[e27] CyberAgent Ventures funds Indonesian online baby product platform Bilna

CyberAgent Ventures has just announced their investment in Bilna, an Indonesian based e-commerce platform for baby products. 

Following the investment in the leading Indonesia’s online shopping marketplace, Tokopedia, the investment for Bilna is the second company that CyberAgent Ventures, Inc. has invested in Indonesia. ...

... Late last month, CyberAgent Ventures also invested in Taiwan’s food recipe social sharing network iCook. Last week, they invested in Vietnam food review site Foody.vn.

e27 11/27/2012 [en]

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[Tech In Asia] GMO VenturePartners Shifts Focus to Southeast Asia With $12M Fund

Japan’s GMO VenturePartners is today announcing the launch of a one billion yen (or about $12 million) venture fund that will see the firm focus on opportunities in the Southeast Asia region. The group is the VC arm of GMO Internet Group (TYO:9449), and its previous investments include China’s Qihoo 360, which the company invested in with its GMO VP Fund I. It notes that investment from existing funds in Japan and China will continue as well. ...

Tech In Asia  11/27/2012 [en]

memo

• Corporate VC of Internet companies like CyberAgent or GREE have been quite active in South East Asia. Recruit is another corporate VC committed. Compared to CVC, not many pure VCs from Japan invest in startups in these countries. It maybe because it is still not so easy for startups in the region to exit, which is risky for financial investor, but for corporate VCs, it can take advantage of the investments for its expansion. 

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[Tech In Asia] Japan Overtakes US to Become Top Country for Google Play Revenues

The folks over at App Annie have released a pretty fascinating report that shows some interesting shifts that are happening in the mobile space. Perhaps the most surprising is the fact that Japan has overtaken the US in Google Play (Android’s app store) revenue, making this the first time that the US did not occupy the top spot in the country rankings. ...

Tech In Asia  11/30/2012 [en]

memo

• Mobile game developers in Japan have been successful to make money in feature phones. Japanese users are accustomed to pay for games on mobile more than in US. ARPU may be much higher. It is reasonable that along with the move that many of feature phone users switch to smartphone, Google Play apps in Japan starts to monetize very well. It is interesting to see if the growth is a specific trend only in Japan, or the revenue will go up like in Japan in other countries including US in the future.

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Printing EC, Raksul Raises 120M Yen From YJ Capital And ANRI / TechCrunch Japan

Raksul provides price comparison and quotation request service for printings such as business card, shop card, catalog, pamphlet, and brochure on the Internet. It raised 110 million yen in this April, and for the latest round, it receives 120 million yen from Yahoo's venture fund, YJ Capital and ANRI. As far as we know, it is the first deal for YJ Capital. ...

Raksul is growing steadily with 250 thousands active users per month, on which 1300 printing companies registers. In addition, it started its own printing service from September, which provides low-priced printing service utilizing idle time of printing machine of contracted printing companies. The capital of the round will be used to accelerate the business. ...

TechCrunch Japan 11/26/2012 [jp]

memo

• Printing EC is not a trendy B2C service like social media or smartphone apps, but seems to be an industry which can become more efficient taking advantage of Internet. It is interesting that YJ Capital selected the relatively modest industry for its first deal comparing the fact that Yahoo itself has invested in or acquired trendy startups such as Kakao Talk or DECOPIC.
• http://raksul.com/

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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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Marketplace Of Knowledge And Skills, Coconala Raises 30M Yen / Cnet Japan

WelSelf announced fundraising of 30 million yen from ImproVista.

The company operates a marketplace for knowledge and skills, Coconala, which allows individuals to provide services online which they are good at. It does not take initial fee or monthly fee for sellers and the every service price is 500 yen without exception. Users surpasses 20,000 since its launch on July 3rd. Transactions are over 5,500.

Cnet Japan 11/21/2012　[jp]

memo

• The current popular services are drawing a portrait for icon of Twitter or Facebook or fortune telling. Yahoo started a similar service in its Yahoo Auction, but Coconala seems doing better than Yahoo so far.
• http://coconala.com/home

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Enterprise Internet Service Provider, TeamSpirit Raises Over 100M Yen From VCs / ITpro

TeamSpirit develops and provides cloud-based human resource management service, Team Spirit, which announced series B finance with over 100 million yen. The investors include Nippon Venture Capital, Nissay Capital, and SMBC Venture Capital. Along with the series A round by Salesforce.com and others, the company raises over 200 million yen.

Many consumer Internet startups are fundraising in Japan, but there has been few startups in enterprise Internet service providing on a specific platform which strengthen business by financing from VCs.

TeamSprit is developed on Force.com, PaaS of Salesforce.com to provide features including time management, expense report, or project management. ...

ITpro 11/22/2012 [jp]

memo

• The series A was about a year ago, October, 2011. Along with penetration of Force.com, it is expected that more enterprise Internet service will grow. 
• http://www.teamspirit.co.jp/

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