a sample of the art projects that complemented Startup Showcase at Myojo Waraku
This weekend in Fukuoka, Japan’s answer to South by South West, Myojo Waraku, took place, spotlighting artists, music, and up-and-coming startups as well. As a part of the ‘startup showcase’ on day two of the event, ten startups from Japan and around Asia took to the stage to pitch their ideas. The judges for the event were Taizo Son (the supervisor of Myojo Waraku) and Kengo Ito from Movida Japan, Ryuta Shiiki from DLE Inc, Hisashi Katsuya from NICT, Tony Hughes from Tech City, and Toshi Yasuda from Amazon Web Services.
There was a good mix here of veteran startups and new faces, all with big aspirations in a variety of fields. Here’s a rundown:
Competing Startups
- Conyac (Japan)
- Trippiece (Japan)
- Coworkify (Japan)
- Pairy (Japan)
- Kanshin (Japan)
- Intraix (Singapore)
- Demand Analytics (Hong Kong)
- SXindeks (Indonesia)
- ButterBoom (Hong Kong)
- Codekake (Japan)
Conyac ↩
While Japan’s crowd-translation service Conyac has been around for a while, CEO Naoki Yamada didn’t fail to impress the panel of judges this weekend. For those who are not yet familiar with Conyac, the service allows users to submit a piece of text for translation, and they can buy credit to pay for a translation in their desired language. The company offers an ‘in-between’ alternative to machine translation, which can be inaccurate; and a translation agency, which can be expensive and slow.
In contrast, Naoki says that their service is ten times cheaper than agencies, and they also give you the option to choose the best of two different translations. From a translators point of view, Conyac offers the opportunity to make money at home as a translator when jobs are posted that match your language. Naoki included some metrics in his pitch that showed the company is growing well of late in terms of sales and translation requests.
Many of the judges were pretty impressed with the pitch, including Tony Hughes who awarded Conyac with a round trip ticket to London thanks to Virgin Atlantic and UK Investment and Trade and Tech City Investment.
For more on Conyac, see our report from last year.
Trippiece ↩
We featured Ian Ishida and his travel startup Trippiece last year, and he brought his pitch to a new audience Fukuoka this weekend. Noting that one cannot really search for hobbies or interests when planning a trip, Ian tells us that this social travel service now has over 20,000 users, with 20 percent of those who use Trippiece coming back a repeat customers.
The service lets users communicate their travel plans with others, creating a page for that plan with a title, a photo, and an all important reason why that trip is worthwhile. Ian lists the example of a Machu Pichu plan which saw 40 participants at $5000 a piece, and with Trippiece taking a 10 percent commission that means $20,000 profit for the company.
The pitch was well-received by the judges, and I’m glad to see that Ian’s enthusiasm for travel and his startup remains strong.
Coworkify ↩
With the purpose of putting unused workspaces to good use, Coworkify is a marketplace for venues and workspaces. The company’s ‘chief coworking officer’ Kenshin Fujiwara noted that the demand for coworking spaces is on the rise as the proportion of independent workers in society continues to grow.
The service had 1,500 coworking spaces as of April, and currently its listings sit at around 1,800. With a sort of Pinterest-like user-interface for the space listings, the site launched its public beta last month. It can be accessed via the web, or by iOS or Android apps.
I had a chance to sit and chat with Kenshin in Kyoto last weekend, and it was great to hear him speak about the startup scene in that city. Coworkify has sprung from that community as a product of Kyoto Startup Weekend last November.
Next on the horizon for the startup is to head down to Singapore and speak with venue owners, so hopefully there and some opportunities waiting for the young company there.
Pairy ↩
Ahmad Shiina, Koichiro Tawa, Pairy
Apps for couples appear to be a big trend these days, with Pair, Korea’s Between, and Singapore’s Lovebyte all courting users attention. But another emerged from the startup showcase in Fukuoka, as Koichiro Tawa presented Pairy. There are a bunch of clever features that men will like about this one, not the least of which is the ability to input key relationship milestones (like when you started dating, or the time of your first kiss) as well as notifications for important anniversaries.
Users can share photos and links, and also find information that a couple might want, such as restaurants, film, or shopping. So far it really just covers Tokyo though, but it will expand to cover more later.
With the goal of reinventing communication between couples, Pairy’s most intriguing feature might be the addition of stamps – which can be a lucrative business especially here in Japan given the success that NHN Japan has seen with Line’s sticker shop already.
The service is currently only available for iOS on the Japanese app store, but English, Korean, and Chinese are coming soon, as well as a Pairy album feature. The developer is Timers Inc, and team members Koichiro and Ahmad (pictured) both have impressive work experience with some big name Japanese companies – even though both are still depressingly young [1].
Kanshin ↩
Readers may recall last year when we wrote about the Japanese city of Takeo, in Saga prefecture, and its bold move to bring the website of the city government onto Facebook. Takashi Sugiyama served as an advisor on that project, and he popped up again in Fukuoka to pitch at Myojo Waraku.
His project Kanshin is still in beta, and it aims to help users distill the internet’s information overload into something more personalized, fitting, and consumable.
By focusing on your interests, the service prmoises to show you just the information you need, as well as introduce you to other people with similar interests, noting that getting valuable information from just your current friends is not enough.
Codekake ↩
Reevo was founded in July of last year, but has some pretty big ambitions with its electric car-sharing startup, Codekake. Ryoma Matsuo explained to the audience in Fukuoka that on average, the travel distance for a car in Japan is just 10 km, with an average of 1.32 persons per car. With with this sort of usage, he posits that its not necessary for most people to own a car.
Codekake wants to offer ‘low-spec’ electric vehicles which are enough for this sort of short daily use. The service is facilitated by a smartphone application which puts you in the drivers seat after three simple steps: 1) register, 2) check (for car availability), and 3) rent.
Ryoma told me afterwards that the company is hoping to run a pilot program in Fukuoka in December of this year, with three cars to start in Fukuoka [2]. Codekake’s goal is certainly a lofty one, aiming to build a ‘new traffic infrastructure’ – but it’s certainly a project that could have a big impact on a city if it were to catch on.
Codekake impressed judge Toshi Yasuda from Amazon Web Services, and took the prize of $2,000 in AWS credit, as well as an invite to the AWS Startup Challenge next week in Tokyo. That event will see the top three finishers move on to an event in Las Vegas.
Intraix ↩
Like Codekake, Intraix is a startup that features a lot of energy-saving potential. The service’s co-founder Darrell Zhang explained Intraix’s remote energy monitoring system, which he says is a big improvement from the primitive dashboards that companies often use today.
By tapping into raw data from energy meters, the service lets organizations see trends and patterns regarding their consumption, and make adjustments accordingly. So for example, a telco with a transmission tower in a remote area could conveniently monitor energy usage from its main office thanks to sensors installed on site. Or, if you manage a lot of servers you can use Intraix’s individual rack monitoring interface and keep tabs on your usage.
Darrell, who is a certified energy manager, showed that buildings can have ‘green corner’ displays that show energy consumption, water consumption, and carbon emission each month, as visual reminder to everyone of the impact that a building has on the environment.
We featured Intraix earlier in the year, as you may recall. And it appears that since the company began they are seeing more potential for enterprise solutions rather than energy monitor for households. Stay tuned to see how they do.
Demand Analytics ↩
In keeping with the theme of ambitious startups tacking big problems, John Erik Metcalf from Demand Analytics talked about the lofty challenges surrounding big data, and how his 15-man company – based in Hong Kong and New Zealand – aspires to tackle them.
With the goal of helping humans make better data-driven decisions, the one-year-old company is currently engaged in projects monitoring the e-commerce sector. They track hundreds of sites, making millions of observations, developing an hour-by-hour picture of what’s happening in areas like fashion or food and beverage on a global scale.
John’s pitch was simple and didn’t touch on many of the technical aspects of his startup, but I had a chance to hear him elaborate on Saturday and I came away super impressed.
Demand Analytics brings together people with diverse expertise, including design, statistics, artificial intelligence, and finance, aspiring to build a lasting company for the long haul. They are currently bootstrapped and looking for partners who are trying to solve the same big data problems, so if that sounds like you or your company, be sure to check them out.
SXindeks ↩
Shafiq Pontoh brought another data-analysis startup all the way from Indonesia, but this one had a social slant. The SXindeks initiative comes from SalingSilang, and readers will likely remember that we wrote a little about it when it launched back in April. Again the problem here is a pretty big one, as SXindeks aims to track Indonesia’s digital conversations (in Bahasa Indonesia).
With some prominent brand clients already in under its belt (Coca Cola most notably, as well as a leading bank in Indonesia), the service’s engine is very good at understanding the general mood or topic of conversation for Indonesians on Twitter. It can look at a brand and identify what kinds of people or influencers are carrying the discussion. And from a company’s perspective, the ability to look at a competitor’s social strategy is a valuable asset.
Shafiq projects that SXindeks can bring in $100,000 in monthly revenue by next year. And like many internet businesses in Indonesia, the opportunity for growth as more and more people come online is significant.
ButterBoom ↩
The final pitch of the day was from Casey Lau and Hong Kong-based ButterBoom. The startup is a social shopping platform which acts as a sort of online gateway to the region’s luxury retail market. So for example, if you travel to Hong Kong, you can go on ButterBoom and explore places you want to shop, and even make a wish list that can be exported to mobile. An added useful feature is the ability to pre-order certain hot items if you fear they might be sold out by the time you arrive.
On the social side of things, users can also share photos of what they buy after they shop, or browse what other users have bought which can be a lot of fun as well. Currently the service is in English and Chinese, the latter being particularly important given the steady flow of shoppers coming over to Hong Kong from mainland China.
Casey noted his belief in hyperlocal startups, but also explained that he hopes the site can grow to cover other key fashion/luxury centers such as Paris or Milan. And the potential of catering to even just Chinese travelers interested in those destinations is very exciting.
While I’m not particularly sold on the ‘ButterBoom’ name, Casey is an enthusiastic founder with a sound idea and game plan. So I expect we’ll hear a lot more from them moving forward.
On a somewhat related note, Casey is also the founder of StartupsHK, an organization that brings together Hong Kong internet and mobile startups for meetups and networking events.
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