Rakuten buys Tradoria, EC in Germany /Rakuten news release

Rakuten acquires 80% of shares of German EC operator, Tradoria. It is the second country to enter for Rakuten following France last year.

Tradoria was founded in 2007 to provide online marketplace mainly targeting for small and medium shops as well as Rakuten Ichiba. Currently it has around 4,400 shops providing eight million items ranging from furniture, fashion to accessories. ...

Rakuten news release 7/28/2011

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• The acquisition price is not disclosed. Rakuten aggressively expands to global market. It also acquired an EC site in Brazil last month.

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[Reuters] KDDI unit to buy Nobot for 1.5 bln yen - Nikkei

KDDI Corp cellular phone advertising unit mediba Inc is planning to buy rival Nobot Inc for about 1.5 billion yen ($19.2 million), the Nikkei business daily reported. Mediba signed an agreement to buy 90 percent of Nobot's shares from an investment fund and members of management, Nikkei said. 

Nobot, second to AdMob Google Inc in the Japanese cellphone ads market, would be a mediba unit by next month, Nikkei said.
By year-end, mediba plans to install a new system that distributes ads tailored to users' interests based on how they use their phones, Nikkei said.

Reuters 7/27/2011

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• GREE acquired Atlantis, an operator of ad exchange for smartphone for 2.2 billion yen in January 2011. 

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[Asiajin] DeNA Officially Launches Mobage to All English Speaking Countries and China

In a truly global rollout, DeNA has just announced that Mobage social games platform for Android has just been released in English-speaking countries around the world as well as China.

Mobage is immediately available for download on Android in these markets, with more than 100 game titles currently in development for English-speaking markets. DeNA aims to deliver a constant supply of socially enabled games, many debuting on Android for the very first time.

For China, Mobage has introduced two popular Japanese social game apps localized for the Chinese market including Ninja Royale and Aqua Collection, with eight more games to follow by the end of August.
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Asiajin 7/27/2011

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• English version of Mobage is available in six countries as follows, US, Canada, UK, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia. 

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CyberAgent Ventures launches a branch in Taiwan /Nikkei

CyberAgent Ventures has invested in 18 Internet startups in greater China including promising Taiwanese startups such as Userjoy Tehcnology, online game developer, Sunfun Info, Online dating service, and Hongku Info, Taiwanese largest restaurant review site.

The company considers Taiwan to be very promising because of Internet penetration and abundant entrepreneurs. It accelerates incubation and investment activity by setting up a branch in Taipei.

Nikkei 7/25/2011

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• CyberAgent Ventures has three offices in mainland China, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shin zen. It also has branches in Vietnam and Indonesia.

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Incubate Fund holds new business generation program, Incubate Camp 2nd in October /Cnet Japan

The program targets engineers or entrepreneurs in 20s. In addition, only entrepreneurs who plan to found a corporation within a year or have founded within the past two years can apply for the program. The deadline for application is August 24 and 24 entrepreneurs will be selected for the camp.

Incubate Fund is a venture capital focused on investing in startups developing social media related services and promising growth ventures. Among 3 billion yen of total amount of the fund, DeNA invests 2.5 billion yen.

The venture capital held Incubate Camp 2010 Fall in the last year, from which five companies were founded.

Incubate Camp 2nd extends support menu largely and invests in up to 10 entrepreneurs after the two days camp.

Cnet Japan 7/26/2011

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• Portfolio of Incubate Fund includes Pokelabo and Istpika, both of which develop mobile social games.

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GREE expands to South East Asia and Africa with application platform for smartphone /Venture Now

GREE revealed that Project Goth, an operator of mig33, mobile social network service with 50 million users mainly in emerging countries in South East Asia, Middle East and Africa, started providing a platform which has common specifications with GREE Platform for smartphone.

GREE made a capital alliance with Project Goth in the last November. Since then, both have pursued to make specifications of their platform for smartphone to common. With the launch, GREE partners are allowed to provide social applications for 50 million users through mig33.
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Venture Now 7/21/2011

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• GREE is accelerating global expansion strategy in various ways. The company acquired OpenFeint, launched local subsidiaries in US and China, and also made partnerships with big players such as mig33 or Tencent. 

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GREEN GIRL had angel round to raise 11.85M yen /Venture Now

One More, an operator of social patron platform to support "Kawaii" girls, GREEN GIRL, raised 11.85 million yen at an angel round from two individual investors.

GREEN GIRL supports girl creators, artists and event organizers who produce "Kawaii". It  posts various "Kawaii" things which it plans with girls. If a number of subscriptions reach a target, the money goes to the girls to realize the plan.

The service just launched at July 6. The one of characteristics is that it links with Web magazine on Facebook on which a profile of the creators are introduced in order to attract sympathy from supporters. ...

Venture Now 7/15/2011

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• Three crowd funding services, Grow!, Readyfor?, and Campfire have been launched this year. GREEN GIRL focuses on "Kawaii" girls to differentiate from those services.

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