Japan’s online coding school startup Progate launches English beta for global expansion – BRIDGE News Mobile Apps Business Startups BRIDGE Tokyo Contact Contact news Japan’s online coding school startup Progate launches English beta for global expansion Progate The Bridge 2017.10.24 SHARE: Image credit: Progate See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Progate, offering an online code learning service under the same name, announced on Monday that it has launched an English version of the service as beta for global expansion. Launched back in September of 2014, it has been offering a service that allows budding programmers to learn to code. Based on their proprietary learning method using slide deck-based learning materials and actual coding practices, their users can receive training online without setting up a coding environment. The company has acquired 200,000 users in three years since the launch. Regarding the global expansion plan, Progate intends to kick it off with a focus on India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and other Asian markets. Going forward, they will aim for further global reach including expansion into the US and European markets while looking at potential future funding. See also: Japan’s online coding school startup Progate nabs $880K for Asian expansion Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy Related news Japan’s online coding school startup Progate nabs $880K for Asian expansion Japan’s Beenos founder Teru Sato and partner Hiro Maeda form new $60M fund Japan’s Arcterus wins Global EdTech Startup Awards with study notes organizer app Clear Recent Articles US parent company of Japanese manned hoverbike startup to list on NASDAQ via SPAC Japanese digital therapeutics startup CureApp secures $51.5M in series G round SpaceData develops AI that can create digital twin of entire planet, raises $10M+ in seed round Soundraw, AI music composer from Japan, secures $1.4M to boost global expansion effort ChatBook, developing chatbot and marketing automation tool, acquired by Monex Group Trends Top 5: Japanese Online Dating Sites Meet 5 of Japan's top photo apps Japanese startup CocoPPa lets you collaboratively create the cutest iPhone homescreen 5 cute Japanese apps that let you customize your mobile's homescreen Japan's virtual YouTuber management agency Anycolor files for IPO Crowdsourced manga translation app wins entertainment firm's incubator Demo Day US parent company of Japanese manned hoverbike startup to list on NASDAQ via SPAC Japanese poop-logging app has over 130,000 downloads Kakaku.com: Japan's price comparison king Top 5: Japan's cutest Kaomoji apps news Japanese deep learning startup LeapMind secures $10M series B led by Intel Capital Intel Capital LeapMind Masaru Ikeda 2017.10.23 SHARE: See the original story in Japanese. According to the press release published by Intel Capital on Friday, Tokyo-based LeapMind, the Japanese startup developing and offering deep learning solutions for enterprises, has secured about 1.15 billion yen (about $10 million US) in a series B round. This round was led by Intel Capital with participation from GMO Venture Partners, NTT Data (TSE:9613), Innovative Venture (run by NEC Capital Solution and SMBC Venture Capital), Itochu Technology Ventures, Visionnaire Ventures (whose chairman is Taizo Son) and Archetype Ventures. For LeapMind, this follows their series A round raised $3.4 million back in August of last year. For Itochu Technology Ventures and Visionnaire Ventures, as well as Archetype Ventures, this is the second investment in LeapMind following their participation in the series A round. Since its launch back in December of 2012 under the previous name of AddQuality, LeapMind has been developing deep learning solutions for embedded systems called Juiz, which is practically essential for edge computing. The company recently released Blackstar SDK (software developer kit), a deep learning development environment for edge computing back in August. Prior to the rebranding, the company was qualified as participants in the KDDI Mugen Labo accelerator’s 7th… Read More CEO Soichi Matsuda (left) stands in front of their booth at Intel FPGA Technology Day earlier this month. Image credit: LeapMind See the original story in Japanese. According to the press release published by Intel Capital on Friday, Tokyo-based LeapMind, the Japanese startup developing and offering deep learning solutions for enterprises, has secured about 1.15 billion yen (about $10 million US) in a series B round. This round was led by Intel Capital with participation from GMO Venture Partners, NTT Data (TSE:9613), Innovative Venture (run by NEC Capital Solution and SMBC Venture Capital), Itochu Technology Ventures, Visionnaire Ventures (whose chairman is Taizo Son) and Archetype Ventures. For LeapMind, this follows their series A round raised $3.4 million back in August of last year. For Itochu Technology Ventures and Visionnaire Ventures, as well as Archetype Ventures, this is the second investment in LeapMind following their participation in the series A round. LeapMind’s proprietary software- and hardware-based solutions (click to enlarge) Image credit: LeapMind Since its launch back in December of 2012 under the previous name of AddQuality, LeapMind has been developing deep learning solutions for embedded systems called Juiz, which is practically essential for edge computing. The company recently released Blackstar SDK (software developer kit), a deep learning development environment for edge computing back in August. Prior to the rebranding, the company was qualified as participants in the KDDI Mugen Labo accelerator’s 7th batch with Ingram, a mobile app that allows users to find a similar product based on a photo taken with their mobile camera. After the rebranding, they were selected as a partner for the Nvidia Inception Program in addition to EY Innovative Startup 2017 (AI startup category) back in February. LeapMind says it will use the funds to enhance research and development of software- and hardware-based solutions, then hire more talents from around the world while strengthening business development and sales forces in Japan and the rest of the world. Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy Related news Japan’s LeapMind snags $3.4M to encourage deep learning use for IoT and robotics Japan’s deep learning startup Alpaca raises $1M to launch AI-based forex trading platform Japan’s Abeja, Google Analytics for retail stores, secures $5M in series B round news Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown acquires fashion coordination startup Vasilly iqon Start Today vasily zozotown Takeshi Hirano 2017.10.20 SHARE: See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Vasily, which runs online fashion coordination service iQON, announced on Thursday that it has been acquired by Start Today (TSE:3092), the company behind Japan’s leading fashion commerce site Zozotown. Details on financial terms have not been disclosed. See also: Japan’s fashion coordination app iQon unveils native advertising service Japanese fashion coordination site iQON surpasses 1 million users Japanese fashion site iQon lands partnership with Italian online mall Yoox.com Japanese fashion coordination site iQON raises $3.2M, will boost marketing efforts Vasily was founded back in 2008 and subsequently launched fashion coordination service iQON back in April of 2018. Using the mobile app or desktop, the service allows one to combine clothing and accessories online while sharing fashion coordination ideas with other users. Each item has a direct link to fashion e-commerce sites where purchases are made, and the startup will generate revenue from partner sites using an affiliate model. Their mobile app is highly evaluated and has been selected as the best apps several times on the Apple iTunes Appstore and Google Play. Meanwhile, Start Today, the company behind Zozotown, launched a fashion coordination app called Wear back in 2013, having since acquired… Read More See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Vasily, which runs online fashion coordination service iQON, announced on Thursday that it has been acquired by Start Today (TSE:3092), the company behind Japan’s leading fashion commerce site Zozotown. Details on financial terms have not been disclosed. See also: Japan’s fashion coordination app iQon unveils native advertising service Japanese fashion coordination site iQON surpasses 1 million users Japanese fashion site iQon lands partnership with Italian online mall Yoox.com Japanese fashion coordination site iQON raises $3.2M, will boost marketing efforts Vasily was founded back in 2008 and subsequently launched fashion coordination service iQON back in April of 2018. Using the mobile app or desktop, the service allows one to combine clothing and accessories online while sharing fashion coordination ideas with other users. Each item has a direct link to fashion e-commerce sites where purchases are made, and the startup will generate revenue from partner sites using an affiliate model. Their mobile app is highly evaluated and has been selected as the best apps several times on the Apple iTunes Appstore and Google Play. Meanwhile, Start Today, the company behind Zozotown, launched a fashion coordination app called Wear back in 2013, having since acquired 9 million downloads and 6 million coordination pattern posts. According to the financial report of Start Today, the company has annually transacted 212 billion yen (about $1.9 billion US) as of March this year on the Zozotown marketplace. See also: Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown buys e-commerce solutions provider Aratana Japanese fashion commerce site Zozotown begins same day delivery service Japan’s fashion coordination app Wear hits 2M downloads, aspires to be fashion infrastructure Fashion coordination app ‘Wear’ hits number 1 on Japanese App Store thanks to new commercials Fashion coordination app ‘Wear’ hits number 1 on Japanese App Store thanks to new commercials The content of the partnership between the two companies has not been disclosed. However, it is expected that Start Today and Vasily will jointly conduct a measure to encourage sales leveraging items and user preference data collected by both companies respectively. Yuki Kanayama, CEO and founder of Vasily, declined our request to disclose the details but he says, We can’t yet disclose the details about for how much we have been acquired or what we will jointly work with Start Today on. However, all I can sa is that the key will be data. We believe that we can do more business than ever by combining existing and future data held by Start Today and our own Vasily technology. Translated by Masaru Ikeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy Related news Japanese fashion site iQon lands partnership with Italian online mall Yoox.com Japan’s online fashion giant Start Today sets up R&D arm, pursues best user experience Japanese fashion coordination site iQON surpasses 1 million users news Japan’s Truss secures $880K in first funding to help builders compare materials online Truss Masaru Ikeda 2017.10.19 SHARE: See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Truss, providing a building material comparison web service under the same name, earlier this month announced that it had raised 100 million yen (about $890,000) in its latest funding round. The investors of this round include DBJ Capital, Innovation and Future Creation, GMO Venture Partners, SMBC Venture Capital, Minoru Moriya (former Vice President of Japanese fabless printing startup Raksul), Hidetoshi Takano (CEO of Key Players) and Hideto Fujino (CEO of Rheos Capital Works). In addition to the participation for the investment, Moriya joined the management advisory board. Truss was founded by Shuji Kubota, Tetsuya Okimura and Kouki Hirakawa in February of 2014. Since the three are all graduates of Tokyo Institute of Technology (TokyoTech), the firm had acquired designation as a TokyoTech-originated venture. The firm had been managed in bootstrapping mode, securing money by loan or grant of Japan Finance Corporation, so that it is the first equity financing from external organizations for the firm. The Truss platform covers information related to building material products handled by various manufacturers. Generally, information about building materials is provided to builders in the form of heavy catalogues via trading companies, but it is not easy to… Read More L to R: Founders of Truss – Tetsuya Okimura, Shuji Kubota, Koki Hirakawa See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Truss, providing a building material comparison web service under the same name, earlier this month announced that it had raised 100 million yen (about $890,000) in its latest funding round. The investors of this round include DBJ Capital, Innovation and Future Creation, GMO Venture Partners, SMBC Venture Capital, Minoru Moriya (former Vice President of Japanese fabless printing startup Raksul), Hidetoshi Takano (CEO of Key Players) and Hideto Fujino (CEO of Rheos Capital Works). In addition to the participation for the investment, Moriya joined the management advisory board. Truss was founded by Shuji Kubota, Tetsuya Okimura and Kouki Hirakawa in February of 2014. Since the three are all graduates of Tokyo Institute of Technology (TokyoTech), the firm had acquired designation as a TokyoTech-originated venture. The firm had been managed in bootstrapping mode, securing money by loan or grant of Japan Finance Corporation, so that it is the first equity financing from external organizations for the firm. The Truss platform covers information related to building material products handled by various manufacturers. Generally, information about building materials is provided to builders in the form of heavy catalogues via trading companies, but it is not easy to compare these information across different manufacturers because the content is not unified with a single standard. Thereby, building materials are often chosen based on builders’ experience or custom, and the choice tends to depend on a supply chain of a specific manufacturer. Truss makes all these information about building materials into a database and provides it as a web service. Currently, it mainly covers building exterior, and will add information about facilities, external structure and interior in the future. These information is shown alongside basic information such as fire-resistance capacity in line with government regulations or wholesale price as reference information. Interestingly, information about building materials cannot be managed as database not only by trading companies but also by manufacturers, and all of it depends on paper catalogue. Truss acquires catalogue-based information from manufacturers and takes on database construction almost manually. The web service is initially positioned as a portal for manufacturers to promote their products to constructors but is desired to be used even by manufacturers or trading companies, yet they are the information source due to usability convenience upon handling product information as a database. By the way, looking at the history of the Internet, most of the product comparison websites tend to gradually change into marketplaces where a certain amount of profit can be expected. So I asked Kubota about this possibility and he answered that it will be far into the future for Truss to become a marketplace due to several problems. In the building industry, all payment related to materials is done when transferring the building to the owner after completion. Between material manufacturers and constructors, trading companies mediate and approve deferred payment from the constructors. If the firm aims to establish a marketplace, new business practice is needed to make manufacturers accept deferred payment or constructors, advance payment. Furthermore, unlike MonotaRO (TSE:3064) which is ahead of other competitors as a market dealing materials or parts or Misumi Group (TSE:9962) which is said to handle 80 sextillion parts (one billion times 80 trillion), logistics capable of delivering comparatively big products to construction sites according to schedule are needed. Currently, only trading companies have the ability to achieve this operation. The digital transformation of building industry seems to take a long time due to its conservative nature, but Kubota told us that the horizontal service permeation will be possible if it is understood by a portion of the manufacturers, because the Japanese building industry shows more concentration and is in an oligopolistic state compared to those in Western countries. The firm is going to use the acquired money to secure corporate sales staffers who have experience in building design or can enter the building material manufacturing industry. According to Kubota, Moriya who participated as an angel investor and also became Management Adviser of Truss had once hit upon an idea of marketplace for the materials industry. He gave it up then because he did not know how to do that, so he may entrust his past dream to the firm through his participation. Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy Related news Japan’s PM Abe praises winners of the 2nd Nippon Venture Awards NYC high-end fashion startup Material Wrld bags $9M series B from Start Today, Nissay Mitsubishi UFJ showcases five prominent startups from its first FinTech accelerator batch news Japan’s Neurospace raises $890K to help enterprises improve employees’ sleep health Neurospace Masaru Ikeda 2017.10.18 SHARE: See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Neurospace, the Japanese startup developing a program to improve sleep quality for large companies, revealed that it has raised 100 million yen (about $890,000 ) from Real Tech Fund, the investment fund by Euglena, SMBC Nikko, and Leave a Nest Capital. For Neurospace, it follows funds raised from Slogan Coent and individual investors in July 2015 and from Glocalink in December 2016 (both the funding rounds and amounts are undisclosed). In addition to this funding, Neurospace also revealed that it was adopted as a R&D venture support project of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). Since its launch back in in December of 2013, the company has developed a sleep improvement program called Sommnie for corporate health management. Currently the company focuses on what is called a “Sleep Analysis Platform” utilizing AI (artificial intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) technology, and the beta version launched October 11th. With this platform, the company will measure individual sleep data with high precision, provide individualized sleep analysis results, and then offer the optimum solution and improvement data derived from independent analytical technology using AI. The platform makes it possible for companies that intend… Read More See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Neurospace, the Japanese startup developing a program to improve sleep quality for large companies, revealed that it has raised 100 million yen (about $890,000 ) from Real Tech Fund, the investment fund by Euglena, SMBC Nikko, and Leave a Nest Capital. For Neurospace, it follows funds raised from Slogan Coent and individual investors in July 2015 and from Glocalink in December 2016 (both the funding rounds and amounts are undisclosed). In addition to this funding, Neurospace also revealed that it was adopted as a R&D venture support project of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). Since its launch back in in December of 2013, the company has developed a sleep improvement program called Sommnie for corporate health management. Currently the company focuses on what is called a “Sleep Analysis Platform” utilizing AI (artificial intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) technology, and the beta version launched October 11th. With this platform, the company will measure individual sleep data with high precision, provide individualized sleep analysis results, and then offer the optimum solution and improvement data derived from independent analytical technology using AI. The platform makes it possible for companies that intend to promote the health and productivity of employees and companies that are considering entering into the sleep business to incorporate into the improvement of management with the company services and IoT products through API (application programming interface). As a PoC (proof of concept) test of the “Sleep Analysis Platform”, the company distributed a device to measure sleep and an app that presents a sleeping solution from the measured data to shift workers at Yoshinoya, a major Japanese beef bowl restaurant chain. It plans to demonstrate and brush up the effectiveness of the platform after conducting one month of sleep measurements and recommending measure for improvement and shift adjustment. Translated by Amanda Imasaka Edited by Masaru Ikeda Related news Startups show improvement after joining Heart Catch, UX mentoring initiative in Tokyo Japan’s iCARE raises $880,000 to help companies better care for employee health “Health, Wealth and Fame”… Nevertheless, You Need Health to Begin with! news Enterprise SEO tool GinzaMetrics buys Asia’s influencer marketing platform Withfluence Ginzamarkets GinzaMetrics Withfluence Masaru Ikeda 2017.10.17 SHARE: See the original story in Japanese. San Francisco-based Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics enterprise SEO (search engine optimization) platform, announced today that it will fully acquire Withfluence, the Tokyo- and Bangkok-based startup offering an influencer marketing management platform under the same name. Both parties will work together to offer web marketing solutions more comprehensively for enterprise users. Withfluence was founded in May of 2016 by Hiroyuki Okamoto (CEO), who was previously running media and ad companies in Vietnam, along with Keiichi Honma (CTO) having developed web services and a translation app for foreign visitors to Japan. Before Withfluence, Okamoto and Honma developed a Thailand-based instant e-commerce platform described as an “Asian version” of Shopify, but after attending the 12th batch of Open Network Lab’s Accelerator Program shifted their attention to the launch of Withfluence. The company participated in several pitch events in Bangkok supported by the Japanese Embassy to Thailand as well as JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), followed by securing partnership with Thailand’s second-largest telco True back in April this year. Meanwhile, Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics platform, was founded in May of 2010 by Ray Grieselhuber and other serial entrepreneurs. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company… Read More See the original story in Japanese. San Francisco-based Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics enterprise SEO (search engine optimization) platform, announced today that it will fully acquire Withfluence, the Tokyo- and Bangkok-based startup offering an influencer marketing management platform under the same name. Both parties will work together to offer web marketing solutions more comprehensively for enterprise users. Withfluence was founded in May of 2016 by Hiroyuki Okamoto (CEO), who was previously running media and ad companies in Vietnam, along with Keiichi Honma (CTO) having developed web services and a translation app for foreign visitors to Japan. Before Withfluence, Okamoto and Honma developed a Thailand-based instant e-commerce platform described as an “Asian version” of Shopify, but after attending the 12th batch of Open Network Lab’s Accelerator Program shifted their attention to the launch of Withfluence. The company participated in several pitch events in Bangkok supported by the Japanese Embassy to Thailand as well as JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), followed by securing partnership with Thailand’s second-largest telco True back in April this year. Meanwhile, Ginzamarkets, the company behind the GinzaMetrics platform, was founded in May of 2010 by Ray Grieselhuber and other serial entrepreneurs. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has now become a global solution provider with offices in Columbus (Ohio, US) and Tokyo (Japan) as well as operations in Warsaw (Poland), Lahore (Pakistan) and Toronto (Canada). L to R: Ginzamarkets CEO Ray Grieselhuber, Withfluence CEO Hiro Okamoto Grieselhuber and Okamoto first met each other ten years ago. Followed by working for the Japanese subsidiary of Mezi Media (subsequently acquired by Value Click Brands), Okamoto was involved in managing overseas operations at Japanese digital agency Irep (TSE:2132). Though the Japanese adtech industry was still in an early stage at that time, Okamoto had been promoting business partnerships with foreign adtech companies and digital agencies. When Okamoto first met Grieselhuber, the latter was running a digtal agency called Firewatching Media. Grieselhuber subsequently launched Ginzamarkets and participated in the Y Combinator program. Despite being asked by Grieselhuber to join the Ginzamarkets team, Okamoto declined the request to carry out his original intention to launch his own startup. Okamoto told The Bridge that Grieselhuber is the former’s senior in the SaaS (software as a service) startup sector. In terms of the business perspective, GinzaMetrics and Withfluence are complementing each other. GinzaMetrics had been finding a way to give their global brand clients a better access to influencer marketing opportunities while Withfluence had been exploring a good partner that can offer comprehensive online marketing solutions together. With the acquisition at this time, Withfluence plans to launch a total roll-out of their managed influencer marketing service, strengthen system integration with the GinzaMetrics platform, as well as expanding into Japan, Hong Kong and Mainland China beyond their current coverage of the Southeast Asia market. Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy Related news Withfluence sets up influencer management platform to ease regional marketing in Asia Japan’s Withfluence ties up with Thai telco True to boost influencer marketing in Asia 360° video livestreaming platform HUG wins Open Network Lab 12th Demo Day in Tokyo Load More Articles Recent Articles US parent company of Japanese manned hoverbike startup to list on NASDAQ via SPAC Japanese digital therapeutics startup CureApp secures $51.5M in series G round SpaceData develops AI that can create digital twin of entire planet, raises $10M+ in seed round Soundraw, AI music composer from Japan, secures $1.4M to boost global expansion effort ChatBook, developing chatbot and marketing automation tool, acquired by Monex Group Trends Top 5: Japanese Online Dating Sites Meet 5 of Japan's top photo apps Japanese startup CocoPPa lets you collaboratively create the cutest iPhone homescreen 5 cute Japanese apps that let you customize your mobile's homescreen Japan's virtual YouTuber management agency Anycolor files for IPO Crowdsourced manga translation app wins entertainment firm's incubator Demo Day US parent company of Japanese manned hoverbike startup to list on NASDAQ via SPAC Japanese poop-logging app has over 130,000 downloads Kakaku.com: Japan's price comparison king Top 5: Japan's cutest Kaomoji apps Team Privacy Policy Contact 日本語 (C) PR TIMES, Inc. 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