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Japan’s Skyland Ventures forms $10 million fund to invest in 30 startups

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Skyland Ventures, a VC firm focusing on seed-stage startups, announced the launch of its second fund today. The fund of $1.2 billion yen ($10 million) will be for investment in about 30 startups. See also: Up-and-coming investor hosts startup event in Tokyo, encourages global entrepreneurship Skyland Ventures CEO Yoshihiko Kinoshita says their typical scheme consists of a 15 million yen ($125,000) initial investment in a startup in a seed round with a potential follow-up investment of 5 million yen to 50 million yen ($42,000 to $420,000). Based on the scheme, Skyland Ventures wants to hold a 10% stake in the startup after its second round funding. Kinoshita says that his fund will make investments in several batches rather than doing a one-time major investment, in order to reduce the risk that the fund’s large stake in a startup may make it harder to get follow-up funding from other investors. Kinoshita has been conducting 15-minute mentoring sessions for acting and aspiring entrepreneurs every Wednesday. Through this effort, he has made investments in 20 startups in the last 40 months. The new fund will invest in startups in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, movie communication, smart…

skyland-ventures-team
Skyland Ventures’ Yoshihiko Kinoshita (middle) and other members

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Skyland Ventures, a VC firm focusing on seed-stage startups, announced the launch of its second fund today. The fund of $1.2 billion yen ($10 million) will be for investment in about 30 startups.

See also:

Skyland Ventures CEO Yoshihiko Kinoshita says their typical scheme consists of a 15 million yen ($125,000) initial investment in a startup in a seed round with a potential follow-up investment of 5 million yen to 50 million yen ($42,000 to $420,000). Based on the scheme, Skyland Ventures wants to hold a 10% stake in the startup after its second round funding.

Kinoshita says that his fund will make investments in several batches rather than doing a one-time major investment, in order to reduce the risk that the fund’s large stake in a startup may make it harder to get follow-up funding from other investors.

Kinoshita has been conducting 15-minute mentoring sessions for acting and aspiring entrepreneurs every Wednesday. Through this effort, he has made investments in 20 startups in the last 40 months.

The new fund will invest in startups in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, movie communication, smart robotics, and other Internet sectors. Combining with portfolio startups in the previous fund, Skyland Ventures expects to have invested in 50 startups within two years.

Coinciding with the announcement, Skyland Ventures unveiled that they have invested in the following six startups:

  • Virtual reality; Fictbox (CEO Naoto Kato)
  • Artificial intelligence; Liaro (CEO Kento Hanada)
  • Video communication; Popshoot (CEO Toshihiro Oyama), Modecas (Yusuke Saito)
  • Personal robot; Doki Doki (CEO Takahito Iguchi)
  • Media; ConU (CEO Takashi Ban)

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson

Up-and-coming investor hosts startup event in Tokyo, encourages global entrepreneurship

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This is part of our coverage of Skyland Ventures Festa Tokyo 2015. See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Skyland Ventures was founded by young but promising investor “Max” Yoshihiko Kinoshita back in August of 2012. Prior to it, he started his career as an investor at Japanese investment firm JAFCO, followed by working for Incubated Fund as an associate. Skyland Ventures organized its first startup showcase event called Skyland Ventures Fest Tokyo at Microsoft Japan headquarters on Sunday. Inspired by the tagline of “GLOBAL Startups meet GLOBAL Talents”, over hundreds of people, such as entrepreneurs, investors, and other members of startup communities around the world, have attended this event. The event was kicked off with a morning interview session with Akira Morikawa, who recently stepped down as CEO of LINE and has launched his own startup called C-Channel. The session was moderated by Skyland Ventures founding partner “Max” Yoshihiko Kinoshita. Morikawa explained why he launched C-Channel: I’ve been interested in education, healthcare, and energy businesses, but I have no background in these sectors. Since my first career started at a TV broadcaster almost 20 years ago, I have many friends in the broadcasting industry while I’m more familiar with…

svft2015-morikawa-kinoshita-broaderview

This is part of our coverage of Skyland Ventures Festa Tokyo 2015.

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Skyland Ventures was founded by young but promising investor “Max” Yoshihiko Kinoshita back in August of 2012. Prior to it, he started his career as an investor at Japanese investment firm JAFCO, followed by working for Incubated Fund as an associate.

Skyland Ventures organized its first startup showcase event called Skyland Ventures Fest Tokyo at Microsoft Japan headquarters on Sunday. Inspired by the tagline of “GLOBAL Startups meet GLOBAL Talents”, over hundreds of people, such as entrepreneurs, investors, and other members of startup communities around the world, have attended this event.

The event was kicked off with a morning interview session with Akira Morikawa, who recently stepped down as CEO of LINE and has launched his own startup called C-Channel. The session was moderated by Skyland Ventures founding partner “Max” Yoshihiko Kinoshita.

Morikawa explained why he launched C-Channel:

I’ve been interested in education, healthcare, and energy businesses, but I have no background in these sectors. Since my first career started at a TV broadcaster almost 20 years ago, I have many friends in the broadcasting industry while I’m more familiar with it than other sectors. That’s why I started a media business. […]

Due to the smartphone shift in browsing websites, people’s intention for e-commerce sites has changed from finding the cheapest prices to discovering unique items. So I thought that the smartphone shift would also impact how people enjoy online videos. LINE also plans an online video business in a different way, but we decided to focus on fashion.

In the session, Morikawa emphasized that Japanese startups typically add too many features to their apps, which makes them a challenge to be understood by the global user base, and also tend to spend long hours to think but rather have to act quickly.

svft2015-morikawa-kinoshita
C Channel founder and CEO Akira Morikawa (right) interviewed by “Max” Yoshihiko Kinoshita.

Morikawa’s interview was followed by a number of keynote sessions by top people in the global startup community, including Oscar Yasser Noriega (Pocket Supernova), Antti Sonninen (Slush Asia), Tim Gong (SIG Asia Investments), Jaeuk Park (VCNC, Korea), Anton Soeharyo (Touchten, Indonesia), Jia Shen (Powercore, China), and Hiro Maeda (angel investors). These presenters shared their insights in their local startup scene and why startups need to work globally.

svft2015-jaeuk-park
Jaeuk Park, VCNC, Korea
svft2015-hiro-maeda
Hiro Maeda, angel investor, Japan
svft2015-antti-sonninen
Antti Sonninen, Slush Asia, Japan
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Anton Soeharyo, Touchten, Indonesia
svft2015-firesidechat-richard-min-ryo-umezawa
A fireside chat with Korean serial entrepreneur Richard Min and Hailo Japan CEO Ryo Umezawa
svft2015-applihaku-booths
The “Appli-haku” exhibiting booth area is packed-out.

Edited by Kurt Hanson
Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy

Japanese quiz app BrainWars snags $2.8 million in funding from Line and others

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based TransLimit, the startup that develops social quiz app BrainWars, announced on Thursday that it has fundraised 300 million yen (approximately $2.8 million) form Line Ventures, United, East Ventures, Skyland Ventures, and Genuine Startups. Line Ventures is a subsidiary of messaging company Line, focused on managing a $10 million investment fund called ‘Line Game Global Gateway.’ After start-up in August, the fund has already invested in Japanese gaming company Gumi as its first portfolio company. See also: Japanese startup Translimit raises $100,000 to launch social quiz app Japanese startup launches social quiz app ‘BrainWars’ Japanese quiz app BrainWars ranks in the app store top charts As for BrainWars, during the five months following its launch on May 14, over 3 million downloads of the app from across the world have taken place. Coinciding with this announcement, TransLimit secured a partnership with Line and will “line up” a new game title using the Line user base. The gaming company also unveiled a planned development of a smartphone media business with United, another investor in this round.

translimit-team-line
The Translimit team

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based TransLimit, the startup that develops social quiz app BrainWars, announced on Thursday that it has fundraised 300 million yen (approximately $2.8 million) form Line Ventures, United, East Ventures, Skyland Ventures, and Genuine Startups. Line Ventures is a subsidiary of messaging company Line, focused on managing a $10 million investment fund called ‘Line Game Global Gateway.’ After start-up in August, the fund has already invested in Japanese gaming company Gumi as its first portfolio company.

See also:

As for BrainWars, during the five months following its launch on May 14, over 3 million downloads of the app from across the world have taken place.

Coinciding with this announcement, TransLimit secured a partnership with Line and will “line up” a new game title using the Line user base. The gaming company also unveiled a planned development of a smartphone media business with United, another investor in this round.

translimit-team-line2
Line’s CSMO Jun Masda unveils their investment in Translimit at Line Conference Tokyo 2014.

Japanese business reporting tool Gamba fundraises $400,000

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See the original story in Japanese. Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup that provides business reporting tool under the same name, announced today it has raised 40 million yen (about $400,000) from two Japanese investment firms; East Ventures and Skyland Ventures. This follows their previous funding of $200,000 from Skyland Ventures back in October 2013. Gamba was launched back in December 2012 by Masahiro Morita, who previously worked for Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten as a business development producer. Gamba recently partnered with Japanese internet company Nifty, where Gamba’s cloud-based reporting tool was added to the series of Nifty’s business software packages called Hakokura, which is sold at more than 17,000 computer stores nationwide in Japan with the aim to give internet-unfamiliar SME owners more opportunities to learn and try a variety of cloud-based services. Gamba is in talks with other companies to create more sales channels to users they have not yet reached. From my point of view, most companies using cloud-based services typically have their CEOs or operations managers who are early adopters. However, startups have to reach late adopters as well in order to build a bigger user base. Thus, if you have developed an awesome service but are struggling…

get-gamba

See the original story in Japanese.

Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup that provides business reporting tool under the same name, announced today it has raised 40 million yen (about $400,000) from two Japanese investment firms; East Ventures and Skyland Ventures. This follows their previous funding of $200,000 from Skyland Ventures back in October 2013.

Gamba was launched back in December 2012 by Masahiro Morita, who previously worked for Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten as a business development producer. Gamba recently partnered with Japanese internet company Nifty, where Gamba’s cloud-based reporting tool was added to the series of Nifty’s business software packages called Hakokura, which is sold at more than 17,000 computer stores nationwide in Japan with the aim to give internet-unfamiliar SME owners more opportunities to learn and try a variety of cloud-based services. Gamba is in talks with other companies to create more sales channels to users they have not yet reached.

From my point of view, most companies using cloud-based services typically have their CEOs or operations managers who are early adopters. However, startups have to reach late adopters as well in order to build a bigger user base. Thus, if you have developed an awesome service but are struggling to acquire users, you should study and learn from Gamba as it increases touch points with potential customers.

Japanese startup Translimit raises $100,000 to launch social quiz app

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Tokyo-based startup Translimit announced today that it has raised 10 million yen (about $100,000) from Genuine Startups [1] and Skyland Ventures. The funds will go towards launching a mobile quiz app with social competition features. The app will be called BrainWars, with an iOS version coming in mid-April, and an Android version to follow in June. BrainWars pits players against one another, playing three sets of mental exercise games (15 seconds each) to see which player performs better. Since these games require no verbal response [2], and users around the world can play and compete against each other regardless of language. The match is arranged to let you to play in real time, but if you can’t find anyone available to compete with, you can compete with someone you know according to their past results. In this space, we’ve already seen US-based Plain Vanilla Games, the startup behind trivia app QuizUp, which secured series B funding of $22 million from Sequoia Capital late last year. Here in Japan Namco Bandai has been selling a brain exercise app called Zen Notore. There’s Colopl Quiz RPG which has seen some success as well (iOS/Android). Translimit was initially launched back in January by Hiroki…

hiroki-takaba
Translimit CEO Hiroki Takaba

Tokyo-based startup Translimit announced today that it has raised 10 million yen (about $100,000) from Genuine Startups [1] and Skyland Ventures. The funds will go towards launching a mobile quiz app with social competition features. The app will be called BrainWars, with an iOS version coming in mid-April, and an Android version to follow in June.

BrainWars pits players against one another, playing three sets of mental exercise games (15 seconds each) to see which player performs better. Since these games require no verbal response [2], and users around the world can play and compete against each other regardless of language. The match is arranged to let you to play in real time, but if you can’t find anyone available to compete with, you can compete with someone you know according to their past results.

battlehome

In this space, we’ve already seen US-based Plain Vanilla Games, the startup behind trivia app QuizUp, which secured series B funding of $22 million from Sequoia Capital late last year. Here in Japan Namco Bandai has been selling a brain exercise app called Zen Notore. There’s Colopl Quiz RPG which has seen some success as well (iOS/Android).

Translimit was initially launched back in January by Hiroki Takaba and Takuma Kudo, both of whom previously worked at CyberAgent companies. They have been involved in several game projects together, including the virtual avatar service Ameba Pico (which shut down back in 2012) and mobile social game Girl Friend BETA. The Translimit team is participating in Movida Japan incubation program here in Tokyo.


  1. Genuine Startups is an investment fund spun off from Movida Japan.
  2. It could be a mathematical equation where you have to fill in the operator, for example.

Skyland Ventures turns its focus to mobile, co-invests in movie-making app

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Skyland Ventures, an investment fund focused on startups, announced it has allocated its 200 million yen (approximately $2 million) fund to invest in smartphone app developers. The fund is expected to be finishing investments by next June. You may recall our recent article citing analyst’s prediction that about 60% of Japanese mobile users will switch to smartphones by 2014. Since cheaper smartphone handsets will be more easily available to many consumers, this shift will of course occur in other parts of the world as well. Obviously for Skyland, getting on board with this trend makes sense. Coinciding with this announcement, the group also disclosed its investment in Japanese mobile development startup Nanameue, which also received investment from East Ventures to the tune of 30 million yen ($300,000) [1]. The startup was launched back in May by Atsushi Takishima and Takahiro Ishihama. The pair previously worked with Japanese startup Quan, known for its apps targeting the Southeast Asian region. SlideStory, one of Nanameue’s apps, has already surpassed 400,000 downloads, with users mainly in Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan. The total downloads across all 12 of their apps has reached over 2.3 million. SlideStory allows you…

slidestory_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Skyland Ventures, an investment fund focused on startups, announced it has allocated its 200 million yen (approximately $2 million) fund to invest in smartphone app developers. The fund is expected to be finishing investments by next June.

You may recall our recent article citing analyst’s prediction that about 60% of Japanese mobile users will switch to smartphones by 2014. Since cheaper smartphone handsets will be more easily available to many consumers, this shift will of course occur in other parts of the world as well. Obviously for Skyland, getting on board with this trend makes sense.

Coinciding with this announcement, the group also disclosed its investment in Japanese mobile development startup Nanameue, which also received investment from East Ventures to the tune of 30 million yen ($300,000) [1].

The startup was launched back in May by Atsushi Takishima and Takahiro Ishihama. The pair previously worked with Japanese startup Quan, known for its apps targeting the Southeast Asian region. SlideStory, one of Nanameue’s apps, has already surpassed 400,000 downloads, with users mainly in Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan.

The total downloads across all 12 of their apps has reached over 2.3 million.

SlideStory allows you to create a movie clip from 15 still images, or you can also create a clip of up to 32 seconds by splicing multiple clips. Its functionality resembles Korea’s Tripvi Album or Honda Motor’s RoadMovies app.


  1. East Ventures is also a limited partner for Skyland Ventures.

Japanese business reporting tool Gamba raises $200,000 from Skyland Ventures

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See the original story in Japanese. Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup behind the business reporting tool of the same name, announced today that it has raised $20 million yen (approximately $200,00) from Skyland Ventures, a Japanese investment company focused on seed-stage startups. Some of our readers may recall when we reported back in July that their tool would be integrated with a number of code- and task-tracking tools: GitHub, BitBucket, Pivotal Tracker and Google Tasks. The company was launched last December by Masahiro Morita who previously worked with e-commerce giant Rakuten as a business development producer. As of July, it has acquired more than 1,000 corporate accounts in Japan across a wide range of companies. For sales representatives or engineers, the app provides an easy way to share your updates with colleagues or management, at the beginning and the end of business hours. For management who have difficulties finding time to speak with employees face-to-face, it provides information on the progression of tasks as well as information about what are employees are working on. Among social tools available for enterprises, we’ve recently seen big developments like corporate messaging tool Yammer’s, acquired last year by Microsoft, and Australian business tool startup Atlassian,…

get-gamba

See the original story in Japanese.

Yokohama-based Gamba, the startup behind the business reporting tool of the same name, announced today that it has raised $20 million yen (approximately $200,00) from Skyland Ventures, a Japanese investment company focused on seed-stage startups. Some of our readers may recall when we reported back in July that their tool would be integrated with a number of code- and task-tracking tools: GitHub, BitBucket, Pivotal Tracker and Google Tasks.

The company was launched last December by Masahiro Morita who previously worked with e-commerce giant Rakuten as a business development producer. As of July, it has acquired more than 1,000 corporate accounts in Japan across a wide range of companies. For sales representatives or engineers, the app provides an easy way to share your updates with colleagues or management, at the beginning and the end of business hours. For management who have difficulties finding time to speak with employees face-to-face, it provides information on the progression of tasks as well as information about what are employees are working on.

gamba_screenshot

Among social tools available for enterprises, we’ve recently seen big developments like corporate messaging tool Yammer’s, acquired last year by Microsoft, and Australian business tool startup Atlassian, currently preparing for an IPO.

In the Japanese market, Talknote raised $2 million earlier this week, and Chatwork is accelerating its global expansion efforts as well. We can expect this space to get even more interesting over the next year.

For Skyland Ventures, this is the largest of its investments to date. The company’s portfolio also includes Wonder Graphics, a company specializing in video explainers; Hachimenroppi, which does food distribution for restaurants; and Creofuga, a vertical social network for musical composers.

Japanese online ticket startup EventRegist receives seed investment

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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_logo

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.