[Sd] Yahoo Japan acquires e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic

Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) announced recently that it has taken over leading Japanese e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic. Financial details were not disclosed. 

Since its launch back in 2001, the latter has been a provider of price comparison sites and commerce-focused vertical media such as Travel.jp, Hotel.jp, and Coneco.net to Japanese online consumers. The company is also known to have invested in Indonesian price comparison site Telunjuk and Singapore’s travel metasearch service Flocations. 

Upon the acquisition, the company was split into two companies corresponding to different business fields. One company rebranded as Osenikku and will continue operating Coneco.net. And the CEO formed a new company called Venture Republic, which take care of the travel-related media. As a result, the comparison site business has been entirely handed over to Yahoo Japan. ...

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Sd 8/3/2013 [en]

memo

• Coneco.net provides price comparison of goods in various categories searching many e-commerce sites including Yahoo's rivlas, Rakuten and Amazon. It is interesting to see if Yahoo integrates the service in Yahoo Shopping or leaves it as separate service.
• http://www.coneco.net/company/
• http://www.vrg.jp/en/

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KDDI'ｓ Subsidiary, mediba Acquires ScaleOut / Cnet Japan

According to an industry insider, the price of the acquisition is over 1 billion yen. ScaleOut provides an integrated advertising distribution platform, ScaleOut Ad Platform which includes DSP, DMP, tag management, ad server, third party ad serving and others. mediba acquired Nobot, ad network for smartphone in 2011.

Cnet Japan 8/5/2013 [jp]

memo

• A competition of ad tech centered around RTB is getting fierce among ad companies and startups. We will probably see more acquisitions or IPOs in the next few years in this field.
• http://www.scaleout.jp/

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[Sd] Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown acquires DIY shop startup Stores.jp

Today Bracket, the company behind Stores.jp, announced that it has been acquired by Start Today. Start Today is, of course, the operator of Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown. Since news of the acquisition was released a few hours ago, it has dominated social feeds here in Japan. 

Bracket was founded back in October of 2008, and the company operates several online services including a C2C car sharing site Cafore and custom made ladies shoes service, Shoes of Prey. 

Stores.jp lets users to make their own online shop in matter of minutes for a monthly fee of 980 yen (about $10). Since it launched back in September of 2012, it has been used to create more than 40,000 online stores to date, and that is projected to surpass 100,000 by the end of this year. Considering that 70% of stores on Stores.jp are fashion related, it makes sense for the company to choose Start Today as a partner. ...

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Sd 7/16/2013 [en]

memo

• The valuation for the acquisition is around $6.5 million. Considering the number of stores on Store.jp and other services which could also add value to Zozotown, it may be a good deal for both of companies, particularly for Zozotown.  
• http://bracket.co.jp/

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[TechCrunch] Watch Out Amazon, Japan’s Rakuten Buys E-Commerce Fulfillment Company Webgistix To Expand Further In The US

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is acquiring Webgistix, a U.S.-based logistics and services company specializing in fulfillment technology for e-commerce retailers. The acquisition is Rakuten’s second logistics investment outside of Japan. Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed at this time. ...

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Tech Crunch 6/5/2013 [en]

memo

• Rakuten acquired ADS, a French logistics company in last November. It has acquired several e-commerce services around the world, but it seems now focused on developing support functions to the commerce services.

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[Sd] Japan’s Softbank Mobile to acquire majority shares of game developer Gungho Online Entertainment

Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Mobile announced today it would tender an offer of social gaming giant Gungho Online Entertainment. Softbank (TSE:9984) was founded by Masayoshi Son, and Gungho was founded by Masayoshi’s young brother Taizo Son who is also a serial entrepreneur and now running a tech startup incubator called Movida Japan. 

Gungho has been getting lots of attention from investors because of its hugely popular titles Puzzle & Dragons and Ragnarok Online, making the company’s stock price five times what it was at the beginning of this year. By partnering with the gaming company, Softbank Mobile expects to expand the sales of online and smartphone game titles using the company’s global business. ...

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Sd 3/25/2013 [en]

memo

• It is assumed that a monthly sales of Puzzle & Dragons in February would be 9 billion yen ($95M). The revenue from only one mobile game is incredibly huge. The market cap of Gungho surpassed Gree and DeNA. 
• http://www.gungho.co.jp/english/

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[Sd] Rakuten to take 32.5% stake of fashion commerce site Stylife for $5.37M

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten (JSD:4755) announced today it would acquire Stylife (JSD:3037), one of Japan’s largest fashion e-commerce sites. Stylife is currently listed on the JASDAQ market, a stock exchange for emerging companies, but will be delisted because Rakuten will take 32.5% of the fashion site’s stakes. Two of Stylife’s largest shareholders Burnedest Japan (female clothing) and Parco (a fashion department store) have approved of the acquisition, and will give the shares over to Rakuten. ...

Sd 2/4/2013 [en]

memo

• NTT Docomo announced acquisition of fashion EC, Magaseek for TOB just a few days ago. Since fashion EC is considered to be the high growth area, the competition is becoming more fierce recently. Maybe the M&A trend is also related to transition of main devices for EC from PC to smartphone or tablet. For followers like Stylife or Magaseek, it would be difficult to manage the transition with maintaining the revenue and profit. It is expected that only several big players such as Rakuten, Amazon, or Zozotown and niche players with an edge in competitive advantage can survive in the next few years in fashion EC.

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Yahoo Japan Acquires Katy, Mynet's Mobile CRM Business For 350M Yen / Venture Now

Yahoo Japan announced that it acquires a part of mobile CRM business of Mynet with 350 million yen to strengthen O2O business.

The CRM business is a mobile CRM business, Katy, targeting shops and restaurants, which was launched in January 2007 by Mynet. As of December 31, 2012, around 35,000 shops use the service. The revenue is 216 million yen with 86 million yen of operating profit. The service will be managed by Yahoo Japan from March 1st. ...

Venture Now 1/17/2013 [jp]

memo

• Yahoo Japan continues aggressive growth strategy in 2013. Many startups may expect Yahoo as their exit goal. Mynet has been focusing on mobile social game since the last year and with the sold out of CRM business, it can 100% concentrate on the gaming business.
• http://mynet.co.jp/

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[e27] Mobcast acquires online game developer Enter Crews for US$7M

On 7th January, social gaming company Mobcast announced its acquisition of online gaming developer, Enter Crews for US$7 million. The acquisition is an all-stock deal that will take effect on 1st February. 

... 

Enter Crews was founded in September 2009 and has offices in Japan, South Korea and Indonesia. B Dash Fund 1 Investment Limited Partnership is the primary shareholder of Enter Crews. The game developer has popular titles such as Sangokushi Masters and Browser Ginga Taisen. Their users grew to about 300,000 in Japan and 170,000 in South Korea in just six months. Enter Crews has over 50 employees with about 70 percent of them coming from foreign countries such as South Korea, China, Indonesia, Canada and the United Kingdoms. 

... 

e27 1/8/2013 [en]

memo

• Mobcast went IPO on Tokyo Stock Exhcange Mothers market in June 2012. It aims to accelerate expansion to Asian countries with the acquisition.
• http://www.entercrews.com/

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[Tech In Asia] Japan’s Mixi Acquires Tokyo-based Barter/Curation Site Developer Kamado

Tokyo-based startup Kamado Inc., which is running several web services including auction site Livlis and a photo curation site Clipie, was today acquired by Mixi (TYO:2121), Japan’s largest social network. The acquisition details haven’t been disclosed. 

Kamado was launched in 2010 by Yuichi Kawasaki, the former vice president of Kyoto-based web juggernaut Hatena. ...

Tech In Asia 12/27/2012 [en]

memo

• mixi still have large number of users but it has been struggling with competition against Facebook and Twitter recently. It is not very clear at this moment, but the acquisition seems to aim hiring rather than synergy with Kamado's existing services.
• http://kmdo.jp/

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Yahoo Japan Acquires CyberAgent FX To Enter Into Financial Business / Internet Watch

Yahoo Japan announced on December 12th that it acquires CyberAgent FX. It it the first entry for Yahoo into financial business. The amount is 21 billion yen. Yahoo acquires all shares from CyberAgent to make the company 100% subsidiary. ...

Internet Watch 12/12/2012 [jp]

memo

• Both Yahoo Japan and CyberAgent are deeply committed to smartphone recently. Yahoo has acquired, invested, and partnered with many startups and large corporations. While, CyberAgent spends 3 billion yen for advertising of smartphone apps in just one month to acquire the market share. But, the strategy look quite different from each other. CyberAgent focuses more on media and advertising domain by selling the FX service. Yahoo seems expanding the coverage of Internet and mobile related services.

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