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Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode raises $2.7M

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo Otaku Mode, the startup behind the Japanese subculture site of the same name, announced today that it has raised series A funding worth 270 million yen. The round was led by Itochu Technology Ventures, with Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Sun Eight Investment, GaiaX Global Marketing Ventures (GX), and 500 Startups also participating [1]. Otaku Mode did not disclose the breakdown of the funding. Since first launching in the form of a Facebook fan page back in 2011, the startup has acquired over 14.7 million likes. They registered a company in Delaware in December of 2012, and subsequently joined Silicon valley accelerator 500 Startups. In addition to their fan page, they subsequently created their own website OtakuMode.com. Their partnering creators have increased to five times the total from last year. Evolving into e-commerce The company started its e-commerce business last September, as one of their primary revenue streams in addition to ad sales. We understand that they intend to use these new fund to further improve their e-commerce platform. According to the company’s CEO Tomohide Kamei, the gender demographic of their user base is evenly split, with almost 40% of their users coming from the…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo Otaku Mode, the startup behind the Japanese subculture site of the same name, announced today that it has raised series A funding worth 270 million yen. The round was led by Itochu Technology Ventures, with Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Sun Eight Investment, GaiaX Global Marketing Ventures (GX), and 500 Startups also participating [1]. Otaku Mode did not disclose the breakdown of the funding.

Since first launching in the form of a Facebook fan page back in 2011, the startup has acquired over 14.7 million likes. They registered a company in Delaware in December of 2012, and subsequently joined Silicon valley accelerator 500 Startups.

In addition to their fan page, they subsequently created their own website OtakuMode.com. Their partnering creators have increased to five times the total from last year.

Evolving into e-commerce

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The company started its e-commerce business last September, as one of their primary revenue streams in addition to ad sales. We understand that they intend to use these new fund to further improve their e-commerce platform.

According to the company’s CEO Tomohide Kamei, the gender demographic of their user base is evenly split, with almost 40% of their users coming from the Asian region, with 20% for each of North and South America. Most of of items sold on the platform are shipped to overseas users spread across 60 countries.

Their strategy for marketing their e-commerce business is very aggressive. For example, a limited edition print (shown below) was $1,200, but it sold out immediately. Dragonball art prints autographed by manga author Akira Toriyama is on sale for about $200.

The user retention rate for their e-commerce service is much higher than other e-commerce sites, says Kamei.

A toy shop for the world

I believe Tokyo Otaku Mode has much potential to be a global media presence, capitalizing on Japan’s unique culture and art. But it will likely be difficult for them to be a comprehensive solution like Amazon, which started out with books but expanded to other items. The startup’s strength is very dependent on their chosen niche.

Kamei explained that the market cap in the global entertainment merchandising industry is worth about $29.3 billion. Since the market is dominated by content companies from the US and and around Asia he hopes that his company can sell products using characters from other companies in the future (Disney, for example). He added,

We can’t win alone. We can build our business by partnering with content holders. If we expand our business to selling non-Japanese character items, our website could look like a toy shop selling interesting items from around the world.

Even limited edition prints worth $1,200 were sold out immediately
Even limited edition prints worth $1,200 were sold out immediately

  1. Itochu Technology Ventures, GaiaX Global Marketing Ventures, and 500startups invested in the past rounds. 

Japanese online printing startup Raksul fundraises $14.3 million

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Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, announced today that it has raised 1.45 billion yen (approximately $14.3 million) from WiL (World Innovation Lab), Global Brain, Itochu Technology Ventures, Plus (an office stationary company), GMO Venture Partners, and Mixi. Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,600 printing facilities across Japan (as of November of 2013). Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the company takes advantage of downtime at participating printers to complete those orders. According to Nikkei Business, Raksul will use the funds raised this time to prepare for global service operations, and to launch a new service that allows merchants to distribute their flyers via newspapers to consumers for affordable rates. By making the most of the internet and removing middleman costs, their flyer distribution service gives local merchants a better chance to promote their services for less than 10% of the price usually seen in this sector. Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total of 230 million yen ($2.4 million) during the last year from Nissay Capital, Yahoo Japan, and Anri.

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From their Facebook page

Raksul, a Tokyo-based startup providing online printing services, announced today that it has raised 1.45 billion yen (approximately $14.3 million) from WiL (World Innovation Lab), Global Brain, Itochu Technology Ventures, Plus (an office stationary company), GMO Venture Partners, and Mixi.

Raksul is a fabless company that provides printing services in partnership with more than 1,600 printing facilities across Japan (as of November of 2013). Users can place printing orders at affordable rates because the company takes advantage of downtime at participating printers to complete those orders.

According to Nikkei Business, Raksul will use the funds raised this time to prepare for global service operations, and to launch a new service that allows merchants to distribute their flyers via newspapers to consumers for affordable rates. By making the most of the internet and removing middleman costs, their flyer distribution service gives local merchants a better chance to promote their services for less than 10% of the price usually seen in this sector.

Raksul was founded in 2009 and raised a total of 230 million yen ($2.4 million) during the last year from Nissay Capital, Yahoo Japan, and Anri.

Japan’s e-commerce service Locondo raises $6.3 million from Excite Japan and VC firms

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See the original story in Japanese. Locondo is a shoes and fashion e-commerce service that says it allows consumers to ‘buy first and than choose.’ Readers may recall that we recently featured the company after it partnered with Spanish brand Desigual. Locondo announced today it has just wrapped up series B funding worth 600 million yen (approximately $6.3 million) from leading Japanese web portal Excite Japan, Lead Capital Management (LCM), and Itochu Technology Ventures (ITV). LCM and ITV previously invested in the company in the series A round. Locondo was launched back in February of 2011 and has acquired more than 300,000 users with an annual turnover of 3 billion yen ($31 million) by using the strategy of easy refunds with free shipping and handling. By partnering with Excite Japan, the e-commerce company aspires to increase its user base by reaching the portal site’s 50 million monthly visitors. The two companies also plan to integrate their e-commerce platforms and cooperate on developing new services and features.

locondo

See the original story in Japanese.

Locondo is a shoes and fashion e-commerce service that says it allows consumers to ‘buy first and than choose.’ Readers may recall that we recently featured the company after it partnered with Spanish brand Desigual.

Locondo announced today it has just wrapped up series B funding worth 600 million yen (approximately $6.3 million) from leading Japanese web portal Excite Japan, Lead Capital Management (LCM), and Itochu Technology Ventures (ITV). LCM and ITV previously invested in the company in the series A round.

Locondo was launched back in February of 2011 and has acquired more than 300,000 users with an annual turnover of 3 billion yen ($31 million) by using the strategy of easy refunds with free shipping and handling.

By partnering with Excite Japan, the e-commerce company aspires to increase its user base by reaching the portal site’s 50 million monthly visitors. The two companies also plan to integrate their e-commerce platforms and cooperate on developing new services and features.

Japanese fashion startup Muse & Co raises $3.4 million

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See the original story in Japanese. Here’s more news from Japan’s fashion commerce space. Apparel-focused, flash marketing startup Muse & Co has announced that it has raised series B funding worth 350 million yen, or about $3.4 million. Investors include Itochu Technology Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Infinity Ventures Partners (IVP). According to IVP’s managing partner Masashi Kobayashi, this round brings the total money raised by the startup to a sum of approximately 500 million yen ($5 million). Previously, IVP invested in the startup back in May of 2012. Consumers love fashion startups To see a seed-stage startup fundraise such a huge amount, it reminds us that there’s a real trend emerging at the intersection of fashion, e-commerce, and smartphones. Some of our readers will remember, for example, mobile commerce startup Origami also raised about the same amount last month. Muse & Co is a members-only flash sale site that gives users a substantial discount off the market price for a limited time. In Japan, there are some similar sites in this space. Gilt Groupe has been operating a joint venture with Softbank since 2008. Other competitors include Glamour Sales, Brands for Friends, and Monoco. According to startup’s CEO Hirotake…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Here’s more news from Japan’s fashion commerce space. Apparel-focused, flash marketing startup Muse & Co has announced that it has raised series B funding worth 350 million yen, or about $3.4 million. Investors include Itochu Technology Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Infinity Ventures Partners (IVP).

According to IVP’s managing partner Masashi Kobayashi, this round brings the total money raised by the startup to a sum of approximately 500 million yen ($5 million). Previously, IVP invested in the startup back in May of 2012.

Consumers love fashion startups

To see a seed-stage startup fundraise such a huge amount, it reminds us that there’s a real trend emerging at the intersection of fashion, e-commerce, and smartphones. Some of our readers will remember, for example, mobile commerce startup Origami also raised about the same amount last month.

Muse & Co is a members-only flash sale site that gives users a substantial discount off the market price for a limited time. In Japan, there are some similar sites in this space. Gilt Groupe has been operating a joint venture with Softbank since 2008. Other competitors include Glamour Sales, Brands for Friends, and Monoco.

According to startup’s CEO Hirotake Kubo, Muse & Co targets the so-called ‘F1 layer’ in Japan (female users in their 20s and early 30s), thus differentiating from conventional competitors. In terms of differentiation from similar smartphones services, they expect to showcase items in the casual fashion category, which may be not so sophisticated but better suited to wearing on a day-to-day basis.

Over $500,000 in monthly sales, 70% traffic from mobile

Muse & Co sells merchandise on commission and has no inventory stocked at all. They showcase clothes from three brands every day, and in total about 30 new items are sold every day. The duration of the flash sale is usually about seven days, but most items sell out on the first day. Their flash marketing starts at 8pm every day, the peak time for user traffic.

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Kubo explains that the site’s monthly revenue has reached around 50 million yen, with 50% coming from mobile, and 20% from the smartphone app. They’ve never made any promotion efforts for smartphone users, so it’s not unlikely that these access metrics (in terms of mobile/desktop ratio) are common for most e-commerce sites in Japan.

A good start

Muse & Co was established back in February of 2012. The startup’s founder, Hirotake Kubo, previously worked at global consulting firm AT Kearney, where he has been conducting due diligence on the apparel industry for five years.

From my experience seeing the apparel industry, I wanted to help domestic fashion brands solve the problems they’re facing. Beyond that, I also want to contribute to the strengthening of our economy.

Currently Muse & Co is 20-person team including 5 merchandising staffers. They have acquired approximately 200,000 users since launch, and are hoping to surpass 1 million users in the near future.

Tokyo Otaku Mode raises additional funds from three VC firms

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Tokyo Otaku Mode (TOM), a new media startup focusing on Japanese geek culture, announced today it has raised funds from three VC firms, including YJ Capital (the investment arm of Yahoo Japan), Itochu Technology Ventures, and DG Incubation (of Digital Garage). Financial details were not disclosed. Prior to this fundraising, the startup raised more than $500,000 from 500 Startups and several notable angel investors in Japan and the US. TOM was founded in 2011 in Tokyo (registered in Delaware), and has acquired more than 10 million ‘likes’ on its Facebook fan page since then, with some posts getting more than 100,000 ‘likes’.  The company is also noted for having ex-Apple iAd chief Andy Miller as an advisor, which should certainly help as it dips its toes into mobile. TOM recently introduced a smartphone app called Otaku Camera that allows you to turn your snapshots into fun manga-style pictures. The startup is currently preparing to get into e-commerce as well, which should be a strong monetization channel for them. Given their enthusiastic fan base, it’s likely that same audience would purchase limited-production items such as the very geeky products often featured on the site. Earlier in the month we did a…

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Tokyo Otaku Mode (TOM), a new media startup focusing on Japanese geek culture, announced today it has raised funds from three VC firms, including YJ Capital (the investment arm of Yahoo Japan), Itochu Technology Ventures, and DG Incubation (of Digital Garage). Financial details were not disclosed. Prior to this fundraising, the startup raised more than $500,000 from 500 Startups and several notable angel investors in Japan and the US.

TOM was founded in 2011 in Tokyo (registered in Delaware), and has acquired more than 10 million ‘likes’ on its Facebook fan page since then, with some posts getting more than 100,000 ‘likes’.  The company is also noted for having ex-Apple iAd chief Andy Miller as an advisor, which should certainly help as it dips its toes into mobile. TOM recently introduced a smartphone app called Otaku Camera that allows you to turn your snapshots into fun manga-style pictures.

The startup is currently preparing to get into e-commerce as well, which should be a strong monetization channel for them. Given their enthusiastic fan base, it’s likely that same audience would purchase limited-production items such as the very geeky products often featured on the site.

Earlier in the month we did a feature on Tokyo Otaku Mode, and you can read even more about their story in that article.

At Tokyo Otaku Mode HQ

Japanese fashion coordination site iQON raises $3.2M, will boost marketing efforts

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See original story in Japanese Vasily, a Tokyo-based startup which runs online fashion coordination service iQON, announced today that it has fundraised a total of 300 million yen (approximately $3.2 million) from Globis Capital Partners, Itochu Technologuy Ventures, and GMO Venture Partners. This is the second round of funds following the previous series A funding of 140 million yen ($1.5 million) in May of 2011. The iQON service allows you to combine clothing and accessories online and share fashion coordination ideas with other users. Each item has a direct link to fashion e-commerce sites where you can purchase it, and the startup will generate revenue from partner sites using an affiliate model. More than 300,000 coordinated outfits have been registered since the service launched in April of 2010, and users are bookmarking their favorites more than a million times a month. The startup introduced its iOS app last February (and an Android app is now also available) which really took off. It even helped some of their partnering e-commerce sites make more than 20 million yen monthly sales through the affiliate traffic. The company focused on service development in the series A phase, but will be intensifying branding and marketing…

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See original story in Japanese

Vasily, a Tokyo-based startup which runs online fashion coordination service iQON, announced today that it has fundraised a total of 300 million yen (approximately $3.2 million) from Globis Capital Partners, Itochu Technologuy Ventures, and GMO Venture Partners. This is the second round of funds following the previous series A funding of 140 million yen ($1.5 million) in May of 2011.

The iQON service allows you to combine clothing and accessories online and share fashion coordination ideas with other users. Each item has a direct link to fashion e-commerce sites where you can purchase it, and the startup will generate revenue from partner sites using an affiliate model. More than 300,000 coordinated outfits have been registered since the service launched in April of 2010, and users are bookmarking their favorites more than a million times a month.

The startup introduced its iOS app last February (and an Android app is now also available) which really took off. It even helped some of their partnering e-commerce sites make more than 20 million yen monthly sales through the affiliate traffic. The company focused on service development in the series A phase, but will be intensifying branding and marketing efforts from now on.

When discussing fashion e-commerce sites in Japan, we can’t help but mention Zozotown (listed on the Tokyo Mothers exchange since 2007). The site is a partner for Vasily rather than a competitor because the two companies have different business models and won’t compete and/or conflict. Vasily’s CEO, Yuki Kanayama, says they will keep working closely with their good partner Zozotown in the future.

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Vasily Inc.’s CEO: Yuki Kanayama