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Japan’s PrimeAgain raises $810,000 to further develop ephemeral video sharing app

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Tokyo-based PrimeAgain, the startup best known for ephemeral video sharing app Winker and photo collage app DecoAlbum, announced on June 11 (Wednesday) that it has fundraised about 100 million yen or US$809,000 from East Ventures, Japanese ad network company i-Mobile and Gumi Ventures, in addition to unnamed angel investors. They will use the new capital mostly to extend their app development resources. This company had been based at East Venture’s co-working space in Roppongi for several years since launch in Waseda, Tokyo, but it was also announced that its own office in Shibuya was opened  due to increase in employees. According to PrimeAgain co-founder and CEO Nobuhiro Abe, about 800 million photos are uploaded to Snapchat everyday, twice as many as that of Facebook,  acquiring about 400 million photos on a daily basis (statistics vary according to sources). Since the user base of the Snapchat app is primarily located in North America because of user’s preference about the app’s interface, he believes that there’s an opportunity for an ephemeral video and photo sharing app that is tailored for Japan and other Asian countries. Abe elaborated: Since the launch of the Winker app last year, we have made a tremendous number of improvements, repeating efforts such as collecting user feedback, rolling out new functions and approaching many clubs at universities to expand a user…

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The PrimeAgain team: CEO Nobuhiro Abe is second from left, CFO/COO Maiko Kojima is on right.

Tokyo-based PrimeAgain, the startup best known for ephemeral video sharing app Winker and photo collage app DecoAlbum, announced on June 11 (Wednesday) that it has fundraised about 100 million yen or US$809,000 from East Ventures, Japanese ad network company i-Mobile and Gumi Ventures, in addition to unnamed angel investors. They will use the new capital mostly to extend their app development resources. This company had been based at East Venture’s co-working space in Roppongi for several years since launch in Waseda, Tokyo, but it was also announced that its own office in Shibuya was opened  due to increase in employees.

According to PrimeAgain co-founder and CEO Nobuhiro Abe, about 800 million photos are uploaded to Snapchat everyday, twice as many as that of Facebook,  acquiring about 400 million photos on a daily basis (statistics vary according to sources). Since the user base of the Snapchat app is primarily located in North America because of user’s preference about the app’s interface, he believes that there’s an opportunity for an ephemeral video and photo sharing app that is tailored for Japan and other Asian countries.

Abe elaborated:

Since the launch of the Winker app last year, we have made a tremendous number of improvements, repeating efforts such as collecting user feedback, rolling out new functions and approaching many clubs at universities to expand a user base. While ephemeral sharing is still booking in North America, I think that it has not yet arrived in Japan.

Seeing the trend of sharing apps like Snapchat and Path Talk, I believe that social network platforms will become more natural, people enjoying more casual interactions, resulting in being used more actively. Going forward, we also want to optimize the app for smart watches.

In a month from now, the company plans to roll out a new interface and design in the Winker app so that it will be tailored to the preference of users in Asia.

Our readers may recall that Korea’s internet giant Daum Kakao recently acquired the Path messaging app in order to obtain a huge user base in Indonesia. Despite the fact that Facebook has become an infrastructure for people to share daily updates, there are still many opportunities in the space for new ways of communication.

Also, in the space of smart watches where people have operational constraints in inputting characters, another ecosystem of social network platforms will be formed in the future, represented by Nain.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

PrimeAgain launches Winker, wants to attract Asian users with ephemeral video sharing

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based PrimeAgain, the startup best known for its mobile apps DecoAlbum and DrawChat, introduced a video chat app called Winker today. The app is available for iOS in English and Japanese. It allows you to take a video clip or a snapshot in a limited time you choose from one to ten seconds for sharing with other users. A user receiving your clip can play or view it just once. The company’s co-founder and CEO Nobuhiro Abe told us what they expect from the app: When you upload a video clip to a social network platform, you will carefully decorate or edit it prior to uploading, since it will remain permanently. Some people appeared in the clip may feel uncomfortable if you publish it to the public. However, you will have less reluctance to upload it if it’s an ephemeral and short-time one. I think this our concept is pretty similar to human memory system where we typically forget past events as time goes by. According to Abe, the SnapChat app has surpassed 70 or 80 million downloads, most of which come from the US market. So there’s no key player in this space…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based PrimeAgain, the startup best known for its mobile apps DecoAlbum and DrawChat, introduced a video chat app called Winker today. The app is available for iOS in English and Japanese. It allows you to take a video clip or a snapshot in a limited time you choose from one to ten seconds for sharing with other users. A user receiving your clip can play or view it just once.

The company’s co-founder and CEO Nobuhiro Abe told us what they expect from the app:

When you upload a video clip to a social network platform, you will carefully decorate or edit it prior to uploading, since it will remain permanently. Some people appeared in the clip may feel uncomfortable if you publish it to the public. However, you will have less reluctance to upload it if it’s an ephemeral and short-time one. I think this our concept is pretty similar to human memory system where we typically forget past events as time goes by.

According to Abe, the SnapChat app has surpassed 70 or 80 million downloads, most of which come from the US market. So there’s no key player in this space especially in the Asian regions. As many of our readers can agree, the Line app dominates the Asian markets while WhatsApp does in Western countries. In a similar way, the company wants to position Winker as the ephemeral video sharing app for Asia while SnapChat mainly serving American users. Abe explained a bit about the app’s uniqueness:

You can invite your friends to Winker using Facebook, Twitter and Line. However, your clips posted on the app will be never shared via these social network platforms. If you link your Winker account to your Twitter account, your Twitter friends and you can follow on Winker each other.

In this space, we’ve seen competitors like Muuk (by Mixi), 5sec snaps (by DeNA), PicChat (by Cinnamon), and Commu Camera (by Yahoo Japan). PrimeAgain plans to differentiate the Winker app from these competitors by adding new functions in the near future. Furthermore, they want to explore a potential monetization model by giving their corporate users an API (application program interface) to allow them to gain access to their official Winker accounts.

DrawChat lets you send hand-drawn pictures over Facebook Messenger

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See the original story in Japanese. Prime Again is a Tokyo-based startup known for having developed the photo decoration app DecoAlbum. Readers may recall that we interviewed them back in May. Recently the company unveiled a new app called DrawChat, allowing users to exchange messages using drawings and stickers. The app is available for both iOS and Android in Japanese, Thai, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and English. It costs 250 yen (or $2.99), but is currently free until September 9th as part of a limited time offer. While Line, Kakao Talk, and other messaging apps are competing fiercely in the Asia region, Facebook messaging is still somewhat inadequate when it comes to expressing yourself as you might with some mobile chat apps. While Facebook has 340 million monthly active users in the region, so companies cannot help but using for their user acquisition efforts. Send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends The Draw Chat app makes use of Facebook’s Chat API. When you use the app, it’s easy to forget that it’s even running on the Facebook platform. You can send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends, regardless of whether or not they have the app…

See the original story in Japanese.

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Prime Again is a Tokyo-based startup known for having developed the photo decoration app DecoAlbum. Readers may recall that we interviewed them back in May. Recently the company unveiled a new app called DrawChat, allowing users to exchange messages using drawings and stickers. The app is available for both iOS and Android in Japanese, Thai, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and English. It costs 250 yen (or $2.99), but is currently free until September 9th as part of a limited time offer.

While Line, Kakao Talk, and other messaging apps are competing fiercely in the Asia region, Facebook messaging is still somewhat inadequate when it comes to expressing yourself as you might with some mobile chat apps. While Facebook has 340 million monthly active users in the region, so companies cannot help but using for their user acquisition efforts.

Send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends

The Draw Chat app makes use of Facebook’s Chat API. When you use the app, it’s easy to forget that it’s even running on the Facebook platform.

You can send decorated messages to any of your Facebook friends, regardless of whether or not they have the app themselves. The company hopes people will use DecoAlbum to keep track of memories with friends, and that they will use DrawChat for their instant messaging. Among Facebook’s many APIs, there are very few apps using Facebook’s Chat API. The company aspires to dominate this niche by releasing more apps using the API.

Prime Again was chosen to be included in the first batch of startups at Docomo Innovation Village. The incubator plans to hold a Demo Day event on September 26th, where startups will unveil what they’ve been working on during the last six months.

The incubator started accepting applications for the second batch of the program yesterday. For startups that want to follow the example of PrimeAgain, now is a good time to apply.

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