which is certainly higher than the average credit card payments. […] Our customers (merchants) include outdoor tour guides, street-side butchers, flower shops, and souvenir shops. I believe the service is definitely making its way into consumers’ daily lives.
For Coiney, this may be how they differ most from their competitors. The startup aims to be a platform for solutions around money issues rather than just a payment solutions provider. As a part of their efforts on this front, the company plans to provide its payment services APIs to partnering developers. It might be very similar to what we’ve seen around API-based payment processing services such as Stripe, Braintree, and WebPay. Naoko added:
By the end of September, we’re expecting to announce our partners who will be using the closed alpha version of our SDKs. Subsequently we’ll start providing it to partner developers. We’re ready to provide SDKs for both the iOS and Android platforms. Unlike Stripes or Braintree, what we provide is payment solutions for face-to-face purchases. That’s the focus of our business.
With these new funds, the startup expects to double its engineering and business development forces, which is currently a 15-person team. It also expects to enhance its back-end infrastructure and add new models to its card reader line up.
Let’s keep an eye on Coiney to see how it progresses from here.
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.
Tokyo-based startup Monoco announced today it has raised funds from Japan’s second largest telco KDDI and Japanese VC firm Global Brain. The specific amount was not disclosed but it’s thought to be several million US dollars. Monoco is a flash sales e-commerce site focused on selling fashion items of a limited quantity selected by curators and buyers worldwide. Since the company’s launch back in April of 2012, it has acquired more than 80,000 users, partnering with more than 900 fashion designers worldwide. As part of its business strategy, the company plans to add more designers to improve the variety of available items, which would likely result in more revenue. They expect to bring on 2,100 designers more by the end of this year. Coinciding with this funding, the startup will establish a navigation page on the web menu of KDDI’s smartphone subscribers, where it will introduce trending items and drive traffic to its e-commerce site. Furthermore it will also set up a physical store in Tokyo’s Omotesando district, in order to promote its brand offline as well. Monoco was previously known as Flutterscape, originally founded back in 2010 as an incubation project at Netprice.com. It had been running an e-commerce…
Tokyo-based startup Monoco announced today it has raised funds from Japan’s second largest telco KDDI and Japanese VC firm Global Brain. The specific amount was not disclosed but it’s thought to be several million US dollars.
Monoco is a flash sales e-commerce site focused on selling fashion items of a limited quantity selected by curators and buyers worldwide. Since the company’s launch back in April of 2012, it has acquired more than 80,000 users, partnering with more than 900 fashion designers worldwide.
As part of its business strategy, the company plans to add more designers to improve the variety of available items, which would likely result in more revenue. They expect to bring on 2,100 designers more by the end of this year.
Coinciding with this funding, the startup will establish a navigation page on the web menu of KDDI’s smartphone subscribers, where it will introduce trending items and drive traffic to its e-commerce site. Furthermore it will also set up a physical store in Tokyo’s Omotesando district, in order to promote its brand offline as well.
Monoco was previously known as Flutterscape, originally founded back in 2010 as an incubation project at Netprice.com. It had been running an e-commerce site selling Japanese products to the overseas markets but subsequently changed to its current business back in 2012. Prior to the funding, it received seed investment from CyberAgent, and investment worth 60 million yen ($600,000) from Nippon Venture Capital, United (ngi group at that time), and Innovation Engine in 2011.
Tokyo-based startup and mobile ad consultancy AdInnovation announced this week that it has raised 160 million yen (about $1.6 million) from DBJ Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital [1]. The startup was launched back in 2010, and has been providing white-label ad performance tracking solutions to many Japanese mobile ad agencies. For mobile app developers, typical mobile advertising (such as embedded banner ads) will encourage users to download your app and boost its App Store ranking. But this is not very effective in the long term, and your increase in downloads is typically not sustained beyond the campaign period. The company’s solution for app publishers is called Adstore Tracking, letting you view mobile ad metrics at a glance on a handy dashboard, with the ability to measure conversion rates of search ads, calculate cost-per-action, or analyze which promotional efforts were most effective. When I heard about this new funding, I reached out to the company’s CMO Ryoma Hosokawa and project manager Kazumi Hirooka to find out what they’ll do next. Before joining the team several months ago, Hirooka worked at Infocom Corporation where he launched the Japanese Android app portal ‘Tabroid‘. For app developers, typical ad tracking tools…
Tokyo-based startup and mobile ad consultancy AdInnovation announced this week that it has raised 160 million yen (about $1.6 million) from DBJ Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital [1].
The startup was launched back in 2010, and has been providing white-label ad performance tracking solutions to many Japanese mobile ad agencies. For mobile app developers, typical mobile advertising (such as embedded banner ads) will encourage users to download your app and boost its App Store ranking. But this is not very effective in the long term, and your increase in downloads is typically not sustained beyond the campaign period.
The company’s solution for app publishers is called Adstore Tracking, letting you view mobile ad metrics at a glance on a handy dashboard, with the ability to measure conversion rates of search ads, calculate cost-per-action, or analyze which promotional efforts were most effective.
When I heard about this new funding, I reached out to the company’s CMO Ryoma Hosokawa and project manager Kazumi Hirooka to find out what they’ll do next. Before joining the team several months ago, Hirooka worked at Infocom Corporation where he launched the Japanese Android app portal ‘Tabroid‘.
From the left: CMO Ryoma Hosokawa and project manager Kazumi Hirooka
For app developers, typical ad tracking tools let you find out ROI, but AdInnovation is currently developing solutions that gives you a wider view of how your mobile app is doing. Hosokawa explains:
Such tools are typically designed for marketing people. And they might be satisfied with seeing the results of their promotional efforts. But that’s different from reaching success with your app. We plan to develop a tool that can help you analyze all aspects of the app. It will be probably for executives or producers rather than marketing people.
According to the pair, many Western app publishers are very curious about how Japanese app developers are increasing conversion rates, because they know that their strategies are well thought out. So they plan to bring this tool to the overseas market as well.
These days there are many players in the ad-tech space, such as RTB (real-time bidding) or DSP (demand-side platform) providers. but we’ve seen few solutions that measure ad performance or improve the profitability of mobile apps. They add:
We’re thinking to start our global expansion with Europe. That region has bigger markets than the US in terms of console game sales, so there’s great potential there. In Asia (not including Japan and Korea), consumers are not yet accustomed to paying for mobile apps, so I assume mobile app developers in the region are not ready to pay to improve their profitability. We’ll start in Europe, and move on to the rest of the world, including Asia, later on.
It will be interesting to see if they will evolve the mobile app market in Europe. AdInnovation is currently hiring new talent who can work on the global expansion project. If you are interested in joining the team, don’t hesitate to contact Mr. Hirooka.
Also operating in this space is Seattle-based startup HasOffers which secured a $9.4 million funding from Accel Partners back in May.
DBJ Capital is the investment arm of Development Bank of Japan. The bank is a 100% government-owned financial institution and one of the largest players in corporate loans and private equity investments in Japan. SMBC Venture Capital is the investment arm of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. And Mitsubishi UFJ Capital is the investment arm of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. ↩
Booklap is a handy service that helps you find good books. It was created by Tokyo-based startup Prosbee, which announced today that it has raised 20 million yen ($200,000) from Incubate Fund, Voyage Ventures, and Genuine Startups [1]. This follows the previous funding of 3 million yen (about $32,000) from Incubate Fund last July. The service has two ways to help you discover new books: The first method is based on your interests, pulled from ‘social graphs’ like your Facebook profile. The other way is by presenting quotes from books that impressed other users. Since its beta launch back in June of 2012, they have built up a decent userbase, with recent changes to their interface, adding features intended to boost growth. CEO Reo Kasai explains: We reflected back on our original goal, when our mission was to visualize the impressions of book readers. We created a UX map and a detailed profile of how a typical user behaves, and considered which parts needed to be modified or refined. As a result, a featured image behind an overlaying quote is now on the book recommendation page. The image is referenced from the book publisher’s website using Bing image search API. They…
Booklap is a handy service that helps you find good books. It was created by Tokyo-based startup Prosbee, which announced today that it has raised 20 million yen ($200,000) from Incubate Fund, Voyage Ventures, and Genuine Startups [1]. This follows the previous funding of 3 million yen (about $32,000) from Incubate Fund last July.
The service has two ways to help you discover new books: The first method is based on your interests, pulled from ‘social graphs’ like your Facebook profile. The other way is by presenting quotes from books that impressed other users. Since its beta launch back in June of 2012, they have built up a decent userbase, with recent changes to their interface, adding features intended to boost growth. CEO Reo Kasai explains:
We reflected back on our original goal, when our mission was to visualize the impressions of book readers. We created a UX map and a detailed profile of how a typical user behaves, and considered which parts needed to be modified or refined.
As a result, a featured image behind an overlaying quote is now on the book recommendation page. The image is referenced from the book publisher’s website using Bing image search API.
They also added a feature that allows users to organize a reading circle, with a discussion around a specific book. You can designate a start and finish date to let participating users to know when to read the book, and subsequently they’ll be able to organize a virtual meet-up online to talk about their impressions.
The company is currently preparing to release two mobile apps. One is the Booklap Camera app (for iOS only), which has an OCR feature and helps users to scan a memorable quote and post it to Booklap. The other one is the Booklap mobile app (for Android and iOS), which gives you an easier access to the service and helps you share your reading experience without the need to be seated in front of a PC.
Their revenue streams are still limited, with banner and affiliates ads driving user traffic to sites where books can be purchased. But the company is focusing on user acquisition first, and will explore global business expansion later on.
Genuine Startups is an investment fund spun off from Tokyo-based startup incubator Movida Japan. ↩
Aqush, a prominent Japanese social lending service, announced today that it has partnered with US-based Lending Club to form a new fund, giving Japanese lenders easier access to fundraising projects in America. For Japanese users interested in investing in US-based projects, you usually need to set up a local banking account there. As a result of this new partnership, Japanese lenders can invest in such projects by paying an additional 1.5% surcharge. Lending Club was launched back in 2007, and has handled personal loans worth a total of more than $1.9 million. The company raised $125 million from Google back in May. Exchange Corporation (or ExCo for short) is the company behind Aqush. It was launched by former investment banker Russel Cummer back in 2008, and subsequently received an undisclosed amount of investment from Silicon Valley-based startup fund 500 Startups back in 2010. He also founded another startup called MyCredit.jp which provides consumers with a credibility report of their finances, a sort of Japanese version of Experian or Equifax.
Aqush, a prominent Japanese social lending service, announced today that it has partnered with US-based Lending Club to form a new fund, giving Japanese lenders easier access to fundraising projects in America. For Japanese users interested in investing in US-based projects, you usually need to set up a local banking account there. As a result of this new partnership, Japanese lenders can invest in such projects by paying an additional 1.5% surcharge.
Lending Club was launched back in 2007, and has handled personal loans worth a total of more than $1.9 million. The company raised $125 million from Google back in May.
Exchange Corporation (or ExCo for short) is the company behind Aqush. It was launched by former investment banker Russel Cummer back in 2008, and subsequently received an undisclosed amount of investment from Silicon Valley-based startup fund 500 Startups back in 2010.
He also founded another startup called MyCredit.jp which provides consumers with a credibility report of their finances, a sort of Japanese version of Experian or Equifax.
Japanese e-commerce and incubation company Netprice.com announced on Monday that it has invested in Turkish payment processor Iyzi Payments. According to a statement from Iyzi’s founders, this is a part of a series A funding round worth $1.4 million. Several investors participated including Pachicle Invest, Speedinvest (an angel investment fund based in Austria), and Beenos Asia (a subsidiary of Netprice.com in Tokyo). Following the investment, Speedinvest CEOs Stefan Klestil and Oliver Holle will join Iyzi’s board. Iyzi was founded in Istanbul back in 2012, and introduced its first product, Iyzico, back in April, providing local e-commerce companies with easy-to-implement card payment solutions. Iyzi Payments’ co-founder and CEO Barbaros Özbugutu commented: Being able to use this entire $1.4 million investment for the Turkish market shows that our investors have confidence in the potential and importance of the e-commerce market here. Our primary goal now is to develop our Iyzico product further and to invest in sales and marketing activities to grow even faster. For Netprice.com, this is its second investment in a Turkish business following its previous investment in Turkish e-commerce site Akakce.com. Through these investments, the Japanese company expects to gain insights into Turkish e-commerce trends and contribute to the…
Japanese e-commerce and incubation company Netprice.com announced on Monday that it has invested in Turkish payment processor Iyzi Payments. According to a statement from Iyzi’s founders, this is a part of a series A funding round worth $1.4 million. Several investors participated including Pachicle Invest, Speedinvest (an angel investment fund based in Austria), and Beenos Asia (a subsidiary of Netprice.com in Tokyo). Following the investment, Speedinvest CEOs Stefan Klestil and Oliver Holle will join Iyzi’s board.
Iyzi was founded in Istanbul back in 2012, and introduced its first product, Iyzico, back in April, providing local e-commerce companies with easy-to-implement card payment solutions.
Iyzi Payments’ co-founder and CEO Barbaros Özbugutu commented:
Being able to use this entire $1.4 million investment for the Turkish market shows that our investors have confidence in the potential and importance of the e-commerce market here. Our primary goal now is to develop our Iyzico product further and to invest in sales and marketing activities to grow even faster.
For Netprice.com, this is its second investment in a Turkish business following its previous investment in Turkish e-commerce site Akakce.com. Through these investments, the Japanese company expects to gain insights into Turkish e-commerce trends and contribute to the future developments in the Turkish startup community.
EventRegist is a Tokyo-based startup providing an online ticket issuing and management system for organizers of events and meetups. The startup announced yesterday it has raised seed investment from East Ventures, Skyland Ventures, and Shinwa Agency (the latter being a marketing agency and subsidiary of home construction company Daiwa House). Detailed figures of the investment were not disclosed. The startup launched the service back in November of 2011, and it is now available in Japanese, English, Indonesian, Thai, and traditional Chinese across multiple platforms. Along with this funding, the startup has partnered with Shinwa Agency in order to better address needs like organizing business conferences for corporate accounts. We’ve already seen many competitors such as Tixee, Everevo, DoorKeeper, Peatix, Connpass, Zussar, and Event Atnd here in Japan, not to mention global players like EventBrite, Amaindo and many others. We’re not sure how the startup expects to excel in such a highly competitive industry, but in terms of possible differentiation from others, we should perhaps look to its board member Hiroaki Kanamaru. His background includes time with successful food-oriented e-commerce startup Oisix, game publisher Smileworks (under Square Enix) and a web integration company in Jakarta and Surabaya, Indonesia. The startup could…
EventRegist is a Tokyo-based startup providing an online ticket issuing and management system for organizers of events and meetups. The startup announced yesterday it has raised seed investment from East Ventures, Skyland Ventures, and Shinwa Agency (the latter being a marketing agency and subsidiary of home construction company Daiwa House). Detailed figures of the investment were not disclosed.
The startup launched the service back in November of 2011, and it is now available in Japanese, English, Indonesian, Thai, and traditional Chinese across multiple platforms. Along with this funding, the startup has partnered with Shinwa Agency in order to better address needs like organizing business conferences for corporate accounts.
We’ve already seen many competitors such as Tixee, Everevo, DoorKeeper, Peatix, Connpass, Zussar, and Event Atnd here in Japan, not to mention global players like EventBrite, Amaindo and many others. We’re not sure how the startup expects to excel in such a highly competitive industry, but in terms of possible differentiation from others, we should perhaps look to its board member Hiroaki Kanamaru. His background includes time with successful food-oriented e-commerce startup Oisix, game publisher Smileworks (under Square Enix) and a web integration company in Jakarta and Surabaya, Indonesia. The startup could be looking to explore international business expansion in that region too.
See the original story in Japanese. pLucky is the Tokyo-based startup behind the user behavior analysis tool Slash-7. The company announced today that it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from CyberAgent Ventures. We figure that it’s worth about 20 million yen ($200,000). Slash-7 aims to gives website owners sophisticated data analysis for reasonable rates. Many executives at Japanese companies are becoming increasingly interested in making the most of big data analysis to improve their business. But for website managers, it’s a time consuming task and may also result in additional costs or a possible delay spilling over into your regular projects. The Slash-7 tool is based on Google BigQuery, a database engine for analyzing large amounts of data. It gives you access to ‘cohort analysis‘, helping measure user engagement over time. This allows users to monitor user retention rates by traffic source or measure conversion rates for a specific user group before or after a promotional campaign. The startup was launched back in 2011 by Nobuhiro Hayashi. He has been working in the web industry for almost 10 years, and previously worked at notable Japanese startups, including Tonchidot.
pLucky is the Tokyo-based startup behind the user behavior analysis tool Slash-7. The company announced today that it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from CyberAgent Ventures. We figure that it’s worth about 20 million yen ($200,000).
Slash-7 aims to gives website owners sophisticated data analysis for reasonable rates. Many executives at Japanese companies are becoming increasingly interested in making the most of big data analysis to improve their business. But for website managers, it’s a time consuming task and may also result in additional costs or a possible delay spilling over into your regular projects.
The Slash-7 tool is based on Google BigQuery, a database engine for analyzing large amounts of data. It gives you access to ‘cohort analysis‘, helping measure user engagement over time. This allows users to monitor user retention rates by traffic source or measure conversion rates for a specific user group before or after a promotional campaign.
The startup was launched back in 2011 by Nobuhiro Hayashi. He has been working in the web industry for almost 10 years, and previously worked at notable Japanese startups, including Tonchidot.
investment 
Masaru Ikeda
Takeshi Hirano
Rick Martin
Tokyo-based startup 
Tokyo-based startup and mobile ad consultancy 
Japanese e-commerce and incubation company 
Junya Mori
