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Two young Japanese entrepreneurs discuss their recent buyouts

Takeshi Hirano 2013.10.15

See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013. Two Japanese startups that have experienced an strong growth in the last several months are Coach United, the startup behind private lesson portal Cyta.jp, and Bracket, which operates instant e-commerce platform STORES.jp. On day two of B Dash Camp Osaka last week, we had a chance to hear from Coach United CEO Nobuhiro Ariyasu and Bracket CEO Yusuke Mitsumoto. Also on the panel were Rakuten executive officer Takeshi Homma, and KDDI general manager Shigeki Matsuno. This year Ariyasu sold his startup to Japanese recipe site Cookpad, and Mitsumoto sold his startup to leading Japanese fashion commerce company Start Today. Moderator Hiroyuki Watanabe started the sessions with asking about their recent exits. When did you start preparing for buyouts? Ariyasu explained: When we launched our company back in 2007, I had no idea about funding or M&As. We couldn’t help but enjoy developing our product at that time. Two or three years later, we finally could make our business profitable, and had a chance to receive offers from some people [1]. The company kept using bank loans but were exploring funding opportunities…

bracket-fril — Bracket CEO Yusuke Mitsumoto and Coach United CEO Nobuhiro Ariyasu

See the original story in Japanese.

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013.

Two Japanese startups that have experienced an strong growth in the last several months are Coach United, the startup behind private lesson portal Cyta.jp, and Bracket, which operates instant e-commerce platform STORES.jp. On day two of B Dash Camp Osaka last week, we had a chance to hear from Coach United CEO Nobuhiro Ariyasu and Bracket CEO Yusuke Mitsumoto. Also on the panel were Rakuten executive officer Takeshi Homma, and KDDI general manager Shigeki Matsuno.

This year Ariyasu sold his startup to Japanese recipe site Cookpad, and Mitsumoto sold his startup to leading Japanese fashion commerce company Start Today. Moderator Hiroyuki Watanabe started the sessions with asking about their recent exits.

When did you start preparing for buyouts?

Ariyasu explained:

When we launched our company back in 2007, I had no idea about funding or M&As. We couldn’t help but enjoy developing our product at that time. Two or three years later, we finally could make our business profitable, and had a chance to receive offers from some people ^[1].

The company kept using bank loans but were exploring funding opportunities for the next stretch.

Bracket is not an old company but has been running a number of businesses for about five years. In contrast to his past businesses, Mitsumoto was aggressively exploring funding opportunities to boost their e-commerce platform. He attributes this to the many competitors in that space ^[2].

What’s the most impressed in the entire session was the following interaction between the pair.

Ariyasu asked Mitsumoto,

If Base (Bracket’s main competitor) wasn’t around, would you still sell your startup to Startup Today?

Mitsumoto answered, saying:

Without them, we probably might have not achieved the revenue we have.

Why not aim for an IPO?

Since these two startups were rapidly growing but self-funded, their founders could probably consider IPOs as possible options. But they emphasized a good match with the companies that acquired them.

Ariyasu explains:

I’m not really a person who drives after an IPO. It’s all up to you to determine whether an IPO and an M&A is a better choice for you. … I actually got an offer from Murakami (Livesense CEO) but I think it was not so aggressive. I’m close with him, and we have been fishing together. The reason why we partnered with Cookpad was I thought the both companies have something common in their corporate culture.

In a explanation about how Bracket’s Mitsumoto decided to sell his startup, he unveiled it was finally decided over the phone with Start Today’s CEO Yusaku Maezawa, which surprised the audience.

bdash-camp-buyout-mitsumoto — Bracket CEO Yusuke Mitsumoto

The decision was surprisingly smooth. I’ve been in touch with Maezawa for almost three years since he sent us an inquiry via our website. … I’ve handled four different businesses in the past, and I finally managed to find success in my fifth. The recent announcement that Yahoo Japan made of making its e-commerce platform free this year will be a big turning point in the Japanese e-commerce industry, where more players will make more bold decisions to defeat competitors.

Buyer’s perspective, seller’s perspective

KDDI’s Matsuno was involved in Mediba’s ^[3] acquisitions of startups such as Nobot and Scaleout. In a response to moderator Watanabe’s question about criteria around M&As, he says:

You probably need the perspectives of both a buyer and a seller. When your company is acquired by 100%, you will totally lose your ownership. In an extreme case, you might lose your position as the CEO. When you think of a company that you could sell your business to, you will need to build a good relationship of mutual trust (not to be asked to step down).

Rakuten’s Homma concluded the session with saying that:

Both for a seller and a buyer, the more experience you have, the better you can understand how you should proceed.

We previously featured Ariyasu and Cyta in this article.↩
Our readers may recall that we visited the Bracket office just last month, and had a chance to speak more with Mitsumoto about Stores.jp.)↩
Mediba is a mobile advertising-focused subsidiary of KDDI.↩

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Japanese e-commerce startup Monoco raises funds from KDDI and Global Brain

Masaru Ikeda 2013.07.18

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.

(CNet Japan)

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Stealth m-commerce startup Origami raises $5M from KDDI and DAC

SCORE 1,169

Junya Mori 2013.04.24

See the original story in Japanese. On Tuesday Tokyo-based startup Origami held a press briefing where they finally unveiled what they had been working on. The company has developed a mobile app (also called Origami) which allows you to follow updates from the accounts of your favorite brands or merchants. When you find something you like, you can also easily purchase using the app. It also has ‘like’ features for items, and you can check-in at both real and virtual retailers if you want to share your shopping experience with friends. The press briefing was held in Tokyo’s fashion district of Omotesando. Brands and retailers using the mobile commerce app for their promotion efforts include names like: Beams, Mori Museum, MoMA Design Store, Hysteric Glamour, Bang & Olufsen, Mizuma Art Gallery, as well as some department stores and art galleries. At the press briefing, Origami’s CEO Yoshiki Yasui introduced their goals: Mobile commerce solves many problems faced by retailers in e-commerce, both online and offline. The gap between of e-commerce and offline retailing is disappearing, and mobile commerce enables merchants to take advantage of both market opportunities. Giving users the ability to follow their favorite brands, the app helps them…

See the original story in Japanese.

On Tuesday Tokyo-based startup Origami held a press briefing where they finally unveiled what they had been working on. The company has developed a mobile app (also called Origami) which allows you to follow updates from the accounts of your favorite brands or merchants. When you find something you like, you can also easily purchase using the app. It also has ‘like’ features for items, and you can check-in at both real and virtual retailers if you want to share your shopping experience with friends.

The press briefing was held in Tokyo’s fashion district of Omotesando. Brands and retailers using the mobile commerce app for their promotion efforts include names like: Beams, Mori Museum, MoMA Design Store, Hysteric Glamour, Bang & Olufsen, Mizuma Art Gallery, as well as some department stores and art galleries.

At the press briefing, Origami’s CEO Yoshiki Yasui introduced their goals:

Mobile commerce solves many problems faced by retailers in e-commerce, both online and offline. The gap between of e-commerce and offline retailing is disappearing, and mobile commerce enables merchants to take advantage of both market opportunities.

Giving users the ability to follow their favorite brands, the app helps them encounter an item of interest in a way other than conventional search process. Through integration with social media, you can share your shopping experience with your friends so that they will be easily encouraged to buy something if they like it, even if you didn’t actually buy it.

On the Origami platform, every merchant has both a real and virtual store. Right now many users have visited the real store, checked in there, and shared using social media. These actions used just not to help merchants with promotion. With our solutions, it allows users gain an access to a brand or a retailer’s website by just clicking on a picture that another user has posted. In other words, every single piece of consumer-generated content will become a sort of billboard ad for brands or retailers.

The startup received funds from Japanese telco KDDI and digital ad agency Digital Advertising Consortium (DAC), and according to some news sources, it amounted to 500 million yen (about $5 million). KDDI’s SVP Makoto Takahashi and DAC’s CEO Hiroki Yajima were in attendance as special guests at the briefing. The telco provides not only financial support but also technical integration with their mobile platform for a better user experience. DAC and its subsidiaries will provide technology solutions for the startup.

They have also partnered with Condé Nast Group, the publisher of magazine brands like Vogue Japan, GQ Japan, and Wired. Condé Nast will give users the latest trends on fashion and gadgets through the app.

The Origami app is still only available only for iOS, but an Android app will follow in two or three months. They also considered developing a desktop version in the future, but they intend to focus on the iOS app for the time being. In the future they hope to expand globally as well.

Founder Yasui previously worked at Lehman Brothers and Silicon Valley-based VC firm DCM. The startup also announced that DCM’s partner Gen Isayama has joined its board of directors.

A recent study by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications shows the Japanese mobile commerce to be worth of $11.7 billion, 16% more than what it was a year ago. In nearby China, the mobile commerce market is expected to reach $27.1 billion, surpassing the United States by 2014.

Origami-Team — From the left: Takashi Nozawa (VP of Technology), Yoshiki Yasui (Founder and CEO), and Max Mackee (VP of Business Development)

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Twilio officially launches in Japan, CEO Jeff Lawson expects ‘enormous demand’

Rick Martin 2013.04.17

A year after initially announcing their partnership last year, Twilio and KDDI (TYO:9433) today launched Twilio for the Japanese market. The service allows developers to build voice/VoIP and SMS functionality into web programs and applications. And now as a result of this partnership, Japanese developers can go to twilio.kddi-web.com and sign up for it. Through the partnership with KDDI Web Communications, the website and documentation have been localized, and developers can pay in yen when they sign up for Twilio service. Leading up to today, there was a beta period of about four months where they had a number of Japanese customers using the Twilio for KWC product, who gave valuable feedback that helped them prepare for launch. We had a chance to speak with Twilio’s CEO Jeff Lawson at the launch event today, who told us a little more about this, their first foray into Asia: Obviously Japan is a complicated market to enter, especially for a startup, so we chose to work with a partner who knows the market very well. We expect there will be an enormous demand for Twilio here, based on the amount of software development, and the size of the economy. In addition to…

A year after initially announcing their partnership last year, Twilio and KDDI (TYO:9433) today launched Twilio for the Japanese market. The service allows developers to build voice/VoIP and SMS functionality into web programs and applications. And now as a result of this partnership, Japanese developers can go to twilio.kddi-web.com and sign up for it.

Through the partnership with KDDI Web Communications, the website and documentation have been localized, and developers can pay in yen when they sign up for Twilio service. Leading up to today, there was a beta period of about four months where they had a number of Japanese customers using the Twilio for KWC product, who gave valuable feedback that helped them prepare for launch.

We had a chance to speak with Twilio’s CEO Jeff Lawson at the launch event today, who told us a little more about this, their first foray into Asia:

Obviously Japan is a complicated market to enter, especially for a startup, so we chose to work with a partner who knows the market very well. We expect there will be an enormous demand for Twilio here, based on the amount of software development, and the size of the economy.

In addition to language localization, Twilio has established a Tokyo data center presence via Amazon Web Services.

Jeff describes the partnership with KWC as a “really good cultural match.” Interestingly, KDDI had initiated a similar project called Boundio, which was started as an API based on their observations of Twilio [1]. But as discussions between Twilio and KDDI progressed, the Japanese company decided that they should just offer Twilio rather than try to compete with it. Nonetheless, Jeff explains that the KWC’s initiative was something that really impressed him.

What we liked was that they were thinking ahead. They were movers. They made a product and got it out there, and for a carrier, that’s not easy to do since [carriers] are typically slow moving. KWC is a startup within KDDI, and we liked how their vision aligned with ours, how they feel about APIs and developers, and how they are building the ecosystem and community – really understanding what it takes to bring a product to market.

Twilio is built for software people, says Jeff. And that phrase, ‘software people’ was one that he used a lot at their Twilio Japan Summit today. APIs like Twilio, he says, are the scaffolding that software people use to build great customer experiences. And by doing so, small agile companies can challenge slower moving incumbants in billion dollar industries. Companies like Uber are using Twilio’s telephony solution to connect their passengers with the drivers of luxury cars. Another company, Babelverse, uses Twilio to enable their one-to-one language interpretation service.

Currently there are over 200,000 developers building on the Twilio platform. Back in 2010, that total stood at just 10,000, so their growth has been pretty spectacular. It will be interesting to see what kind of services spring up here in Japan atop the Twilio platform. It’s certainly encouraging to see more building blocks becoming available to Japanese developers.

Boundio will be retired now that KDDI is working with Twilio. ↩

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KDDI to migrate its music service to Kkbox, joining Asia’s largest music network

SCORE 1,005

Masaru Ikeda 2013.04.09

Japan’s second largest telco KDDI (TYO:9433) announced today that it would rebrand Lismo, its subscription mobile music service, to the ‘Kkbox’ effective in June. KDDI subsidized Taiwan-based Kkbox in December of 2010, and has been using the platform for its existing flat-rate music subscription services, Lismo unlmited and Utapass. For those not familiar with it, Kkbox is an on-demand music subscription service, founded in 2004 in Taiwan. KDDI acquired a majority share of its outstanding stock in 2010, and Taiwanese handset maker HTC took a 11.1% stake in 2011. The service is now operating in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, and has acquired more than 10 million users in those countries. More than 10 million songs are available for play, either using desktops, laptops, smartphones, or tablets. One of its more remarkable features is ‘Listen With,’ which allows you to share what you’re listening to with other users. With the rebranding, KDDI joins Asia’s largest music distribution network, providing more music titles not just to KDDI customers but also to mobile users on rival carriers NTT Docomo and Softbank Mobile. Competition is starting to heat up in the online music distribution space in Japan. DeNA launched Groovy a couple…

Japan’s second largest telco KDDI (TYO:9433) announced today that it would rebrand Lismo, its subscription mobile music service, to the ‘Kkbox’ effective in June.

KDDI subsidized Taiwan-based Kkbox in December of 2010, and has been using the platform for its existing flat-rate music subscription services, Lismo unlmited and Utapass. For those not familiar with it, Kkbox is an on-demand music subscription service, founded in 2004 in Taiwan. KDDI acquired a majority share of its outstanding stock in 2010, and Taiwanese handset maker HTC took a 11.1% stake in 2011.

The service is now operating in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, and has acquired more than 10 million users in those countries. More than 10 million songs are available for play, either using desktops, laptops, smartphones, or tablets. One of its more remarkable features is ‘Listen With,’ which allows you to share what you’re listening to with other users.

With the rebranding, KDDI joins Asia’s largest music distribution network, providing more music titles not just to KDDI customers but also to mobile users on rival carriers NTT Docomo and Softbank Mobile.

Competition is starting to heat up in the online music distribution space in Japan. DeNA launched Groovy a couple of weeks ago, and Music Unlimited, Sony’s online music subscription service available in 18 countries worldwide, also recently reduced its subscription rate to 980 yen a month, the same price as Kkbox.

Global player Spotify is expected to launch in the Japanese market soon, as they have begun hiring in Tokyo. There are also other newcomers like Mironi as well.

Kyodo reports today that Japan has just surpassed the US as the biggest recorded music market in the world, with $4.3 billion in sales of CDs and music downloads. Interestingly, 80% of that figure was non-downloadable items like CDs and records, so there’s a lot of money just waiting to shift to the online space.

It will be interesting to see which of companies above can best position itself to capitalize on Japan’s love of music.

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Google Hangouts recruits Asian pop stars for new ‘A-Pop’ initiative

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.02.20

Google’s worldwide strategy to make Google+ a competitive social platform is increasingly making use of celebrities in its marketing efforts. All members of the famous pop idol group AKB48 are on Google+, and the annual election to battle for the center position on stage was streamed live via Google Hangouts. And now Google has just announced its latest celebrity-related project, ‘A-Pop Star Week,’ targeting the Asian market. The project, set to kick off on March 8, assembles a range of pop singers from China, Japan, and Korea on Google Hangouts. Celebrities includes J-Pop diva Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (pictured above), Korean star 2PM, and Chinese singer LeeHom Wang. Each celebrity has made an announcement about the coming event on YouTube, asking fans to submit questions for them to answer during the hangout. On the YouTube Asian Pop Channel, you can find the schedule for these hangouts as well as twenty music videos and newly released singles by the artists. Each musician will then hand-pick five lucky fans to participate in the hangout. Kyary Pamyy Pamyu is one of the best known of these performers, famous for her unique digital performances [1]. Recently on her twentieth birthday, she performed at Sojoji temple…

Google’s worldwide strategy to make Google+ a competitive social platform is increasingly making use of celebrities in its marketing efforts. All members of the famous pop idol group AKB48 are on Google+, and the annual election to battle for the center position on stage was streamed live via Google Hangouts. And now Google has just announced its latest celebrity-related project, ‘A-Pop Star Week,’ targeting the Asian market.

The project, set to kick off on March 8, assembles a range of pop singers from China, Japan, and Korea on Google Hangouts. Celebrities includes J-Pop diva Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (pictured above), Korean star 2PM, and Chinese singer LeeHom Wang. Each celebrity has made an announcement about the coming event on YouTube, asking fans to submit questions for them to answer during the hangout.

On the YouTube Asian Pop Channel, you can find the schedule for these hangouts as well as twenty music videos and newly released singles by the artists. Each musician will then hand-pick five lucky fans to participate in the hangout.

Kyary Pamyy Pamyu is one of the best known of these performers, famous for her unique digital performances [1]. Recently on her twentieth birthday, she performed at Sojoji temple in Shiba Park in front of the brightly lit Tokyo Tower. The spectacle was organized by mobile phone carrier au KDDI (TYO:9433) which turned the local area into a digital interactive theme park. 1,500 participants were able to manipulate taxis, water fountains, and street lights by using their smartphone as a remote control.

Google+ had 25 million users in Japan as of July 2011. The company’s celebrity-recruitment efforts first started in 2012, so the effect of such projects on growing its user base has yet to be fully realized. Stay tuned!

Her name is nearly impossible to pronounce, even for Japanese people. So don’t feel bad if you stumble! ↩

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Despite slower speeds, NTT Docomo quick to surpass 10 million LTE subscribers

Rick Martin 2013.02.19

Japanese carrier NTT Docomo (NYSE:DCM) has just announced that it has surpassed 10 million LTE subscriber milestone. This comes after the company topped the five million subscriber mark back in August of 2012. Docomo initially launched its ‘Xi’ LTE service back in December of 2010, much earlier than its rivals Softbank and KDDI, both of which launched their own LTE services in September of last year respectively. However, according to a recent global LTE report from OpenSignal.com, Docomo’s LTE network lags behind its competitors in terms of speed. Softbank boasts 16.2 Mbps, and KDDI is close behind at 14.8 Mbps — but the report says that Docomo’s speeds were by far the slowest at 5.5 Mbps. Nevertheless, Docomo appears to be collecting customers at a reasonable enough speed, as you can see in our interactive chart below. Download image version of this chart

Japanese carrier NTT Docomo (NYSE:DCM) has just announced that it has surpassed 10 million LTE subscriber milestone. This comes after the company topped the five million subscriber mark back in August of 2012.

Docomo initially launched its ‘Xi’ LTE service back in December of 2010, much earlier than its rivals Softbank and KDDI, both of which launched their own LTE services in September of last year respectively.

However, according to a recent global LTE report from OpenSignal.com, Docomo’s LTE network lags behind its competitors in terms of speed. Softbank boasts 16.2 Mbps, and KDDI is close behind at 14.8 Mbps — but the report says that Docomo’s speeds were by far the slowest at 5.5 Mbps.

Nevertheless, Docomo appears to be collecting customers at a reasonable enough speed, as you can see in our interactive chart below.

Download image version of this chart

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Meet 5 new mobile startups from KDDI’s tech accelerator

Masaru Ikeda 2013.02.01

KDDI Mugen Labo, a startup incubator run by Japan’s second largest telco, recently held a conference called “4th Meeting” where we heard from five startups from the third batch [1] of its three-month acceleration program. All the smartphones apps developed by these startups will be available on au SmartPass, a flat-rate monthly subscription service that gives subscribers access to an unlimited number of apps. Here’s a quick rundown of the new services: Mana.bo ¶ Mana.bo is learning platform that allows students to ask tutors a question at any time. If you are studying at home but suddenly have a nagging question, you usually need to wait until the next school day to ask your teacher. Mana.bo makes it possible for students to ask their question immediately, without having to wait. According to the startup’s CEO Katsuhito Mihashi, the “EduTech” market is growing very rapidly in Silicon Valley, and the investment in this industry is as much as four times of what used to be four years ago. To differentiate from competitors, mana.bo is preparing to add several key features, such as an online whiteboard where they can draw, as well as tools for chatting, photo sharing, and even a numerical…

KDDI Mugen Labo, a startup incubator run by Japan’s second largest telco, recently held a conference called “4th Meeting” where we heard from five startups from the third batch [1] of its three-month acceleration program.

All the smartphones apps developed by these startups will be available on au SmartPass, a flat-rate monthly subscription service that gives subscribers access to an unlimited number of apps.

Here’s a quick rundown of the new services:

Mana.bo ¶

Mana.bo is learning platform that allows students to ask tutors a question at any time. If you are studying at home but suddenly have a nagging question, you usually need to wait until the next school day to ask your teacher. Mana.bo makes it possible for students to ask their question immediately, without having to wait.

According to the startup’s CEO Katsuhito Mihashi, the “EduTech” market is growing very rapidly in Silicon Valley, and the investment in this industry is as much as four times of what used to be four years ago. To differentiate from competitors, mana.bo is preparing to add several key features, such as an online whiteboard where they can draw, as well as tools for chatting, photo sharing, and even a numerical formula recognition feature which can detect hand-written numerals and things like radical signs and logarithms.

Log Town ¶

Log Town aggregates (or “logs”) your activities on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and generates an information index in the form of a virtual town. The service sort of has a SimCity feel, but is personalized with details of our social media behaviours. For example, when you check into an Italian restraunt with your Foursquare account, that restaurant will be virtually constructed on your Log Town page.

They just released the browser based version, and will introduce an Android app in March.

Morning Relay ¶

Morning Relay is a social wake-up call that enlists the assistance of your social circle in making sure that you wake up on time. The “relay” monikker springs from the process of being handed a baton from a teammate in a relay race – getting by with some help from your friends, as they say.

When your wake-up time closes, your social contacts will cheer you on in an effort to wake you up. If you don’t wake up, your avatar will indicate to your contacts that you still aren’t awake, so they can keep trying to nudge you out of bed. If you succeed in waking up on time, you can pass along thanks to your caller, and even help to wake up someone else on the app.

The iPhone app will be available in February, and the Android app will follow in April.

Close ¶

Close is a smartphone app that lets you chat with only with your intimate friends, allowing you to register up to nine people as contacts. It was inspired by a presentation from ex-Google senior UX researcher Paul Adams. Close’s creator Daisuke Mizuta believes the maximum limit is typical of intimate contacts someone would have. The app allows you to update your important (and not-so-important) moments without worrying about colleagues or business contacts who might be connected with you on Facebook.

Close’s developer, Reventive, raised 15 million yen in funds (about $162,000) from ex-Oracle Japan president Allen Miner and other Japanese angel investors.

Close is available for iOS and Android.

Tixee (Winner of ‘Best Startup’ award) ¶

Tixee is a service that allows you to buy tickets for interesting events online. Most ticketing apps use QR codes to be scanned at the door of an event, but this can often take more time to confirm than paper tickets. The Tixee app digitally reproduce the ticket stub tearing motion, and an event organizer just needs to swipe the screen to tear off the (virtual) stub, as you can see in the promo video below.

Tixee has already been adopted at football matches by F.C. Tokyo, and also on the concert tour of popular J-pop band Mr. Children.

KDDI Mugen Labo just started accepting applications for the fourth batch of their accelerator program. The deadline is February 22nd. ↩

KDDI