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Japanese startup founders join forces to launch fund, aiming to encourage younger selves

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Tokyo-based digital media outlet Wired.jp reported on Wednesday that eight successful entrepreneurs from Japan have joined forces and launched a new startup-focused investment fund called Tokyo Founders Fund. The founding members represent an impressive lineup of the Japanese startup community: Yusuke Asakura (former CEO of Mixi, visiting scholar at Stanford University) Nobuhiro Ariyasu (Coach United CEO) Kiyo Kobayashi (Chanoma CEO) Yusuke Sato (Freakout COO) Yo Shibata (former Spotlight CEO) Kensuke Furukawa (Nanapi CEO) Ayataro Nakagawa (Peroli CEO) Taichi Murakami (Livesense CEO) Inspired by San Francisco-based Founders Fund started in 2005 by the Paypal founders, Kobayashi decided that Japan also needed a similar startup investment founders fund while building a network with local investors and entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area where he is based. According to Kobayshi’s recent post on Facebook, the fund will offer a small amount of investment to pre-seed and seed stage startups around the world. Details of the fund’s activities have not been decided, but the eight-person team will discuss this in a closed Facebook group while looking to give their invested entrepreneurs functions as a knowledge sharing platform around launching businesses and a hub for connecting them with each others. Edited by Kurt Hanson

tokyo-founders-fund_featuredimage

Tokyo-based digital media outlet Wired.jp reported on Wednesday that eight successful entrepreneurs from Japan have joined forces and launched a new startup-focused investment fund called Tokyo Founders Fund.

The founding members represent an impressive lineup of the Japanese startup community:

Inspired by San Francisco-based Founders Fund started in 2005 by the Paypal founders, Kobayashi decided that Japan also needed a similar startup investment founders fund while building a network with local investors and entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area where he is based. According to Kobayshi’s recent post on Facebook, the fund will offer a small amount of investment to pre-seed and seed stage startups around the world.

Details of the fund’s activities have not been decided, but the eight-person team will discuss this in a closed Facebook group while looking to give their invested entrepreneurs functions as a knowledge sharing platform around launching businesses and a hub for connecting them with each others.

Edited by Kurt Hanson

Shopping points service Smapo joins forces with Rakuten

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Back in Feburary, we wrote about Smapo, the Japanese equivalent of Shopkick. Today, the company announced that it has joined Rakuten group, giving it access to Rakuten’s 80 million+ members. Smapo was initially launched back in September of 2011. By checking into physical stores, users receive points (one point is worth one yen), which can be exchanged to rewards such as gift certificates and dinner tickets. Smapo can be used at over 700 participating stores and over 90 brands. Stores are required to pay comission on a pay-per-performance basis. Joining the Rakuten family will empower Smapo to expand its partnerships with stores. As we wrote in a previous article, what differentiates Smapo from its US counterpart is that it uses a sort of inaudible audio signal to detect users walking in, via the required in-store hardware which is about the size of a matchbox. There are many tech companies trying to tackle the same O2O market, such as Showcase Gig. But the type of technology leveraged by Smapo is a notable advantage. Yo Shibata, the CEO of Spotlight (the company behind Smapo), elaborates on the new partnership with Rakuten: Smapo began under the mission of bringing surprises and discoveries to…

Smapo-Rakuten

Back in Feburary, we wrote about Smapo, the Japanese equivalent of Shopkick. Today, the company announced that it has joined Rakuten group, giving it access to Rakuten’s 80 million+ members.

SmapoSmapo was initially launched back in September of 2011. By checking into physical stores, users receive points (one point is worth one yen), which can be exchanged to rewards such as gift certificates and dinner tickets. Smapo can be used at over 700 participating stores and over 90 brands. Stores are required to pay comission on a pay-per-performance basis.

Joining the Rakuten family will empower Smapo to expand its partnerships with stores.

As we wrote in a previous article, what differentiates Smapo from its US counterpart is that it uses a sort of inaudible audio signal to detect users walking in, via the required in-store hardware which is about the size of a matchbox. There are many tech companies trying to tackle the same O2O market, such as Showcase Gig. But the type of technology leveraged by Smapo is a notable advantage.

Yo Shibata, the CEO of Spotlight (the company behind Smapo), elaborates on the new partnership with Rakuten:

Smapo began under the mission of bringing surprises and discoveries to people’s everyday shopping experience. As the very first smarphone-based points service, we have accomplished to tremendous growth in the past two years. The spread of smartphones is truly changing the way we shop. By becoming a part of the Rakuten group, Spotlight, will continue to innovate on people’s shopping experiences.

Smapo is available for download on both iOS and Android.

Smapo: Can Japan’s answer to Shopkick fend off new competition?

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Many of our readers are likely familiar with Shopkick, a popular smartphone app that rewards customers as they enter a store. Well, Japan has very similar service called Smapo, which provides a smooth combination of in-store hardware and a free smartphone app for both iPhone and Android. I recently had spoke with Yo Shibata, the CEO of Spotlight Inc. (the company behind Smapo) to find out more about this service. With Smapo, all that a user has to do is to download the free app, and turn it on when walking into a participating merchant — exactly like Shopkick. Every time the app is turned on, users receive about 30 yen (about 30 cents) in points which can later be exchanged for gift certificates to be used at participating stores. What differentiates Smapo from its US counterpart is that it uses a sort of inaudible audio signal to detect users walking in, via the required in-store hardware which is about the size of a matchbox. There are so many small shops in Tokyo, and many brands decide to set up within crowded departments where in many cases, there is no proper store entrance. Smapo’s technology is valid as long as…

smapo-logo

Many of our readers are likely familiar with Shopkick, a popular smartphone app that rewards customers as they enter a store. Well, Japan has very similar service called Smapo, which provides a smooth combination of in-store hardware and a free smartphone app for both iPhone and Android.

I recently had spoke with Yo Shibata, the CEO of Spotlight Inc. (the company behind Smapo) to find out more about this service.

With Smapo, all that a user has to do is to download the free app, and turn it on when walking into a participating merchant — exactly like Shopkick. Every time the app is turned on, users receive about 30 yen (about 30 cents) in points which can later be exchanged for gift certificates to be used at participating stores.

What differentiates Smapo from its US counterpart is that it uses a sort of inaudible audio signal to detect users walking in, via the required in-store hardware which is about the size of a matchbox. There are so many small shops in Tokyo, and many brands decide to set up within crowded departments where in many cases, there is no proper store entrance. Smapo’s technology is valid as long as the user is in the store space (the inaudible audio signal does not go beyond the store’s walls) so wherever they are, the system works.

Finding new faces

Many notable merchants have already joined Smapo including mega electronics franchise Bic Camera, department stores Daimaru and Marui, as well as popular fashion retailer United Arrows. All of these merchants wanted a new way to attract consumers. Because many people do their product research in advance on computer and on smartphones these days, there is less of a need to actually visit the stores than before. Newspapers are one common place where merchants advertise, but the number of newspaper subscibers have dropped to half of what they used to be 15 years ago.

The user demographic for Smapo is half male and half female. And in an effort to satisfy the younger female generation, Smapo recently launched 58 more merchants targeting young women, including The Body Shop, and Amo’s Style (a lingerie brand). Early adopter male users are still fans of the app too. At Bic Camera, which can be a heaven for tech savvy geeks, Smapo can bring over 10,000 people to a store monthly.

smapo-iphone

But how effective is Smapo in actually attracting new consumers? Shibata-san cited Marui as an example. Their problem was that people perceived their brand as one specifically for young people, and they wanted to make an effort to bring in customers who shopped there in their youth, but may be a little older now. By bringing users to a specific part of the store such as the men’s shoe section or the women’s bags floor, they managed to land many new customers.

When they run a TV commercial, of all the customers who arrive at Marui, only 10% are new. With Smapo, that number rose to an impressive 40%. And of those 40%, about half the people ended up buying something.

Besides the chat application war that’s famously going down in Japan, O2O is another sector that’s going to generate some heat this year. NTT Docomo have adopted the exact same model as Shopkick and Smapo for their newly launched Shoplat. The system works in the same manner, but it seems that their speciality is restaurants and bars for now.

Ever since their launch in September of 2011, Smapo has seen no significant competitor, which also meant that they were essentially wholly responsible for developing the market. With the largest mobile carrier in Japan now in the game, we expect that this space is going to get far more competitive in the coming months. It is not very often we see such a young startup butting heads against an internet giant in Japan. Stay tuned, because this is going to get interesting.