Japan’s Airbnb just raised $4m

Photo credit: Pexels.

Via The Bridge:

Tokyo-based Space Market, offering a marketplace of unused or idle venues for on-demand rental use, announced today that it has fundraised about 400 million yen (about $4 million) in the latest round. This round was lead by Opt Ventures with participation from Recruit Strategic Partners, Mizuho Capital, SBI Investment, and Orix.

The sharing economy in Japan is heating up, especially for inbound services in anticipation of the 2020 Olympics. Among the domestic players though, two-and-a-half year old Space Market probably has the highest name recognition.

This US$3.9 million investment follows a nearly US$1 million round in October 2014.

Through the service, users can book many types of venues from monkey theme parks to entire islands, and of course vacation homes. According to TechCrunch, nearly 70 percent of booked venues are for small parties.

“In Japan, compared to Europe and the US, there are stricter regulations so even successful and well known sharing economy services like Airbnb and Uber currently have low penetration. But with the decreasing population and other effects, the sharing economy is expected to be a solution for taking advantage of unused assets and fixing the supply and demand in the space,” explains Yuhei Tsumita of Space Market.

Yuhei also sees unique opportunities in Japan like sharing child raising duties, housework, and nursing care due to Japan’s low birthrates and rapidly aging population. The government is now considering the best uses of sharing economy services for the country and Yuhei believes adoption in Japan will really start to increase soon.

CEO Daisuke Shigematsu wants to bring the company’s listings from around the 8,000 available now to over 50,000 by 2019. He estimates Airbnb already has 40,000 in the country. Airbnb officially lists 2 million properties world wide.

Update on August 31 2016, 12:30am JST: Article was updated to include extra comments from Space Market.

Converted from Japanese Yen. Rate: US$1 = JPY 102.17