Real Estate Support Service, Itandi Raises 300M Yen From Globis and Nissay Capital / Cnet Japan

Itandi announced fundraising from Globis Capital Partners, Nissay Capital, and SMBC Venture Capital.

Itandi runs HEYAZINE, a rent information portal site placing only properties from real estate agencies which directly deal with the owner of the property. The service launched back in this March and acquired 2000 agencies in about 9 months.

In addition, it provides REcS, cloud based system supporting real estate companies to manage properties, customers, and deals among agencies. ...

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Cnet Japan 11/22/2013 [jp]

memo

• One of the problems of existing real estate portal sites is that the same property appears many times because many agencies deal with the property. HEYAZINE tries to solve the problem by focusing on a prime contractor. It may raise a question about existing players competing based on a number of properties. It is also interesting to provide solutions to real estate companies as well.
• http://itandi.co.jp/

[The Bridge] Japan’s Toyro brings life insurance online, raises funds from CyberAgent Ventures

Toyro, a startup which operates an online insurance products platform called Insnext, announced that it has raised funds from CyberAgent Ventures, a figure in the tens of millions yen. 

Toyro is a startup founded by former members from Zynga Japan. They have formerly launched comap, a curation service based on location information. Their mission was to fill people’s information gap in some way, and after researching many industries, they found that a particularly severe information gap in the life insurance and pharmaceutical industry. 

... 

One of the more interesting functions provided on Insnext is a life simulator. Users enter their annual earnings, their amount of savings, and how many children they have. Then a projected chart of their future savings and some financial advice will appear, as well as their expected lifetime earnings and expenses. In addition, insurance services needed to prepare for potential risks will also be displayed. And on the next page, users can compare different kinds of life insurances.  ...

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The Bridge 11/22/2013 [en]

memo

• There are many life insurance comparison sites in Japan. Some of them have simulation features. It is interesting to see how Insnext will beat existing services in the crowded market.
• http://insnext.com/ 

[The Bridge] Leading Mark raises 50 million yen, launches online platform for recruiting

Tokyo-based startup Leading Mark, announced on November 5th that it has launched an alpha version of Recme, an online platform that aims to create a more efficient recruitment process. The company also announced that it has raised 50 million yen from CyberAgent Ventures. 

Leading Mark is a startup that Yuji Iida founded while he was a student at Tokyo University. The company organizes recruitment fairs, having succeeded in attracting more than 15,000 students from prestigious universities in Japan and China, with about 1000 students for each event. Their clients include major companies, providing them with recruitment consulting services as well. 

... In Japan, the average number of companies that students approach during their job hunt is over 100. That means for recruiters less than 1% of students they meet will actually join the company. Leading Mark aims to reduce this mismatching between recruiters and students by providing a platform for students to showcase their strengths through video. ...

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The Bridge 11/15/2013 [en]

memo

• Recme would be used not only for students but also for any other looking for a  job. Archiving videos in addition to text-based information would allow the company to differentiate from other job matching services. 
• https://www.recme.jp/

Real Estate Portal, O-uccino To Be Listed On Mothers / Venture Now

Real estate information sites operator, O-uccino will go to be listed on Mothers on December 11th.

O-uccino was established in April 2003 as Home Advisor. In addition to a portal of newly built condominium, HomePLAZA (now called Shinchiku O-ucchino), which was launched in April 2004, the company runs various portal sites for selling and buying real estate, reform, and rent. From November 2011, it unified brands into O-uccino and changed the company name as well.

The revenue ending December 2012 is 1.4 billion yen and the net income is 120 million yen.

Venture Now 11/11/2013 [jp]

memo

• There are many real estate portal sites in Japan including listed large corporations such as Suumo by Recruit, Sumaity by Kakaku.com and Home's. Start-ups such as Ietty are also increasing recently. It may be still not efficient enough to find a home for most of people. There would be opportunities for innovation in the area.
• http://www.o-uccino.jp/

Web conferencing, V-cube Goes IPO On Mothers / Venture Now

TV and web conferencing solution provider, V-cube is accepted for IPO on Mothers market. The planned date is December 10th.

...

V-cube was founded in October 1998 as V-cube Net. It became a corporation in 2001 and changed the name to V-cube in 2002. ... Currently it has 8 subsidiaries overseas centered around Asia to provide web conferencing system to companies, educational institutes, and governments.

The latest revenue ending December 2012 is 1.95 billion yen with 126 million yen of net income.

Venture Now 11/5/2013 [jp]

memo

• A web conference solution is not a new area and strong competitors including Cisco's WebEx exist. But along with speed up of mobile network, its use cases will be broaden. It may be a good timing to go IPO to accelerate the expansion.
• http://jp.vcube.com/

E-coupon, Moggy Fundraises From Interspace / Cnet Japan

Moggy revealed fundraising from Interspace. The amount is not disclosed but it is considered to be around several tens of million yen.

Moggy provides electric coupon service for smartphones. Shops can provide not only one-time coupons, but also a book of coupon tickets which users can use with serial code of a card the shop sells. ...

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Cnet Japan 11/5/2013 [jp]

memo

• Shops who distribute coupons do not need any device to read the coupon but just flick the coupon in the app of an user's smartphone. Smartphone coupon services are getting red ocean recently with a buzz word, O2O. It would be advantage for Moggy to partner with the Internet advertising company.
• https://moggy.in/

[The Bridge] Japan’s Meetrip acquired by social game developer Donuts, relocates to Bangkok

Meetrip is a service that gives you a chance to discover authentic travel experiences arranged by locals in 14 cities across Asia. Tokyo-based Duckdive, the startup behind the service, announced today that it is to be acquired by Tokyo-based social gaming developer Donuts for a undisclosed sum. The latter previously acquired Social Lunch, a website that helps students find jobs. 

Coinciding with this announcement, the startup revealed that it will relocate its base from Tokyo to Bangkok, where the gaming company has a development center. The startup was launched back in June by Takashi Kiyama and his co-founder Nobuhiro Ariyasu, who recently sold private lesson portal Cyta.jp to Cookpad for over 1 billion yen. ...

The Bridge 11/5/2013 [en]

memo

• As in the article, the social game developer acquired Social Lunch last year which is also non-gaming service. Diversifying service lines is its strategy, which is not so common for game developers.
• http://meetrip.to/

Quan Fundraises From Daiwa PI Partners And Others / Cnet Japan

Quan announced finance from Daiwa PI Partners and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. Quan was founded in August 2011 to develop services for smartphone.

The company partners with Thai largest telecom operator, AIS to distribute AIS myStickerShop for Thai market. Also it started providing sticker contents to WeChat, Chinese Tencent's messenger app from October 22nd. ...

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Cnet Japan 11/1/2013 [jp]

memo

• Along with rapid growth of messenger apps in Asia, stickers are becoming a key revenue source for developers of messenger apps. LINE actually sells over $10 million of stickers every month. The partnership with WeChat would bring huge potential to Quan.
• http://quan-inc.jp/ 

Stock Photos Service, PIXTA Raises 70M Yen / Cnet Japan

Stock photos, videos, and illustrations sales site, PIXTA  revealed fundraising from Globis Capital and others to secure 70 million yen. In addition, it launched a subsidiary in Singapore to expand into Asian market seriously.

PIXTA sells photos, videos, and illustrations which creators such as professional and high amateur cameramen posted. More than 5 million materials are available now. Copyright belongs to cameramen but it is possible to modify the materials. It launched the service in English from July. ...

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Cnet Japan 11/1/2013 [jp]

memo

• PIXTA raised the same amount about two years ago from Globis and others. 
• http://pixta.jp/ 

Cloud Business Card Management, Sansan Forms Capital Alliance With Salesforce / Venture Now

Sansan provides business card management service which allows users to share their human network in their company by scanning business cards. It keeps the data up-to-date with patented technology to push personnel change information automatically. As of October 2013, it has over 1500 corporate users.

The service started service integration with Salesforce Sales Cloud from 2008. With the capital alliance, it plans to accelerate global expansion with a new service.

Venture Now 10/30/2013 [jp]

memo

• Sansan also provides similar service focusing on consumers, Eight, with which users can manage business cards by taking photos with is mobile app. The company raised 500 million yen back in April 2013.
• http://www.linkknowledge.net/

SNS Platform, Revolver Raises 52.5M / Venture Now

Revolver announced fundraising of 52.5 million yen from CyberAgent Ventures, Mizuho Capital and E-Guardian. The company develops and operates a platform allowing celebrities and luxury brands to build SNS dedicated to their fans easily.

Revolver was founded on July 2012 and received investment of 20 million yen from CyberAgent Ventures a month later. It also got funded 50 million yen by the same investor. ...

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Venture Now 10/31/2013 [jp]

memo

• The platform allows celebs or brands not only to develop Pinterest-like social networking site but also to provide paid services in the site such as video streaming.
• http://rvlvr.co/