Rewards Point Service, Moppy Operator Ceres Goes IPO On Mothers / Venture Now

Ceres was founded on January of 2005 and launched rewards point site for mobile, Moppy on May of the year. It started the service to PC in 2010 as well. The service has over 3.5 million users now. The company also runs recruiting media, Moppy Job.

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Venture Now 9/16/2014 [jp]

memo

• Rewards point service would not be rapidly growing service. Ceres may plan to diversify its service using the capital.
• http://ceres-inc.jp/index.html

[The Bridge] Japan’s weight-loss startup FiNC fundraises, appoints former Mixi and Opt CEOs as advisors

FiNC is a Tokyo startup that provides online weight loss and dietary advice based on a scientific approach such as genetic testing. The company announced today that it has raised a series A round of an undisclosed sum from Itochu Technology Ventures, Gree Ventures, Link and Motivation, MID Venture Capital, former Mixi CEO Yusuke Asakura and former Opt CEO Tomohito Ebine. The company also unveiled that it has obtained large loans from Mizuho Bank and other financial institutions. 

... 

The FiNC online diet coach service helps users achieve their weight-loss goals. When a user mails their genetic and blood samples along with their lifestyle and dietary information to FiNC, they will receive dietary and fitness advice from certified dietitians and fitness trainers via smartphone. ...

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The Bridge 9/12/2014 [en]

memo

• Genetic samples based healthcare services are becoming booming recently. Other players include large corporations such as DeNA and Yahoo Japan. The competitors provides more general information, however FiNC focuses on diet which would be more appealing to some users who are not yet familiar with this kind of services.
• https://www.finc.co.jp/

[The Bridge] Japan’s Relux raises $3.1 million, enhances hotel booking site to meet foreigner needs

Tokyo-based Loco partners, the startup that operates Japanese luxury inn and hotel booking site Relux, announced today that it has fundraised 330 million yen (about $3.1 million) from Recruit Holdings and others. Using the funds, the company plans to expand recruitment of business development representatives and system engineers. ...

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The Bridge 9/5/2014 [en]

memo

• Relux focuses on in-bound tourists with 9 more languages than Japanese available. It is expected to have foreign tourists increasing towards Tokyo Olympic, so there will be great opportunity for Relux to grow. Interesting part of the investment is that Recruit also runs one of the largest hotel booking services in Japan. Do they complement each other?
• https://rlx.jp/

[The Bridge] Japan’s food delivery startup Dely secures second round funding from Anri

Tokyo-based startup Dely, a food delivery service operating in Tokyo, announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from Japanese seed investor Anri. This follows their seed funding in July led by Beenos with participation from East Ventures and Party Factory. ...

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The Bridge 9/8/2014 [en]

memo

• Food delivery services are becoming more and more popular recently. Lunch delivery Gochikuru operator, Star Festival raised $27 million back in July. Also several more startups have been launched in the past year or so. It is interesting to see how the competition of on-demand delivery services including other goods than foods will be like in the future. 
• https://www.dely.jp/

[The Bridge] Japan’s nail art startup MiCHi fundraises from leading cosmetics review portal ＠Cosme

Tokyo-based iStyle (TSE:3360), the company behind Japan’s leading online cosmetics portal @Cosme, announced today that it has invested an undisclosed sum in MiCHi, a startup providing an e-commerce platform focused on handmade nail tips under the same name. ...

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The Bridge 9/8/2014 [en]

memo

• Both companies are targeting female market. However, @Cosme mainly provides service in Japan and MiCHi sells made-in-Japan nail tips to foreign countries. There may be various types of synergies.
• http://michimall.com/

[WSJ] Whill Raises $11 Million Series A for High-Performance ‘Wheelchair’

Don’t call it a wheelchair. It is an “omnidirectional four-wheel-drive mobility device” designed and built by veterans of the automotive industry. 

The company behind it, Whill Inc., has just raised an $11 million Series A round to ramp up production of the high-tech device, which cannot only roll uphill over rough terrain but can also turn on a dime, Chief Executive Satoshi Sugie said. 

The high-performance vehicle is meant to give wheelchair users a sleek alternative to standard chairs, which many believe reinforce stereotypes of weakness or helplessness. ...

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WSJ 9/2/2014 [en]

memo

• Whill is based in San Francisco, but founders are Japanese who worked at Nissan, Sony or others. So, some Japanese investors such as Docomo Ventures or Innovation Network Corp are included in the round. Since the founders see much bigger market in the US than Japan, they relocated.
• http://whill.us/

Opt Invest In Jimoty, Classified Site / MarkeZine

Opt invests in a classified site, Jimoty taking 45.4% share. Jimoty allows users to meet directly each other in their local to do deals such as selling and buyinh goods or recruiting. Monthly PV is about 25 million with 2.8 million monthly unique visitors as of July 2014. Since direct trading is expected to have large growth, Opt reached the investment.

MarkeZine 9/3/2014 [jp]

memo

• Jimoty was founded by a venture capital firm, Infinity Venture Partners in 2011. KDDI and Fuji invested in 2012 and 2013 respectively. There is not more information than 45.4% share held by Opt, but it could be a part of an exit for IVP.
• http://jmty.co.jp/

[The Bridge] Japan’s keyword linking tech developer Studio Ousia raises $1M for new app

Japan’s Studio Ousia, a startup developing keyword mining and linking solutions, announced Tuesday that it has fundraised 100 million yen ($1 million) from Tokyo-based system integration company NID (TSE:2349). According to NID, the investor has taken a 33.5% stake in Studio Ousia. Studio Ousia will use the funds to strengthen the development of new apps based on the Entity Linking technology. 

Studio Ousia is an standout graduate from Keio University SFC’s incubation program. In 2012, the company launched a smartphone browser add-on product called Phroni, and funraised 70 million yen (about $864,000) from Nissay Capital. ...

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The Bridge 9/3/2014 [en]

memo

• Phroni automatically selects keywords which users would have interest and set link to Wikipedia and so on. It is expected to be particularly useful for smart devices, but at this moment it seems not widely used. For what kind of applications does the startup utilize the interesting technology using the new capital?
• http://www.phroni.com/

[The Bridge] Japan’s content marketing agency Innova raises $2.1M from Salesforce and others

Tokyo-based SEO and content marketing agency Innova announced today that it has fundraised 220 million yen (about $2.1 million) from Salesforce.com, Draper Nexus, and Nippon Venture Capital. 

Since its 2011 launch, Innova has been providing content marketing solutions, helping companies market their products or services to consumers by assisting them in the management of owned media websites and by publishing SEO-optimized content and articles. As of April, the company had 72 clients from such notable Japanese companies as Yahoo Japan, Rakuten, Sony, DeNA, Opt, and Septeni Holdings. ...

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The Bridge 9/2/2014 [en]

memo

• Innova has over 1,000 contents writers who passed test to be the writer. With only the service, it sounds like just a labor intensive consulting and outsourcing service. However, the startup plans to launch a new SaaS service focusing on contents marketing management which may be linked with Salesforce.com platform. It is very interesting startup targeting B2B market, particularly of growing area.
• http://innova-jp.com/

[The Bridge] Japan’s Uzabase to announce $4.5M funding to boost curated news business

Japan’s Nikkei reported this morning that Tokyo-based Uzabase, the startup behind curated news app NewsPicks and company/industry database service Speeda, will announce on September 1st that it has fundraised 470 million yen (or about $4.5 million) in a round led by Itochu Techology Ventures. Other participating investors in this round are YJ Capital, Kodansha (publishing company), Globis Capital Partners, SMBC Venture Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Shinsei Bank, GMO Venture Partners, and Monex Ventures (investment arm of Monex Securities). ...

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The Bridge  8/31/2014 [en]

memo

• News curation apps are the hottest field this year with large amount of fundraising by Gunosy and SmartNews. Compared with the two, Uzabase's 470 million yen seems quite few regardless of many remarkable investors. Different from the two major apps, NewsPicks focuses on comments by users rather than even news itself. Also NewsPicks focuses on economic news. The differentiation could enable the app get a certain number of sticky users even though the number of users could be fewer than other popular news apps.
• https://newspicks.com/

[The Bridge] Japan’s invoicing solution startup MakeLeaps secures $600K funding through AngelList

Tokyo-based MakeLeaps, the startup behind a cloud-based invoicing platform under the same name, announced today that it has raised $600,000 through AngelList. Participating investors in this round include Naval Ravikant (AngelList), Richard Chen (Hatena) and Dave McClure (500 Startups). 

Since its launch in October 2011 by Australian serial entrepreneur Jason Winder, MakeLeaps provides an invoicing platform that targets freelancers as well as small/medium-sized enterprises, having acquired over 15,000 users. According to the company, the service saw a 20% user revenue growth rate in three months from April to June. ...

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The Bridge 8/28/2014 [en]

memo

• MakeLeaps does not only allow users to make invoice, but also take care of paperwork form printing, to inclusion to posting. It would be interesting if it links with other business applications such as Salesforce.com.
• http://www.makeleaps.jp/

[The Bridge] Japan’s financial advisory startup Zuu secures $1 million in angel funding

Tokyo-based Zuu, the startup that operates financial advisor matching platform Zuu Advisors, announced today that it has fundraised 105 million yen (about $1 million) from four angel investors including Japan’s mobile i-mode web service inventor Takeshi Natsuno and listed-company owners. 

The company provides a dozen web services including Zoo Advisors Support, a website of marketing tips for brokers and salespersons of wealth management products. Other websites include Japanese property market trend news site Tokyo Premium Real Estate and wealth management-focused portal Zuu Online (US Edition), both are available in English. ...

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The Bridge 8/25/2014 [en]

memo

• Financial advisor matching seems very niche market in Japan, but including sales persons of various financial sectors and related professional services such as lawyers and accountants, Zuu says the total number of financial advisors is around 1 million. In addition, since the target users are wealthy people, there would be many ways of monetization.
• http://zuu.co.jp/

[The Bridge] Japan’s excursion buddy and destination discovery site Vivit raises $300,000

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. ...

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The Bridge 8/24/2014 [en]

memo

• Another excursion discovery site, Asoview raised $2 million in this April. Asoview allows users to book a leisure activity, but Vivit focuses on finding friends to go to a leisure. Vivit seems more difficult to monetize, but it is interesting to see how these leisure portal site will evolve.
• https://vivit.co.jp/

[Tech In Asia] Japanese market research startup gets $2.2 million in fresh funding

Research & Innovation, a Japanese startup which specializes in market research support, announced today that it has received JPY 220 million (US$2.12 million) in funding from Mizuho Capital, Jafco, and DBJ Capital. Mizuho Capital participated in both previous funding rounds from 2012 and 2013. 

Research & Innovation has two main products. Mycomment, a service that incentivizes users to rate and judge products via free trials or even cold hard cash. Companies then use these comments and ratings to improve their own products. Code, meanwhile, is an app that scans the barcodes of products. Users register those barcodes, add their reviews, and then get similar benefits as Mycomment users. 

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Tech In Asia 8/22/2014 [en]

memo

• Online research services have quite long history as an Internet service, so it would not seem to be growing so much any more. However, Code allows users to review with their smartphone, which is much easier than using PC. The app may have a potential to expand the market.
• http://r-n-i.jp/

[The Bridge] KDDI acquires J-pop culture and entertainment news site Natalie

Japan’s leading telco KDDI announced today that it has acquired a 90% stake in Natasha, the Tokyo-based company behind popular J-pop culture and entertainment news site Natalie. 

Since its launch back in 2007, Natalie has acquired about 31 million monthly page views and 6.6 million unique users. They used to have an English version with a plan to expand their reader base to the global market, but it seems like they have shifted to be focused on the Japanese market so the English version has been shut down.

The Bridge 8/22/2014 [en]

memo

• KDDI is actively investing in Internet related startups, but do not acquire so often. It is interesting to see how the telco utilizes the entertainment news site for its business.
• http://natalie.mu/