[e27] Japan’s e-marketing company Opt acquires Catcha Digital Asia

Japanese e-marketing company Opt Inc., one of the largest in Asia, today announced that it has acquired digital media network Catcha Digital Asia Pte Ltd (CDA) from Catcha Group Pte Ltd (“Catcha Group”). The acquisition will also see former Apple Asia Pacific Head of Online Marketing, Mitsuru Kikunaga, currently Opt’s Asia Pacific Business General Manager, stepping into the role of CDA CEO. 

Established in December 2009, CDA has offices around in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and the company is currently helmed by Mitsuru Kikunaga as CEO. Catcha Digital Asia (CDA) is a premier online advertising network that connect brands in the online world through their own suite of online media products. ...

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e27 3/19/2013 [en]

memo

• South East Asia is considered to be one the most attractive markets by many Japanese Internet companies, which have opened offices or invested/acquired local companies. CyberAgent and GREE aggressively invest in startups in the region. Septeni, another large e-marketing company and KDDI's subsidiary for advertising, Mediba set an office in Singapore in 2012 and 2011 respectively. It is expected that the move will even accelerate for a while along with the high growth in this area.
• http://www.opt.ne.jp/

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Social Lunch Is Acquired After A Year and 4 Months Since Launch By Social Game Provider, Donuts / TechCrunch Japan

Social Lunch is a matching service to allow users to have lunch with someone they do not know to extend their network of business or hobby. The operator of the service, SyncLunch announced acquisition by Donuts, a social game developer. SyncLunch was founded in August last year, so it took only a year and four months.

Social Lunch launched in October last year selected as one of teams of the first batch for KDDI mugen Labo, KDDI's incubation program. Currently it has 60 thousands users. ...

Donuts not only provides mobile games such as Boso Retsuden Tansha no Tora, but also operates portal site targeting women called Haukore. ...

TechCrunch Japan 12/10/2012

memo

• Although both companies provide "social" service, it is not clear how Donuts can take advantage of the acquisition. It looks the SyncLunch team continues operating the service. 
• http://www.donuts.ne.jp/
• https://www.social-lunch.jp/

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Recruit Takes Stake In Net Marketing, Omiai Operator / Cnet Japan

Net Marketing announced that Recruit Incubation Partners acquired capital of 112 million yen from existing investors. Other investors including founders continue to  possess the same number of shares.

Net Marketing launched Omiai, matching service for marriage hunters on Facebook this February. The number of users surpassed 100 thousands. With the capital participation of Recruit, it aims to increase brand value and awareness for Facebook users.

The company plans to launch smartphone app in December as well as establish 100% subsidiary in US to start providing the service for US users.

Cnet Japan 11/22/2012 [jp]

memo

• Net Marketing has been providing affiliate ad agency service since 2004. In addition to the existing service and Omiai, it operates Facebook Navi, a portal service for Facebook users such as Q&A, app ranking and review and reward add service for smartphone. Recruit runs Zexy, one of the largest marriage related portal sites. There could be various ways of collaboration with Omiai.
• http://www.net-marketing.co.jp/

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[Asiajin] Yahoo! Japan Makes Comprehensive Business Ties With Gree

Yahoo! Japan and Gree just (after the market close) announced that they have made a deal of “comprehensive business ties”. They are to discuss on co-development of social games, as well as establishment of company to promote it. 

They are also talking to set up an joint-investment company for digital video contents, and an entertainment joint-business, joint-CSR and engineers/creators development assistance activities.

...

Asiajin 11/8/2012 [en]

memo

• Yahoo Japan co-operates Yahoo Mobage with DeNA, social gaming service for PC. Large Internet companies are becoming active in alliance with other giants recently. DeNA yesterday announced capital and business partnership with CyberAgent's subsidary, Cygames, a developer of global hit social game, Rage of Bahamut. It is not impossible to see large scale of reorganization of the industry in the near future.

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[The Next Web] Rakuten boosts its global retail business with undisclosed deal for French logistics firm ADS

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten has made another European acquisition after it bought up French logistics firm Alpha Direct Services (ADS) in an undisclosed deal that it says will bolster its global Web retail businesses, which includes France-based PriceMinister – bought in 2010 for $255 million. 

The deal, which represents its first investment in a logistics firm outside of its native Japan, is its sixth European acquisition since 2010 and Rakuten says that benefits from ten-year-old ADS’s technologies will soon be felt across Europe, and even wider global markets like Japan. ...

The Next Web 11/6/2012 [en]

memo

• Rakuten has acquired local e-commerce sites in many countries in Europe, US, Asia, and South America. It is enhancing the area for acquisition or investment from EC to other related areas such as Kobo, e-book service and device in Canada, Wuaki, video-on-demand in Spain, and Pinterest, social networking. 

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[Tech In Asia] Japan’s DeNA Partners with Yahoo Kimo for Mobile Games in Taiwan

More news from the folks at DeNA (TYO:2432) today as the Japanese gaming company is announcing a partnership to bring its Mobage platform to Taiwanese smartphone users, cooperating with leading local web portal Yahoo Kimo. 

The deal will mean that Mobage mobile apps for iOS and Android will be made available via the games icon at the top of Yahoo Kimo’s mobile portal. The Mobage titles that are currently available in traditional Chinese include popular titles like Ninja Royale and Cygames Inc’s Rage of Bahamut. ...

Tech In Asia 10/24/2012 [en]

memo

• DeNA has similar type of alliances with Renren and Baidu in mainland China. On the other hand, GREE does not seem so active as DeNA in greater China. Both gaming platform finally starts to make success in US market with such as Rage of Bahamut of Mobage or Monster Quest of Gree. It is interesting to see how they compete in Asian market.

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GREE Acquires Pokelabo, Game Developer For 13.8B Yen / Reuters

Gree acquires 100% share of Pokelabo to make it a subsidiary. It aims to strengthen development of mobile social games on smartphone by combining engineer team of both company.

The company plans to buy on October 30th with its own cash and debt. Pokelabo was founded in 2007 and launched mobile social game from 2008. The revenue ending September 2011 was 556 million yen and income was 155 million yen. ...

Reuters 10/24/2012 [jp]

memo

• Another mobile game developer, Gloops was acquired by Korean online game provider, Nexon for 36.5 billion yen at beginning of the month. It seems a right timing to exit for mobile social game developers. While, Zynga announced to shut down Japan office, which is based on Unoh acquired by Zynga two years ago. Mobile social game becomes more capital intensive and competitive than ever. Some studios would aim to go IPO for the near future, but most of others will choose to be acquired by big companies, otherwise it would be difficult to survive on their own.
• http://pokelabo.co.jp/

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Yahoo Japan Invests In Kakao Talk Japan For 50% Share / ITmedia

Yahoo Japan announced on October 19th to invest in Kako Japan which runs KAKAO TALK, messenger app for smartphone. Both jointly provides services around KAKAO TALK and others.

Yahoo Japan acquires 50% for allocation of new shares of Kakao Japan, which was 100% owned by KAKAO Corporation.  ...

KAKAO TALK has 65 million users as of the end of September around the world. A number of users in Japan is not disclosed.

ITmedia 10/19/2012 [jp]

memo

• LINE has similar number of users in the world as Kakao, but in Japan, LINE is much more popular with over 30 million users. Yahoo Japan is focusing on smartphone recently. It is very interesting to see if Kakao can catch up with LINE by the partnership in Japan.
• http://www.kakao.com/talk/ja

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Nexon Acquires gloops To Strengthen Mobile Games For 36.5B Yen / Cnet Japan

Nexon announced that it decided on its board meeting to acquire 100% of shares of gloops.

With the acquisition, Nexon said it is seriously entering into mobile game market which is considered to grow continuously in the future. In addition, gloops can take advantage of user base, game operating capability, and partner network of Nexon group to expand its business globally. ...

Cnet Japan 10/1/2012 [jp]

memo

• gloops is one of the most successful startups in mobile social game developers mainly focusing on sports games and card battle games targeting male users. The company recently announced partnership with DeNA to go global.
• http://gloops.com/

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[Tech In Asia] GREE Acquires Another US-based Mobile Games Developer

Japanese social gaming giant GREE has announced today that it has acquired San Francisco-based mobile game company App Ant. 

App Ant is the game developer behind Dino Life, which GREE launched back in May as the first Android title for its North American studio. The metrics for that game so far appear less than stellar. ...

Tech In Asia 9/18/2012 [en]

memo

• GREE seems to be doing trial and error to get into US market. It may think that it would be a shortcut to acquire local developers than localizing its original successful games in Japan. 

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Yahoo Japan Acquires DECOPIC Developer, Community Factroy For 1B Yen / TechCrunch Japan

Community Factory is a startup catching attention by DECOPIC's big hit. Yahoo Japan acquired the startup with 1 billion yen according to informed sources. It is considered that Yahoo aims to get young female users of smartphone in its hand.

Community Factory was founded in 2006 and started to provide social application for mixi when it became open in 2009. ...

Community Factory is known to be the first startup to receive investment from mixi's operating "mixi fund". ...

TechCrunch Japan 9/11/2012 [jp]

memo

• Following the announcement of establishment of new venture fund a few days ago, Yahoo Japan again surprises the Internet industry. It is a very good thing for the ecosystem because there have been too few opportunities for exits by acquisition in Japan. Yahoo Japan's recent radical move will definitely give positive stimulus to people in the industry including entrepreneurs as well as venture capitals and seed accelerators.
• http://communityfactory.com/

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Crowd Sourcing Moves To Consolidation; Lancers Acquires MILLION DESIGNS / Venture Now

Crowd sourcing service operator, Lancers revealed that it acquires and merges MILLION DESIGNS, design contest-based crowd sourcing service run by Eureka. The acquisition amount is not disclosed. ...

Lancers was established in April 2008 and launched "Lancers", a crowd sourcing service in December of the year. Current number of users is 88,000 with 5,500 job offers per month. ...

Venture Now 9/10/2012 [en]

memo

• Crowd sourcing service is increasing particularly for design and programming. Other services include Crowdworks, which allows companies to find engineers and creators, and MUGENUP which focuses on illustration of games. Lancers have more various types of sourcing including web development, programming, and design as well as writing, simple tasks like text input, and research. It may be too early to say that the industry goes to consolidation, or several vertical niche will survive.
• http://www.lancers.jp/

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Transfer Guide Service, Jorudan Acquires Gourmet PIA For 330M Yen / Venture Now

Jorudan, a company operating path search for public transportation, revealed to acquire all share of Gourmet PIA Network running Gourmet PIA, restaurant search service.

Gourmet PIA was founded in 1999. In addition to Gourmet PIA which introduces around 25,000 restaurants, it has tabels, recipe site by food professionals. ...

Venture Now 9/5/2012 [jp]

memo

• Jorudan went IPO on MOTHERS market in March, 2011. It already has a restaurant search service partnering with Gurunavi, the largest gourmet service in Japan. It may terminate the partnership to replace with it Gourmet PIA.
• http://g.pia.co.jp/
• http://www.jorudan.co.jp/

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Rakuten Enters Into Group Coupon Deals Service By Acquiring Shareee / Internet Watch

Rakuten announced to acquire 70% of shares of Shareee. From now on, Rakuten operates the service jointly with an existing share holder, Hikari Tsushin.

Shareee offers over 1600 coupons monthly including restaurants, hotels, and relaxation facilities. According to Coupon JP, a search site for group coupon deals, the sales amount is 190.8 million yen, which is ranked third following Ponpare's 1.12 billion yen and Groupon's 1.07 billion yen.  ...

Internet Watch 9/3/2012 [jp]

memo

• Many group coupon services were launched in 2010, but it seems the two players dominate the market now. However, Rakuten has huge customer base for online shopping, which would make the competition more interesting.
• http://www.shareee.jp/

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CloudStudy Raises 33M Yen / Venture Now

CloudStudy which operates social network for study, Studyplus, announced capital and business partnership with Amana Holdings to raise 30 million yen. Amana Holdings operates several businesses such as stock photo sales. In addition, it fundraises from individual investors. A total amount raised is 33 million yen. ...

Also, the company updates iPhone app of Studyplus. With the update, users can use most of all functions of web version.

CloudStudy was founded in May, 2010. It launched Studylog, progress management tool for learning based on knowledge of behavior analysis. From March, 2012, it starts social network for Studylog users, Studytnote. The both service was integrated as Studtyplus from July. ...

Venture Now 8/9/2012 [jp]

memo

• It is not so easy to presume how the social network for learning and the stock photo business collaborate each other. In other words, it will be interesting to see how the partnership make synergy in the future.
• http://studyplus.jp/

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Social Gift Service, giftee Fundraises From Digital Garage And Sunbridge Global Ventures / TechCrunch Japan

giftee is an online service to allow users to send small gift to friends online to express thank you or congratulations. It is one of the team from the first batch of Open Network Lab as well as KDDI's Mugen Labo. ...

giftee raised 10 million yen from KDDI at the end of the last year. It raised money from DG Incubation, a subsidiary of Digital Garage and Sunbridge Global Ventures by allocation of new shares and convertible notes. ...

It also revealed partnership with Family Mart, a national convenience store chain, which enables users to send coupon available at any Family Mart stores throughout the country. ...

TechCrunch Japan 8/1/2012 [jp]

memo

• giftee does not look growing so rapidly, but it has been moving forward step by step. The partnership with Family Mart may become a key factor to accelerate the growth rate.
• http://giftee.co/

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[Tech In Asia] GREE Teams Up with France-based Mobile Affiliate Network

Japanese mobile gaming company GREE, or more specifically, its subsidiary GREE Advertising, today is announcing a partnership with French mobile affiliate network MobPartner. 

For developers on the GREE Platform, this will bring new promotion tools and user acquisition services courtesy of MobPartner and its network of mobile affiliates. ...

Tech In Asia 8/2/2012 [en]

memo

• The partnership has benefit in two ways for Gree. As in the article, developers can access users overseas more easily, which will increase revenue for Gree from in-game sales of virtual items eventually. Also, more directly, Gree Advertising gets commission fee from the advertising deals.    

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KDDI Invests 500M Yen In TOLOT, Photo Book Service / ITpro

KDDI announced investments through its fund, KDDI Open Innovation Fund and partnerships with startups through au Smart Pass service.

The new investment goes to TOLOT which provides photo book creation service using smartphone application. The amount is 500 million yen.

TOLOT sells photo book of 64 pages in A6 size for 500 yen. In addition to photo books, it prepares various templates such as drug note and disaster prevention note.

KDDI also announced partnership with JMTY, classified advertisement, Shimauma Print System, photo printing service, and 3rdKind, import of foreign games as well as TOLOT. ...

ITpro 7/31/2012 [jp]

memo

• KDDI is the most active telco in Japan for collaboration with startups. The recent activity includes the VC fund, an incubation program, and partnerships such as with LINE.
• http://tolot.com/

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[Tech In Asia] LINE and Telkomsel Add Special Stickers for Indonesian Users

Line, Naver Japan’s popular mobile messenger app, has worked together with Telkomsel to make a special, localized sticker pack. While Line has been popular all over Asia ever since it launched over a year ago, this making local partnerships like this one should mean increased attention in Indonesia among smartphone users. 

The free sticker pack is labeled as “Telkomsel Blob & MyAppsMall,” and contains cute emojis/emoticons you can use while chatting with your friends or family, just as with other sticker packs. But in this pack, Blob, the Telkomsel character, is being used as the main selling point. ...

Tech In Asia 7/13/2012 

memo

• NHN Japan announced a partnership with KDDI last week. It also plans to provide original stickers for KDDI. Messenger applications have been considered trouble for mobile operators, but it seems some telcos are trying to figure out the way to cooperate with OTTs.

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KDDI Partners With LINE Releasing au Version / ITmedia

On July 2nd, KDDI announced a partnership with NHN Japan regarding LINE. It will launch LINE for au smartphone as well as cooperate for protecting minors.

KDDI will use LINE for promotion of au Smart Pass, which allows users unlimited use of applications with fixed charge. In September, KDDI will release LINE dedicated for au Smart Pass and provide stickers limited for the version with original characters. Also, it will co-promote LINE for au Smart Pass users such as distributing news and information about au Smart Pass with a LINE official account. ...

ITmedia 7/3/2012 [jp]

memo

• NHN Japan announced a new road map of LINE at LINE Conference on July 3rd. It aims to evolve LINE from a simple communication tool to a social networking platform. It plans to add time-line similar to Facebook as well as providing API to third party developers to offer games, fortune telling, and coupons. NHN Japan also revealed that LINE has 45 million users world wide among whom 20 million in Japan.
• http://line.naver.jp/en/

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