OpenTrace is a service that “Traces items through the supply chain and adds them together to show the impact of products on the environment” (from TechCrunch). OpenTrace is run by Rinen Inc, which is owned by Hirofumi Manganji and Hiroaki Shimachi.
Rinen has received a Japanese government grant called Exploratory Software Project which is given to independent software developers who creates an original product or technology.
GazoPa (Crunchbase), a site operated by Hitachi Ltd, is “an image search engine by Hitachi that uses features from an image to search for and identify similar images” (from CrunchBase). Hitachi (TYO: 6501, NYSE: HIT) is a large multi-national IT company group headquatered in Japan.
I’ve met two Hitachi senior management guys at TechCrunch 40 last year. We (Akky and Arai) have decided to start Asiajin at TC40, and probably they’ve decided to launch their product at TC50.
See Also:
Shunichi Arai
Does a site operated by Hitachi really count as a startup???
Also their technology sounds interesting, but I’m not sure it’s revolutionary and there are other companies out their doing similar things.
No disrespect to Hitachi, but I wonder why this project was selected for Techcrunch 52? Maybe they just wanted the connection with a big Japanese brand.