Mar 31, 2010

Nobot allocated new shares of 31 million yen to ngi fund and others

Nobot provides "Ad Maker", delivering ads to multi ad networks for iPhone. It is also working on developing partnerships overseas. The capital will be mainly spent for system and organization development for overseas business.

Venture Now 3/31, 2010

Colopl launched location game for iPhone

Colopl launched a location game, "Colony na seikatsu plus" for iPhone, which users access via Safari. The game has been provided to mobile phones with 980,000 users.

CNET 3/31, 2010

CyberAgent Investment invested in Vietnam's mobile contents provider

CuberAgent Investment acquired about 3% shares of VMG Media, mobile contents provider in Vietnam.

VMG Media has around 25% shares in mobile contents market in Vietnam. The government-managed telecom career, VNPT has 37% of shares of the company which is growing by taking advantage of collaboration with the VNPT owned two largest mobile operators, Mobifone and VinaPhone.

CNET 3/30, 2010

The first Sekai Camera for Android released for KDDI "IS01"

KDDI and Tonchi Dot announced to provide its AR application, "Sekai Camera" with au's Android smart phone, "IS01" as the first Android device, KDDI also provide BREW application, "Sekai Camera ZOOM', with which users of au mobile devices can view Sekai Camera's air tags associating with contents of EZweb.


ITpro 3/30, 2010

anydoor announced to allocate new shares of 6 million yen to Samurai Incubate

anydoor allocated new shares of 6 million yen to Samurai Incubate's operating fund.
The company will capitalize on development and marketing of its web service, "Social translation Conyac".


Venture Now 3/30, 2010

Dentsu and Yappa provides e-magazine publishing pay service for Android devices

Dentsu and Yappa announce that they provide e-magazine publishing service, "MAGASTORE" to Android devices from this June.

MAGASTORE is a service that users buy and download e-magazine with a native application. As of 30 March, it sells 39 of magazines and users can buy not only the latest contents but also back numbers. They started the service for iPhone in September 2009, following for Softbank WiFi devices in November and NTT Docomo in February.

It starts to provide KDDI's "IS01" and then NTT Docomo's Xperia and Softbank Mobile's HTC Desire.

CNET 3/31, 2010

Mar 30, 2010

JETMAN's ebook edit tool for iPhone

JETMAN announced to develop JETBOOK+, ebook edit tool. The tool allows to embed 3D CG, sound, movie and link to web, and make it to an iPhone application. As a material of ebook, PDF and Illustrator files are possible to use.

The company is planning to create contents such as magazines, catalogs, interactive learning tools and picture books.

Ascii 3/30, 2010

Sharez change a fee of its goods lending service on a web site

Sharez changed monthly charge of its web service to free which allows users to lend and borrow goods.

Sharez provides the service with individuals and corporates. Users borrow or buy goods with points issued by the company. It prevents users to liquidate borrowed goods by deposit system.

The service targets 20's and 30's who are open to used goods. Also it targets business users of recycle and apparel with stocks, which the company expect to increase according to growth of individual members.

Venture Now 3/29, 2010

Mar 29, 2010

Videx developed Internet traffic jam bypass system, lowering high-vision streaming cost

Videx developed a system enabling streaming large scale and high definition video by bypassing the Internet traffic jam.

This technology predicts traffic of bottle-neck on the Internet by exchanging routing information of peak hour and status of band frequency and delay among streaming servers deployed at multipoint. 

Videx starts using the technology with its own operating streaming site from 25th of March and also plans to provide with mobile and CATV operators which are expected that video streaming demand will grow rapidly.

Mainichi Shinbun, 3/25, 2010

Cloud type document distribution service viewable from iPhone and iPad

Digital Office [Japan] starts document management service, "DO! cloud" offered with cloud computing model from 1st of April. The price is 60,000 per month.

DO! cloud users can save PDF files such as catalog, leaflet, manual and drawing by drag and drop. In addition to viewing with web catalog view on PC, viewing and searching on iPhone and Windows Mobile are available. From the end of April, iPad and Android will be added.

By collaborating with Seven Eleven's net printing service, users can print out documents selected in a smart phone with Seven Eleven's terminal.

Impress Keitai Watch 3/29, 2010

Busica for iPhone, business card application for iPhone

Busica Business System started selling business application for iPhone called "Busica for iPhone" on AppStore. The price is 350 yen.

"Busica for iPhone"allows users to record and manage business card data with iPhone. Busica Business System, who has know-how of business card management solution, is in charge of planning and project management, and Enjoblink developed the application. The Maximum number of records is 2000 of business cards and 2000 of notes.

As a distinctive function, it has notes independent of business card management, which enables to relate a note like a business report and a business card data.

The application is mainly targeted for business persons. Since there are already many users who manages business card on PC, the company started distributing free software, "Busica Porter" for PC, which synchronizes data of business cards and notes between PC and iPhone.

Venture Now 3/26, 2010

Istpika announced allocation of new shares to GMO's blog business fund

Istpika allocated about 25 million yen of new shares to Blog Business Fund operated by GMO Venture Partners.

Istpika started business of social applications development for Facebook and iPhone since January of 2009. Its iPhone application, gottaDo was chosen as top50finalist at fbFund2009, Facebook's investor contest. Recently the company also focuses on domestic SNS such as mixi and mobage.

Istpika has an office in Australia as well and does business for both home and abroad. It plans to provide a new mobage application in this May or June.

Venture Now 3/26, 2010

Mar 26, 2010

Web-Shark released "MAY i HELP YOU", drill-down search with concierge service

Web-Shark announced that as a succeeding service of its drill-down search engine, "UNCOVER", it released "MAY i HELP YOU" adding concierge service.

The search engine automatically navigates favorite products as an user answers questions on the site. It enables not displaying zero result by asking questions made in advance. Even low IT literacy users can go forward without stopping in the middle.

It is provided as ASP pricing 9,800 yen per month.

Venture Now 3/25, 2010

Mobcast goes into social application business

Mobcast announced to go into social application business on 24th March. The company provides "Ereon Breed for mixi". Ereon Breed is a social game to breed dragon called Ereon. It has been provided since May of 2007 reaching 1 million downloads.
Ereon Breed for mixi is customized as a mixi application.

The company plans to provide social applications for each platform.

CNET 3/25, 2010

5 companies including Gaiax and Nifty joined SAF, social application developer support organization

Social Application Forum founded by ngi group and Adways announced on 24th of March that 5 companies joined.

SAF is an organization to provide capital, infrastructure, contents, settlement service, and promotion to support social application developers and operators.

Gaiax, Digital Hearts, Nifty, Mizuho Capital and Yasuda Enterprise Development joined SAF, which makes 18 companies participated.

CNET 3/25, 2010

Mar 25, 2010

Hatena releases a new service using location information in April

Hatena announced to release a new service using GPS of mobile called "Hatena Koko" in mid April.
Users communicate each other based on where they are in a daily life and outside on a holiday. The service is targeted for an ordinary mobile and Hatena is developing different service for smart phone, which will be released soon.

CNET, 3/25, 2010

Social game is booming

DeNA raised up earnings forecast because of strong sales of items in social games such as "kaito Royal".

Tachibana Securities explained status of social game providers in its report published at 19th of March.

[ngigroup, TSE Mothers] 
ngigroup has attracted 800,000 users in its quiz game, "Hakushiki series", released at the end of January for mixi and DeNA's mobage. Follwing "Minna no konchu collection" has 100,000 registered users.
Also, it established 4 of "Applie fund" to support application developer to capitalize.

[Vector, OSE Hercules]
"koisuru watashi no oujisama" for mixi mobile and "Koiken!" for mobage are increasing the number of users.

[Cave, OSE Hercules]
A racing game, "Mini yonku" and a simulation game, "Shirotsuku" together have attracted 1 million users.

[Drecom, TSE Mothers]
 "Happy aquarium" for mixi has become profitable by attracting 400,000 unique users. In mobage-town, "Game studio monogatari" is steadily growing revenue. Its total application revenue is 1 million yen per day.

Nihon Securities Journal, 3/23, 2010

Mar 24, 2010

The Third I-SHIN business plan contest started

ngi group and Aeria announced to hold The Third I-SHIN business plan contest which invites business plans from students and entrepreneur who graduated in the past 3 years.

In addition to business plans as before, application plans is added to the contest. This reflects that applications for social network such as mixi and moba-ge town, and smart phone such as iPhone and Android, are booming and also it will be the first step for students to start-up because it requires a few people to plan and develop those applications.

MyCom Journal 3/23, 2010

[WSJ]Alibaba and Softbank in Net-Shopping Talks

WSJ 3/23, 2010
Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group and Japanese mobile operator Softbank Corp. are in talks on a deal to facilitate e-commerce between China and Japan, a person familiar with the situation said Monday.

Mar 23, 2010

Asia student entrepreneur fund, "I-SHIN", invested in "Eagle" developing voice related tecnology

ngi group announced that Asia student entrepreneur fund, "I-SHIN", cooperated with Aeria, invested in Eagle developing voice related applications. The amount is not released, but it is said to be a few million yen.

Eagle is just founded this January. Its first application, "TalkWriter" is provided on App Store in Japan and US. TalkWriter dictates English conversation with voice recognition technology. Dictated conversation is displayed on iPhone. Also by selecting a word in the text, the word is translated and registered on dictionary.

The price is 600 yen in Japan and $4.99 in the US.

CENT 3/19, 2010

GMO explains the social application development support program

On 18th March, GMO Internet group held kick off conference of "App-yarouze", social application development support program.
This program supports creators and engineers to develop social applications for 3 platforms, mixi, moba-ge, and GREE. The total amount of the program is 300 million yen.

CNET 3/19, 2010

Mar 19, 2010

Rakuten made Sourcenext as equity method affiliate by acquiring addtional share

Rakuten decided to take additional share of Sourcenext. Voting share will be 28.13%, which makes Sourcenext as an equity method affiliate of Rakuten.

Internet Watch 3/18, 2010

Blayn relaeased SaaS type "blayn engine", email distribution system for mobiles

Blayn started providing SaaS type "blayn engine", high-speed email distribution system for mobile.

"blayn engine" prevents from "career block" such as not distributed as a spam mail or delayed when distributing a large amount of emails to NTT Docomo, au, and Softbank mobile operators. It has been introduced to local governments and public offices sending disaster alerts or security information mails.

Since SaaS type blayn engine uses the company's system and network, users are able to introduce it regardless of IT environment like number of servers and IP addresses. Its load balancer technology accelerates reach rate to free mail account as well as to mobile career account.

It charges 50,000 yen for initial fee and 100,000 for monthly.

CNET 3/17,2010

Bizreach announced allocation of new shares to JAFCO's fund

Bizreach released to have allocated new shares of 200,175,000 yen to a fund operated by JAFCO.

Bizreach started a job search site, "Bizreach" focused on job information with over 10 million yen of annual salary. Different from other job search sites, it only charges job seekers, not employers or job agencies.
While. in addition to a restriction to 10 million yen of annual salary, job seekers must have more than 7.5 million yen and Bizreach evaluates job seekers' resumes.

As of 16th. March, the number of job seeking members are 16,312; including free members, job agencies are 292, and job offers are 2,001.

It aims to increase the number of employers to 200 and members to 70,000.

Venture Now 3/18, 2010

Mar 18, 2010

P-Kachi announced allocation of new shares to funds set up by both of JAIC and NVCC

The total amount of investment by JAIC and NVCC is 100 million yen.

P-Kachi was founded in 2006 and is operating mobile promotion service, "P+KACHI system", which has been introduced into 1000 locations, particularly restaurants, with more than 1.3 million users.
Also it has P+KACHI SNS which allows shops and restaurants to manage membership cards in conjunction with P+KACHI system. In addition, it provides promotion mail service, 'Real Mail" and "Ad Card".
The company says that it will develop affiliate service, "P+KACHI coupon" and a new portal site with the capital.

CNET 3/17, 2010

DeNA raised earnings forecast and set up social media division

DeNA revised up earnings forecast for fiscal year ending March 2010. Its self-developed social games on its mobile portal site "Mobage-town" are going strong and said "the sales of items in those games have grown dramatically". Also the company announced to open a new division, Social Media division.

Its forecast of revenue and business profit is 4 billion yen higher than that it released on May 2009. The revenue will be 47 billion yen, which is 25% up than previous year.

CNET 3/10, 2010

[Asiajin]Index Corp. Helps Foreign Social Game Developers Enter Japan

Mixi, GREE, Mobage-town – Japan’s top three social networking services have either already opened or decided to open their platforms to third-party developers in the last few months. And a handful of foreign application providers, such as RockYou from the US or Rekoo from China, already managed to successfully launch localized social games on Mixi, Japan’s biggest social network.
Both companies now have offices in Japan, but Tokyo-based (and listed) mobile contents provider Index now wants to make the move into Japan’s social gaming market easier by offering support for foreign makers of social games that want to enter Japan’s lucrative mobile market in particular.

Samurai Incubate starts incubate service focued on entrepreneurs providing iPad application services

Service menu

  • Samurai Fund; Fund for entrepreneurs within 1 year
  • Samurai House; Rental office
  • Support for application design, business plan, management, marketing, sales and HR
Venture Press 3/15

Guru-navi (Gourmet Navigator) push message to Docomo mobile phone when users come close to restaurants they registered

Gourmet Navigator started a service that send message to users' mobile phone when they come close to restaurants which they have registered. The service is available for NTT Docomo devices sending location information automatically.

Nikkei 3/16 2010

Mar 17, 2010

Atlantis released free ad server for smart phone, beta

Atlantis released beta version of free ad server, "AdLantis for Smartphone".
Atlantis said their customers have needs to distribute ads for iPhone site or iPhone application.

CNET 3/11 2010

Freebit developes technology to control Internet conncected devices from PC's blowser

Freebit makes "Air Display" which enables to control the Internet connected digital devices, applying it's technology, "ServersMan".

The technology will make possible to downsize and reduce cost of those devices by allowing to control devices without display. The first product to be launched in late March will be digital photo flame with Android OS from Exemode, the subsidiary of Freebit.

CNET 3/10 2010

CyberAgent exports its virtual community service "AmebaPico" overseas

Ameba Pico is virtual space representing the real world, where users create their own avatar, change cloths, and chat with other users. CyberAgent is providing the service on Facebook as well.

CNET 3/9 2010

Zappallas is moving onto China

Zappallas, mobile content provider, is planning to move onto China in May. By investing and partnering with local companies, it provides mobile contents such as psychological test and decorated mail.

Nikkei 2/27 2010