About
For over 20 years, I have been observing the latest innovations and startups from overseas, and I will continue to provide facts and insights on new business models to my domestic clients.
Past survey results
| 2019/07 | Agritech Netherlands | Exploring the future of agriculture ultimately leads us to the Netherlands. The reason why a country the size of Kyushu has become the world's second largest exporter of agricultural products is due to its highly automated greenhouse cultivation, which attracts agricultural organizations and international students from around the world to learn about and then bring the techniques back to their home countries. | 37 |
| 2019/06 | Agritech | Focus on distribution-based startups. Distribution costs for agricultural products are high, and the decline in domestic self-sufficiency is palpable due to cheap imports under the TPP. There is a movement to share agricultural assets, such as aiming for a D2C platform for agricultural products and matching abandoned farmland with those looking to become farmers. | 86 |
| 2019/05 | Gamification and VR | With the release of Oculus Quest in May 2019, VR use cases are expected to increase even more. The reason for this is that the B2B market has been expanding rapidly over the past year, and the new product has the potential to further accelerate this. VR uses have found their strength in experiencing difficult environments such as disasters, accidents, and medical reenactments. Its strength lies in its ability to provide a sense of realism and familiarity. | 56 |
| 2019/04 | In-out innovation | The era of keyboard input and screen output is over (though it's still ongoing). Voice input has entered the home, and efforts are currently being made to improve the accuracy of gaze input, with BMI becoming more practical. Electronic paper has split into two categories (high-resolution and disposable), E Ink products have been deployed for a while, and 3D printers are seeing an increasing number of applications, from on-demand personalized everyday items to rocket production. | 46 |
| 2019/03 | Mobile Medical Applications | Therapeutic apps are gaining attention as a third form of medical treatment, following medication and surgery. The use of apps has been proven (clinical trial evidence) to be highly effective in treating addiction, developmental disorders, lifestyle-related diseases, and post-surgical recovery. In the United States, therapeutic apps received FDA approval and are covered by health insurance 10 years earlier than in Japan. Japan is aiming to become the first country to consider a smoking cessation app. While there are many know-how and personnel involved, the scale of the project is expected to grow. | 90 |
| 2019/02 | 5th generation mobile communication system | 5G and VR will enable a solid shift to the cloud, HMDs will be lighter with only a display, batteries will be smaller, and low latency will reduce the VR experience, making this a promising field. Simulcasting from 2020 onwards will give rise to a new viewing style known as social viewing. Disrupting mobility through 5G will change the way we do ceremonial occasions, business, and education. It will also be well-suited to sports and entertainment, where progress is important. It is also expected to have a positive impact on business and inbound tourism. | 44 |
| 2019/01 | Future Technology | This is a prediction of technology 50 to 100 years into the future. The fact that the present depicted 100 years ago is standing on the wall shows the importance of suggesting a vision for the future to children. It is predicted that by 2034, every person will be assigned a robot, by 2046 the robot population will exceed the human population, by 2027 fully automated homes will be widespread, and by 2090 working hours will be halved and the majority of languages will have disappeared. | 44 |
| 2018/12 | Esports | The market is growing rapidly before the debate that "it's not a sport because it doesn't involve physical activity" can be resolved. The number of people playing the sport exceeds 100 million, more than tennis or baseball. It is a professional sport as long as there are viewers, with an audience of 650 million, surpassing the Major League Baseball and the NBA. Professional licenses are issued in Japan as well, and 50 professional players have been produced. The prize money at last year's event held in Makuhari exceeded 100 million yen. The largest number of players come from the United States, China, and South Korea, in that order, with players peaking in their early 20s. Regulations require compliance with the Examination and Advertising Act, the Specified Commercial Transactions Act, and the Entertainment and Amusement Business Act. | 53 |
| 2018/10 | Security Token Offering | ICOs, a fundraising method that uses blockchain technology, have high volatility, with 80% of them being scams. This has led to the emergence of STOs, which are pegged to real assets (real estate, gold, movies, funds, etc.). Investors are now engaging in healthy investment behavior, holding for the long term for income gains. Moving forward, STOs are considered securities in the US, and issuing companies are placed under the strict supervision of the SEC. There are six ways to comply with regulations (in order to loosen investment limits, etc., only accredited investors are allowed, and in the case of non-accredited investors, regulations are strengthened to protect them). | 69 |
| 2018/08 | Smart Payments | Japan, where 80% of payments are cash, aims to achieve a 40% cashless payment rate by the 2025 Osaka World Expo. The boom in QR code payments, including China-originated Alipay and WeChatpay, has hit Japan, and while Alpha is aiming to standardize the codes, the reality is bleak. In 2015, electronic money surpassed credit cards in terms of the number of cards issued. With electronic money used for small amounts and credit cards used for larger amounts, 90% of cashless electronic money is plastic card-type, and the penetration rate of mobile payments has increased along the way. Even if 90% of environments are usable, good security, cash handouts, and widespread use of ATMs remain barriers. South Korea has achieved a 90% cashless rate nationwide, while Sweden has no cash in banks and no ATMs on city streets. The cost of handling cash is being reduced. | 131 |
| 2018/07 | Swedish health tech | The population is 1.2 times that of Japan, but one-tenth of the population, and has been facing the problem of a shrinking working population due to a declining birthrate earlier than Japan, relying on immigration policies. The nursing care system in particular is well-developed, with elderly people living alone common, community-based nursing care services well-developed, and no bedridden elderly people (Japan has 1.5-2 million), and life-prolonging treatment ended in the 1980s. The policy is to control medical costs by improving nursing care services overall. The health tech field is world-class, with technology monitoring elderly people living alone (remote medical consultations, medication reminders, fall detection, etc.). | 38 |
| 2018/06 |
Mobility Disruption / Online medical care and nursing care business |
In April 2018, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare approved online medical consultations as covered by health insurance, but due to opposition from the medical association, it was deemed to have a complementary role to face-to-face consultations (initial consultations and face-to-face consultations once every three months are required). On the other hand, online consultations were allowed for non-refundable smoking cessation outpatient services in 2017, and it is expected that CureApp, the first in Japan to be approved, will be approved within 2019. Looking at the nursing care market, by 2020 we will have entered an era where two people will be supporting one elderly person, and the need for paid nursing homes is rapidly increasing, but it is said that by 2025 there will be a shortage of 370,000 workers. In light of this context of online medical consultations and home care, there is an increasing number of tools available that allow patients to remotely monitor and measure their vital signs while at home. |
90 |
| 2018/05 | Mobility Disruption /Remote Work Tools |
Travel costs have a significant negative impact on companies, and there is a movement to use technology to eliminate commuting and business trips. 3 million people commute to Tokyo every day, with an average annual loss per person equivalent to 660,000 yen. Around the world, remote work has shifted from working from home to resorts (and in some cases, moving home to a resort). Working styles are no longer flexible, but instead require real-time collaboration, and online tools (video conferencing, chat, project management) are being used to achieve this. | 52 |
| 2018/03 | VC Research | VC types and positions are becoming more specialized, and investment trends (Asia, mega-rounds, the rapid growth of unicorns, shorter IPO times, shifts in investment fields and deal sizes, etc.) are also changing dramatically. While long-established VC firm Sequoia Capital has built a huge portfolio, newcomer a16z has ample financial resources and raises funds almost annually, producing more than 20 unicorns. a16z also plays a role in game-making in the startup market by investing in Facebook and having it acquire Instagram. The strengths and investment trends of top-tier VCs highlight the differences in each company's strategy. The ideal VC business model involves a small group of elite capitalists fully utilizing shared ecosystem resources to provide hands-on support to startups to increase their value. | 158 |
| 2017/12 | ICO | Huge amounts of funding have been raised in succession, especially in the blockchain industry, but ultimately they are essentially investments in business plans, and more than 70% of them, including scams, have failed. Because they incorporate elements of equity crowdfunding and combine blockchain and IPO mechanisms, investments are not guaranteed. Once tokens are listed, they can be traded on regulated cryptocurrency exchanges, but if the operating company goes out of business, there is no remedy. Raising funds that are not linked to a startup's business growth leads to a decline in entrepreneurial motivation. Regulations vary by country; Japan must comply with seven laws, including the "Act on Settlement of Funds," and the relevant regulations vary depending on the type of token. | 86 |
| 2017/10 | AR | With the launch of Arkit and ARCore, high-precision AR has become possible on smartphones, eliminating the hurdle of purchasing expensive AR glasses, and it is expected that it will become increasingly popular. If you buy a Tesla, you can see how it parks in your garage on your smartphone, and Air Measure can accurately measure heights. Mobile AR is expected to become the mainstream of the market in the future, becoming a huge market that surpasses VR. The tide of investment is shifting from VR to AR, and many examples are emerging. | 89 |
| 2017/09 | Business Cloud | In the PaaS and IaaS areas, AWS and Azure have become the de facto standard, +C24 has emerged, Slack in the communication field, and Crew in the shift work field. There is much to learn from Shopify's revenue structure. When it was first founded, it stabilized its base by increasing the number of e-commerce stores through subscriptions, and contributed to sales by increasing the number of paid apps. Charging in proportion to the transactions of the increased number of stores was an expense that was linked to business success and was easy on the cash flow of the stores. |
65 |
| 2017/08 | Mobile Payments | Of the more than 2,700 companies in the fintech field, 450 are in the payments field, making it the largest market. VCs have high hopes for online payments, P2P remittances, and QR code payments as disruptors. The United Nations also recommends China's QR code payments for payments in developing countries, where the internet is synonymous with mobile. This means people can skip cash payments and credit cards and move straight to mobile payments. China's mobile payments market is 600 trillion yen, more than 100 times Japan's 5 trillion yen, with Alipay and WeChat Pay accounting for over 90% of the market. Alipay, in particular, accumulates individual credit scores through Sesame Credit, and society is becoming more favorable for people with higher scores (moral development is omitted). | 100 |
| 2017/07 | Video /Consumption |
This article introduces 50 video streaming platforms. In addition to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, the list is diverse, including Pluto TV, which collects and streams videos of dogs and bonfires from YouTube, Twitch, which specializes in games, Sliver.tv, which specializes in eSports, Molotov, which covers all French channels, Grokker, which specializes in exercise, Britstorm, which is watched by students and teachers, and Crackle, which inserts commercials tailored to the viewer's preferences. | 64 |
| 2017/06 | Video /Social |
Social media communication styles have shifted from text to images and now to video sharing. Twitter and Instagram have also strengthened their video sharing functions. There are many services, including the video streaming site Live.me, Snow with facial recognition stamps, Plays.TV for sharing gameplay videos, Cinematique, where you can click on items in videos to learn more or purchase them, Streamup specializing in music, and Stringer for scoop videos. | 64 |
| 2017/05 | Video /Creation |
Some of the services include Snap Chat, a video-native social networking service, HouseParty, which allows multiple people to chat at the same time, Flipagram, which allows users to share videos set to music, Qumu and Videolicious for businesses, Pitchy, which automatically creates introduction videos for startups, Anyclip, which automatically recognizes and tags objects in videos, Creativebug for video learning, Periscope, a live streaming service acquired by Twitter, and Clipster, which is used for brand advertising. | 63 |
| 2017/03 | Reteil Tech #3 | In-store technology has also evolved, with the introduction of Fellow Robots, a concierge robot; Aila, which allows users to view detailed product information on their smartphones using product tags; Zenreach, which uses Wi-Fi to provide special offers to regular customers; and Oak Labs, a smart fitting room. | 29 |
| 2017/02 | Retail Tech #2 | The term "omnichannel" encompasses eight different models. This means that purchasing patterns are diversifying between the store, manufacturer, and consumer, allowing consumers to pick up products in a way that suits them best. The United States is also a major country for returns, and the resale business is thriving. Various formats have emerged, including Amazon Go, smart shelves, grocerants, and experiential shopping. Amazon is expanding its share of subscription-based memberships, eating into the market share of Costco and Sam's Club. | 56 |
| 2017/01 | Retail Tech #1 | Retail is no longer a binary choice between online and offline, but has diversified into models that combine the benefits of both online and offline, such as mobile ordering, curbside pickup, BOPIS, and BODFS. The majority of reasons for customers staying away from stores are time-consuming, such as crowded stores, waiting in line at the register, traffic jams, and a lack of parking spaces. | 61 |
| 2016/11 | Robotics /RPA /Drone | Robot chefs will cook meals in our homes, robots will serve customers in strange hotels, delivery robots will deliver pizzas, exoskeletons will augment our workforce, and social robots will become part of our families. Surveillance cameras will use emotion analysis to identify criminals in crowds, and elderly people will be detected after falling in care homes. The Future of Employment: Techno-unemployment caused by AI and robots could potentially compensate for the decline in the workforce. Routine tasks that have traditionally been handled manually by humans could potentially be replaced by RPA. RPA works 24 hours a day, without making mistakes, and can complete tasks in a short time. Drones inspect wind turbines, monitor crop failures, and analyze hurricane damage. |
105 |
| 2016/08 | AI | AI has defeated Go champions and manipulated presidential elections. These advances have been made significant with the advent of Big Data and deep learning. It is now being used in a wide range of fields, including cancer diagnosis, legal research, and crop growth. IBM's Watson guides customers through department stores and advises them on choosing clothing designs. Sentient helps consumers, who are overwhelmed by the information they are overwhelmed with, select the perfect shoes for them on Canada's Shoes.com. | 48 |
| 2016/06 | B2B Sharing | Platforms that handle all-around products, which are common in toC, are not scaling. The areas with the most competition are transportation and space, with uShip's followers entering the transportation market one after another. For business use, the leasing and rental market has already been established. They compete with existing industries and focus on items that can be cost-competitively won. Wework is slow to scale because it owns its own offices. | 70 |
| 2016/05 | Crowdsourcing | We provide a platform where you can utilize the knowledge of qualified individuals (lawyers, accountants, consultants, etc.). | 68 |
| 2016/04 | Smart Payment /EMV, P2P Payment |
Six months after the EMV liability shift in the US, 70% of consumers have EMV cards, and 37% of stores have replaced their POS systems with EMV-compatible ones. The remittance market is also growing, and because it is now possible to send money as easily as chatting on a smartphone, it can be used to split the bill with colleagues, send money, etc. As a result, social networking sites are beginning to implement remittance functions. |
63 |
| 2016/03 | VR | In 2011, when Palmer Luckey was 18 years old, he developed the VR prototype C1, which suddenly put VR back on Gartner's Hype Cycle. It was acquired by Facebook in 2014, marking the beginning of a VR boom. The world's first VR movie theater opened, and roller coasters with special moving seats appeared, while Facebook envisioned a future in which VR would be used for communication. Riding the boom in the practical application of Oculus Rift and HTC VIVE, AR is also being reevaluated. Moving even further into mixed reality, Microsoft has developed HoloLens, while Magic Leap is using holograms to make objects appear without an HMD. | 88 |
| 2015/11 | On Demand Economy | "I don't want a drill, I just want to drill a hole in the wall right now." To that end, various services have been launched, including shopping, delivery, and laundry services. | 69 |
| 2015/10 | Robo Advisors | Stock investment has become a race for algorithmic investing, and autopilot management has become mainstream for institutional investors. Following this trend, robo-advisors are now proposing optimal portfolios for individual investors. | 72 |
| 2015/09 | mHealth | Medication support, genetic testing, diet apps, etc. using mobile and AI. | 66 |
| 2015/08 | Marketing Automation | Leverage the customer journey to generate leads solely through online approaches | 137 |
| 2015/06 | Crowdfunding | P2P lending business models and startups, such as Lending Club | 109 |
| 2015/05 | Sharing Economy | Consumer sharing business models and startups | 75 |
| 2015/03 | Subscription Business | The latest trends in subscription business models and startups both in Japan and overseas | 51 |
| 2015/02 | In-Store Marketing | A startup that collects data and conducts marketing in brick-and-mortar stores from an O2O perspective | 31 |
| 2015/02 | Acquisitions | Acquisition strategies of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter | - |
| 2015/01 | Smart Payment | US liability shift trends and market trends, latest technologies, and startups | 94 |
| 2014/11 | PFM | Hot startups in the PFM tool and Fintech fields | - |
| 2014/10 | CCCM | Cross-channel campaign marketing, differences from MA, startups | - |
| 2014/09 | MA | Marketing Automation Case Studies and Startups | - |
| 2014/08 | E-commerce Trends | E-commerce market trends and the rise of visual commerce, case studies, and startups | - |
| 2014/06 | Subscription Platform | Market trends, platforms, and case studies | - |
| 2014/05 | Curation Commerce | Subscription box and curated commerce startup | - |
| 2014/04 | CSB | The Emergence of Cloud Service Brokerage: Business Models, Strategies, and Startups | - |
| 2014/03 | Reward Apps | Trends surrounding data, cookie-related regulations, startups | - |
| 2014/01 | Netflix and Hulu | Business models, data analysis methods, and entry into original content | - |
| 2013/12 | MA B2C | Marketing Automation B2C Case Studies | - |
| 2013/11 | MA B2B | Marketing Automation B2B Case Studies | - |
| 2013/10 | Salesforce | Salesforce's business model, acquisition strategy, and the rise of MA | - |
| 2013/10 | Amazon Media Group | Amazon's ecosystem and AMG's business | - |
| 2013/09 | Collective Creative (Video) | Video-related creative startup | - |
| 2013/08 | Collective Creative | Image-related creative startup | - |
| 2013/06 | collective intelligence | Knowledge crowdsourcing market, startup | - |
| 2013/06 | YouTube Ads | Ad formats | - |
| 2013/05 | Subscription Platform | Platform provider for subscription businesses | - |
| 2013/04 | Curation Commerce | Domestic startups and Felissimo's domestic business model | - |
| 2013/03 | TD | Trading Desk's position and business model, startup | - |
| 2013/02 | Benefit One | Pasona Group's Benefit One business model | - |
| 2013/07 | Google Chaos Map | Google's innovation strategy and ecosystem | - |