<article>Japanese startups Authlete and Zeal have secured seed investments to drive their business development.</article>

Japanese startups Authlete and Zeal have secured seed investments to drive their business development.
<h3>Authlete closes $1.2m seed round</h3>
Japanese online security venture <a style="color: #000080;" href="https://www.authlete.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Authlete</a> has closed a $1.2 million seed round from investors that include <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://dealstreetasia.com/tag/500-startups" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">500 Startups</a>. Funds from the round will accelerate Authlete’s business plans in Japan and other markets, with a focuso n the financial services sector.
Launched in September 2015, Authlete develops a security solution for application protocol interfaces (APIs), based on the OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect access delegation standards. These permit internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information, without requiring passwords.
According to the firms co-founder and representative director, Takahiko Kawasaki, the backing of 500 Startups is a “solid endorsement” of the venture.
With APIs <a style="color: #000080;" href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/21/the-rise-of-apis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">of increasing importance</a> and integrated into  feature across a wide range of industries services ranging from social media to ecommerce, financial services,  government services and more, there is a growing demand for reliable security and authentication options.
<h3>Zeals closes $720k seed round</h3>
<a style="color: #000080;" href="http://zeals.co.jp/">Zeals</a>,  which produces interaction software for robots such as <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://robots.dmm.com/robot/palmi" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Palmi</a> and <a style="color: #000080;" href="https://sota.vstone.co.jp/sota/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sota</a>, has closed a JPY 80 million ($720,000) investment from Japanese adtech firm <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://dealstreetasia.comm/tag/freakout-holdings" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">FreakOut Holdings</a>.
The development was <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://thebridge.jp/en/2017/05/zeals-fundraises-from-freakout-to-develop-fanp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a> in The Bridge. Its last investment was an <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://zeals.co.jp/blog/2359" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">undisclosed amount of funds</a> secured in January 2015 from Tokyo-listed Will Group, a major human resource (HR) services company in Japan.
In conjunction with the investment, they firm will pivot from producing APIs for creating chatbots and will relaunch and rebrands its chatbot management tool. This will see it collaborate with FreakOut on strengthening their sales, development, in addition to international expansion.
Zeals CEO Masahiro Shimizu explains the firm has collaborated with online media firms to use chatbots to guide users. Called Fanp, it is a chatbot that works with Facebook Messenger and generates a database based on profiles and attributes acquired from Facebook. It also has a CRM (customer relationship management) function that allows media owners to reach the user by specifying conditions.
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Japan: Authlete closes $1.2m seed; Zeals secures $720k

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Japan: Authlete closes $1.2m seed; Zeals secures $720k

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