14 startups, 1 rising star – elite Japanese pitch contest crowns new champion

The pitch contest at Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS) is worth your time. While many such events feature startups that will only capture a brief moment in the sun, the IVS Launchpad has a history of attracting the future stars of Japan’s startup ecosystem.

Past participants include widely-admired firms like crowdsourcing startup Crowdworks, accounting and business support service Freee, and alterative wheelchair Whill.

Today, 14 young startups – listed below in alphabetical order – took the stage in front of a packed conference hall. Read on to find the winner. Hint: the startup also took the top spot in a Tech in Asia pitch contest last year.

CodeCheck

Photo credit: Shutterstock.

To save time and money in hiring engineers, CodeCheck creates customized skill assessments for engineers. Major firms like Line, Sony, and Recruit are already using it for their businesses.

Though the business has only been operational for about eight months, it expects to hit 7,000 tests served by the end of the year. Further, Fujifilm is integrating the service into its regular hiring process for 2017. CodeCheck claims it reduces the time needed for assessments by 30 percent.

Combinator

Image credit: rawpixel / 123RF Stock Photo.

Combinator’s primary service, Refcome, specializes in reference hiring. As many hiring managers know, agencies are expensive and finding ‘the chosen one’ is time consuming. Instead of placing the burden on employees to have perfect pitches for the company and job position, Refcome makes customized job pages that employees can simply email to their friends.

47 firms are already using it, including heavy hitters like CyberAgent and DeNA.

Fraud Alert

Photo credit: Pixabay.

The startup aims to address a key pain point in fraud prevention – high-level security often results in poor user experience. Founders have to struggle with complex technologies and users have to navigate a variety of questions, challenges, and other hurdles to verify their identity.

Fraud Alert makes life easy for companies by having a simple Javascript API that can activate security measures for a website or app. The security is based on the behavior patterns of users. If you log in from a different IP addresses or device, additional verification is required.

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