The ride-sharing battle continues, and Japanese taxi companies are fighting back harder than ever. Also in, one startup hopes smartphones can help change the future of medical treatments.
JapanTaxi
Photo credit: Hans Vivek / Unsplash
Uber may have signed a US$1 billion contract with SoftBank, but Japan’s legacy taxi players are also raking in cash as they raise funding to support efforts to push out external ride-sharing companies. JapanTaxi has amassed nearly US$86 million since June 2017, and US$70 million of that amount came from automotive giant Toyota. In its most recent round last month, the company received around US$10 million from previous investor Sparx Group and its Future Creation Fund.
Other Tokyo-based taxi operators are working to improve their services. Companies like Nihon Kotsu and Daiwa Motor Transportation have developed ride-sharing apps. Even JapanTaxi itself has rolled out a seamless ride-hailing and sharing app.
Cinnamon
Photo credit: Carlos Muza / Unsplash
Cinnamon is an AI startup that develops products aimed at reducing the amount of time people spend on mundane tasks. For example, its Flax Scanner takes lengthy documents and extracts only the most pertinent information, while Lapis Engine is an natural language processing (NLP) based search engine designed to give recommendations for applications such as e-commerce or a recruiting platform, and Scuro Bot is a chatbot which can also process natural languages.
The company originally pitched its idea for photo-sharing app called Seconds, which then continued to flatline and led Cinnamon to pivot. After receiving US$1.5 million in funding from CyberAgent Ventures, TBS Innovation Partners, Incubate Fund, and Golden Gate Ventures in 2014, the startup banked on the prospects of its PicChat app.
Cinnamon has since shifted its efforts from photos to enterprise-focused applications and was a pitch competition audience finalist at Tech in Asia’s Tokyo conference last year. This week, the company raised an undisclosed amount from MT Partners, Monex Ventures, Vector Inc., RPA Holdings, and a few other angel investors.
Jisak Bioengineering
Photo credit: Lucas Vasques / Unsplash
On a mission to find a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Jiro Kawada is the one-man team behind bioengineering company Jisak Bioengineering. The startup also offers a screenings for other neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease.
Kawada’s company just raised US$1.6 million from ANRI, Media Future, Essential Pharma, and Ohara Pharma.
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