Tokyo-based advertising startup FreakOut raises $5.3M from Yahoo Japan

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freakout_logoFreakOut is a Tokyo-based startup developing a smartphone advertising platform for real-time bidding (RTB). Today it announced that it has raised 500 million yen (approximately $5.3 million) in series B funding from YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689).

FreakOut was launched in 2010 by Yuzuru Honda who previously launched a content-matching ad platform called Brainer, which was subsequently sold to Yahoo Japan in 2008.  The startup has been delivering its white-label platform to more than 3,000 advertisers through 90 agencies in Japan and the US. With this new funding, the startup expects to intensify operations at its US subsidiary, FreakOut International Inc., which was launched in New York last April.

Prior to this fundraising, the startup raised 350 million yen ($3.7 million) from two Japanese VC firms last year. TechCrunch Japan reports that the current value of the company is about 10.3 billion yen ($110 million).