Rakuten Branches Out to Asia (Live Blog)

Shin Hasegawa, assistant CMO and head of Asia marketing at Rakuten (JSD:4755), is onstage now to discuss how the Japanese e-commerce giant is expanding across the region. Despite the company’s strength, it has failed in China and is now struggling in Indonesia, so it’s an interesting challenge that entrepreneurs can learn from. Here’s the live blog:

#11:39: After stressing how Rakuten is an open marketplace with an emphasis on being a cross-border ecosystem, Shin says the company is always keen to make partnerships in Asia. Now the audience has his email address too.

#11:39: Shin admits that only operating from Tokyo did become difficult, so being “in the center of Asia” in Singapore is beneficial for hiring talent and lots of other things. And now Rakuten “is getting the benefit” from this presence already after opening the Singapore office last year.

#11:40: Rakuten goes into countries in different ways: “Whatever’s the best way,” Shin says, is a better way to operate. Startups can be “part of the family or ecosystem” when Rakuten goes into new markets.

#11:43: In terms of startup partnerships, the first focus is of course e-commerce, payments, and logistics. The second area is broader, he says, which is any service “beneficial to our users”. That covers the recently launched Rakuten Fund.

#11:44: “We’re not looking at financial gains” for the fund, and it’s also about the ecosystem.

#11:48: There is a focus on places like Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, etc., but Rakuten won’t rule out any areas.

#11:49: The Rakuten Singapore office is now up to 20-25 people, and will grow to 45-50 later this year. He says he’s interviewing a lot, “in an aggressive interviewing mode” in his working time.

This is a part of our coverage of Startup Asia Singapore 2013, our event running on April 4 and 5. For all our newest Startup Arena pitches, see here. You can follow along on Twitter at @techinasia, and on our Facebook page.