See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup Vivit launched an excursion buddy and destination discovery site under the same name last week. The startup participated in the sixth edition of Incubate Camp, an intensive two-day business development program for entrepreneurs organized by Japan’s Incubate Fund. Coinciding with service startup, Vivit announced that it had fundraised about 30 million yen (about $300,000) this spring from Venture United and Incubate Fund .

Vivit lists outdoor activities, from rafting and buggy rides to sightseeing hotspots and seasonal events. By integrating with a Facebook account, users can express interest in an activity on the website and share it with friends by clicking on the “I-want-to-go” button.

The service highlights activities your friends like, so your friends may also see activities you want to join in. If you or a friend shares the same activity as their preference, a “talk button” will appear onscreen to show the activity, which allows you to interact with him or her and even arrange an itinerary to enable participation together.

The website has listed about 150 activities to date, and most of them are day-trip excursions in the Tokyo metropolitan area and its suburbs. They released the service partially to go live prior to their official release at this time, and told that they have acquired more than 10,000 visits from users.

The website lists about 150 activities, and most are day-trip excursions in Tokyo and its suburbs. The service gained more than 10,000 user visits recently, upon “teaser” release prior to official release.

CEO Hisayoshi Mizutani highlighted the service:

For a short-term excursion, you should emphasize with whom one wants to go with rather than where to go. By visualizing and sharing excursion preferences for you and your friends, our service allows you to create more opportunities to hang out, fulfill leisure time, and help connect with more people

One may experience an interesting hotspot or leisure destination but give up because it’s troublesome to find someone to visit together and to arrange plans. However, Vivit enables completion of a set of processes from discovering an activity to arranging an itinerary with someone.

Mizutani outlined his development strategy:

TThe more users we acquire, we will gain more activities they like. Based on this data, we’re developing an algorithm that can recommend someone with similar preferences as you. We are also planning to launch a mobile app and a media site. We aim to acquire 100,000 users by the end of this year, hopefully publishing around 200 to 300 new activities each month.