SF Japan Night III Wrap-Up

On November 3, 2011, SF New Tech and btrax held the 3rd SF Japan Night at Mighty in San Francisco. From our preview post about the Japan Night III semifinals in Tokyo,  the 6 high-potential Japanese companies presented their web/mobile services to a packed audience. We also included a summary of the Japan Night After Party where each presenter was asked about their SF New Tech Japan Night experience.

SnapDish by Vuzz Inc.

Pitch By:  Hidetaka Fukushima – International Business Development

This is a free iPhone app that allowsusers to take pictures of food, record thelocation, price and other meta data, and share via your preferred social networks. It processes the picture and shares with their friends by putting it on Social Media.

Facematch by Facematch

Pitch By: Jun Ikouga – COO, Director

The best service in Breakthrough Camp 2011 Summer. This is the App where you can meet that special person on Facebook. The app helps you try to connect with people of similar interests by using the Facebook Friend API.

midoNet  by Midokura, Inc

Pitch by:  Tatsuya Kato – President & CEO, Co-founder

Midonet virtualizes conventional physical network devices that can be managed on the web. This software can make manage, and control the cloud network infrastructure without using expensive network tools.

PIRIKA by PIRIKA

Pitch By: Fujio Kojima – CEO, Dreamer, Cleaner

This is App which help us pick up the trash and clean the environment. User can provide their location and information when they picked up the trash through smart phone. It is used in over 600 places in 24 countries.

Grow! by Grow! Inc.

Pitch by : Ryu Sakuma – International Business Development

Grow is a social Tipping platform that allows blog readers to submit tips to blog publishers. It works like Retweet button or Like button embedded in a blog post, but by clicking on the Grow! button, you can tip the blog author.

Synclogue by Joho Planet, Inc.

Pitch By: Tao Yamamoto – Founder & CEO

If you use multiple computers (such as a laptop, a desktop PC at home, and a desktop PC at office) Synclogue helps you synchronize the configuration of plug-ins for apps you’ve specified in each computer.

Facematch was chosen as the No.1 app of the night by JetJaw audience voting.

Japan Night III After Party

We held an SF Japan Night after party at the popular Co-working venue in SF – Citizen Space.  A panel discussion with all the presenters was held, reflecting on  Japan Night and any advice for the next participants.  The panel theme was ” What the presenters of 3rd Japan Night want to tell to the next challengers of Japan Night”

Moderator : Takeshi Honma, a well know Blogger/Volunteer for start-ups in Japan

1. How was your presentation in English on a scale of 1 to 100?

Panelists：Kojima/PIRIKA, Ikouga/Facematch, Akagi / Rakuraku.com, (2nd Japan Night Presenter), Ituki/Grow!, Sakuma/Grow!

• Adachi /Rakuraku.com
  “30 points – My speaking was very flat because I was reading off of notes. “

• Ikouga / Facematch
  “50 points ― My humor didn’t match the humor of the Audience at points of my presentation. Know your audience.”

• Kojima / PIRIKA
  “40 points ―  I should have took time to make my presentation more interesting for the audience–more fun.”

• Sakuma / Grow!
  “40~50 points – My presentation lacked humor. My Q&A should have been smoother if I prepared more.”

2. Why did you decide to come and take the challenge to enter the Silicon Valley?

Panelist： Fukushima/SnapDish、Kato/midoNet、Yamamoto/Synclogue

• Fukushima / SnapDish
  “I don’t have any problem for living in the US or English, so is natural to come here. And also I wanted to be at forefront of the Silicon Valley.”
• Yamamoto / Synclogue
  “I decided to challenge the event building  a bridge between Silicon Valley and Japan to get know-how of how Silicon Valley operates.”
• Kato / midoNet
  “I wanted to advance my reach into the US west coast where the I feel the economic is still much more active than the east coast.”

This time, the English skills, the quality of the presentations, and how each participant progressed after the event in Tokyo proved the Japanese could go through in Silicon Valley/ SF Tech. btrax wants to thank its sponsors and the audience for helping these start-ups present here in SF! We want to hear how you liked SF Japan Night III. Drop us a line.

By: Asuka Tasei