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C Channel, video fashion media for women, acquires startup for Indonesian expansion

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Tokyo-based C Channel, the Japanese startup offering a video-based digital fashion media for young women under the same name, announced today that it has acquired Jakarta-based startup PT Media Makmur for an undisclosed sum. Since its launch back in April of 2013 as a local subsidiary of Japanese blog marketing company Rich Media, PT Media Makmur has been running Kawaii Beauty Japan, a fashion and beauty-focused media outlet for female consumers in Indonesia. According to SimilarWeb, the Indonesian beauty site has acquired more than 350,000 monthly visitors as well as nearly 1 million likes on the site’s Facebook fan page for local users. C Channel has been massively expanding to several Asian markets by partnering with Chinese video sharing site Todou (for Chinese expansion), Taiwanese beauty media outlet Niusnews and Taiwanese online-to-offline media outlet Maker (for Taiwanese expansion) as well as Thai e-publication and UGC (user generated content) media site Oookbee (for Thai expansion). Hence, the latest announcement means the Japanese beauty site has expanded to the fourth Asian market outside its home turf. You’ll be able to find the C Channel logo on the top page of the acquired company’s website. You’ll see signs of the owner’s effort trying…

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Tokyo-based C Channel, the Japanese startup offering a video-based digital fashion media for young women under the same name, announced today that it has acquired Jakarta-based startup PT Media Makmur for an undisclosed sum. Since its launch back in April of 2013 as a local subsidiary of Japanese blog marketing company Rich Media, PT Media Makmur has been running Kawaii Beauty Japan, a fashion and beauty-focused media outlet for female consumers in Indonesia.

According to SimilarWeb, the Indonesian beauty site has acquired more than 350,000 monthly visitors as well as nearly 1 million likes on the site’s Facebook fan page for local users.

C Channel has been massively expanding to several Asian markets by partnering with Chinese video sharing site Todou (for Chinese expansion), Taiwanese beauty media outlet Niusnews and Taiwanese online-to-offline media outlet Maker (for Taiwanese expansion) as well as Thai e-publication and UGC (user generated content) media site Oookbee (for Thai expansion). Hence, the latest announcement means the Japanese beauty site has expanded to the fourth Asian market outside its home turf.

You’ll be able to find the C Channel logo on the top page of the acquired company’s website. You’ll see signs of the owner’s effort trying to associate it with a Facebook fan page for C Channel’s Indonesian version but will be actually redirected to the Japanese fan page for now. We are still unsure whether both teams are trying to launch a new site under the C Channel brand, otherwise the Indonesian startup’s existing media site will be merged into the brand.

C Channel, video fashion media for women, secures funds from Tokyo broadcaster

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C Channel, which offers a video-based digital fashion media for young women under the same name, announced in late April that it has fundraised from TBS Television, a Tokyo-based private TV network company. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed but it is said to be a multi-million dollar investment according to sources. This follows their $4 million funding in a seed round back in April last year. C Channel initially started offering video clips on their platform but has recently shifted to the distributed content model, similar to news sites like NowThis. They are delivering clips via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, China’s Tudou and among others. The company claimed that they have surpassed 100 million monthly video plays in March thanks to the launch of a ‘how-to’ clip series featuring women’s favorite topics such as how to make up, style hair or cook. In partnership with TBS Television, C Channel is looking to offer video clips covering lifestyle news, entertainment gossips and gourmet updates for foodies as well as launching a cross-media marketing scheme that allows advertisers to expose their products both on the TV channel and the online video platform. C Channel recently partnered with Oookbee,…

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TBS headquarters  Image credit: Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS)

C Channel, which offers a video-based digital fashion media for young women under the same name, announced in late April that it has fundraised from TBS Television, a Tokyo-based private TV network company. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed but it is said to be a multi-million dollar investment according to sources. This follows their $4 million funding in a seed round back in April last year.

C Channel initially started offering video clips on their platform but has recently shifted to the distributed content model, similar to news sites like NowThis. They are delivering clips via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, China’s Tudou and among others. The company claimed that they have surpassed 100 million monthly video plays in March thanks to the launch of a ‘how-to’ clip series featuring women’s favorite topics such as how to make up, style hair or cook.

In partnership with TBS Television, C Channel is looking to offer video clips covering lifestyle news, entertainment gossips and gourmet updates for foodies as well as launching a cross-media marketing scheme that allows advertisers to expose their products both on the TV channel and the online video platform.

C Channel recently partnered with Oookbee, a Thai startup providing e-publication and UGC (user generated content) in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile TBS Television has also announced a partnership with Thailand’s Amarin TV for production of several travelogue and shopping program series.

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C Channel

C Channel, Ookbee join forces to launch video fashion media for girls in Thailand

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This is part of our coverage of The Bridge Fes 2016. See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based C Channel, a video-based digital fashion media for young women, announced on 19 February that it will launch C Channel Thailand in association with Ookbee, a Thai startup operating e-publication and UGC (user generated content) businesses in Southeast Asia. Launched by Line’s former CEO Akira Morikawa in April 2015, C Channel has been attracting lots of attention because of a unique screen specification adopting vertical video layouts and a content curation system leveraging “clippers,” or aspiring TV stars and fashion models. Their video clips have been played more than 37 million times in the ten months since the launch. Galaxy, the globally renowned smartphone brand from Samsung, was recently appointed as an official sponsor for the C Channel video portal. Known as Amazon in Southeast Asia, Ookbee has been serving 6.5 million users with e-publications, games, apps and others since its launch in 2011. In the C Channel session at The Bridge Fes 2016 event, Ookbee founder and CEO Natavudh Moo Pungcharoenpong spoke before a packed audience: More than half of Ookbee users are teenagers and they are eagerly adopting Japanese make-up…

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This is part of our coverage of The Bridge Fes 2016.

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based C Channel, a video-based digital fashion media for young women, announced on 19 February that it will launch C Channel Thailand in association with Ookbee, a Thai startup operating e-publication and UGC (user generated content) businesses in Southeast Asia.

Launched by Line’s former CEO Akira Morikawa in April 2015, C Channel has been attracting lots of attention because of a unique screen specification adopting vertical video layouts and a content curation system leveraging “clippers,” or aspiring TV stars and fashion models.

Their video clips have been played more than 37 million times in the ten months since the launch. Galaxy, the globally renowned smartphone brand from Samsung, was recently appointed as an official sponsor for the C Channel video portal.

Known as Amazon in Southeast Asia, Ookbee has been serving 6.5 million users with e-publications, games, apps and others since its launch in 2011.

In the C Channel session at The Bridge Fes 2016 event, Ookbee founder and CEO Natavudh Moo Pungcharoenpong spoke before a packed audience:

More than half of Ookbee users are teenagers and they are eagerly adopting Japanese make-up and hairstyles. Thailand is the second-largest country following Japan in terms of the population of Line users, which indicates a high affinity for Japanese culture. We would like to grow together with C Channel in the ASEAN market.

Signing with selected local girls in Thailand as “clippers” through Ookbee, C Channel will provide Thai users with original content curated by them in their local language, anticipating to expand to the shopping business using video clips online.

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C Channel (desktop version)

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson

Former Line CEO Morikawa securing $4 million in funding for online video business

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This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2015. This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese. C Channel, a new company led by former Line CEO Akira Morikawa, will launch today an online video-based digital fashion media called C Channel. The company will launch the service in beta version, then launch a mobile app and an English version by the end of 2015. See also: Line Corporation’s CEO Morikawa on fast and furious global expansion Coinciding with the launch, C Channel announced that it will fundraise 500 million yen or ($4 million) from iStyle (TSE:3660, the company behind Japan’s largest cosmetics portal @Cosme), Asobisystem (Tokyo-based talent agency famous for employing J-pop idol Kyary Pamyu Pamyu), Gree, GMO Venture Partners, Nexyz (TSE:4346), B Dash Ventures, MAK Corporation (the company of Makoto Arima, Google’s former country managing director for Japan), and Rakuten (TSE:4755). The funding will be executed in late April. C Channel is an online video-based media targeting women aged 20 to 34, focusing on offering lifestyle-related information ranging from hairstyling, food, to travel tips. Morikawa started his carrier at Tokyo-based private broadcaster Nippon Television Network, followed by Sony and subsequently joining Hangame…

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This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2015.

This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese.

C Channel, a new company led by former Line CEO Akira Morikawa, will launch today an online video-based digital fashion media called C Channel. The company will launch the service in beta version, then launch a mobile app and an English version by the end of 2015.

See also:

Coinciding with the launch, C Channel announced that it will fundraise 500 million yen or ($4 million) from iStyle (TSE:3660, the company behind Japan’s largest cosmetics portal @Cosme), Asobisystem (Tokyo-based talent agency famous for employing J-pop idol Kyary Pamyu Pamyu), Gree, GMO Venture Partners, Nexyz (TSE:4346), B Dash Ventures, MAK Corporation (the company of Makoto Arima, Google’s former country managing director for Japan), and Rakuten (TSE:4755). The funding will be executed in late April.

C Channel is an online video-based media targeting women aged 20 to 34, focusing on offering lifestyle-related information ranging from hairstyling, food, to travel tips.

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Morikawa started his carrier at Tokyo-based private broadcaster Nippon Television Network, followed by Sony and subsequently joining Hangame Japan (now known as Line) in 2003 where he produced smash-hit messaging app Line which has attracted over 500 million users worldwide. Since April 2014, he had been working as co-CEO with current Line CEO Tsuyoshi Idesawa. But Morikawa announced that he would step down from the position late last year, which had been attracting people’s attention about his next move.

C Channel will set up an office outfitted with a video production studio in Tokyo’s fashion district of Harajuku, which will be launched on 19 April.

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— Added on 10 April, Friday

In a fireside chat session at B Dash Camp 2015 Spring in Fukuoka on Friday, Morikawa introduced details about the new service. According to him, C Channel has acquired 100 fashion model girls, called ‘clippers’ in the service, and they will upload a total of about 10 video clips to the service every day.

Morikawa claimed that C Channel will be something similar to MTV in the cable TV era where their content have been not always produced by the broadcaster but more focused on building their brand leveraging other content providers. Based on a partnership with Asobisystem, C Channel will use more than a few models from the former company as clippers.

From the left: C Channel founder Akira Morikawa, Asobisystem CEO Yusuke Nakagawa, twin models acting as 'clippers' Amiaya
From the left: C Channel founder Akira Morikawa, Asobisystem CEO Yusuke Nakagawa, twin models acting as ‘clippers’ Amiaya

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by Kurt Hanson
Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy