[Cnet] Telepathy raises $5 million to develop Google Glass rival

Telepathy, a Silicon Valley startup, has raised $5 million in a first round of funding to develop wearable computing technology that rivals Google Glass. 

"Wearable technology will enable the next wave in social networking," Telepathy CEO Takahito Iguchi said in a statement. "The $5 million funding will enable us to enrich the user experience of Telepathy One, which we expect to bring to market in 2014."... 

The Telepathy One headset prototype, demonstrated earlier this year, is a hands-free communications device that wraps around the back of a wearer's head. It has a small screen, earplugs for playing sound, and this fall will get a software developer kit so programmers can write apps for it. ...

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Cnet 8/21/2013 [en]

memo

• The CEO of Telepathy founded Tonchidot which develops AR mobile app, Sekai Camera. The AR app made a sensation at TechCrunch50 in 2008. He left Tonchidot late 2012 to start the new challenge. It is very exciting to see how Telepathy will be received in consumers next year.
• http://tele-pathy.org/

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[Sd] Japanese UI improvement platform planBCD raises $800,000

PlanBCD is a platform that helps developers to improve the user interface on their web services. Kaizen Platform Inc., the Tokyo-based startup behind the service, announced today that it has raised seed funding worth $800,000 from Gree Ventures, GMO Venture Partners, and CyberAgent Ventures. With these funds, the company plans to intensify its system development and marketing efforts. 

The service provides developers with an A/B testing environment, especially useful for improving web content and interfaces, comparing the performance of multiple available options. It helps you test and optimize processes like sign-ups, purchases, or landing pages. Unlike other conventional services, planBCD allows you to conduct this time-consuming, trial-and-error process by only embedding a single-line of JavaScript on your website. ... 

The most remarkable part of the service is that PlanBCD gives you ways to crowdsource the UI and UX improvement process, something which is often difficult to assign someone in your company. ...

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Sd 8/20/2013 [en]

memo

• The service is quite interesting to combine A/B testing tool and crowdsourcing allowing customers to outsource analyzing by technology and improving by human power at once. Crowdsourcing is becoming a big trend recently, but the combination would be indicating the next step for the crowdsourcing business.
• https://planb.cd/ 

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Volare Raises 175M Yen To Strengthen Appliv, Apps Review Site / Cnet Japan

Volare revealed that it raised 175 million yen from Nippon Venture Capital (170 million) and an individual investor.

Volare was founded in 2007 to start education business. And then it changed its business domain to SEO and web consulting. Currently, it operates Appliv, an iOS apps review site from August 2012 based on knowledge acquired through the SEO consulting service. ...

The company runs advertising service, Appliv AD, which shows app review as a performance-based advertising charging a fee when the ad is clicked. Advertisers can automatically tender a bid in real-time by just setting a budget and CPC. ...

continue reading in Japanese...
Cnet Japan 8/20/2013 [jp]

memo

• There are many app review sites. It seems not easy to differentiate from others. The advantage of Appliv is that it has directory categorized even smaller than AppStore, which works well for SEO. As apps search still has a large room to be improved on AppStore or Google Play, Appliv may have opportunity to grow much more.
• http://app-liv.jp/

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Gocro Raises 420M Yen From Globis / PR Wire

Gocro, a developer of SmartNews, news app for smartphone, announced fundraising from Globis Capital Partners to finance 420 million yen.

Gocro plans to accelerate hiring engineers and data scientists with the capital aiming to provide optimized news reading experience to users around the world. It targets to increase employees from current six to 40 within a year. ...

continue reading in Japanese...
PR Wire 8/14/2013 [jp]

memo

• SmartNews provides news based on analyzing web sites tweeted on Twitter. The company has partnered with 43 media of 25 publishing companies. News curation service is becoming a hot field for startups recently. Other major players include Gunosy and Vingow. And not only startups, but also big players like LINE and Gree entered the competition recently. 
• https://www.smartnews.be/

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[Sd] Japanese flea market app secures investment of $3M just 6 weeks after launch

Tokyo-based United, the company behind homescreen decoration app CocoPPa, announced today that it has partnered with Kouzoh. You may recall that Kouzoh is the mobile commerce company which recently developed a flea market app called Mercari. 

As part of this partnership, United will invest 300 million yen (approximately $3 million) in the flea market company, thus taking a 14.5% stake in the company. ...

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Sd 8/13/2013 [en]

memo

• CocoPPa is growing rapidly to reach 12 million users, among whom 83% are located outside of Japan. Kouzoh can expect CocoPPa's user base to expand to global market. 
• http://united.jp/
• http://mercari.jp/

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JTOWER, Indoor Communication Equipment Vendor, Raises 1B Yen / TechCrunch Japan

JTOWER provides infrastructure equipment such as antenna or cable for base stations to telecom operators. In concrete terms, it will launch a business to allow multi cellular operators to share infrastructure of JTOWER equipped at commercial facilities, office buildings, and apartment houses. In the US, there are the same business like American Tower which went IPO and has became a large company. JTOWER fundraised 1 billion yen from INCJ, JA Mitsui Leasing, and IT Farm. ...

continue reading in Japanese...
TechCrunch Japan 8/12/2013 [jp]

memo

• As smartphones are more and more used, investment in network infrastructure is becoming a big issue for any mobile operators. It is also benefit for owners of buildings. The business seem to have a huge potential.
• http://www.jtower.co.jp/

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Glider Associates Raises 2B Yen To Grow Curation Magazine, Antenna / PR TIMES

Glider Associates agreed on allocation of new shares of 2 billion yen to Macromill and Singpore-based Scentan Ventures. ...

In addition, it is decided that Takahumi Horie will become a service adviser for the company. ...

PR TIMES 8/8/2013 [jp]

memo

• Macromill is a listed Internet research company, which invests 1.5 billion yen to take 25.6% of voting rights of Glider Associates. The company was established in February 2012. The CEO of Macromill concurrently served as a CEO of the company when launched, but now it is changed. Antenna is a Flipboard-like app with over 500,000 downloads. It is surprisingly huge amount of investment for the status.
• http://antenna.jp/web/

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[Sd] User-generated travel plan startup Trippiece raises $2M

Tokyo-based travel startup Trippiece announced today that it has raised 200 million yen (approximately $2 million) from Draper Nexus Venture Partners and other investors. With the funds, the startup plans to start developing smartphone apps. 

The company also invited Fumiaki Koizumi to the board of directors. He previously worked with Mixi and DeNA where he helped them IPO. At Trippiece, his main role will be to strengthen the management. ...

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Sd 8/6/2013 [en]

memo

• Trippiece allows users to create a travel plan which will be actually arranged by a travel agency if the plan has more than five users applying it. It is a kind of a crowd sourcing of travel plan. Currently it has 50,000 users who may be mainly heavy travelers. It would be a key to acquire average users to accelerate the growth.
• http://trippiece.com/

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[Sd] Star Festival raises $10M to expand innovative bento box business

Star Festival, the Japanese startup behind Bento box delivery and catering service, Gochikuru.com, announced today it has raised 1 billion yen (or about $10 million) from Jafco, one of Japan’s leading VC firms. With these funds, the company will expand its service to areas all around the country. Currently their service is available only in the five urban areas of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, and Fukuoka. 

Since its launch back in 2009, Gochikuru has been providing a variety of meals from its partner lunch vendors. To date they have partnered with more than 210 lunch-box brands and served more than 3.2 million users. ...

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Sd 8/5/2013 [en]

memo

• Star Festival raised 250 million yen in August 2012 from Globis and Gree Ventures. Different from other catering portal sites like Rakuten Delivery or Gurunavi Delivery, Gochikuru has its own deliver network which allows them to have restaurants or food manufactures without delivery functions as a partner. It seems the differentiation works well.
• http://gochikuru.com/

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[Sd] Yahoo Japan acquires e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic

Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) announced recently that it has taken over leading Japanese e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic. Financial details were not disclosed. 

Since its launch back in 2001, the latter has been a provider of price comparison sites and commerce-focused vertical media such as Travel.jp, Hotel.jp, and Coneco.net to Japanese online consumers. The company is also known to have invested in Indonesian price comparison site Telunjuk and Singapore’s travel metasearch service Flocations. 

Upon the acquisition, the company was split into two companies corresponding to different business fields. One company rebranded as Osenikku and will continue operating Coneco.net. And the CEO formed a new company called Venture Republic, which take care of the travel-related media. As a result, the comparison site business has been entirely handed over to Yahoo Japan. ...

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Sd 8/3/2013 [en]

memo

• Coneco.net provides price comparison of goods in various categories searching many e-commerce sites including Yahoo's rivlas, Rakuten and Amazon. It is interesting to see if Yahoo integrates the service in Yahoo Shopping or leaves it as separate service.
• http://www.coneco.net/company/
• http://www.vrg.jp/en/

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KDDI'ｓ Subsidiary, mediba Acquires ScaleOut / Cnet Japan

According to an industry insider, the price of the acquisition is over 1 billion yen. ScaleOut provides an integrated advertising distribution platform, ScaleOut Ad Platform which includes DSP, DMP, tag management, ad server, third party ad serving and others. mediba acquired Nobot, ad network for smartphone in 2011.

Cnet Japan 8/5/2013 [jp]

memo

• A competition of ad tech centered around RTB is getting fierce among ad companies and startups. We will probably see more acquisitions or IPOs in the next few years in this field.
• http://www.scaleout.jp/

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Klab Ventures Invests In Realglove, PaaS Technology Startup / SankeiBiz

With the capital, Realglobe develops CDaaS (Continuour Dedlivery as a Service) aiming to launch within this year.

CDaaS is a development platform to add functions to automate various tasks such as building source, system test, backup, and delivery on top of PaaS which automates sever settings and building execution environment. ...

SankeiBiz 7/29/2013 [jp]

memo

• Klab is recently famous as a mobile social game developer, but was originally a very technology oriented company providing security solutions or load distribution systems. It could utilize its knowledge and skills to enhance the platform service of Realglobe.
• http://www.realglobe.jp/

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Viewable Time-based Advertising Platform, Dennoo Raises $1.1M From Nissay Capital / TechCrunch Japan

Dennoo sells advertising based on time that users actually view rather than just displayed on a browser. The company announced fundraising of $1.1 million from Nissay Capital. The total amount raised so far is $3.1 million. ...

continue reading in Japanese ...
TechCrunch Japan 7/26/2013 [jp]

memo

• Dennoo's cost per view model is best suited for video ads, which is finally becoming popular in Japan recently. It would be the best timing for the company to accelerate its sales and marketing activity with the capital.
• http://www.dennoo.com/

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ignote Raises Fund From Samurai Incubate / Dream News

ignote provides melocy enabling to share musical performance overdubbed with smartphones. With just a smartphone device, users can record, upload and share music, which makes easier for anyone to publish music sessions. ...

continue reading in Japanese ...
Dream News 7/25/2013 [jp]

memo

• melocy targets amateur bands to allow them to have a music session on different place and time. There is a similar service, nana, which focuses on sharing singing. 
• http://melocy.com/

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Mobile App Eyeland Operator, Oceans Announced Partnership With Adways In O2O And Fundraising From Mitsubishi UFJ Capital / Yomiuri Online

Oceans started collaboration with Adways in O2O. As the first effort, Oceans' location-based communication service, Eyeland places coupons of Asuiku, a last minute discount coupon service by Samurai Adways, Adways' subsidiary to send customers from the application.

Oceans also fundraised from Adways and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. ...

Yomiuri Online 7/25/2013 [jp]

memo

• Eyeland allows users to share posts with their location as well as chat with other users around. It has been a few years since location-based apps appeared, but it seems they are still struggling to monetize from the services. It is expected that Eyeland can build up its business model with the partnership.
• http://eyeland.in/en/

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[Sd] Japanese accounting startup Freee raises $2.7 million from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM

Tokyo-based cloud startup Freee announced today that it has raised 270 million yen (approximately $2.7 million) in a series A funding from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM. This follows the previous seed round where the company secured seed funding of 50 million yen (about $523,000) from DCM back in December. Coinciding with this new funding, the startup rebranded its company name to Freee from CFO K.K., coinciding with the name of its accounting service. ...

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Sd 7/24/2013 [en]

memo

• Freee is a cloud-based accounting service for SMB. It allows to keep accounts automatically by registering bank or credit card account. Accounting solutions are getting crowded by startups recently such as MoneyForward and MoneyTree for consumers, and A-SaaS for accounting firms. 
• http://www.freee.co.jp/

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Treasure Data Fundraises $5M From Sierra Ventures / ITpro

US-based Treasure Data providing cloud service for Data Ware House announced to raise 5 million dollars from US's VC, Sierra Ventures. Treasure Data was founded by Japanese engineers in 2011 at Mountain View.

Treasure Data's DWH service is based on Hadoop, open source software enabling distributed batch process. In addition to the DWH service, it provides td-agent, data collecting tool which allows to gather, store, and analyze data. td-agent is based on OSS log collecting tool, Fluentd which is developed by Sadayuki Furuhashi, one of founders of the company. ...

continue reading in Japanese ...
ITpro 7/24/2013 [jp]

memo

• Treasure Data had a previous financing of $1.5 million in September 2012 from several angel investors including Matz Matsumoto, Ruby developer.
• http://www.treasure-data.com/

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[Sd] Japanese flea market app Mercari raises $500,000 from East Ventures

Mercari, a flea market app launched by Japanese serial entrepreneur Shintaro Yamada, has been showing good numbers of late. Since the release of its Android app back on July 2nd, more than 50,000 users have put over 10,000 items up for sale using the marketplace. 

Kouzoh, the startup behind the app, introduced the iOS version of its app today, and also announced that it has fundraised 50 million yen (approximately $500,000) from East Ventures. ...

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Sd 7/24/2013 [en]

memo

• Yamada is famous for selling his previous startup, Unoh to Zynga two years ago. Yahoo Auction has been almost dominant for many years in Japan in C2C marketplace. But along with a penetration of smartphone and tablet, new entrants including startups are appearing recently such as Fril and CyberAgent's Pashaoku. All of them including Mercari claim its easiness to use for non-teckey people. It is interesting to see who will win the race.
• http://mercari.jp/

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Opt Enters Venture Capital Business Focusing On Ad Tech And E-Commerce / MarkeZine

Opt established a dedicated division to accelerate growth of Internet related startups. In this year, the company plans to invest around 1 billion yen in startups located in Japan and APAC focusing on E-commerce, Crowd sourcing, Edu x Tech, and Advertising Technology.

In addition, Opt invests in Sozo Ventures- True Bridge Fund I, US-based venture capital fund through its US subsidiary. It partners with e-marketing companies centered around big data and O2O which has a potential to get into Japan market aiming to create new business in Japan. Opt has already partnered in capital and business with Retailgence, US-based O2O service provider to support its Japan entry.

MarkeZine 7/19/2013 [jp]

memo

• Opt is one of the largest Internet marketing agencies in Japan. It announced an acquisition of Singapore-based ad network, CDA, in March. Other ad agencies such as CyberAgent and Septeni are also active in going global. Advertising business has been relatively domestic except search ads by Google. But it seems these major players believe it will be much more borderless in the near future.
• http://www.opt.ne.jp/

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[Sd] Japanese lifehack sharing site Nanapi raises $2.7 million

Nanapi is a popular Japanese site where users can share their favorite lifehacks. The company announced today it has raised 270 million yen (approximately $2.7 million) from KDDI’s Open Innovation Fund. and Globis Capital Partners. This follows a previous round of funding worth 330 million yen from Globis Capital Partners. 

The startup was founded back in 2007 by former Recruit staffer Kensuke Furukawa and former Rakuten engineer Shuichi Wada. The pair and their colleagues launched the lifehack sharing site back in 2009, and have acquired more than 12 million users to date. Users exchange practical how-tos and daily tips, such as how to better cut vegetables, how to better clean up toilets, or how to wash your neckties in the washing machine. ...

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Sd 7/19/2013 [en]

memo

• The previous round was on November, 2010. Nanapi has not yet have a native app for a smartphone, so the company would develop it with the capital to increase users and page views.
• http://nanapi.jp/ 

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[Sd] Japanese e-commerce startup Monoco raises funds from KDDI and Global Brain

Tokyo-based startup Monoco announced today it has raised funds from Japan’s second largest telco KDDI and Japanese VC firm Global Brain. The specific amount was not disclosed but it’s thought to be several million US dollars. 

Monoco is a flash sales e-commerce site focused on selling fashion items of a limited quantity selected by curators and buyers worldwide. Since the company’s launch back in April of 2012, it has acquired more than 80,000 users, partnering with more than 900 fashion designers worldwide. ...

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Sd 7/18/2013 [en]

memo

• Fashion commerce is becoming one of the most crowded area for startups recently. KDDI actually invested in another fashion commerce service, Origami back in April. 
• http://monoco.jp/sale

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[Sd] Next-gen Japanese wheelchair startup raises $1M from 500 Startups and other investors

Whill is a Japanese startup that is developing ‘Personal Mobility’, a next-generation wheelchair. The startup announced today it has raised $1 million from Itochu Technology Ventures (ITV), 500 Startups, Sunbridge Global Ventures, Wingle, and individual angel investors. The individual investors include 500 Startups’ Dave McClure and Facebook engineer Eric Kwan. 

With these funds, the startup plans to start mass-production of its first model and start marketing it as well. The first lot of 50 machines will be exported to the US market using a direct sales channel, with shipping scheduled to start in early 2014. ...

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Sd 7/16/2013 [en]

memo

• Whill participated in Open Network Lab, a Japanese seed accelerator last year, and is now in 500 Startups' accelerator program. The company has attracted much attention from seed investors in Japan and US.
• http://whill.jp/

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[Sd] Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown acquires DIY shop startup Stores.jp

Today Bracket, the company behind Stores.jp, announced that it has been acquired by Start Today. Start Today is, of course, the operator of Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown. Since news of the acquisition was released a few hours ago, it has dominated social feeds here in Japan. 

Bracket was founded back in October of 2008, and the company operates several online services including a C2C car sharing site Cafore and custom made ladies shoes service, Shoes of Prey. 

Stores.jp lets users to make their own online shop in matter of minutes for a monthly fee of 980 yen (about $10). Since it launched back in September of 2012, it has been used to create more than 40,000 online stores to date, and that is projected to surpass 100,000 by the end of this year. Considering that 70% of stores on Stores.jp are fashion related, it makes sense for the company to choose Start Today as a partner. ...

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Sd 7/16/2013 [en]

memo

• The valuation for the acquisition is around $6.5 million. Considering the number of stores on Store.jp and other services which could also add value to Zozotown, it may be a good deal for both of companies, particularly for Zozotown.  
• http://bracket.co.jp/

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[Sd] Downloaded by half of Japan’s iPhone girls, Papelook attracts more investment

Two Japanese mobile trends that we have been following closely over the past few months are high-quality Japanese photo apps, and the evolution of cute culture into an exportable mobile commodity. Popular made-in-Japan collage app Papelook lies at the intersection of these two trends, and that means it has lots of potential to grow, even beyond Japan’s borders. 

Today Digital Garage announced that it would be investing in Papelook, though the exact sum was not disclosed, the company will take 5% of the startup’s outstanding shares. ...

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Sd 7/10/2013 [en]

memo

• Papelook is one of teams from the last batch of Open Network Lab, a seed accelerator program. Digital Garage is one of the major shareholders of Open Network Labo. The other major shareholder is Netprice.com.
• http://www.papelook.co.jp/

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[TechCrunch] Japanese Ticketing Startup Peatix Raises $3M Series A To Fund Expansion To U.S., Singapore

Japanese e-ticketing startup Peatix just closed a Series A round of $3 million, led by Fidelity Japan. The company is seeking to be the Eventbrite of Asia, and provides a platform for event organizers to manage ticket sales. It says it’s already had 10,000 events listed on its platform since it launched in May 2011. ... 

500 Startups and Itochu also participated in the Series A round, which will see Fidelity Japan’s David Milstein joining Peatix’s board of directors. ...

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TechCrunch 7/10/2013 [en]

memo

• There appeared many ticket sales platform startups in Japan. The competition among them seems to get fierce recently in Japan. It is interesting to see if PeaTix can get a big lead with the fundraising with others.
• http://www.peatix.com/

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[Sd] 3 Japanese VCs team up to establish new mobile gaming studio

Fuji Startup Ventures, Gumi Ventures, and B Dash Ventures have jointly announced that they have teamed up to establish a new mobile gaming studio called A-lim. It has not been disclosed how much stake each party will hold in the company. 

This newly formed company also released its first mobile iOS game today, titled Brave Frontier. It’s available for free over on the App Store if you’d like to try it out.  ...

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Sd 7/3/2013 [en]

memo

• Fuji Startup Ventures is a VC arm of media company, Fuji TV, and Gumi Ventures is also a VC subsidiary of Gumi, a mobile game publisher. So, it is a kind of a joint venture between a TV station and a game publisher in which pure VC, B Dash invests. 
• http://www.a-lim.co.jp/

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fluxflex Officially Launches WebPay, Credit Card Payment API / Cnet Japan

Along with the announcement of the official launch, fluxflex announced fundraising by convertible notes from CyberAgent Ventures, Archetype, and GMO Payment Gateway.

WebPay has high compatibility with Stripe's API which is widely used in the US and allows to develop a payment system within a few hours using abundant library and samples. Not only simple payment, but various ways of payment such as periodic payment, pay-as-you-go payment, discount with coupons, and one-click payment are easily deployed with the API. ...

continue reading in Japanese...
Cnet Japan 7/2/2013 [jp]

memo

• WebPay charges 3.4% plus 30 yen for each transaction. Mobile reward ads provider, Metaps recently launched a beta version of Spike, a totally free payment service. Payment is a huge market and expected to become even bigger, but it will become very tough competition for any companies if these free services appear. Anyway, it is interesting to see how the competition in the payment solutions will be like. 
• http://www.fluxflex.com/

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[Sd] Book discovery service raises $200,000 from Japanese investors

Booklap is a handy service that helps you find good books. It was created by Tokyo-based startup Prosbee, which announced today that it has raised 20 million yen ($200,000) from Incubate Fund, Voyage Ventures, and Genuine Startups. This follows the previous funding of 3 million yen (about $32,000) from Incubate Fund last July. 

The service has two ways to help you discover new books: The first method is based on your interests, pulled from ‘social graphs’ like your Facebook profile. The other way is by presenting quotes from books that impressed other users. Since its beta launch back in June of 2012, they have built up a decent userbase, with recent changes to their interface, adding features intended to boost growth. ...

continue reading...
Sd 7/3/2013 [en]

memo

• There are some books related service utilizing social functions such as Booklog, review sharing, and Bukupe, summary sharing. Booklap is unique in a way to share quotes from books, which is easier than others. The way of monetization is basically based on advertising like display ads or affiliate for any such services, so the scale of users and contents is the key factor. The easiness to share quotes may become a big advantage for Booklap to increase contents.    
• http://booklap.com/

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[Sd] Japanese MOOC startup raises $1.5 million from investors

Schoo is a Tokyo-based MOOC (massive open online course) startup providing livestreamed lectures on the internet. The startup announced today that it has raised 152 million yen (approximately $1.52 million) from Itochu Technology Ventures, Incubate Fund, and Anri. This follows its previous funding from Incubate Fund and Anri back in October of 2012. 

Schoo was launched back in January 2012 under the mission of “ridding the world of graduations”. It provides more than 130 different online courses, and to date it has more than 40,000 users, mostly office workers in their late 20s and early 30s. ...

continue reading ...
Sd 7/2/2013 [en]

memo

• Schoo adopts a freemium model. It is free to watch any number of streaming lectures and to communicate with other students, but free users can view only one recorded lecture a month. Paid users who pay 525 yen per month can view an unlimited number of recorded lectures. Retaining paid users would be a challenge for the service because it seems not easy to keep them learning something continuously.
• http://schoo.jp/

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Mutations Studio Fundraises 230M Yen From CyberAgent Ventures, FuRyu, And KDDI Open Innovation Fund / MSN Sankei

Mutations Studio was founded in August 2012 by a game producer, Mr. Kuwata who produced several popular mobile games and his team. CyberAgent Ventures invested in September, 2012, FuRyu did in February, 2013, and KDDI Open Innovation Fund in March, 2013.

Within this year, the startup plans to launch several game titles with its own brand as well as joint titles with other developers.

MSN Sankei News 7/2/2013 [jp]

memo

• More and more large publishers dominate the market in smartphone games recently such as Puzzle & Dragons' GungHo and LINE. But it is also very rapidly changing and still growing market, so there may be chances for startups, particularly teams with successful track record like Mutations Studio.
• http://www.mutationsltd.com/

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Venture Republic Invests In Indonesian Price Comparison Site / Venture Now

Venture Republic invested in PT Telunjuk Komputasi Indonesia, which runs price comparison site, Telunjuk.com in Indonesia through its subsidiary, Venture Republic Global.

Taking advantage of knowledge acquired by operating several price comparison sites in Japan, such as coneco.net or Travel.jp, Venture Republic aims to accelerate an expansion into South East Asia such as Indonesia where a rapid growth is expected.

Telunjuk.com covers a wide range of products including PC, mobile phones, and air tickets for a product search and price comparison. The site was launched back in 2011 and has 500,000 products and 500,000 monthly active users now.

Venture Now 6/27/2013 [jp]

memo

• Investing in South East Asia from Japanese Internet companies are increasing in the last few years. CyberAgent is one of the earliest company among them. Others who set up a venture fund for the region include Gree, Rakuten, GMO, and IMJ. The move seems getting more accelerated recently.
• http://www.vrg.jp/
• http://www.telunjuk.com/

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Adinnovation Raises 160M Yen From DBJ Capital And Others / Cnet Japan

Adinnovation revealed a fundrasing from DBJ Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. The amount raised is 160 million yen.

Adinnovation was founded in 2010 to provide consulting services for advertising focused on smartphone apps. With the capital, the startup plans to expand ADSTORE TRACKING, a performance monitoring service for smartphone ads, to global market.

Cnet Japan 7/1/2013 [jp]

memo

• ADSTORE TRACKING allows users to manage various marketing solutions such as ad networks, affiliate ads, and search ads on a screen from placing ads to analyzing ROI. Since ads for smartphone is still in an early stage compared to desktop PC, needs for the solution will continue growing.
• http://adinnovation.co.jp/

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KDDI Provides GAKUMO, Study Room On Palm, From July / ITmedia

GAKUMO is an education service optimized for mobile devices jointly provided by KDDI and Quipper. Quipper is a mobile app developed by a startup, Quipper, which allows users to learn by answering quizzes. The quizzes can be provided by users or any third parties including educational organizations. On GAKUMO, several education companies provide the contents for junior high and high school students. ...

continue reading in Japanese...
ITmedia 6/24/2013 [jp]

memo

• Quipper was founded in London by Masayuki Watanabe, who is a co-founder of DeNA. The startup had a series A round of 2.3M pounds in May 2012 from Globis Capital Partners, Atomico, and Benesse, which is one of the educational companies providing contents for GAKUMO.
• http://www.quipper.com/

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Credit Card Linked Coupon Service, "Saison Card Linked Offer" To Launch, The Operator, Kanmu Also Announces Fundraising / Sd

Credit card linked promotion service, Card Linked Offer operator, Kanmu announced to launch Saison Card Linked Offer jointly with Credit Saison. In addition, Kanmu fundraised about 43 million yen from East Ventures, ANRI, and an individual investor.

Card Linked Offer is a new way of sales promotion launched in the US which analyzes user data of the credit card and offers coupons and other benefit customized for the user. What is unique about the service is that by just indicating use of the coupon clicking a banner online, the user will receive the benefit by using the credit card at the shop. ...

continue reading in Japanese...
Sd 6/24/2013 [jp]

memo

• Kanmu was founded in January 2011. Credit Saison is quite positive to partner with startups compared with other financial companies. The credit card company announced a partnership with Coiney, credit card billing service using a smartphone, in back April. 
• https://clo.kanmu.co.jp/

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US-based Startup Founded By Japanese, Hapyrus Raises $925K From Famous Investors In Japan And US / TechWave

Silicon Valley-based startup, Hapyrus announced fundraising of $925,000 from angel investors and venture capital. Investors include William Lohse, who are former CEO of Ziff Davis and early investor of Pinterest.

Hapyrus provides a cloud solution to support handling big data.  It started to provide FlyData which transfers data on web sites or applications to the data warehouse, Amazon Redshift on February 2013. From June 5th, it provides add-on for Heroku as well. ...

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TechWave 6/21/2013 [jp]

memo

• Other investors in the round include CyberAgent Ventures, Nissay Capital, and angel investors from Japan. There are few startups which provide big data related technologies in Japan. Another popular startup in big data founded by Japanese entrepreneurs is Treasure Data which is also located in Silicon Valley.
• http://www.hapyrus.com/

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LINE Launches "LINE Free Coin", Reward Ads For Android To Partner With Metaps / Cnet Japan

LINE announced LINE Free Coin, incentive-based app promotion service, on June 20th to launch in Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. When users download apps on Android which LINE selected, they will get LINE Coin, virtual money. Users can buy stickers with LINE Coin. At first, the advertised ads are apps by LINE including LINE Manga, LINE Bubble, and Line Uranai (fortune telling).

LINE partners with Metaps globally as a sales partner for Line Free Coin. Metaps has provided reward ads for Android in Japan and overseas. ...

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Cnet Japan 6/20/2013 [jp]

memo

• LINE never loosens up its business development taking advantage of rapidly increasing users which surpassed 160 million worldwide. LINE Game seems to make money most at this moment and LINE Manga which was launched back in April may contribute greatly to the monetization now. For Metaps, the partnership must be the huge step forward to add one of the largest publishers in the world to its network.
• http://www.metaps.com/

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[Sd] Japanese fashion-focused startup Youtfit raises $310,000 from Incubate Fund

Japanese fashion startup Youtfit today announced that it has raised 30 million yen (approximately $310,000) from Tokyo-based Incubate Fund. The startup is known for having started Japan Style, a magazine-like mobile app targeting the Asia region. 

In addition, the company launched a social fashion app (also called Youtfit) back in May of 2012, allowing users to post and share their outfits. Available in Japanese, Thai, and English, the app also allows you to evaluate other users’ posts with a five-step evaluation system, with cute, sexy, cool, elegant, and unique being the chosen criteria. ...

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Sd 6/20/2013 [en]

memo

• These two apps currently do not have monetization model. Similar type of social fashion service, iQON allows users to buy items by linking to other EC sites. It is interesting to see if Youtfit will adopt the same monetization model or has other strategy to make money.
• http://company.youtfit.com/

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[Sd] Japan’s Street Academy raises $420,000

IntheStreet, the startup behind private lesson marketplace Street Academy, announced today that it has raised 40 million yen (approximately $420,000) from CyberAgent Ventures, Genuine Startups , and other angel investors. 

The service gives users an opportunity to teach something to someone else. By listing the topic that you can teach, you can then easily create a page announcing your lecture. When you teach your lesson, you will receive a fee from the student, and pay 15% as a commission to the startup. ...

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Sd 6/18/2013 [en]

memo

• Genuine Startups is an investment fund spun off from Tokyo-based startup incubator Movida Japan. 
• http://www.street-academy.com/

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[Sd] Japanese online ticket startup EventRegist receives seed investment

EventRegist is a Tokyo-based startup providing an online ticket issuing and management system for organizers of events and meetups. The startup announced yesterday it has raised seed investment from East Ventures, Skyland Ventures, and Shinwa Agency (the latter being a marketing agency and subsidiary of home construction company Daiwa House). Detailed figures of the investment were not disclosed. ...

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Sd 6/13/2013 [en]

memo

• As mentioned later in the article, there are many competitors in this field from startups to Recruit, a large media company. Investors may find something unique in the company to differentiate from others.
• http://eventregist.com/

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[Sd] Japan’s e-commerce service Locondo raises $6.3 million from Excite Japan and VC firms

Locondo is a shoes and fashion e-commerce service that says it allows consumers to ‘buy first and than choose.’ Readers may recall that we recently featured the company after it partnered with Spanish brand Desigual. 

Locondo announced today it has just wrapped up series B funding worth 600 million yen (approximately $6.3 million) from leading Japanese web portal Excite Japan, Lead Capital Management (LCM), and Itochu Technology Ventures (ITV). LCM and ITV previously invested in the company in the series A round. ...

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Sd 6/13/2013 [en]

memo

• Locondo was launched backed by Rocket Internet having fundraised about 3 billion yen so far including the current round. 
• http://www.locondo.jp/

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[Sd] Japanese accounting solution provider, A-SaaS, raises $6.6 million

Accounting SaaS Japan, or A-SaaS for short, is a Tokyo-based startup providing solutions to Japanese accounting firms. The startup announced that today it has raised 625 million yen (approximately $6.6 million) from SalesForce.com, GREE Ventures, and Mobile Internet Capital. ...

conitinue reading ...
Sd 6/13/2013 [en]

memo

• The combination of investors is quite interesting. A-SaaS is a typical company that Salesforce.com invests. But, for Gree Ventures, it is a bit different from other portfolio which are mainly B2C or B2B2C even though it does not necessarily target synergy with its parent company, Gree. That is also true for Mobile Internet Capital which generally invests in startups in the mobile related area. 
• http://www.a-saas.com/

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Metaps Releases spike, Free Online Credit Payment Service / Cnet Japan

Metaps launched closed beta version of spike, free online payment service on June 17th. It is provided for invited users only at this moment. Since it is in the process of applying international patent, the service  is planned to be open to the public after the summer.

Usually, it needs a commission fee and a transaction fee to use a credit card payment solution online. For instance, PayPal charges 3.6% of commission and 40 yen of transaction fee for local transactions. spike allows users to use for totally free without any initial or fixed monthly cost as well as these commission fees and transaction fees. The company says it will not disclose how to monetize the service until it receives international patent. ...

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Cnet Japan 6/17/2013 [jp]

memo

• Online payment is a huge business and is expected to grow even more. The service is really disruptive. Metaps provides reward ads for mobile apps, so it is expected that the business model of spike could be related to advertising. Anyway it is very interesting to see the monetization model and also how quickly the service grows.
• http://www.metaps.com/

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Cookpad Has 950,000 Premium Users / Venture Now

Cookpad announced financial result ending April 2013. The current earnings increased by 41.6% from last year to have 2.71 billion yen. Premium users increase steadily to surpass 950,000. The revenue from premium users is 3.01 billion yen, while advertising revenue increased 24.7% to reach 1.98 billion yen.

The number of monthly active users is 32.67 million. Particularly users from smartphone browsers are rapidly increasing to reach 16.4 million.

Venture Now 6/7/2013 [jp]

memo

• The recipe sharing service is growing steadily. Needless to say, its main target users are housewives who use Smartphone much more than PC and Smartphone allows them to see the recipe at the kitchen. So, Smartphone definitely contributes to the growth and it is expected the growth will continue along with the penetration of tablet which is even more suitable to use when cooking.
• http://cookpad.com/

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[TechCrunch] Watch Out Amazon, Japan’s Rakuten Buys E-Commerce Fulfillment Company Webgistix To Expand Further In The US

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is acquiring Webgistix, a U.S.-based logistics and services company specializing in fulfillment technology for e-commerce retailers. The acquisition is Rakuten’s second logistics investment outside of Japan. Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed at this time. ...

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Tech Crunch 6/5/2013 [en]

memo

• Rakuten acquired ADS, a French logistics company in last November. It has acquired several e-commerce services around the world, but it seems now focused on developing support functions to the commerce services.

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[Tech In Asia] Property Marketplace UrbanIndo Raises Series A Round From GREE Ventures and IMJ Fenox

Indonesian online real estate marketplace UrbanIndo has concluded a series A financing round led by Japan-based GREE Ventures. IMJ Fenox, a new fund focusing on Southeast Asia markets has also participated. The sum of the financing round wasn’t disclosed. Prior to this financing round, UrbanIndo has also previously raised a round from East Ventures and other undisclosed angel investors. ...

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Tech In Asia 6/5/2013 [en]

memo

• IMJ Fenox was launched back in April. It may be the first deal from the fund. Japanese venture capitals mainly from Internet companies have been getting into South East Asia one after another including early entrants like CyberAgent and Gree and recent newcomers like Rakuten and GMO. These successful Japanese Internet companies will surely contribute to develop venture ecosystem in the region.

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Skype English Lesson, Rarejob Raises 330M Yen From KDDI, YJ Capital, CyberAgent And Others / Cnet Japan

Online English lesson, Rarejob fundraised 330 million yen by allocation of new shares to KDDI Open Innovation Fund, YJ Capital, Cyber Agent, Cyber Agent Ventures, Global Brain, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital.

Rarejob provides English lesson from Philippine teachers using Skype. It has about 40 employees in Japan and 100 in the Philippines. A total number users is 170,000. ...

continue reading in Japanese ...
Cnet Japan 6/3/2013 [jp]

memo

• There are many competitors which provide online English lessons using Skype in Japan such as Langrich, Cafe Talk, and more. There are even comparison portal sites for these services. Among them, Rarejob claims to be the largest services in terms of a number of lessons and teachers. With the fundraising, Rarejob will try to widen the gap. It will be tougher for its competitors.
• http://www.rarejob.com/

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Shinsei Bank Invests 10B Yen In Startups / Nikkei

Shinsei Bank plans to invest 10 billion yen within the next three years in startups through a subsidiary, Shinsei Corporate Investment which was established in last Novemeber. For the first deal, it invests 75 million yen in Smarteducation developing education apps for kids. The company was founded in 2011 and the annual revenue ending May 2013 is predicted to be 150 million yen. ...

continue reading in Japanse ...
Nikkei 6/3/2013 [jp]

memo

• Shinsei Bank has accelerated venture investment forming two joint funds, Gumi Ventures and Femto Growth Capital. It is not clear but it seems the investment in Smarteducation is not from either joint funds, but from own fund.
• http://www.shinsei-ci.com/index.html
• http://www.smarteducation.jp/

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