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Transferwise, one of the biggest online services in the world for money transfers, is launching in Japan today, said CEO Taavet Hinrikus speaking at Tech in Asia Tokyo 2016. The service’s users, made up of businesses and individuals, transfer US$1 billion in cash each month. With better rates and lower fees than the banks and […]
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Japan’s youngest unicorn, Mercari, has dominated the domestic ecommerce space and wants to conquer the US next.
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The AdPush team
Japanese adtech company Geniee, Inc has invested an undisclosed sum in AdPushup, a provider of ad revenue optimisation product catering to web publishers and online media companies globally.
The investment is intended to integrate Geniee’s solutions, designed to maximise ad revenue for Internet media publishers, with AdPushup’s display ad-based revenue optimisation capabilities, and provide combined services to users in Japan and Southeast Asia where the Geniee SSP (supply side platform) is used. This is expected to further improve display ad revenues for publishers in the region.
The companies also plan to expand business in India and the US by providing the Geniee SSP to AdPushup, which conducts transactions with over 400 Internet media companies primarily located in those countries.
In addition to the capability enhancement and integration with Geniee services, AdPushup also plans to expand and accelerate the services that it provides to web publisher and online media companies across the world.
Established in 2014, US- and Delhi-based AdPushup is an ad technology company that provides a product, which helps optimise revenue from display ads on the Internet.
The ad revenue optimisation product being integrated in this alliance is intended to boost display ad revenues by using machine learning to optimise the layout, size and type of ad in the ad space to suit each individual website visitor.
Also Read: AdPushup raises US$632,000 through LetsVenture
To date, the company has achieved an average revenue optimisation of 69 per cent for over 400 web publishers in India and the US, it said in a statement.
In 2014, AdPushup received seed round funding from group of angel investors, including Jonathan Boutelle and Amit Ranjan, previously director of LinkedIn and Founder of Slideshare; Ravi Srivastava, Founding Partner at Purvi Capital; Sachin Arora, previously Principal Data Engineer Advertising Products at Yahoo; Kima Ventures; and Microsoft Ventures.
Founded in 2010, Geniee develops and provides the Geniee SSP, a platform designed to maximise revenue for Internet media publishers, which currently serves 60 billion impressions per month.
Geniee not only provides comprehensive analyses of web browsers and apps for advertisers, but also offers MAJIN, a marketing automation service that utilises AI and automation to improve marketing activities at every stage, right from attracting customers to prompting sales.
The post Japan’s Geniee invests in AdPushup to expand into Indian adtech space appeared first on e27.
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Vietnam’s up and coming tech scene is starting to grab some significant notice. With an estimated 50 million people using the internet, companies are looking to appeal to this market and take advantage to gain a foothold.
One such service is ChatWork, an internal communications product that was came together in 2012. CEO Toshi Yamamoto had previously opened his company EC Studios to work in web marketing in 2000, but recognised a space for growth in chat, and made the pivot.
Having received their Series A of US$2.5 million from GMO VenturePartners in April 2015, and then pulled another US$12.5 million for their Series B in January from JAFCO Japan and other investors, ChatWork is headquartered in Tokyo and Sunnyvale.
ChatWork was built with the intention of replacing those long threaded internal emails, simplifying communications within the team with features such as text, voice and video chat, task management, file sharing, etcetera.
Also Read: The rise of chatbots: targetting Southeast Asia’s booming chat commerce space
Unlike Slack with their wealth of integrations such as Trello, Wunderlist, GitHub, etcetera, ChatWork gives users a straightforward messaging app that they believe has a wider appeal to users in workplaces that fall outside of the startup niche where those integrations are more commonly utilised.
ChatWork has also made efforts to secure communications, telling Geektime that they are, “focussed on the protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) on the Cloud, and ChatWork is the only messaging platform to provide this layer of security for its customers – which is particularly important for businesses.” They are ISO27001 certified, which counts for something in the wild west that is data storage of your communications.
This model seems to have an appeal to a wide audience, with the company telling Geektime that they work with over 100,000 companies. They cite a strong base of users in the Asian Pacific area – supporting Japanese, Vietnamese, as well as traditional and simplified Chinese – and a growing presence in English speaking countries such as the US. Backing these efforts, they have offices in Osaka, Taipei (Taiwan), and two in California.
Also Read: A day in the life of a WeChat-obsessed user (According to Tencent)
ChatWork CEO Toshi Yamamoto (Image Credit: PR)
False expectations that Vietnam could become the next Silicon Valley aside, the country is already being recognisedfor its tech talent and growth potential. Its small but vibrant startup scene is attracting funding with 67 investment deals signed in 2015.
With the evolution of the local ecosystem there, it makes sense that services such as ChatWork might look to establish a greater presence there as it continues to grow. Beyond the startups, it appears that other parts of Asia are looking to Vietnam as an ideal site for outsourcing, which is how Yamamoto discovered the expansion opportunity.
“We have a strong user base in Japan and we noticed that many of these companies also have outsourced offices and teams in Vietnam,” he told Geektime in an email. “Once those Vietnam-based teams adopt ChatWork, they also then add new local contacts they work with (like vendors and consultants) to their accounts.”
“It’s been a very natural and viral process,” he said of their entrance into Vietnam, adding that, “We’re seeing viral growth in the Southeast Asian markets due to our success in Japan.”
As Vietnamese internet use and local business ecosystem continue to expand, it will be interesting to watch as other services such as CRMs, marketing tools, other productivity apps, etcetera start trying to sell to the Vietnamese, adapting their products to the local market.
Also Read: A day in the life of a WeChat-obsessed user (According to Tencent)
Looking ahead, Yamamoto said that they will, “likely target countries around the world where personal chat apps are already popular.” He noted that, “A user’s adoption of personal chat apps tends to segue into them adopting business chat apps as well.”
Their plan is to add more native language capabilities and features to the product to meet the needs of people in a diverse set of locations across the globe that could be open to their product.
It is worth noting that while US-based companies such as Slack and Facebook are able to gain considerable market share around the world, there are often more local or regional options that meet the tastes of users there. Think about WeChat in China or the Russian social network VK that have held on strong and even grown despite the rise of their global competitors. In the business chat space there are players such as typetalk and Jandi that are also geared to address Asian users.
While Slack probably is not going anywhere any time soon, ChatWork could start to challenge them in smaller markets where they might be able to provide a more basic and effective bang for the buck.
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The article Taking on Slack, Japan’s office communications platform ChatWork adds Vietnamese first appeared on Geektime.
The post Taking on Slack, Japan’s office communications platform ChatWork adds Vietnamese appeared first on e27.
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Japanese startup Paidy, ExCo’s online payment service, announced a US$15 million Series B funding round led by SBI Holdings and Eight Roads Ventures Japan on Thursday. Other investors include Itochu and two returning funders: SIG Asia and Arbor Ventures.
Like every country, Japan‘s e-commerce landscape is growing, projected to go from US$89 billion in 2015 to US$122 billion in 2018, according to e-commerce portal PFSweb. Paidy is trying to develop a non-credit card payment network for Japanese e-commerce, already reaching 600,000 stores online that allow shoppers to check out with merely a phone number. That includes clients such as Adidas and Dean & Deluca, according to the company. The reasons to go that route have a lot to do with increasing credit card fraud in the country, which amounted to GBP43.1 million in 2014 according to Accenture.
The company is the brainchild of Canadian investment banker Russell Cummer, who has led ExCo since 2008. With attention being paid to their payments app, it seems the company is undergoing a rebranding, though that wasn’t entirely clear. Other investors in the company have included 500 Startups, Juvo Capital, CyberAgent Ventures, Cherubic Ventures and Recruit Strategic Partners.
Also Read: The investor 101 video guide to funding e-payment startups
While fraud might be one motivation, Japanese consumers prefer cash in general. The same Accenture report points out only 60 per cent of payments in Japan are done by card.
“It isn’t because people don’t have a credit card,” Cummer told TechCrunch. “People just don’t use them when shopping online. That’s because the majority of purchases are made on a mobile device, that form factor plus the fact they are probably on the go, means paying without a credit card is easier.”
The payments subsector is getting noticed across Asia. Last week, Bangkok-based Omise raised US$17.5 million in Series B with investors from fintech-awash Singapore and Jakarta. Unlike fintech hubs Singapore and Hong Kong, Japan’s scene is still nascent, having seen only US$44 million in venture investments in the sector in the first three quarters of 2015.
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The article Paying online without a credit card? Japanese startup Paidy just raised $15 million to push the effort first appeared on Geektime.
The post Paying online without a credit card? Japanese startup Paidy just raises US$15M to push the effort appeared first on e27.
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Paidy – a non-credit card payment network for Japanese e-commerce, already reaching 600,000 stores online
Paidy – paying online without a credit card
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MakeLeaps, a Japan-based cloud fintech service company, has recently announced that Rakuten Ventures, the venture capital arm of Rakuten Group, is leading the MakeLeaps Series A round of financing.
Rakuten Ventures is the latest prominent investor to back MakeLeaps, following 500 Startups and Naval Ravikant (Founder, AngelList), who invested in the previous seed round.
Also Read: Qwikcilver raises a new round of funding led by Sistema Asia Fund
Rakuten Ventures Japan Fund, a US$100 million fund, was launched early this year to target the next generation of early-stage innovators in Japan. Make Leaps and Rakuten Ventures Japan Fund are completely aligned on the goal of improving efficiency of the business operations in Japan with advanced cloud technology.
MakeLeaps will expand from a fully featured business invoicing system to a comprehensive fintech business platform, targeting various vertical markets. Further, Make Leaps will continue seeking partnerships with system integrators and business platforms to enable additional growth.
Also Read: Omise secures US$17.5M in funding to further expand across APAC
“Today, we couldnʼt be happier to announce Rakuten Ventures as our lead investor for our Series A. Moving forwards, the business partnership between Make Leaps and Rakuten will provide significant benefits for all existing and future MakeLeaps customers,” said Jay Winder, Make Leaps CEO, in a press statement.
Founded in 2009, the cloud business management platform for Japan enables businesses to create, manage and send quotes, delivery slips, order sheets, invoices, and receipts.
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Soracom, a Tokyo-based startup that provides a communication platform for developers of connected devices, announced today that it has raised a 2.4 billion yen (about $22 million) Series B from World Innovation Lab, Infinity Venture Partners, and other investors, to enter the United States and other markets. Read More
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