Tokyo-based digital marketing startup Showcase Gig, the startup behind ‘O:der’ (apparently pronounced ‘order’), announced today that it has raised funds from Nissay Capital and Nippon Venture Capital. The exact details of the funding were not disclosed but we understand that the amount is in the millions (US dollars).
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Since the launch of O:der back in July, the company has been providing a suite of CRM solutions for small-sized retailers, comprising of two iOS apps, one for consumers and the other for merchants. The consumer app has a mobile wallet feature that lets you pay by credit card before picking up a product at the shop. ...continue reading ...
Tokyo-based AdInnovation, the startup behind mobile ad analytics solutions AdStore Tracking and Hitracking, announced today that it has partnered with Digital Advertising Consortium (TSE:4281, DAC for short), raising an undisclosed sum of funding from the latter. We were told that AdInnovation became an equity-method affiliate of DAC through the partnership.
Since its launch back in 2010, AdInnovation has been providing white-label ad performance tracking solutions to many Japanese mobile ad agencies. They raised $1.6 million from several Japanese investors back in July, and recently launched a new performance analytics tool called Hitracking. ...continue reading ...
Venture United, a Japanese startup investment company, announced today that it has formed a fund worth 1.2 million yen ($11 million). The fund’s investors include the country’s state-run SME Support, Fusion Communications (a telco owned by Rakuten), SBI Securities, ad agency Hakuhodo, and Digital Advertising Consortium.
Venture United and its parent company United, the company best known for homescreen app CocoPPa, have already invested in many startups, including Lifenet Insurance, Enigmo, Unoh (acquired by Zynga back in 2010), and Nobot (acquired by Mediba, a KDDI company). ...continue reading ...
Tokyo-based startup Lang-8, which runs a language learning platform based on peer corrections, announced today that it has raised funding from CyberAgent Ventures. The exact details of the funding were not disclosed.
Lang-8 has acquired over 730,000 users from 219 countries and regions around the world, with about 70% coming from outside Japan. According to the company’s CEO Yangyang Xi, they plan to use these funds to develop a new service, and add three more engineers to their current three-person team. ...continue reading...
Tokyo-based Logly, a startup running an internet ad platform and recommendation service, announced yesterday that it has raised 120 million yen (approximately $1.15 million) from CA Mobile, Voyage Ventures, Mizuho Capital, and SMBC Venture Capital. The fundraising took place back on December 25th, 2013.
Logly is a demand-side platform that allows advertisers to distribute ads efficiently based on their unique technology that combines the context analysis of a website and the behavioral analysis of visitors. ...continue reading ...
Tokyo-based Utagoe, the startup behind mobile app Moment Diary (iOS/Android), announced yesterday that it has raised an undisclosed sum from gaming company KLab and its investment arm KLab Ventures. With the funds, KLab will take a 17.5% stake in the company.
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Moment Diary is a free journal app with a calendar, allowing you to make notes with timestamps, adding texts, images, videos, and even audio. Since its launch back in January of 2011, the app has acquired more than 24.1 million users on iOS and Google Play. In terms of their user demographics, Japan accounts for about 50%, and the rest are mainly from Korea, China, the Middle East, the US, Germany and Russia. Women in their teens and 20s make up the majority of their users. ...continue reading ...
SoftBank Corp. was at the forefront of a $120 million funding round for Wandoujia, one of the premier app stores in the fragmented Chinese mobile market.
This series B round also featured contributions from Wandoujia's series A investors, DCM and Innovation Works Development Fund. This new injection of capital leaves the company well placed to strengthen its position in the Chinese mobile market, which is dominated by Google's Android OS. ...continue reading ...
Our readers may recall that Japanese robotics company Schaft was recently acquired by Google and won the DARPA robotics challenge trials. Bloomberg reported yesterday that the company’s co-founder Takashi Kato will form a new 2 billion yen fund (approximately $19 million) for Japanese startups focused on biotechnology and energy efficiency segments. It will be called 246 Capital.
In the process of negotiating with Google during the acquisition process, he tried to get funds from 10 investment firms and the state-run fund Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ). But his efforts didn’t work out. In response to this disappointing experience, he plans to launch a scheme to help Japanese engineers and scientists get funding to complementary to their research and development expenses. ...continue reading ...
Silicon-valley based Hapyrus, a Japanese startup focused on developing big data solutions, announced yesterday that it has raised $1.6 million from investors in Japan and the US, including 500startups. Coinciding with these funds, the startup will rebrand itself as FlyData and set up a local subsidiary in Japan.
The company is led by Japanese entrepreneur Koichi Fujikawa, who previously worked with a number of prominent Japanese startups like Dennotai (acquired by Yahoo Japan back in 2000), Simplex Technology (TSE:4340), and Sirius Technology (also acquired by Yahoo Japan, 2010). ...continue reading...
Japanese internet company Adways (TSE:2849) announced on Thursday that it has invested an undisclosed sum in and partnered with Korean startup 5Rocks. The latter develops growth hacking solutions for mobile apps, and launched services for Japanese app developers last year.
Our readers may recall that 5Rocks raised 230 million yen (approximately $2.3 million) from Japanese VC Global Brain. ...continue reading ...
Whill is a Japanese startup that is currently developing a next-generation wheelchair. Earlier this week the startup unveiled that it has raised funds from Vegas Tech Fund, 500Startups, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and individual angel investors back on November 6th.
The total amount of funding raised in this round is $750,000, completing the company’s seed funding of $1.75 million in total. Vegas Tech Fund, also involved in this most recent funding, includes Zappos’ Tony Hsieh as a partner CEO. Coinciding with the announcement, Whill has renewed its company website and has began online pre-orders. ...continue reading...
Japan-based producer and distributor of mobile video entertainment Breaker has secured US$2M in seed funding to launch its services in the Northeast Asian country.
The seed round was led by Tokyo-based strategic consulting and business development firm Dream Incubator, and was joined by Siemer Ventures and other investors.
According to an official release, Breaker, which is managed by parent company digital media venture studio Designed for Revolution (DFR Asia), will focus on creating and distributing content related to entertainment, music and fashion. ...continue reading...
BearTail, the startup behind the cloud-based household accounting solution Dr. Wallet, announced today that it has raised $100 million yen (approximately $955,000) from three Japanese investment firms: Incubate Fund, Nissay Capital, and SMBC Venture Capital.
The service lets you keep track of your personal finances by simply scanning your receipts. It was officially launched back in August, and is now available for the Android and iOS platforms, as well on the desktop. To differentiate from similar services, the app does not use OCR (optical character recognition), but instead depends on human-powered data entry to ensuring accuracy. It also automatically sorts and classifies your purchases. With this human-powered processing, the startup could reach data entry accuracy of up to 99.98%, likely enough to ease any user concerns over erroneous inputs. ...continue reading...
Taipei-based startup Gogolook confirmed that it has been acquired by Naver, the Korean Internet giant that is best known outside of Asia for being the owner of Line. Gogolook has not disclosed the acquisition price, but a report yesterday from the Investment Commission of Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said the amount was NT$529 million (or about $17.6 million USD) ...
Gogolook’s flagship product is Whoscall, a caller ID app that has 1.2 million monthly active users and over 600 million numbers in its database, according to the company. ...continue reading...
Japan’s Nikkei reported today that Silicon Valley-based investment company WiL (World Innovation Lab) has formed a new fund focused on startups in Japan and the Valley, raising $300 million from a number of Japanese companies: All Nippon Airways, NTT Group, Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, Hakuhodo DY Group, Daiwa Securities, JVC Kenwood, Benesse Holdings, and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan.
Their potential investees are startups developing new products and services in fields like consumer electronics, e-commerce, or motor vehicles, making the most of smartphone and big data technologies. They expect the size of each investment to be in the range from $5 million to $50 million, with about six to eight investments being made per year. The Nikkei says that $300 million is a figure that equate to 30% of all startup investments in Japan in FY 2012. ...continue reading ...
While you’re enjoying your turkey yesterday, Japanese mobile game developer Gumi announced that it has concluded a financing round of 1.9 billion yen ($19 million) raised from FMH, B-Dash Ventures, East Ventures, Shinsei bank, DBJ capital, and other undisclosed investors. ...
Together with the funding news, Gumi also revealed the newly established Fuji & Gumi Games, a company jointly set up with Fuji Media. ...continue reading ...
Cookpad, Japan’s top recipe website, is making an aggressive international push by acquiring Spain’s Mis Recetas and an equity interest in social cooking app Allthecooks. The move follows the launch of Cookpad’s English site earlier this year. ...continue reading...
Tokyo-based startup U-note announced on Thursday that it has received investments from Venture United and Anri. Details were not disclosed, but the amount is thought to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Prior to this funding, the startup raised 11 million yen (approximately $130,000) from Party Factory, Voyage Ventures, and Movida Japan about a year ago.
U-note is an collaborative event summary platform, providing text overviews of presentations, lectures or events. Typical topics could be notable business success stories, secrets for better sales, or useful tips for your work. Their users are mainly business people in their 20s and 30s. ...continue reading ...
