SpaceMarket, a Japanese startup which connects users and open spaces, has just confirmed to Tech in Asia that it has raised JPY 100 million (US$930,000) in its first funding round.
The new cash comes from CyberAgent Ventures and Mizuho Capital, two familiar names in Japan’s startup ecosystem. The company will use the funds to strengthen its development and sales corps while expanding the service. ...
continue reading ...
Tech In Asia 10/14/2014 [en]
memo
- The raised amount is not so large considering recent active situation of venture investment in general and the fact that the startup have won some prizes at pitch competitions. The main usage seems events such as parties or seminars. Unique venues are listed such as a sail boat or Blue Note Tokyo. It is a kind of AirBnB for event venues. One of the key point for the startups may be how to add extra value such as AirBnB provides borrowers with communication and networking opportunity with lenders.
- https://spacemarket.jp/
Tokyo-based Papelook, the company behind a photo collage app under the same name, announced today that it has raised 120 million yen (or $1.12 million) from Japanese investment firm Jafco.
Since its launch of an iOS app in 2011 followed by an Android version in march of 2013, the company has acquired 13 million downloads in total to date worldwide. ...
continue reading ...
The Bridge 10/14/2014 [en]
memo
- Photo apps are no more hot topic like a few years ago, however Papelook has been steadily growing to reach such a large number of users. As written in the article, Papelook will try to monetize the user base by implementing an online printing service.
- http://www.papelook.co.jp/
Japanese “owned media” marketing company Somewrite fundraised 120 million yen (about $1.1 million) from Gree Ventures and other undisclosed investors.
In May of 2013, Somewrite won the fifth batch of Incubate Camp, an intensive two-day business development program for entrepreneurs organized by Japan’s Incubate Fund. In July of 2014, the company announced a set of comprehensive “owned media” marketing services called Somewrite Networks, which provides content marketing, owned media distribution, and native advertising platform services.
Somewrite Ad, the company’s native advertising network platform, picks up advertorial articles from owned media sites and distributes them to other partnering news media sites as a native ad so that these articles match the form with other regular articles in which they are placed. The platform has a tracking engine which learns the preference of users in real time. ...
continue reading ...
The Bridge 10/10/2014 [en]
memo
- Native ad is becoming important for mobile apps like social media or news curation apps. Somewrite Ad seems to have very interesting feature for companies having owned media.
- http://somewrite.jp/
Tokyo-based TransLimit, the startup that develops social quiz app BrainWars, announced on Thursday that it has fundraised 300 million yen (approximately $2.8 million) form Line Ventures, United, East Ventures, Skyland Ventures, and Genuine Startups. Line Ventures is a subsidiary of messaging company Line, focused on managing a $10 million investment fund called ‘Line Game Global Gateway.’ After start-up in August, the fund has already invested in Japanese gaming company Gumi as its first portfolio company.
...
continue reading ...
The Bridge 10/10/2014 [en]
memo
- BrainWars has over 5 million downloads with 95% coming from overseas. It took only 5 months to achieve the figure. It is very impressive and so interesting to see how long the startup keep the rapid growth.
- http://translimit.co.jp/
There should be no more doubt that investors are convinced that Mercari is the next big thing for ecommerce in Japan. Following a US$14 million round in March, Mercari confirmed today that it had raised a further JPY 2.36 billion (US$21.8 million).
Many repeat investors, like Global Brain, Globis Capital Partners, GMO Venture Partners, and East Ventures*, participated. But the most notable new investor is the World Innovation Lab (WiL). Founded by Gen Isayama, WiL describes itself as a “change agent bridging the US and Japan, startups and enterprises.” Mercari’s ability to secure WiL as an investor shows the company is ready to make an aggressive, determined push into America.
Mercari’s app offers a digital resale market for users, which has caught on in Japan. As of last month, it recorded over five million total downloads and tens of millions of dollars of goods sold every month. The company launched an English-language app in America last month as well. ...
continue reading ...
Tech In Asia 10/9/2014 [en]
memo
- One of Mercari's competitor, Fril announced a few weeks ago to raise $10 million. In terms of fundraising as well as number of users, Mercari is ahead in the C2C marketplace industry in Japan. But, Mercari looks to much more challenging target, US market. Several games from Japan have hit the market, but few Japanese services other than games have been successful. Mercari says it had a good start in the US market. In another popular mobile app category, news curation, SmartNews is ranked at the top at US App Store ranking in the category. We expect that 2014 will be recorded as the first year for Japanese mobile apps to seriously enter the US market outside of gaming.
- http://www.mercariapp.com/
Takeshi Idezawa, COO of Line, kicked off his presentation at Line Conference Tokyo 2014 today with a simple message. “The keyword of our future is ‘life’. Line is the smartphone gateway for your life.”
Line’s push to bridge the gap between its users’ online and offline lives is crystallized in a bold new offering – Line Pay.
Line Pay works like most next-generation payment applications. Items can be purchased on mobile or PC. It also has a personal aspect – users can transfer cash to each other without needing bank account information. ...
Idezawa also announced Line Taxi, a taxi-hailing service hooked up to Line Pay. Users can call a taxi using that taxi’s official Line account. With GPS, they can call the cab to their specific location and see the waiting time. ...
Finally, Line Pay will also tie up with Line Wow, a delivery service. Via a joint venture with
Woowa Brothers, Line is stepping into the delivery logistics game starting this autumn. ...
continue reading ...
Tech In Asia 10/9/2014 [en]
memo
- LINE also announced other new services such as music streaming and joint venture with Gree and CyberAgent for mobile games respectively. LINE is becoming to more focus on generating money utilizing its 170 million active users.
Japanese footwear e-commerce company Locondo announced last week that it had raised 500 million yen (or $4.6 million) in a series C round from Japanese investment firm Jafco. The company uses the funds to fulfill their logistics needs and relocate their headquarters to Shibuya, Tokyo.
Locondo was launched in October 2010 with 76 million yen ($760,000) funding from Rocket Internet. Since its launch in February 2011, their e-commerce site has acquired 600,000 users and over 40% of their users buy at least one pair of footwear a year via the platform. Annual shipping revenue reached 5 billion yen ($50 million) last year. ...
continue reading...
The Bridge 10/6/2014 [en]
memo
- The total amount raised by Locondo is over US$30 million. It is still making loss and seems to take some time to be profitable. The growth rate so far may not be fast enough as expected, however, overall EC market is still growing and the penetration of smart devices even accelerate the speed. So, Jafco probably thinks that the EC site will grow to reach exit.
- http://www.locondo.jp/
Earlier this week, Tokyo-based startup Goopa announced that it received an undisclosed amount of funding from Japanese television network Fuji TV and Sega’s mobile gaming-focused division Sega Networks.
Until recently, Goopa was best known for Anipipo, a service that allows users to crowdfund independent anime from up-and-coming artists. The service was even backed by Hayao Miyazaki apprentice Kenji Itoso. The new investment, however, signals a shift away from Anipipo and toward Crowdrive – a crowdfunding platform for indie games that is scheduled to launch later this month. ...
continue reading ...
Tech In Asia 10/2/2014 [en]
memo
- Crowdfunding services such as Kickstarter become very big in global market. However, even though several crowdfunding services have been launched in Japan since three or four years ago, they are still not so successful as in US or Europe. There maybe not many game development projects in these services so far. It is interesting to see if focusing on game development backed by two big names could change the status.
- http://www.goopa.co.jp/
A petabyte isn’t cool. An exabyte isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A zettabyte.
Big data startup Preferred Networks wants to develop a technology that can do real-time analysis of the zettabytes of data coming from the Internet of Things. NTT, Japan’s largest telco, wants to see them do it and has pledged JPY 200 million (US$1.9M) in development support to see it happen.
Preferred Networks is the Internet of Things-focused spin-off of Preferred Infrastructure, also a big data startup but known for its natural language processing technology. This is Preferred Networks’s first time accepting outside funding. NTT makes a logical business partner because the telco’s development team has been working with Preferred Infrastructure since 2011 when they jointly developed one of Preferred Infrastructure’s flagship services, Jubatus. Jubatus is an open-source data analytics tool design to be an alternative to the popular big data processor Hadoop. ...
continue reading ...
Tech In Asia 10/1/2014 [en]
memo
- The startup also announced a joint R&D project with Toyota at the same day on self-driving cars. Its business model is not clear yet, but these big companies may see something special in the company's technology.
- http://www.preferred-networks.jp/
A website that helps Japanese housewives make money by working from home has just raised US$5.75 million from Minna no Wedding and Nissay Capital, reports The Bridge.
Shufti, in operation since 2007, turns housewives into freelancers. It utilizes a crowdsourcing model for its various job listings. Projects include data entry, taking surveys, writing reviews, transcribing audio, and more. Entering business card data, for example, pays 20 yen (US$0.18) per card and transcribing a ten-minute recording earns the worker 500 yen (US$4.50). The service boasts more than 76,000 registered users.
Shufti is one of six products offered by parent company Uluru – each of which focus on BPO (business process outsourcing) and crowdsourced data collection. ...
continue reading ...
Tech In Asia 10/1/2014 [en]
memo
- Crowdsourcing is becoming literally crowded area. Shufti seems one of the oldest services among them. However, it may need to create competitive advantages rather than focusing on housewives. It is interesting to see how the startup take advantage of partnership with Minna no Wedding which also has a large volume of women users.
- http://www.shufti.jp/
DeNA added new punch to its business today, announcing acquisitions of Iemo and Peroli. Total cost was not disclosed but a DeNA representative confirmed to Tech in Asia that the two deals are worth US$50 million.
Both are news curation services. Iemo is focused on home-design whereas Peroli’s key product, Mery, targets ladies fashion. “[This is] part of DeNA’s previously-announced strategy to bring digital innovation to offline industries,” a company spokesperson told Tech in Asia.
Both services are young. Mery launched in April 2013 and Iemo followed suit. Mery’s monthly active users exceed 12 million while Iemo is hitting a more modest 1.5 million. ...
continue reading ...
Tech In Asia 10/1/2014 [en]
memo
- DeNA seems not doing so well in smartphone gaming market. The company needs to diversify its business and has launched several new services including Manga app or genetic testing service by its own. The acquisition of the two early stage startups shows that DeNA is even accelerating the strategy. It is a good sign for startups in general since they can expect acquisition as an exit more than ever.
- http://iemo.jp/
- http://mery.jp/
Tokyo Otaku Mode, the startup behind the Japanese subculture site of the same name, announced today that it has fundraised from Cool Japan Fund, Japan’s state-backed fund for the promotion of the export of Japanese cultural products and services to the global market. The fund will execute an investment worth up to 1.5 billion yen ($13.7 million) in the startup in three years. In April, the company raised series A funding worth 270 million yen ($2.5 million) from several Japanese companies.
...
Since its launch in the form of a Facebook fan page in 2011, the startup has acquired over 16 million likes. They registered a company in the state of Delaware in the US in December 2012, and subsequently joined Silicon valley accelerator 500 Startups. ...
continue reading ...
The Bridge 9/25/2014 [en]
memo
- A current total amount of Cool Japan Fund is 38.5 billion yen which is from Japan government and some corporations. Along with the deal, it announced three other investments including cold chain logistics in Vietnam, shopping mall in Malaysia and China. Compared to these physical infrastructure, Tokyo Otaku Mode is quite unique, but considering the name of the fund, we would like to see investing in startups like Tokyo Otaku Mode more from the fund.
- http://otakumode.com/
Nikkei’s Sept. 25 morning edition reported earlier today that Tokyo-based Fablic, the startup behind Japanese flea market app Fril, has fundraised about 1 billion yen (or $9.2 million) from Japanese online recipe site Cookpad, gaming company Colopl, and VC firm Jafco. Fablic is earmarking the funds to enhance promotional activities with TV commercials as well as to hire in new employees.
Fablic, established in 2012, is a fourth batch graduate of Tokyo-based seed accelerator Open Network Lab. The company introduced a C2C (consumer to consumer) marketplace app in September 2012, an early entrant in the Japanese market which started its business about an year before Japan’s Mercari. ...
continue reading...
The Bridge 9/25/2014 [en]
memo
- Fril focuses on women by allowing only women to use the app. Its biggest competitor, Mercari is more widely used. Fril has 1.9 million downloads as of September, while Mercari already surpassed 5 million. Fril takes 10% margin from transactions, while Mercari has been free to use for both sellers and buyers. Mercari announced to start getting commission of the same ratio of 10% from October. It will become more interesting to see the competition of the two startups and also other big names including LINE MALL.
- https://fril.jp/
Freee proved again today that accounting software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies can be a hot commodity by revealing a US$6 million series B2 round of funding. This round was led by Pavilion Capital and Recruit Strategic Partners. It comes after a series B1 round of US$8 million in April. At that time, DCM and Infinity Ventures Partners were providing the funding.
Founded in 2012 by ex-Googler Daisuke Sasaki, the service is now used by over 120,000 small or medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Japan. Freee is linked up with local banks and payment providers in order to make bookkeeping easy for business owners. It can also assist with other functions like tax filing and payroll management. ...
continue reading ...
Tech in Asia 9/25/2014 [en]
memo
- A competition among SaaS accounting service is getting fierce. But, the market for SMB to be covered is still very large. The competition may last for many years.
- http://www.freee.co.jp/
Yokohama-based Orkney, the company that provides fieldwork-focused customer relationship management tools called Orkney Upward, announced Tuesday that it has fundraised 90 million yen ($839,000) from CyberAgent Ventures and SMBC Venture Capital on August 29. Prior to this the company had obtained about $1 million in loans from Japan’s state-run loan company Japan Finance Corporation in June. They will use the funds and loans for sales force enhancement and for adding more features to the tools.
Orkney Upward is a web-based platform that allows salespeople on the go to easily check the profiles of their customers via smart devices. The platform works with a mapping solution that the company has been developing since its launch, providing the best route for visiting clients in fragmented locations. Based on a partnership with Salesforce.com last year, Orkney Upward is now available on the Salesforce cloud environment as well. ...
continue reading ...
The Bridge 9/18/2014 [en]
memo
- Only route mapping and checking the profiles does not seem to be so innovative, but integrating with Salesforce would bring greater value for customers as CRM solution
- http://www.orkney.co.jp/
Mana.bo, the company providing real-time tutoring help via a virtual whiteboard, today informed Tech in Asia that it has raised JPY 330 million (US$3.07 million) in series A funding from Benesse Holdings, Nissay Capital, and MUFJ Capital. The funding comes after a US$374,000 round, led by CyberAgent Ventures, in May last year.
The startup’s new cash is earmarked for marketing, launching a business-to-consumer (B2C) division, and development on new features. ...
continue reading ...
Tech In Asia 9/18/2014 [en]
memo
- Benesse has provided the service under its brand with "supported by mana.bo". B2C division will directly provide to students with own brand. The Benesse's service has 2 pricing plan, 12,475 yen or 24,750 yen per month depending on length of usage. Edtech has been featured in the past few years along with penetration of smartphone, but it seems taking longer time to grow than other categories of services. Starting with cooperation with large existing players like Benesse would be effective to accelerate the growth.
- https://mana.bo/
Tokyo-based Crowd Cast, a startup developing cloud services and apps for expense management, launched a new iOS app called Staple today. Coinciding with this, the company also announced today that it has fundraised an undisclosed sum from IMJ Investment Partners to strengthen service expansions in Japan and Asia.
Crowd Cast released late last year an expense processing app called BizNote Expense. This app allows users to input company expense records via smartphone, which then transmits the data to a company’s accounting system. But Crowd Cast learned from experience that users only need an expense record input app since most companies have legacy workflow systems for expense reimbursements. ...
continue reading ...
The Bridge 9/17/2014 [en]
memo
- There are several startups who help consumers keep household accounts using smartphone. The app, Staple is a B2B version of these apps. Recording expenses for business has more clear needs than housekeeping, so the service could become popular if it will be integrated with existing accounting software or services.
- http://crowdcast.jp/
