Blog Onlab Announcing Our Seed Accelerator Program
10th Batch Demo Day!
— Best Team Award Recipient:
HR Management SaaS Startup SmartHR —

Open Network Lab held our bi-annual Demo Day for teams from the 10th Batch of our Seed Accelerator Program (henceforth SA Program) on Thursday, April 2nd, 2015.

The 10th Batch teams (seven teams in total, one of which is operating in stealth mode and did not participate in this Demo Day) gave impassioned pitches to the audience of VCs and business leaders.

Best Team Award Recipient — SmartHR / Kufu, Inc.

SmartHR is a HR management system targeting SMBs in Japan. SmartHR hopes to make the on-boarding process of SMBs easier and cheaper than traditional tools and methods. SmartHR will template and integrate the new government’s electronic template API into their system, allowing for easy form creation for on-boarding new employees. After pivoting several times during the SA Program, the team managed to identify a market of users carrying many issues.

Special Award Recipient — LifeCLIPS / iDEAKITT, Inc.

LifeCLIPS is a social media platform that solely focuses on text. Features include writing/posting, reading, and “footprints”. LifeCLIPS uses its simple design and features to allow users to write without any limitation. Currently in Japan, Facebook and other social media are becoming platforms where users are not able to say what they really want. LifeCLIPS offers privacy settings and channels where users can write freely about what they truly believe without being alienated or being judged by friends and co-workers. With an active rate of 50% and an average time spent on site of over 10 minutes, LifeCLIPS’s high engaged service plans to further their text-based platform.

Special Award Recipient — tsunagu Japan / TSUNAGU, Inc.

tsunagu Japan is an informational media site for foreigners to learn about Japanese culture. It is planning to become an e-commerce site to go to buy Japanese products. tsunagu Japan will further expand into multiple genres of media as well as expanding their services beyond informational content.

MAKEY / MOOB, Inc.

Makey is a consumer generated media platform for tutorials on makeup. Users can view, share, and post pictures, and text about their makeup style. The number of posts within their app increased threefold during the SA Program, and their future plans include globalization.

FLAP / FLAP, Inc.

FLAP is a service to match hair stylists with consumers instead of choosing by hair salons. By having users choose by hair stylists, they will not only be more loyal to the hair salon, but will be happier because they know exactly who will be cutting their hair. Users can “vote” for hair stylists to show support and follow them. By expanding awareness to hair stylists nationwide, the service plans to shift the culture of hair salon reservation to direct reservations with hair stylists themselves.

HouseCare / MommyCare, Inc.

HouseCare is an on-demand platform for house cleaning and other home services. Order a housecleaner with your smartphone, easier than food delivery, higher quality than competitors, and cheaper than traditional service providers, social networks, reviews, GPS, and video features ensure trust and quality. With strengths in trust and speed, HouseCare has grown rapidly over the past few weeks prior to Demo Day.

Demo Day Results

It was very difficult to choose the best from the many great services created throughout this 10th Batch. In the end, the HR management SaaS startup SmartHR, text-based only SNS platform LifeCLIPS, and Japanese cultural and tourism information website tsunagu Japan were chosen as award recipients.

Announcement

Open Network Lab is currently accepting applications for the 10th Batch of our Seed Accelerator Program, a 3 month intensive process to help startups looking to succeed on the global stage.

The Seed Accelerator Program accepts applications from entrepreneurs around the world who are looking to grow their business globally. In this 3 month program, we provide hands on help through the Open Network Lab staff and Digital Garage’s global network of mentors to help teams build and grow their businesses. We are looking for experienced engineers and entrepreneurs with a highly technical product and / or great business plan to join Open Network Lab and make use of our office space, mentorship network and other facilities to grow their business.

Starting with the 11th Batch, Open Network Lab has enhanced its Seed Accelerator Program by increasing the maximum funding size and by further strengthening its pool of domestic and international mentors to provide richer support to its participating startups.

For those interested in applying, please do so through our entry page.

We look forward to your application!

Please see below for press coverage of the 10th Batch Demo Day.

THE STARTUP – Cloud-based personnel management tool SmartHR wins Open Network Lab 10th Demo Day
(in English)

TECHCRUNCH – HR management SaaS startup SmartHR is the winner at Open Network Lab 10th Demo Day (in Japanese)