Challenge

IRIAM Co., Ltd. runs a smartphone application called IRIAM, a service that allows users to easily become characters and broadcast live streams while communicating with their followers. There is no need for complicated character modelling; users simply create a Vtuber model based on a single image to start livestreaming.

Normally, specialists are required for the complicated modelling work of creating characters with changing gestures and expressions. With IRIAM, however, a single image of a character is all a user needs to become a Vtuber.

The company was launched in 2018, and after continuous growth, it has become very popular, with more than 150,000 live streamers by June 2023.

In order to scale this business, IRIAM needed a full suite of web payments solutions. IRIAM chose Stripe to provide a convenient and stress-free payment experience for its users.

Solution

Shinya Masuda, the CEO and president of IRIAM, and Yoshiki Inuzuka, IRIAM product manager, evaluated payment services providers based on five criteria: payment costs, payment methods, anti-fraud measures, product UI/UX, and global availability.

“One determining factor was ‘support for the payment methods,’” says Inuzuka. “Considering both IRIAM’s users and its share of Japan’s payments market, convenience store payments were very important to us. Then, in a fortunate coincidence, just as we were considering payment solutions, Stripe released a convenience store payment function.”

Inuzuka says the company also wanted to make sure their solution had strong anti-fraud measures in place. “As instances of credit card fraud increase, businesses providing payment services are placing an emphasis on the development and provision of platforms that integrate fraud detection solutions,” Inuzuka says. “Stripe not only provides a fully 3D Secure platform, but also operates its own independent fraud detection logic based on the large amount of payment data it processes, applying fraud detection to its UI as an integrated experience. We are very satisfied with the extremely user-friendly, high-level security solutions provided by Stripe, which require no additional development whatsoever.”

The company’s leadership was particularly impressed with Stripe’s Dashboard function. The Dashboard shows current fraud detection status and also enables users to take any action necessary when fraud occurs without requiring a separate response, so the UI reduces the burden on the business operator.

“It’s not only user-friendly for us, but the payment UI is considered extremely easy to use by IRIAM’s users, as well,” Inuzuka adds.

DeNA already uses Stripe for some of their other products, so they knew that Stripe offers an engineer-friendly product, extensive developer-focused documentation, and fast support for all questions, even technical ones.

IRIAM, which has now signed an agreement with Stripe, has begun using Stripe Elements, which are customisable UI components that can be embedded in web pages. Product development will take four months, followed by one month of testing. In less than six months, IRIAM began offering a web service that could also process payments for convenience stores.

Results

By October 2023, about a year after IRIAM first accepted web payments in September 2022, revenues had grown by a factor of 2.4, a tremendous improvement. Today, convenience store payments account for about 20% of all IRIAM payments, primarily by users in their teens and 20s and those who dislike credit card payments.

“The average payment made by users through convenience stores is approximately twice the average credit card payment, which confirms for us that these users prefer to make purchases in combination,” Inuzuka says.

After a year of significant growth, there have been no issues with the payment system. Inuzuka says Stripe continues to be a stable element of IRIAM’s infrastructure. If IRIAM decides to expand globally, as it is considering, Masuda says Stripe will be an invaluable partner.

“Vtubers are expanding throughout the world, just like other aspects of Japanese pop culture, such as anime and manga,” Masuda says. “We believe that IRIAM, which allows its users to easily experience the new world of Vtubers using only a smartphone, will be popular all over the world. Stripe, which can be used as a payment method in many countries and regions, is an ideal partner for IRIAM as we plan our future global expansion.”

When expanding operations overseas, there are many problems to solve. These include different preferred payment methods, fraud protection measures, and the calculation and payment of taxes. Stripe’s solutions support IRIAM’s growth by providing a stress-free payment experience.