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Japan’s DeNA buys home improvement curated media site Iemo

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This is the abridged version of our original article in Japanese. Japanese internet company DeNA announced today that it has acquired Iemo, the Tokyo-based startup behind a curation media focused on home improvement. Acquisition details have not been disclosed but it is understood Iemo raised billions of yen (tens of millions US dollars) from DeNA. See also: Riding a media curation trend, Japanese entrepreneur launches interior design photo service The service was launched back in December and raised an undisclosed amount of investment from B Dash Ventures in April. So they were acquired in less than ten months after the launch. Modeled after US-based Houzz, Iemo allows users to create pages using interior design images from its database of photos provided by homebuilders. As the service is new there is not much data on their business. In an interview in April, they said that almost 90% of their users were females who visit the website via mobile phone, many of them housewives. Iemo founder and CEO Mary Murata is a serial entrepreneur, previously one of the first hires by Japanese Internet giant CyberAgent. Prior to launching Iemo, she founded a startup called Control Plus in 2005 and subsequently sold its…

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Iemo founder and CEO Mary Murata

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

Japanese internet company DeNA announced today that it has acquired Iemo, the Tokyo-based startup behind a curation media focused on home improvement. Acquisition details have not been disclosed but it is understood Iemo raised billions of yen (tens of millions US dollars) from DeNA.

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The service was launched back in December and raised an undisclosed amount of investment from B Dash Ventures in April. So they were acquired in less than ten months after the launch.

Modeled after US-based Houzz, Iemo allows users to create pages using interior design images from its database of photos provided by homebuilders. As the service is new there is not much data on their business. In an interview in April, they said that almost 90% of their users were females who visit the website via mobile phone, many of them housewives.

Iemo founder and CEO Mary Murata is a serial entrepreneur, previously one of the first hires by Japanese Internet giant CyberAgent. Prior to launching Iemo, she founded a startup called Control Plus in 2005 and subsequently sold its social game development business to Japanese gaming company Gumi. Upon this acquisition by DeNA, Murata joined the management board of DeNA as an operating officer.

Several months ago the company appointed search engine expert Yuji Kumagai as COO, but Yuto Suzuki, former community service developer at CyberAgent, joined to take over that position and former AllAbout.jp editor-at-large, Hisaki Tokushima, also joined the team in July.

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Editor-in-chief of Iemo:  Hisaki Tokushima

Japan’s Iemo secures funding from B Dash Ventures

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See the original story in Japanese. Some of our readers may remember a few months back when we told you about the launch of Tokyo-based Iemo, a new curation media focused on interior decoration and housing. The company announced today it has secured an undisclosed sum of funding from B Dash Ventures. Iemo will use these funds to step up its engineering efforts. Coinciding with this news, Japanese search engine expert Yuji Kumagai has joined their management team as COO [1]. The company was initially launched by well-known Japanese entrepreneur Mari Murata. In order to ensure quality content on their platform, they have established partnerships with interior manufacturers and architectural offices to collect high quality images, with the goal of helping users post curated articles more easily. We understand that this approach resulted a corporate membership program which has now launched as well. Interior manufacturers can set up their own curated portfolios, and more than 30 such companies have signed up to date. We were told by Murata and Kumagai that their growth curve shows an exponential increase. Almost 90% of their users are females who visit the website on mobile, many of them housewives (according to their user profiles)….

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From the left: COO Yuji Kumagai, CEO Mari Murata

See the original story in Japanese.

Some of our readers may remember a few months back when we told you about the launch of Tokyo-based Iemo, a new curation media focused on interior decoration and housing. The company announced today it has secured an undisclosed sum of funding from B Dash Ventures. Iemo will use these funds to step up its engineering efforts. Coinciding with this news, Japanese search engine expert Yuji Kumagai has joined their management team as COO [1].

The company was initially launched by well-known Japanese entrepreneur Mari Murata. In order to ensure quality content on their platform, they have established partnerships with interior manufacturers and architectural offices to collect high quality images, with the goal of helping users post curated articles more easily.

We understand that this approach resulted a corporate membership program which has now launched as well. Interior manufacturers can set up their own curated portfolios, and more than 30 such companies have signed up to date.

We were told by Murata and Kumagai that their growth curve shows an exponential increase. Almost 90% of their users are females who visit the website on mobile, many of them housewives (according to their user profiles).

They didn’t tell us specific user totals, but we’ll follow up on this when we get more details.

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  1. Kumagai founded his own company focused on the search engine technology a few years ago. He also once won a prize at a Facebook hackathon event with his app called Corollin’ Planet (currently unavailable)

Riding a media curation trend, Japanese entrepreneur launches interior design photo service

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See the original article in Japanese In North America, photo curation platforms like Tumblr, Pinterest, and Fancy has achieved dramatic growth in the past few years. Here in Japan we have a similar list concept called ‘Matome’, which roughly translates as ‘collecting information’. Blogs that collect and edit threads from 2channel, Japan’s biggest message board, and Naver Matome, a popular curation platform, are attracting lots of traffic. Such curated media are moving into more verticals recently, focusing on specific themes. Increased use of smartphones seems to be driving this trend as well. Another curation-focused media service that just recently launched is Iemo. It’s an online lifestyle site that specializes in interior decoration and housing. Iemo’s CEO, Mari Murata, is a female serial entrepreneur, previously one of the first hires by Japanese internet giant CyberAgent. The service is very simple. The users can create pages using interior design images from its database of 15,000 pictures. Upon the service’s release, there were about 2000 pages are already listed on the site. I expect that there are many users who check the site with their smartphones during their spare time. Iemo was modeled after US-based Houzz, which attracts around 16 million users per…

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See the original article in Japanese

In North America, photo curation platforms like Tumblr, Pinterest, and Fancy has achieved dramatic growth in the past few years. Here in Japan we have a similar list concept called ‘Matome’, which roughly translates as ‘collecting information’. Blogs that collect and edit threads from 2channel, Japan’s biggest message board, and Naver Matome, a popular curation platform, are attracting lots of traffic. Such curated media are moving into more verticals recently, focusing on specific themes. Increased use of smartphones seems to be driving this trend as well.

Another curation-focused media service that just recently launched is Iemo. It’s an online lifestyle site that specializes in interior decoration and housing. Iemo’s CEO, Mari Murata, is a female serial entrepreneur, previously one of the first hires by Japanese internet giant CyberAgent.

The service is very simple. The users can create pages using interior design images from its database of 15,000 pictures. Upon the service’s release, there were about 2000 pages are already listed on the site. I expect that there are many users who check the site with their smartphones during their spare time.

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Iemo was modeled after US-based Houzz, which attracts around 16 million users per month. Murata said that the images in their database are borrowed from over 20 housing businesses, but users can add their own images as well.

My initial impression of the site was that it was pretty sophisticated, likely due to the founder’s past experiences in startups. Another Japanese competitor in the field, RoomClip reached 100,000 posts last September.

Considering the user shift to smartphones, it might be a good time to launch this kind of photo curation service now. I think we will see more similar media focused on other themes in the near future.