David Corbin · · 2 min readYour exit is this way: KDDI acquires two startups (and invests in five others) – UPDATED
If Japanese startups were not excited to work with KDDI before, today’s announcement is going to make them seriously reconsider. According to Nikkei, the telco is going to acquire life-hacking site Nanapi and Bitcellar, which operates Buzzfeed-esque ranking site Qrank and a popular camera app FX Camera. KDDI also made an undisclosed investment in the following five companies.
- AppBroadCast – Information site (“Game Gift”) for gaming news and items
- Jorte – Calendar application
- Natasha – Two information sites, one for music, one for comic books
- Vasily – Social site (“iQon”) for making, browsing, and buying fashion outfits
- Luxa – Flash sale website
The total expenditure is reported to be roughly JPY 12 billion (US$113 million).
KDDI is the third-largest mobile carrier in Japan behind Docomo and Softbank. It has been supportive of the country’s young startup ecosystem, even going as far as to create an incubator, but its investing capacity is limited.
While KDDI has a US$50 million investment fund, Docomo has one worth $109 million and Softbank wields $US250 million toward companies looking to crack into China and Japan.
KDDI’s outlay is more than might be expected of the company but it seems to be money well spent. Nanapi attracts 24 million visitors a month and is led by respected serial entrepreneur Kensuke Furukawa. Bitcellar has not released visitor numbers for Qrank, but it’s FX Camera has been downloaded 20 million times. Jorte edges that number slightly with 23 million downloads. Vasily is a growing name in Japan’s competitive ecommerce field. Users can experiment with different outfits on their smartphones or see (and buy) outfits suggested by other users. The company previously told Tech in Asia that is has 200,000 monthly active users and that the average users spends US$100 per transaction.
UPDATE: Turns out KDDI had lots more news. Click here to learn more.
See: Japan’s DeNA makes rare double acquisition for $50M in an effort to diversify
Editing by JT Quigley; top image courtesy of Flickr user Tax Credits
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