Category: Startup
Japan’s VR startup HoloEyes wins Tech Lab Paak awards on Recruit Holding’s Sixth Demo Day
Japan’s Recruit Holdings has held its annual Demo Day last month for the 6th batch of its startup accelerator Tech Lab Paak, a community space for IT members, located in Shibuya, Tokyo.
The facility is managed by Recruit’s R&D headquarters and acts as an incubator to support tenant startups which are classified into community and project members throughout the incubation process.
The classification is made in reference to the maturity of their developing services whereby the startups, after half a year, will have to present and exhibit their incubation outcome since they have moved in.
The Demo Day for the 6th batch was a big pitch event seeing the participation of 21 teams whereby six teams in the regular course and six teams in the virtual reality (VR) course made three-minute pitches presenting their incubation results since joining the program.
Additionally, the remaining nine teams were excluded from examination by judges though they were given the chance to make one-minute pitches which can be voted for the Audience Award.
Judges for the pitch competition included the CEO of Colopl Next – Shintaro Yamagami , the Director of LINE Business Strategy – Shinichiro Isago, the Startup Business Development Manager of Amazon Web Services in Japan – Hiroshi Hata, the Managing Partner of 500 Startups in Japan – Yohei Sawayama, and the Head of Media Technology Lab and Recruit Holdings – Yoichi Aso.
There were 7 prizes in total, that is the choice startup from each individual judge a Special Award as well as an Audience Award. In this event, HoloEyes, a startup aiming to make an information revolution in the medical field using VR has received the Tech Lab Paak award, winning a supplemental prize of pair meal ticket for a hotel dinner.
Founded by Naoji Taniguchi, an engineer and Maki Sugimoto, a surgeon and the Associate Professor of the International University of Health and Welfare Graduate School, HoloEyes is a technology that will help the medical world through the facilitation of medical information sharing of human bodies in the 3DVR form.
In this aspect, HoloEyes has constructed a medical VR database which through the accumulation of various CT scan data will be utilised to construct customised 3D human body models. For instance, if the criteria are the terms male, 60s, prostate cancer, 3D images of matched cases will be output. Then, doctors can utilize these 3D images for diagnosis references of similar cases or training upon surgical operations.
The firm expects a business model providing VR viewers for hospitals and selling collected data after obtaining patients’ consent to medical colleges or pharmaceutical companies.
On the other hand, winners also include MacroSpace which won the 500 Startups Award along with meal tickets worth 30,000 yen, Embody me by Paneo which won the Colopl Next Award and its supplemental prize of Apple store gift cards worth 30,000 yen, as well as Orario which won the LINE Award with a set of uncut boiled snow crab, and Oton Glass who won the AWS Award with 30,000 Amazon gift cards and a lunch ticket for Amazon cafeteria.
Additionally, a Special Award was also awarded to Psychic VR Lab for their STYLY project – a VR shopping platform focusing on fashion with its supplemental gift being a visit right for Microsoft Japan’s Technology Center led by its Director Madoka Sawa. Besides, the Audience Award accompanied by a supplemental prize of the membership of TECH LAB PAAK as a Project Member was given to Orario and Macrospace.
Online golf platform GolfLAN acquires Singapore-based competitor GolfGreedy in cash-and-stock deal
Dehli-based golf course aggregator, GolfLAN has acquired its Singapore-based competitor GolfGreedy in a cash-and-stock deal, the company said in a statement on Monday.
This deal comes as GolfLAN’s second acquisition in six months after it has bought Dubai-based golf technology company StayPrime in July 2016 for US$1 million.
Founded in 2011 by Dhruv Verma, an XLRI alumni and avid golfer, GolfLAN offers a subscription-based service for golfers to book tee times through the startup without the requirements of having a club membership.
GolfLan.com, a unit of GolfLAN Technology Solutions, is an online golf marketplace that is digitising the sport to make it more accessible, subsidised and convenient for the masses.
On GolfLAN’s cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform Online Tee Time Organiser (OTTO), both amateur and professional golfers can find golf equipment and trainers, in addition to booking tee slots at over 1,000 courses across 40 countries from anywhere in the world.
Following this acquisition, GolfGreedy will become part of the GolfLAN group but will continue to operate under its own brand name. More than 10,000 subscribers of GolfGreedy, mainly from Singapore and nearby regions, will gain access to all the golf courses on the GolfLAN platform, that is 1,200 courses across 40 countries pro-acquisition.
Besides, the golf platform is also looking to expand it to 2,000 by the end of 2017. While club operators registered with GolfGreedy will be able to use GolfLAN’s superior golf cart management system and tee sheet management solution.
“Singapore is an important golfing destination in Southeast Asia. And golf, as an industry is also growing rapidly. This transaction clearly establishes our leadership in this region and industry. Golf lovers, through us, will get a host of choices to book a tee time and also experience a range of our world-class services,” said Dhruv Verma, the founder and CEO of GolfLAN.
In November last year, the company has raised US$1 million (Rs 6.65 crore) from existing investors YourNest Angel Fund and Africa’s IT/ITES group iSON. Prior to that, it has also raised US$1 million in its first round of funding from YourNest and other angel investors in March 2015.
Recently, GolfLAN is looking at Africa, the U.S. and Australia for its next phase of expansion. “Our inorganic strategy for phase 1 is done. Now we will pump more money to grow these companies and will focus on phases 2 which will begin with South Africa,” said Verma adding that the company is in talks for a potential acquisition in the mentioned country within the next six to nine months.
Commenting on the acquisition, Sunil Goyal, the CEO of YourNest as well as an investor of GolfLAN said, “GolfLan is on a high growth trajectory with an energetic founding team that thinks long term. Our team has been actively engaging with Dhruv and team, as they work towards their goal of being the world’s best tee-time aggregator. We are thrilled to see them grow fast and are confident that they will drive further technology disruption and innovation in the golfing market.”
Also, with GolfGreedy and StayPrime in its ownership, the Dehli-based aggregator will consolidate its position as the leading provider of golf and related technology products in its key focus markets of Southeast Asia, the Middle East and India. GolfLan is also in talks with venture capital investors to raise about US$5 million by July.
“We are excited to be a part of the GolfLAN family. We started as a golf course aggregator to help golfers pursue their passion to get a good round at reasonable prices. Today we are still very much focused on doing that, albeit with more intelligence built in so that we can add value to the customer’s gold search and booking journey,” Gerald Koh, the co-founder of GolfGreedy said.
The company is looking to beef up its technology in 2017 and will launch an in-house service along the lines of StayPrime, in addition to investing US$1 million for market development in the Southeast Asian region over the next year.
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
Comic art platform Kuaikan Manhua closes US$36 million Series C round led by Tiantu Capital
China’s Tiantu Capital has led a 250 million yuan (about US$36 million) Series C round funding in Kuaikan Manhua, an online and mobile platform for original online comic artwork targeting young readers.
The financing round was reportedly completed in October last year and other investors who also participated in the round include Sequoia Capital, GX Capital, Engage Capital and Chinese news reader app, Toutiao.com. This brings the value of the Beijing-based startup at over 1 billion yuan (approximately US$140 million).
“China’s animation and comics content market are in the initial development stage. It is also an area that the Chinese government encourages,” said Neil Shen, the founding managing partner at Sequoia Capital China. “Kuaikan Manhua focuses on a niche market and has successfully established a leading position.”
Founded in 2014 by a well-known animation artist Chen Anni, Beijing-based Kuaikan Manhua currently has active monthly readers of 24.6 million while daily viewership reaching 7.27 million. The platform has signed over 1000 works and more than 500 comic artists, where some of the popular authors has a fan base of over one million.
Aside from the increase in the magnitude of users and works, the comic artwork startup has also recently moved their office to Wangjing Soho as well as an increase in company size, increasing from the original 40 employees to a recruitment of more than 100 people.
Upon the completion of this financing round, the capital will mainly be used in the cooperation with the external CP as it can be difficult to solve the problem of creating self-published content which requires professionals as well as the expenditure of energy in order to build a solid team.
Besides, the platform will still retain its original intents of providing light comics, targeting the new generation of young readers and their fragmented time in reading comics – that is an average daily usage of about 40 minutes, according to the data from Kuaikan.
The company previously raised 100 million yuan (about US$14 million) in a series B financing round from unnamed investors in 2015.
Alibaba-backed Koubei, Zhongshi Capital to invest in Shanghai restaurant booking app
Chinese Internet giant Alibaba’s local services search engine platform, Koubei has teamed up with Chinese RMB fund Zhongshi Capital to invest in Meiweibuyongdeng, a mobile app that allows users to reduce their waiting times at restaurants.
Other investors also include China Television Media, a listed subsidiary of China’s state-owned central television CCTV, according to Xie Xinfa, the Chief Executive of Meiweibuyongdeng, which translates to no waiting for delicious food.
Although the financial details of the investment were not disclosed, it was reportedly said that the company’s series C+ round has increased the value of the startup to a substantial RMB 3 billion (approximately US$ 433 million).
Many restaurants in China have long queues during peak hours and Meiweibuyongdeng, which is founded in 2013, provides solutions to restaurants which helps better manage their booking and customer flow, allowing customers to automatically take a waiting number and to be away during their wait.
Meiweibuyongdeng, operates via mwee.cn and mobile apps, offers restaurants solutions to managing the four major problems often faced by catering businesses which are efficiency, customer flow, capital, and data traffic.
The company says to date it has occupied 90 percent of the market share, having served 60,000 popular restaurants in 200 cities, in addition to its 10 million mobile app users and 20 million followers on its Wechat account, where the company also offers similar services.
The transaction follows a RMB 500 million (US$72 million) strategic investment from Meituan Dianping and Baidu Inc. in October 2015. The company previously raised US$20 million from Tiantu Capital，a private equity and venture capital firm specialising in SMEs. The investment also includes several million U.S. dollars led by Matrix Partners China.
Meiweibuyongdeng says it plans to use the latest proceeds on product promotion and marketing. Besides, the capital will also be used for product development to improve features to meet various demand from consumers as well as an attempt to allow users to book tables in restaurants in a way similar to booking seats in a cinema.
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
Israel’s Yozma Group to invest US$ 41.4 million in Korean biotech startups
Israel’s leading venture capital firm Yozma Group has set out to invest in Korean biotechnology and healthcare startups, making its first overseas investment since its launch in 1993.
This is completed in joint efforts with the Industrial Bank of Korea, Multi Asset Global Investments Co. and Hong Kong’s Yuanta Securities Co. which will create a global partnership fund worth 120 billion won (about US$99.3 million), according to an announcement by state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) on Wednesday.
Among the funds of funds, Yozma Group will invest US$41.4 million in Korean startups through the fund named “Yozma Group – Daesung Private Equity Inc” which will begin from the first half of 2017.
“Korea can be more successful than Israel because of the size of the market and the environment here,” Lee Won Jae, head of the Yozma Froup Korea told The Korea Herald, citing the country’s proximity to key markets Japan and China, highly skilled workforce and large population.
Yozma Group, in March 2016, has opened startup campus in Pangyo, south of Seoul, which is its first official startup campus outside Israel, with an aim to be Asia’s startup hub that will explore and invest in tech companies in other emerging markets in the region.
The Group’s investment size will also be between US$1 to US$6 million with its investments focused on investing early stage startups by taking a minority stake in the companies and assisting the startups throughout their development stage as well as making their debut in overseas market and foreign stock markets such as U.S. Nasdaq.
“A lot of Korean startups are undervalued due to the so-called ‘Korea discount’ or ‘Asia discount,'” Lee said. “But Korea’s bio, healthcare, virtual reality and material sectors, like graphene, are the most promising ones. So, we wanted to give them a global network and take them outside Korea to go to the world. That is our model.”
Yozma Group is an Israeli venture capital with a focus on early stage, early-stage startups and pre-IPO companies. Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, it was founded in 1993 by Israel’s government and private investors, including Yigal Erlich, former chief scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Industry, and was privatized four years later.
Since 1993, Yozma Group has made direct investments in over 40 portfolio companies, most of which are local companies in Israel, and are in the tech space related to the field of communications, IT, and medical technologies.
The Israeli venture capital fund’s latest decision to invest in Korean startups marks its first overseas investment. It will support startups in its own technology incubator program for two to three years so that they will be ready to enter global markets and join overseas bourses in countries such as the U.S. and Britain.
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media