[Penn Olson] CyberAgent Ventures Invests $1 Million in Taiwan’s iPeen

Penn Olson 5/1/2011

Japanese investment firm, CyberAgent Ventures has recently invested $1 million in Taiwan’s iPeen for 20 percent stake, valuing iPeen at $5 million.

iPeen is one of the largest user generated restaurant review websites in Taiwan. The website has more than 85,000 restaurants listed on its website and attracts up to 200,000 visitors each day. iPeen recorded $1 million in revenue last year and plans to hit $3 million this year. Sky Ho, CEO of iPeen said that he targets an initial public offering (IPO) in five years time.
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• CyberAgent Ventures accelerates its speed on investing in startups in Asia. Last month, it invested in PT Tokopedia, Indonesian online shopping mall.

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Kamado, operator of social classified service, Livlis, raises 20M yen /TechCrunch Japan

Kamado operates Livlis, social classified service, which got award at Teclosion 2011 Spring, startup event organized by TechCrunch Japan. It raised about 20 million yen from unique lineup including Kronos Fund, Takao Ozawa (serial entrepreneur and angel investor), archetype and Ubiquitous Entertainment.

Yuichi Kawasaki, the CEO of Kamado, was a vice president of Hatena. Livlis plans to release iPhone version after Golden Week.

TechCrunch Japan 4/28/2011 

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• Livlis allows users to sell/give or buy goods using Twitter to inform their followers. Another unique point is that users can search goods from Amazon or Rakuten to list them up. The startup aims to make easier to list goods as much as possible.

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GREE goes to China; The9 adopts OpenFeint platform /Game Watch

GREE revealed that The9, Chinese game maker, adopts social game platform of OpenFeint, which GREE acquired at April 22.

A new social game platform based on OpenFeint is called The9 Game Zone. It allows game makers to evolve their game contents into social games adding several functions same as OpenFeint like ranking, achievement, match-up, and community features for iOS and Android applications.

Game Watch 4/27/2011

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• GREE partners with Tencent in China to standardize smartphone application platform. It may need to integrate two platforms like DeNA has done with ngmoco.

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ZOZOTOWN goes to China with Softbank /MarkeZine

Start Today establishes Start Today Hong Kong jointly with SoftBank and the company launches Start Today Shanghai operating fashion EC site in China as a subsidiary of the joint venture. Alibaba Japan, SoftBank's subsidiary, supports the business development.

Start Today Shanghai launches ZOZOTOWN in China using TaoBao platform operated by Alibaba Group as well as opens a shop in B2C shopping mall, TaoBao mall.

Start Today launches ZOZOTOWN.com in the end of May, which is global site of ZOZOTOWN, fashion shopping site in Japan. The global site is available in five languages, Japanese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Korean, and English.

MarkeZine 4/26/2011

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• SoftBank's affiliated company, Yahoo Japan cooperates with Alibaba to link its EC service with TaoBao since last June.

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ngi group launches ad-network service for smartphone /japan.internet.com

Internet related service provider, ngi group announced on April 26 that it launches AD-STA for smartphone, ad network service for smartphone from May.

AD-STA for smartphone is a service which utilizes ads distribution optimizing technology of AD-STA, ad network service for feature phone.

AD-STA used to be a pay per click based mobile ad network operated by Fractalist which ngi group acquired in last December.

japan.internet.com 4/26/2011

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• Ad network for smartphone is one of the hottest areas in Internet services. GREE acquired Atlantis in January and DeNA and CyberAgent launches joint venture.

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[asahi.com] DOCOMO and DeNA to Partner in Mobile Social Gaming

asahi.com 4/25/2011

NTT DOCOMO, INC. and DeNA Co., Ltd. announced today a business alliance to offer an enhanced mobile-based social-gaming platform in Japan and overseas, aiming to tap into the rapid growth of social gaming worldwide.

From May, Mobage, DeNA's highly popular social networking platform centered on gaming, will be directly linked to DOCOMO's i-mode mobile Web portal for feature phones and "docomo market" portal for smartphones. Linkage will enable DOCOMO customers - including more than 6 million smartphone users projected for the current fiscal year - to navigate easily to Mobage's social-gaming services.

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• Another mobile gaming platform, GREE announced in February to launch GREE Market partnering with KDDI in summer. 

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[TechCrunch] Japanese Company GREE Buys Mobile Social Gaming Platform OpenFeint For $104 Million In Cash /TechCrunch

TechCrunch 4/22/2011

Mobile gaming startup OpenFeint, has been acquired by Japanese mobile gaming company GREE for $104 million in cash plus additional capital for growth of the OpenFeint platform. OpenFeint and its team will remain with long-term incentives, including CEO and founder Jason Citron, says the company.

OpenFeint provides a comprehensive mobile social gaming platform for the iPhone and Android platforms. ...

memo

• GREE's rival, DeNA acquired ngmoco last year, which is integrated into mobage, DeNA's mobile social game platform.
• GREE has been accelerating global expansion recently by several partnerships such as Tencent, mig33, and Unity and launching local office in US, Europe, and Asia.  

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