4 rising startups in Japan

This week’s featured startups are split between two companies that have been building steam for the past couple of years and two which are brand new to the scene. Smaller investors aren’t to be found this week though – major names like Nikkei, Draper Nexus, and Daiwa Corporate Investment drove the funding.

Viibar

Viibar CEO, Yuta Kamisaka. Credit: Tech in Asia.

Viibar, a video production startup, has secured a series B round of US$3.5 million. The round was led by Nikkei. Dentsu Digital Holdings and previous investor Globis Capital also joined. The firm’s previous round had been approximately US$6.2 million.

The startup – which we covered in 2014 – has been a mainstay on the Japan venture circuit for several years. The latest funding comes with a partnership that will find Viibar helping Nikkei build content and ad revenue for its Nikkei Style brand and working on corporate content marketing. Viibar reports that its community of 3,000 videographers have produced videos for 600 companies.

Mobingi

Photo credit: Jeferrb.

Mobingi is a delightfully named startup bringing simplicity to working on the cloud. With Mobingi, companies can pare down their developer operations costs – the nuts and bolts of setting up system environments, monitoring applications, etc. – and put more focus on software engineering.

The startup raised US$2.2 million in a series A round. Previous investors Draper Nexus and Archetype Ventures supplied the funds. It claims that automating operations like server management can help companies reduce their spend on tools like Amazon Web Services by 90 percent.

Cansell

Photo credit: Unique Hotels

Cansell is another entry in Japan’s rapidly growing travel startup space. It is newly armed with US$350,000 courtesy of DG Innovation, Kakaku-com, Daiwa Corporate Investment, and Innoventure.

Cansell offers a service where people who need to cancel travel arrangements at the last minute can avoid excessive hotel cancellation fees by selling their reservation on the Cansell platform. The seller never actually submits a cancellation request to the hotel or travel agency. Instead, they rely on Cansell to sell the room at a discounted rate to someone looking for a good deal.

Cansell also takes care of changing the name on the reservation. The seller won’t recoup their initial expense, but Cansell claims its system limits those losses better than standard cancellation agreements.

Orario

Modern take on study session. Photo credit:123RF.

Orario is an app for college students to manage their coursework. It raised US$175,000 from Vector, a noted corporate management firm. Founded by college students at Ritsumeikan in Kyoto, the startup helps students coordinate their schedules.

Since launching last year, Orario says 70 percent of Ritsumeikan’s 24,000 students are registered. It has since expanded to other top schools like Kyoto University and Meiji University. Starting in April – the start of Japan’s school year – the app will have a note sharing function as well.

This post 4 rising startups in Japan appeared first on Tech in Asia.

from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/funded-startups-japan-jan-24-2017
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