Tagged: japan

March 16, 2016 @ 11:03 am By JD Alois  |  

The Asia-Pacific Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report has just been published and it highlights the largest region in the world for disruptive finance. Entitled, “Harnessing Potential”, this is the first report for the region and has been created by a partnership of researchers, including the Cambridge… Read More

March 14, 2016 @ 11:56 am By JD Alois  |  

In response to the rapid increase of Fintech in Asia, a new conference has been launched to address the fast changing environment for financial firms. The 2016  Fintech Law in Asia Conference is scheduled to take place at Nagoya University in Japan this April. The… Read More

January 19, 2016 @ 5:52 am By Erin Hobey  |  

2016 proved eventful for payments network MasterCard, as the company has been involved in in many global fintech industry deals, according to a release.  With the intention of expanding its electronic payments network in other countries, MasterCard heavily invests in fintech and organises a six month… Read More

January 6, 2016 @ 12:28 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Japan’s banks are beginning to say konnichiwa with more enthusiasm to Fintech: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., a major Japanese bank, has created a unit to research and develop new financial technologies, according to sources cited in a recent Bloomberg story. A spokesman for Mitsubishi UFJ in Tokyo, Taiki… Read More

December 22, 2015 @ 1:51 pm By Elena Mikhaylova  |  

Crowdfunding continues to grow globally. The largest rewards platform, Kickstarter, has hosted close to 100,000 successfully funded projects and has assembled a community of almost 10 million backers. It has been aggressively expanding internationally this year. Some studies suggest that most of the growth in… Read More

December 17, 2015 @ 2:24 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. linked with fintech platform Finatext Ltd to boost investment trust sales by providing information through a smartphone application, reported  Bloomberg, the first time Mitsubishi partnered with fintech startup on a new service. The Fundect app, which was developed by  as part of a competition run by… Read More

December 7, 2015 @ 7:22 am By JD Alois  |  

Fellow Finance, a peer to peer lender based in Helsinki, has formed a strategic partnership with Crowdcredit, based in Toyko, in an arrangement where Crowdcredit which create investment funds to invest in loans from Finnish borrowers.  The agreement is designed to drive value for both… Read More

December 2, 2015 @ 1:49 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten (TOKYO:4755) officially initiated a new $100 million fintech investment fund, according to a release.  The Rakuten FinTech Fund, a new US$100 million global investment fund focuses on investments in disruptive early to mid-stage fintech startups aims to offer attractive return potential with strategic relevance…. Read More

October 21, 2015 @ 12:54 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Bondora, a pan-European marketplace lender, opens to accredited investors from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Australia. The platform now allows global accredited investors to invest directly into personal unsecured loans across three European markets including Spain,… Read More

September 14, 2015 @ 9:13 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

With less than a week until its “Support Team USA in the Giant Robot Duel” Kickstarter comes to an end, robotic company MegaBots has officially scored its original $500,000 goal thanks to over 7,000 backers. The company launched its campaign last month with a mission… Read More

August 18, 2015 @ 1:27 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Tuesday, MegaBots launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise $500,000 for a U.S. vs. Japan giant robot duel. The company shared: “We are MegaBots, Inc. We challenged Japan to a giant robot duel, and they accepted… but demanded that the fight include hand-to-hand combat. We say BRING IT ON. We’ve assembled… Read More

August 5, 2015 @ 4:06 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Jibo, Inc., the company behind Indiegogo success family robot, Jibo, has closed $11M in a Series A extension round with strategic investors from Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China. Participating investors include: Acer (Taiwan) – Established in 1976, Acer is a hardware + software + services company… Read More

June 2, 2015 @ 10:49 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

In an attempt to gain full access in the top-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, the documentation leaking website, WikiLeaks, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on its own platform to raise $100,000 reward for the remaining chapters of the TPP. The TPP is a “proposed regional regulatory and investment treaty”…. Read More

May 15, 2015 @ 6:40 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Paidy, the cardless e-commerce payment and instant credit service from Exchange Corporation K.K. (“ExCo”), announced that it has expanded its Series A to US$8.3 million. Existing Series A lead, Arbor Ventures, led the expansion together with new investors SIG Asia and MS Capital. Russell Cummer, chief… Read More

April 20, 2015 @ 7:58 am By JD Alois  |  

CrowdCredit, a cross border focused peer to peer lender, has established an office in Estonia according to a company report. CrowdCredit is based in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan.  The platform was founded by Tomoyuki Sugiyama, a former Lloyds Bank bond trader. CrowdCredit Estonia expects to issue… Read More

March 7, 2015 @ 4:02 pm By JD Alois  |  

Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE), a global conglomerate with its headquarters based in Tokyo, is a company valued at over $30 billion with hundreds of subsidiaries and thousands of product lines. Best known for its electronic products, Sony has not been known for innovation since it cooked up… Read More

February 4, 2015 @ 9:07 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Adrenaline may get the job done, but unfortunately, it doesn’t pay the bills that often come afterwards. After the initial shock of having an 18-meter tsunami destroy his family’s soy sauce factories in Japan and kill an employee, the future of Michihiro Kono’s company, founded… Read More

January 24, 2015 @ 9:01 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

  Crowdcredit, founded by Tomoyuki Sugiyama, a former bond trader in Lloyds Bank’s Tokyo branch, is Japan’s first lending platform focused on only cross-border peer to peer lending, as P2P-Banking.com notes. The company, based in Tokyo, invests Japanese capital in credit markets in various Latin American countries, such… Read More

December 12, 2014 @ 11:53 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Seeking to bring a new type of lock to the market, electronic giant Sony has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Japan-based platform Makuake for the Qrio Smart Lock. According Gizmodo, the lock is described as the smallest of its kind and is considered a retofittable… Read More

December 11, 2014 @ 9:42 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

SparkLabs is graduating its fourth batch of companies with a frenzied interest in its demo day. Over 900 people have registered to attend their demo day event. Senior associate at SparkLabs, Sophia Choi stated,”Even with over 30,000 startups in Korea and SparkLabs’ growing reputation in Asia, our… Read More