Education in Japan, specifically the sometimes grueling juku (cram school), is an attractive industry for startups. Arcterus, a recent entrant into the fray, believes it can make a deep impact by determining a person’s “cognitive individuality” and connecting learning from online to offline.
The startup targets families with kids attending juku using two main products. Caiz teaches both tutors and students how to maximize study time by defining the learning styles of students. With Clear, students who have completed their studies can upload their notebooks so other users can view them and learn how successful studiers excelled on their university entrance exams. Clear has a social element too in that users can ask questions to the original notebook owner if there is an explanation which needs clarifying.
Founder and CEO Goichiro Arai sees Clear as a major engine for his firm’s future growth. He told Tech in Asia that the service has over 200,000 users (as of October 2014) despite the lack of a marketing push after launch in December 2013. Press coverage, as well as positive word of mouth, have pushed Clear in the top three for the App Store’s education category. No paid promotions there either.
The service is showing some early stickiness with 41 percent rate for weekly active users. The eight person team is lead by Arai, who spent 18 months away from his family in order to launch the service properly. His next challenge is pushing Clear out of Japan and into Southeast Asia.
Judges’ comments
Arai is today on stage at our Startup Arena pitch battle in Jakarta, Indonesia, to tell the audience and the event’s judges how Arcterus’ products are making a difference to education in Japan.
Willson Cuaca, managing partner of East Ventures, and Stefan Jung, partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures – two of our judges – wanted to know about the users Arcterus had. Arai said 60 percent of their users are women. Jayesh Parekh, managing partner of Jungle Ventures, wanted to know about the monetization. Arai says for free users get up to 100 free notebooks, and after that Arcterus will start charging. His estimate is that in a year the startup will generate US$1 million. Khailee Ng, managing partner of 500 Startups, asked if the peak usage is before exams. And Arai agreed.
See: Mana.bo wants to shake up the US$10 billion Japanese cram school industry with online tutoring
This is part of the coverage of Startup Asia Jakarta 2014, our event running on November 26 and 27. Check out all the Startup Arena pitches here. You can follow along on Twitter at @techinasia and on our Facebook page.
This post Arcterus can find your ‘cognitive individuality’ and supply notebooks for excelling in school appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Arcterus can find your ‘cognitive individuality’ and supply notebooks for excelling in school
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