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Japanese e-learning startup Schoo raises $2.9 million

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This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. Tokyo-based Schoo, the company that provides e-learning solutions using online lecture movies, announced that it has fundraised 340 million yen (about $2.9 million) in January from Dentsu Digital Holdings and Link and Motivation with participation from existing investors; Itochu Technology Ventures, Anri, and Incubate Fund. See also: School in your pocket: Japanese startup launches iPhone app for live lecture participation Schoo: Japanese startup wants to set the standard for online learning (Part 1 of 2) Schoo: Japanese e-learning startup strives for excellence in content (Part 2 of 2) This is the third round for the company, following their previous funding worth 150 million yen ($1.5 million) back in June 2013. Schoo CEO Kenshiro Mori told us his team has been verifying a hypothesis theory in since the previous funding round. As part of this verification process, they adopted a new system establishing four departments (web design, business English, startup, and programming) in the e-learning platform like a typical university, where they selected highly-acclaimed lecture videos and sorted them out by subject. After establishing these departments, their conversion rate for premium services and user activity rate were improved, in addition…

schoo_featuredimage

This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Schoo, the company that provides e-learning solutions using online lecture movies, announced that it has fundraised 340 million yen (about $2.9 million) in January from Dentsu Digital Holdings and Link and Motivation with participation from existing investors; Itochu Technology Ventures, Anri, and Incubate Fund.

See also:

This is the third round for the company, following their previous funding worth 150 million yen ($1.5 million) back in June 2013. Schoo CEO Kenshiro Mori told us his team has been verifying a hypothesis theory in since the previous funding round. As part of this verification process, they adopted a new system establishing four departments (web design, business English, startup, and programming) in the e-learning platform like a typical university, where they selected highly-acclaimed lecture videos and sorted them out by subject.

After establishing these departments, their conversion rate for premium services and user activity rate were improved, in addition to users spontaneously starting to form a community in each department.

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson
Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy

School in your pocket: Japanese startup launches iPhone app for live lecture participation

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See the original article in Japanese Schoo is a Japan-based startup that operates an online learning platform called schoo WEB-campus. The startup recently launched a handy iOS app with which users can view live broadcasted lectures on their smartphones. It’s called ‘Schoo Namahoso’, meaning ‘Schoo Live’. The app aims to provide mobile users with the same experience they can get on the website. With the app, user can check the course schedule and participate anytime and from anywhere. Upon the release of this new app, we spoke to Kenshiro Mori, the representative director of Schoo, as well as their designer Yusuke Yagi. The growing market for mobile video According to Mori, there are three main reasons why they decided to release the app at this time. The first reason and perhaps most obvious one is that more and more people watch videos on the smartphones these days. The market for both smartphones and videos are fast-growing areas, as you can see with Hulu, Youtube, or Niconico, video consumption on smartphones isincreasing. Schoo, as a online school service that uses video, needs to catch up with that trend. Until the app was released, the website was the only way to watch…

See the original article in Japanese

schoo ios

Schoo is a Japan-based startup that operates an online learning platform called schoo WEB-campus. The startup recently launched a handy iOS app with which users can view live broadcasted lectures on their smartphones. It’s called ‘Schoo Namahoso’, meaning ‘Schoo Live’.

The app aims to provide mobile users with the same experience they can get on the website. With the app, user can check the course schedule and participate anytime and from anywhere.

Upon the release of this new app, we spoke to Kenshiro Mori, the representative director of Schoo, as well as their designer Yusuke Yagi.

左:森氏 右:八木氏

The growing market for mobile video

According to Mori, there are three main reasons why they decided to release the app at this time. The first reason and perhaps most obvious one is that more and more people watch videos on the smartphones these days.

The market for both smartphones and videos are fast-growing areas, as you can see with Hulu, Youtube, or Niconico, video consumption on smartphones isincreasing. Schoo, as a online school service that uses video, needs to catch up with that trend.

Until the app was released, the website was the only way to watch live broadcasts. But when the team looked at feedback from users, they found out some commuters even went so far as to get off the train on their way back home so that they could open their laptops and watch live broadcasts. There were also comments on social media where from people who had missed the live broadcasts because they couldn’t make it in time.

So Mori thought making Schoo more easily accessible even during these small pockets of time would make a big difference.

Schoo’s vision is to build a society where people can always keep learning. The app is essential to achieving that vision, Mori says.

We’d like to build a society where learning is something people always do easily, able to attend school anytime. Make ’school’ portable is an important step in this process.

Releasing this app was an idea we had talked about for a long time. And now that the market is mature, we thought it was the right time for this app.

Driving participation on mobile

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One of the main features of Schoo is that the users can actively participate in courses and actively interact with lecturers.

Even before the app was released, access from mobile browsers was possible. But the user experience was not as same as that on the website. Designer Yagi explains:

There was traffic from mobile browsers. But the rate of user participation was low. Users could watch content from browsers, but it was difficult to participate in the course. The app tries to resolve this problem.

Yagi says that because they’re working with video content, it was critical to ensure good sound quality. He had to make sure that sound never gets interrupted. There were a few challenges to overcome such as dealing with line speed and image resolution to achieve a more comfortable user experience.

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I thought perhaps it would be a bigger challenge for Schoo to keep users’ attention on mobile compared to on the website. But Mori had some thoughts on that:

We thought, if we want to keep users’ attention on a video for a long time, we need to drive interaction. And we put in much efforts to realize that on smartphones. Users are more likely to feel reluctant to participate in the chat from an iPhone. So instead, we implemented things like an “I got it!” button and “I am seated” button, things that are very easy to use.

In addition to the features mentioned above, other interesting additions to the app include:

  • "I want to attend this” button, with which users can register and manage courses they have an interest in.
  • Push notification to notify users before the course starts.
  • Notifications for users of newly added courses (more than 40 courses are added every month)

As for an Android version, they will consider having their engineers work on that. Also, Mori thinks that video content is especially compatible with tablet devices, and so he is planning to build a team to work on serving tablet users, adding that he’d like to develop “a special user experience on tablets, something different from smartphones.

Schoo will continue its challenge through experiments and improvements in 2014, with the aim of achieving membership of one million by the end of this year.

schoo ui

Schoo: Japanese e-learning startup strives for excellence in content (Part 2 of 2)

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We recently featured Japanese startup Schoo, and its effort to remake online learning through its web lectures platform. Today we bring you the second part of that discussion, this time with more focus on the efforts of the startup’s editorial team. One of the goals of Japanese startups Schoo is that its users can realize the platforms potential for learning. To that end, the company intends to build interaction between users and lecturers in real-time streaming. Takayuki Nakanishi, the director of the content management department, explained: The abstract of the content is mostly clarified when we set the framework. Then we design with the lecture how to implement interaction with users. Lectures on Schoo are not just one-way talks by lecturers. They implement some interaction, sort of like a quiz. The UI is also designed to enhance interaction and communication among users. They can not only post their comments and questions, but other interaction features such as an “I got it!” button to show that users understand a given point. Nakanishi adds: Without interaction features, users will not come back to the site, and if that happens we cannot accomplish our vision. So we place great importance on user participation….

We recently featured Japanese startup Schoo, and its effort to remake online learning through its web lectures platform. Today we bring you the second part of that discussion, this time with more focus on the efforts of the startup’s editorial team.

One of the goals of Japanese startups Schoo is that its users can realize the platforms potential for learning. To that end, the company intends to build interaction between users and lecturers in real-time streaming. Takayuki Nakanishi, the director of the content management department, explained:

The abstract of the content is mostly clarified when we set the framework. Then we design with the lecture how to implement interaction with users.

Lectures on Schoo are not just one-way talks by lecturers. They implement some interaction, sort of like a quiz.

schoo

The UI is also designed to enhance interaction and communication among users. They can not only post their comments and questions, but other interaction features such as an “I got it!” button to show that users understand a given point. Nakanishi adds:

Without interaction features, users will not come back to the site, and if that happens we cannot accomplish our vision. So we place great importance on user participation.

Satoshi Maruyama at Venture United, a previous lecturer on Schoo, describes the learning experience as a sort of ‘matsuri’, or a Japanese festival where participants share the joy of the experience. He also noted that the broadcasting team at Schoo is really pushing for operational excellence. The members I interviewed this time aren’t involved in this process, but the overall satisfaction level among lectures is quite high, they said. Nakanishi adds:

The broadcasting team improves the quality of broadcast by finding problems and making tweaks when needed. Lecturers are very satisfied overall with the quality of the broadcasts. We regard the process as a part of content as well.

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Nakanishi and content director Takuya Koroku both have editorial backgrounds. This experience naturally helps them with content creation. But on the other hand, when adding interaction to the courses, other expertise such as web design are advantageous. I asked what kind of skills they are looking for in the prospective members. Koroku explains:

We’d like to build a team with different kinds of knowledge, and then share that knowledge across the team. Someone who has experience making TV programs, social games, or creative ads would be interesting to work with. We’d like to utilize different kinds of skill and make unique content as a result.

Kokuro says he joined Schoo because the whole team, team including designers and engineers, care about content creation.

The company’s representative director, Kenshiro Mori, underscored their vision in closing:

We’d really like to set the standard for online learning by developing interesting content focused around users’ experience.

Japanese startup wants to set the standard for online learning

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See the original article in Japanese On October 28th, my Twitter and Facebook streams suddenly got really busy. The culprit turned out to be a couple of lectures from Schoo, the Japan-based online school startup. Its mission is to build a society where people will always keep learning [1]. Based on this mission, they provide real-time online lectures on their website. The two lectures broadcasted on that particular evening were: “How trippiece raised 200 million yen” by Fumiaki Koizumi, director of trippiece “The history and the structure of venture capital that startup entrepreneurs must know” by Taiga Matsuyama, East Ventures These two lectures were a sort of follow-up of a previous lecture, “The basics of venture financing, how to raise 100 million yen”, broadcasted on Oct 17th by Satoshi Maruyama, of Venture United. If you watch these 3 lectures together, you can learn a lot about the history of venture financing, the structure and the idea of investment and venture capital. Both during and after the broadcast, I saw many social posts saying how fun or interesting it was. Schoo provides content not only on finance, but also on other startup-related subjects such as team management and how to make…

From the left: Koroku, Mori, Nakanishi
From the left: Koroku, Mori, Nakanishi

See the original article in Japanese

On October 28th, my Twitter and Facebook streams suddenly got really busy. The culprit turned out to be a couple of lectures from Schoo, the Japan-based online school startup. Its mission is to build a society where people will always keep learning [1]. Based on this mission, they provide real-time online lectures on their website.

The two lectures broadcasted on that particular evening were:

  • “How trippiece raised 200 million yen” by Fumiaki Koizumi, director of trippiece
  • “The history and the structure of venture capital that startup entrepreneurs must know” by Taiga Matsuyama, East Ventures

These two lectures were a sort of follow-up of a previous lecture, “The basics of venture financing, how to raise 100 million yen”, broadcasted on Oct 17th by Satoshi Maruyama, of Venture United. If you watch these 3 lectures together, you can learn a lot about the history of venture financing, the structure and the idea of investment and venture capital.

schoo

Both during and after the broadcast, I saw many social posts saying how fun or interesting it was.

Schoo provides content not only on finance, but also on other startup-related subjects such as team management and how to make a business plan.

I went to Schoo’s office to learn more about what’s going on with the startup. I spoke with Kenshiro Mori, the representative director of Schoo; Takayuki Nakanishi, the director responsible for content department; and Takuya Koroku, editor and content director.

Mori explained to me why they started creating content focused on venture financing, saying that his experience was his biggest motivation.

Mori raised 152 million yen from Itochu Technology Ventures, IncubateFund and ANRI in July, 2013. Back then, there were too many things beyond his comprehension. Today funds flow faster, and dynamic changes will occur when more entrepreneurs raise funding amounts of more than 100 million yen. On the other hand, there are pitfalls when raising so much money. Thinking back on his own experience, he believed communicating advice for entrepreneurs about fundraising would be helpful.

Content design based on a framework

Currently there are two subjects on schoo: startups and web design. Mori adds:

When we planned courses on these two subjects, the first thing we did was to set a solid goal. We design content based on practical goals, which reflect what the users will be able to do after they finish the course. When we designed the course for the ‘startups’ section, we set a framework. The framework was that users currently preparing to startup will be able to raise enough to end series A. Based on the framework, we created our content.

They first focused on users and where they could achieve, and then they developed the content with lecturers. With the web design course, they created content with the aim of helping total beginners be able to work as freelance web designers.

They also offer lectures focused on more practical matters in startup management. Another lecture, “How to build a great startup team”, will be presented by Yozo Kaneko, the COO of United .

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Nakanishi: In many cases, after entrepreneurs raise more than 100 million yen, but the existing company structure fails to work and breaks down.

Mori: We failed that way…

Nakanishi: We present this kind of real case to participants and move on to discussion.

They create content based on their experiences. And that’s why the lectures are not abstract, but rather more practical.

Stay tuned for the second part of this interview, coming soon!


  1. The original Japanese reads something like ‘to rid graduations from society’, so we’re taking some liberties here in order to better communicate the meaning.  ↩

Japanese MOOC startup raises $1.5 million from investors

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See the original story in Japanese. Schoo is a Tokyo-based MOOC (massive open online course) startup providing livestreamed lectures on the internet. The startup announced today that it has raised 152 million yen (approximately $1.52 million) from Itochu Technology Ventures, Incubate Fund, and Anri. This follows its previous funding from Incubate Fund and Anri back in October of 2012. Schoo was launched back in January 2012 under the mission of “ridding the world of graduations” [1]. It provides more than 130 different online courses, and to date it has more than 40,000 users, mostly office workers in their late 20s and early 30s. With these funds the startup plans to hire an engineer and content director, and develop a system for giving lectures to other schools or companies. In the last several months, we’ve seen more than a few MOOC startups raising funds in Japan, including Smart Education, Mana.bo, and Street Academy. We heard from the startup’s CEO Kenshiro Mori regarding their business model: With our service concept, we aim to earn money by making the most of livecast programming and interaction with users, and also generating revenue streams from other sources including e-commerce services. […] We’re aiming to make…

schoo_logoSee the original story in Japanese.

Schoo is a Tokyo-based MOOC (massive open online course) startup providing livestreamed lectures on the internet. The startup announced today that it has raised 152 million yen (approximately $1.52 million) from Itochu Technology Ventures, Incubate Fund, and Anri. This follows its previous funding from Incubate Fund and Anri back in October of 2012.

Schoo was launched back in January 2012 under the mission of “ridding the world of graduations[1]. It provides more than 130 different online courses, and to date it has more than 40,000 users, mostly office workers in their late 20s and early 30s.

With these funds the startup plans to hire an engineer and content director, and develop a system for giving lectures to other schools or companies.

schoo_screenshot

In the last several months, we’ve seen more than a few MOOC startups raising funds in Japan, including Smart Education, Mana.bo, and Street Academy.

We heard from the startup’s CEO Kenshiro Mori regarding their business model:

With our service concept, we aim to earn money by making the most of livecast programming and interaction with users, and also generating revenue streams from other sources including e-commerce services. […] We’re aiming to make our service into a platform, where we can consider possible monetization models such as charging a commission fee for item sales.

We need to adopt a progressive business model. We’ll add more attractive features for our paying users, and focus on acquiring more users, and improve our conversion and retention rates.

Schoo is expecting to surpass a million users by this December. Stay tuned to see whether the startup can disrupt the conventional concepts in this space in Japan.


  1. That’s a translation, and obviously not really very catchy in English.  ↩