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Yamap, mountaineers community app from Japan, secures $11M in series B round

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See the original story in Japanese. Fukuoka-based Yamap, which operates a community platform for mountaineers, announced on Friday at a press conference held in Tokyo that it has fundraised about 1.2 billion yen (around $11.2M US) in a series B round. The following 14 companies and funds participated in this round: ICI Ishii Sports Kyushu Wide Area Reconstruction Assistance Fund (managed by REVIC Capital) FFG Venture Business Partners (Investment arm of Fukuoka Bank) Yamaguchi Capital (Investment arm of Yamaguchi Bank) I Mercury Capital SMBC Venture Capital Setouchi Kanko Kasseika Fund (Managed by Setouchi DMO) Japan Asia Group SRL Oita Venture Capital (Investment arm of Oita Bank) Sagin Capital & Consulting (Investment arm of Saga Bank) Hiroshima Venture Capital (Investment arm of Hiroshima Bank) Morinaga (TSE:2201) 01Booster Keeping in mind the participation of numerous funds supported by regional banks, we can assume the intention is for Yamap to contribute to the revitalization of regional tourism. The company revealed that the amount raised from Japan’s largest outdoor retailer, ICI Ishii Sports, is the largest of the 14 contributions, although the amount received from each company and fund individually was not disclosed. For Yamap, this round follows the seed round which saw 5…

Yamap CEO Yoshi Haruyama with the investors who participated this round
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

See the original story in Japanese.

Fukuoka-based Yamap, which operates a community platform for mountaineers, announced on Friday at a press conference held in Tokyo that it has fundraised about 1.2 billion yen (around $11.2M US) in a series B round.

The following 14 companies and funds participated in this round:

  • ICI Ishii Sports
  • Kyushu Wide Area Reconstruction Assistance Fund (managed by REVIC Capital)
  • FFG Venture Business Partners (Investment arm of Fukuoka Bank)
  • Yamaguchi Capital (Investment arm of Yamaguchi Bank)
  • I Mercury Capital
  • SMBC Venture Capital
  • Setouchi Kanko Kasseika Fund (Managed by Setouchi DMO)
  • Japan Asia Group
  • SRL
  • Oita Venture Capital (Investment arm of Oita Bank)
  • Sagin Capital & Consulting (Investment arm of Saga Bank)
  • Hiroshima Venture Capital (Investment arm of Hiroshima Bank)
  • Morinaga (TSE:2201)
  • 01Booster

Keeping in mind the participation of numerous funds supported by regional banks, we can assume the intention is for Yamap to contribute to the revitalization of regional tourism. The company revealed that the amount raised from Japan’s largest outdoor retailer, ICI Ishii Sports, is the largest of the 14 contributions, although the amount received from each company and fund individually was not disclosed.

For Yamap, this round follows the seed round which saw 5 million yen funding (about $46.6K US) from Samurai Incubate and the series A round (March 2016) in which it fundraised 170 million yen (about $1.5M US) from Colopl (TSE: 3668), Daiwa Corporate Investment, and Dogan. With the latest round at this time, the total amount fundraised to date for Yamap has reached about 14 billion yen (around $12.8M US).

Yamap Founder and CEO Yoshi Haruyama explaining the intention behind the fundraising and business partnership
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

In addition to announcing the fundraising, Yamap also revealed that it has partnered with Ishii Sports, one of the investors this time around. Through this partnership the two companies will implement measures such as cooperation between members of Yamap and Ishii Sports, collaboration between Yamap and Ishii Sports stores (33 throughout Japan), and the expansion of joint events put on by the two companies. With the renewal of Ishii Sport’s e-commerce platform planned this fall, they also expect some sort of system integration with Yamap.

Mountaineering enthusiast Yoshi Haruyama (Founder/CEO) established Yamap in 2013 (the name at establishment was Sefuri). Even in mountains unreachable by cellular radio waves, the company has developed a map app called Yamap that allows mountaineers to know their current location by using the GPS radio waves of satellites.

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In 2014, the company was adopted into the first batch of IBM Blue Hub, the IBM Incubation Program in Tokyo, followed by winning the pitch arena of B Dash Camp 2015 Spring held in Fukuoka.

In July of 2015, the company released Yamap Gears, an outdoor equipment review app, its own insurance plans, and the media site .Hyakkei (Dot Hyakkei) specialized in the outdoors. It has also tried to diversify sales by partnering with camera, smartphone, and smartwatch makers.

In addition to Yamap’s user community partnering with Olympus’ open platform camera “Air A01” to develop outdoor camera accessories, Yamap also comes preinstalled on Kyocera’s smartphone Torque for the outdoors and Japan’s first domestic smartwatch WSD-F10 from Casio.

To give an idea of the number of Yamap’s users, the latest figures show that the app has been download 820,000 times with nearly 100 million monthly page views (the precise number of users is undisclosed). Leisure White Paper 2016 published by Japan Productivity Headquarters estimates there are 8.6 million mountaineers in Japan, which means slightly less than 10% of the entire population of mountaineers in Japan is using Yamap. By partnering with Ishii Sports, Yamap aims for synergy with the Ishii Sports member community which totals over 1 million.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s Yamap raises $1.5M series A funding to develop gamified experiences for hikers

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See the original story in Japanese. Fukuoka-based Sefuri, the Japanese startup that provides the Yamap app for mountain climbers and hikers, announced today that it has fundraised 170 million yen (about $1.5 million) in series A funding round. This round was led by Japanese mobile gaming publisher Colopl (TSE:3668), with participation from Daiwa Corporate Investment and Fukuoka-based VC firm Dogan. Sefuri claims that they will continue being focused on improving their services rather than pursuing profitability for over an year from now at least, so the funds will be used for operation during the period. Yamap is a mobile app that allows users to check where they are without mobile data access as well as provides a platform for sharing posts and updates about mountain climbing and hiking with other users. Since its launch back in March of 2013, the app has acquired 260,000 downloads, 160,000 registered users, 2.2 million photos and 9 million monthly page views to date. In July, the company launched an insurance service for hikers, Yamap Geers (a price comparison site that reviews outdoor gears), and .Hyakkei (an online media site focused on outdoor activities). They recently partnered with manufacturers of camera, smartphones and smartwatches to…

yamap_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Fukuoka-based Sefuri, the Japanese startup that provides the Yamap app for mountain climbers and hikers, announced today that it has fundraised 170 million yen (about $1.5 million) in series A funding round. This round was led by Japanese mobile gaming publisher Colopl (TSE:3668), with participation from Daiwa Corporate Investment and Fukuoka-based VC firm Dogan. Sefuri claims that they will continue being focused on improving their services rather than pursuing profitability for over an year from now at least, so the funds will be used for operation during the period.

Yamap is a mobile app that allows users to check where they are without mobile data access as well as provides a platform for sharing posts and updates about mountain climbing and hiking with other users. Since its launch back in March of 2013, the app has acquired 260,000 downloads, 160,000 registered users, 2.2 million photos and 9 million monthly page views to date. In July, the company launched an insurance service for hikers, Yamap Geers (a price comparison site that reviews outdoor gears), and .Hyakkei (an online media site focused on outdoor activities). They recently partnered with manufacturers of camera, smartphones and smartwatches to diversify revenue streams.

The user community of the Yamap platform recently participated in a joint development project of camera accessories for outdoor use in association with Olympus’ open-platform camera Air A01(as showcased at CP+ show in Yokohama, for example). In addition, the Yamap app will be pre-installed on Kyocera’s outdoor smartphone Torque and Casio’s smartwatch WSD-F10 (on sale in late March).

yamap-on-torque
The Yamap app preinstalled on Torque.
yamap-on-wsd-f10
The Yamap app preinstalled on WSD-F10.

Yoshihiko Haruyama, CEO of Sefuri, claims that they have categorized their business development phases into three categories: 1. offering easy-to-use and convenient measures, 2. offering exciting and novel experiences, and 3. becoming a good partner for users. They will be focused on Phase 2 from now on where his team wants to add new functions like giving users stickers upon reaching the top of a mountain or access a FireChat-like streetpass communication among users. We expect that Sefuri will soon add geolocation-based gamified experiences to the app with support from Colopl which is novel in this category.

Furthermore, Sefuri has been conducting a field test in Niseko, a renowned ski resort on the northernmost island of Hokkaido, in partnership with a local tourism association where the company is offering visiting skiers an offline map through the app to prevent them from straying off a set course (especially back country ones) in aaddition to letting them enjoy discovering as to how they may typically enjoy experiences in the resort by leveraging big data analysis. Since these updates are provided in English as well, more than 400 updates have been posted by domestic and inbound overseas visitors.

Upon this funding, The Bridge asked Haruyama about his business exit strategy. He told us that he’s aiming at an IPO by summer of 2020, however he will be exploring other exit options including M&A while considering a way to provide a positive impact on their users and services. He said the company wants to get involved in supporting inbound tourism demands at globally popular destinations in Japan such as another renowned ski resort Hakuba Area and the southern world heritage Yakushima Island.

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Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Yamap: Japan’s online vertical community for mountaineers that looks to the top

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See the original story in Japanese. Over the new year’s period, five start-up teams selected for the initial batch of “IBM BlueHub” – the incubation program launched by IBM Japan for the first time – were announced. As befits a program run by a technology-driven company like IBM, the majority of services from those five are tech-driven. Lately, with so many services featuring UI/UX on the startup scene now, the author being a systems engineer on the side cannot but help feel excited upon seeing such services offering exceptional technologies. For this story, let us focus on one of the five firms called Sefuri, the developer of Yamap. User Experience aimed for by Yamap Yamap is a mapping app for mountain climbers, which allows users ascertain their current location even in mountains outside of mobile telephony range, relying solely on GPS signals sent from global positioning satellites. Conventionally mountain climbers in the past would often carry a dedicated GPS device, but almost the same functions are offered now via a generally available smartphone. The system enables a user disclosing his or her climb logging data over Yamap, after regaining internet accessibility, to share with other users in what outfit he…

yamap_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Over the new year’s period, five start-up teams selected for the initial batch of “IBM BlueHub” – the incubation program launched by IBM Japan for the first time – were announced. As befits a program run by a technology-driven company like IBM, the majority of services from those five are tech-driven.

Lately, with so many services featuring UI/UX on the startup scene now, the author being a systems engineer on the side cannot but help feel excited upon seeing such services offering exceptional technologies. For this story, let us focus on one of the five firms called Sefuri, the developer of Yamap.

User Experience aimed for by Yamap

Yamap is a mapping app for mountain climbers, which allows users ascertain their current location even in mountains outside of mobile telephony range, relying solely on GPS signals sent from global positioning satellites. Conventionally mountain climbers in the past would often carry a dedicated GPS device, but almost the same functions are offered now via a generally available smartphone.

The system enables a user disclosing his or her climb logging data over Yamap, after regaining internet accessibility, to share with other users in what outfit he or she climbed, what kinds of attraction were found on the mountain, etc. In short, it has evolved into a social network for mountain climbers, beyond the domain of mapping application.

What is the user experience aimed for by Yamap? I interviewed Yoshihio Haruyama, founder and CEO of Sefuri, who once edited a travel magazine at an agency specializing in individual trips.

sefuri-haruyama
Sefuri CEO Yoshihiko Haruyama

Let’s say, someone takes a trip to Yufuin (sightseeing spot in Kyushu best known for hot springs). We would like the traveler to experience fun not only in center town of the hot-springs resort, but also the overall experience in the area including the neighboring mountains. We would like to support tourism during a resort stay.

If one wishes to record and share a travel itinerary, apps like Korea’s Travelog that let international travelers to ascertain their current location are available. This is done by downloading the map of one’s place of stay in advance, no 3G or 4G roaming service needed.

Technically speaking, while what they’ve developed is the same as other such startups, Haruyama emphasized that Yamap mainly focuses on creating a community around mountain climbing. As the climber’s stories are posted / shared per mountain with photos of the outfits worn, it serves as an extremely supportive source of information for mountain climbers to see the required gear for conquering a mountain for the first time, plus what attractions are available.

He continued:

We would like to establish a service by combining a map and GPS with the tracking data of mountain climbs, similar to that of Trip Advisor. Because we aim to offer services widely accepted by mountain climbers, monetization is not considered part of the mapping apps function.

Community operations and monetization

It is nearly a year since Yamap’s launch last year, but its current membership numbers 75,000. Its monthly page per view is 2.11 million; MAU (monthly active users) in November totaled at 20,000. Although he is not thinking about monetization until the membership volume attains a certain figure between 500,000 and a million, Haruyama shared with me a possible business model.

We’d like to come up with a price comparison website/apps covering products related to mountain climbing/outdoors. Since life and limb depend on mountain-climbing/outdoor goods, everybody wishes to purchase a better product for less. On the other hand, those outdoor brands like Patagonia, The North Face, MontBell and the like are no longer niche. An affiliate that sends customers to such product sales sites will provide them profit.

Haruyama explained:

Corporate advertising is another. There are only a few online communities where users such as mountaineers and outdoor fans gather; Yamap in this field is likely to become an epic platform. If we can develop tourism-related business in the future, such advertisements could be gained as well. However, as far as the tourism business is concerned, I think collaborating with local governing bodies and others would be better rather than going it alone.

Besides Haruyama, Sefuri comprises 3 engineers. Although the number of mobile apps download is 90,000, with the IBM BlueHub program, by improving UI/UX with the mentoring offered by Takayuki Fukatsu the designer and the like, they aim to achieve 150,000 downloads upon program completion.

CC-licenced picture:  A line of mountaineers heading toward Mt Blanc (via Flickr by ashokboghani)
CC-licenced picture: A line of mountaineers heading toward Mt Blanc (via Flickr by ashokboghani)

Funding and global expansion

So far, this company has fundraised 5 million yen (about $41,800) from Samurai Incubate in a seed round and 1.5 million yen ($12,500) from Japan Finance Corporation. Furthermore, it is exploring a series A round funding for next summer. To launch Android apps development, it is actively hiring Android apps development engineers based out of Sefuri office in Fukuoka.

The “mountain climbing demand” can be found worldwide, so we’d like to carry out overseas development actively. We will offer English services by next Spring. We’d like to do the same as to Korean and Chinese, too. We will first reinforce our (inbound) services for those mountain climbers coming to Japan, followed by (outbound) services for those going abroad

Haruyama elaborated:

Incorporating a mapping company’s map data will force users to pay for the service, so instead we use data from Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI). Upon overseas development, it will likely incorporate Open Street Map. There are some apps for maintain climbers in the US, but the quality isn’t so good. I thus think there is a major business opportunity available.

Yamap has won the Samurai Award at “Zenkoku Startup Day (literally meaning “All-Japan Startup Day” held in Fukuoka city recently, and was nominated for the Good Design Award Best 100 in 2014 to receive the Good Design Award of Small and Medium Enterprises.

For those who do not climb mountains on a regular basis, there may be some anxiety about climbing without a guide. But with Yamap, such fear for the climb may be allayed. As this year can expect a mountain-climbing boom hitherto unseen, generated by mountain-climbing visitors from inside Japan and abroad, we look forward to Yamap serving as a “must-have” for mountain climbers around the globe.

Translated by “Tex” Pomeroy
Edited by Masaru Ikeda