Business specialization from "Gunosy" and "SmartNews" AI service from a venture company that raised over 1 billion yen The first evaluation was not for investors <AERA>

There is plenty of green in the office, like a squirrel's habitat. Refresh with a health device such as a balance ball (shooting / photography department, Takuya Matsunaga)

Short-term intensive serialization "Entrepreneurship goes around". In the third season, young people who are aiming to reform Japan with new technologies will appear. The second is Mr. Tatsu Hayashi, the president of "Stockmark", who selects and distributes what suits his interests from a huge amount of news and in-house data. The second article in the February 28, 2022 issue of AERA. [Photo] Mr. Tatsu Hayashi, President of "Stockmark"

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*** "Gunosy" and "SmartNews", which are called news curation (collection) sites, have already appeared in the world. However, the collection range was wide, such as entertainment, sports, and incidents, and it was not specialized for business. There is almost no overseas business news. Business people should have a need to "know more about their industry and domestic and international news of their industry." Furthermore, the characteristics of AI are added there. Even in the same industry, sales and finance require slightly different news. AI weights the selection order from the balance of articles that users have read so far, and searches for news that suits their tastes. "This will definitely work." Arima completed the beta version on Christmas 2014. Hayashi, holding a laptop, visited a venture investor with full confidence. However, the reaction was cold everywhere. It wasn't the investors who first saw the potential in Stockmark. The coworking space "TECH LAB PAAK" above the Apple Store in Shibuya. At the membership office operated by Recruit, when the business passed the examination as part of startup support, the office and server could be used for free. The judge's uncle bookmarked the website and was drowning in the sea of ​​information. He liked the service, saying "I like this". Arima was most pleased to be recognized by a third party. Arima also decided to leave his company and focus on his stockmark.

One day, I started selling apps on Apple's App Store and steadily increased the number of users. Suddenly, there was a flood of inquiries from multiple companies. An article introducing the service appeared in the web magazine "Weekly ASCII". Arima turned to his friend for help as the server was about to puncture. ■ Everyone is hungry for difficult problems. Working as an engineer at a well-known company, he took three days of paid leave and rushed to cheer him on. "It's because I'm a friend, but I think there's something interesting happening, so I think there's no way I can't participate," Arima recalls. After surviving this pinch, his friend returned, saying, "Thank you for giving me an interesting experience." Arima explains the culture of the world of the Internet as follows. "Everyone is hungry for difficult problems. Whenever this is a little impossible, there will always be a person who says,'I can do it.' If you solve the difficult problem, that person will become a hero." The "digital native generation" who touches the Internet has begun to become a member of society. They have a low cognitive bias, as Hayashi calls it. Shohei Ohtani, who has dual wield in the US major league, and Ayumu Hirano, who won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics with snowboarding and skateboarding. Yuzuru Hanyu also challenged the unprecedented four and a half turns. They challenge the impossible and happily overcome the wall. Stockmark has also developed an in-house data search service. There are more than 1500 users in total. It needs its own data center, but now it has a public cloud. Arima says with deep emotion. "Just enter 500 servers on your computer screen and the 500 servers on the other side of the net will start up all at once. Moreover, you can use them on an hourly basis instead of a month or a day. I think it's a good time. ”■ Climbing a high mountain in March 2009, Stockmark is a new capital increase through third-party allotment to investment funds such as WiL and Bonds Investment Group. Raised over 100 million yen. The person in charge of WiL described it as "a market where the three of natural language processing x large company DX x SaaS (software service that can use only the required functions) intersect". It is a service of Don Pisha in Japan, where "improvement of white-collar productivity" is called for.

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