Nota Inc., the Kyoto-based startup behind cloud-powered screenshot app Gyazo, today announced a US$2 million series A fundraising round led by Opt and joined by Yahoo Japan’s YJ Capital subsidiary and Miyako Capital (Kyoto University’s investment fund).
Isshu Rakusai, Nota Inc. founder and CEO, tells Tech in Asia that Gyazo currently boasts more than 8.5 million monthly active users and 4 million registered users. “The reason the number of registered users is lower than active users is because our web service can be used by non-registered guests,” explains Rakusai, adding that the new capital will be used for product and business development. The startup is also weighing various partnership proposals.
“The market for cloud-based productivity services is changing very rapidly,” Rakusai says. “We have many ideas to develop, and will consider opportunities to work with other cloud service providers.”
Gyazo, which allows users to instantly upload screenshots to the cloud and share them with custom URLs, recently won best pitch at Innovation Weekend Osaka and will be competing for the grand prize in Tokyo next month. The desktop app, available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, is complemented by an iOS app called Gyazo Shuriken which syncs desktop screenshots with connected iPhones and iPads. The service recently added support for capturing seven-second GIFs when selecting video instead of a still image.
The startup also offers a premium service called Gyazo Ninja for US$3 a month, which Rakusai says has “thousands of users.” A paid B2B service for team collaboration, Gyazo for Work, will launch soon.
At present, the bulk of Gyazo’s users come from the US (27 percent), Japan (14 percent), and the UK (9 percent). Canada and Sweden make up about 5 percent each, with the remainder distributed primarily around Europe. “But I really want to grow our user base in Asia,” says Rakusai.
With the largest number of users hailing from the US, Rakusai is keeping close tabs on Silicon Valley:
Our team members are working remotely in both Kyoto and the US. [Our marketing director and consulting CFO] are staying in the US and other members are based in Kyoto. We’re also sending one of our engineers to the US to learn English and get a good sense of Silicon Valley. I think Japanese software engineering skills are already very high, but [Japanese startups] lack marketing and design sense for pushing their product internationally.
The company’s metrics are impressive for a Japanese startup, especially one that exists outside of the country’s primary business hub of Tokyo.
“We don’t think it’s difficult to have a global team in Kyoto,” Rakusai insists. “Kyoto is famous for Nintendo, Kyocera, and other big Japanese companies with global customers. Also, lots of foreign engineers want to live and work in Kyoto.”
Gyazo, which launched in 2011, previously attracted US$500,000 in seed funding from a variety of domestic angel investors, including DeNA’s Shogo Kawadan, SmartNews co-founder Ken Suzuki, and current Gyazo CTO Toshiyuki Matsui (who was formerly an Apple engineer).
This post The startup behind screenshot app Gyazo became a Kyoto-Silicon Valley hybrid, nets $2M appeared first on Tech in Asia.
The startup behind screenshot app Gyazo became a Kyoto-Silicon Valley hybrid, nets $2M
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