THE BRIDGE

tag Mediba

KDDI buys Japanese mobile game marketing startup AppBroadCast

SHARE:

Tokyo-based Mediba, an ad business-centric subsidiary of Japan’s leading telco KDDI, announced on Friday that it has gained a major stake in AppBroadCast, the company behind a mobile game media called GameGift. Details of the deal have not been disclosed but it seems like the valuation of the startup upon this acquisition is some one billion yen, or tens of million US dollars, according to several information sources. Since launch back in January 2013, AppBroadCast started the GameGift service in form of an Android app, which has surpassed 4.1 million downloads to date, offering users complimentary virtual items, news updates and strategic know-how for trending game apps. The company currently offers other services like Sakipre, which allows users to participate in beta testing of new game apps, as well as Hayatoku, a pre-registration platform for early downloads of new game apps with rewards. Prior to acquisition, AppBroadCast secured an undisclosed sum of funding in January 2014 from several sources including KDDI Open Innovation Fund, the startup investment fund jointly managed by KDDI and Japanese investment firm Global Brain. In addition, the company has also been participating in Syn. portal partnership, the mobile company alliance run by KDDI group company Supership….

appbroadcast-logo-gamegift

Tokyo-based Mediba, an ad business-centric subsidiary of Japan’s leading telco KDDI, announced on Friday that it has gained a major stake in AppBroadCast, the company behind a mobile game media called GameGift. Details of the deal have not been disclosed but it seems like the valuation of the startup upon this acquisition is some one billion yen, or tens of million US dollars, according to several information sources.

Since launch back in January 2013, AppBroadCast started the GameGift service in form of an Android app, which has surpassed 4.1 million downloads to date, offering users complimentary virtual items, news updates and strategic know-how for trending game apps. The company currently offers other services like Sakipre, which allows users to participate in beta testing of new game apps, as well as Hayatoku, a pre-registration platform for early downloads of new game apps with rewards.

Prior to acquisition, AppBroadCast secured an undisclosed sum of funding in January 2014 from several sources including KDDI Open Innovation Fund, the startup investment fund jointly managed by KDDI and Japanese investment firm Global Brain. In addition, the company has also been participating in Syn. portal partnership, the mobile company alliance run by KDDI group company Supership. The company says that it may expand the Gamegift business globally, focusing on the Asian market.

Via TechCrunch Japan

appbroadcast-management
The AppBroadCast management team: CEO Masashige Ohara (middle), Director Keijiro Nakamura (right)
Image credit: AppBroadCast

Two young Japanese entrepreneurs discuss their recent buyouts

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013. Two Japanese startups that have experienced an strong growth in the last several months are Coach United, the startup behind private lesson portal Cyta.jp, and Bracket, which operates instant e-commerce platform STORES.jp. On day two of B Dash Camp Osaka last week, we had a chance to hear from Coach United CEO Nobuhiro Ariyasu and Bracket CEO Yusuke Mitsumoto. Also on the panel were Rakuten executive officer Takeshi Homma, and KDDI general manager Shigeki Matsuno. This year Ariyasu sold his startup to Japanese recipe site Cookpad, and Mitsumoto sold his startup to leading Japanese fashion commerce company Start Today. Moderator Hiroyuki Watanabe started the sessions with asking about their recent exits. When did you start preparing for buyouts? Ariyasu explained: When we launched our company back in 2007, I had no idea about funding or M&As. We couldn’t help but enjoy developing our product at that time. Two or three years later, we finally could make our business profitable, and had a chance to receive offers from some people [1]. The company kept using bank loans but were exploring funding opportunities…

bracket-fril
Bracket CEO Yusuke Mitsumoto and Coach United CEO Nobuhiro Ariyasu

See the original story in Japanese.

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013.

Two Japanese startups that have experienced an strong growth in the last several months are Coach United, the startup behind private lesson portal Cyta.jp, and Bracket, which operates instant e-commerce platform STORES.jp. On day two of B Dash Camp Osaka last week, we had a chance to hear from Coach United CEO Nobuhiro Ariyasu and Bracket CEO Yusuke Mitsumoto. Also on the panel were Rakuten executive officer Takeshi Homma, and KDDI general manager Shigeki Matsuno.

This year Ariyasu sold his startup to Japanese recipe site Cookpad, and Mitsumoto sold his startup to leading Japanese fashion commerce company Start Today. Moderator Hiroyuki Watanabe started the sessions with asking about their recent exits.

When did you start preparing for buyouts?

Ariyasu explained:

When we launched our company back in 2007, I had no idea about funding or M&As. We couldn’t help but enjoy developing our product at that time. Two or three years later, we finally could make our business profitable, and had a chance to receive offers from some people [1].

The company kept using bank loans but were exploring funding opportunities for the next stretch.

bdash-camp-buyout-mitsumoto-ariyasu

Bracket is not an old company but has been running a number of businesses for about five years. In contrast to his past businesses, Mitsumoto was aggressively exploring funding opportunities to boost their e-commerce platform. He attributes this to the many competitors in that space [2].

What’s the most impressed in the entire session was the following interaction between the pair.

Ariyasu asked Mitsumoto,

If Base (Bracket’s main competitor) wasn’t around, would you still sell your startup to Startup Today?

Mitsumoto answered, saying:

Without them, we probably might have not achieved the revenue we have.

Why not aim for an IPO?

Since these two startups were rapidly growing but self-funded, their founders could probably consider IPOs as possible options. But they emphasized a good match with the companies that acquired them.

Ariyasu explains:

I’m not really a person who drives after an IPO. It’s all up to you to determine whether an IPO and an M&A is a better choice for you. … I actually got an offer from Murakami (Livesense CEO) but I think it was not so aggressive. I’m close with him, and we have been fishing together. The reason why we partnered with Cookpad was I thought the both companies have something common in their corporate culture.

In a explanation about how Bracket’s Mitsumoto decided to sell his startup, he unveiled it was finally decided over the phone with Start Today’s CEO Yusaku Maezawa, which surprised the audience.

bdash-camp-buyout-mitsumoto
Bracket CEO Yusuke Mitsumoto

The decision was surprisingly smooth. I’ve been in touch with Maezawa for almost three years since he sent us an inquiry via our website. I’ve handled four different businesses in the past, and I finally managed to find success in my fifth. The recent announcement that Yahoo Japan made of making its e-commerce platform free this year will be a big turning point in the Japanese e-commerce industry, where more players will make more bold decisions to defeat competitors.

Buyer’s perspective, seller’s perspective

KDDI’s Matsuno was involved in Mediba’s [3] acquisitions of startups such as Nobot and Scaleout. In a response to moderator Watanabe’s question about criteria around M&As, he says:

You probably need the perspectives of both a buyer and a seller. When your company is acquired by 100%, you will totally lose your ownership. In an extreme case, you might lose your position as the CEO. When you think of a company that you could sell your business to, you will need to build a good relationship of mutual trust (not to be asked to step down).

Rakuten’s Homma concluded the session with saying that:

Both for a seller and a buyer, the more experience you have, the better you can understand how you should proceed.


  1. We previously featured Ariyasu and Cyta in this article.
  2. Our readers may recall that we visited the Bracket office just last month, and had a chance to speak more with Mitsumoto about Stores.jp.)
  3. Mediba is a mobile advertising-focused subsidiary of KDDI.

How ScaleOut plans to evolve Japan’s ad-tech market [Interview]

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. There was a big move in the Japanese ad-tech market yesterday. Mediba, an ad-focused subsidiary of Japan’s second largest telco KDDI, announced its takeover of ad-tech startup ScaleOut. The purchase price was not disclosed but it’s reportedly worth more than 1 billion yen (10 million dollars). Some of our readers may recall that Mediba acquired smartphone-focused ad network startup Nobot back in August of 2011. ScaleOut’s CEO Daisuke Yamazaki previously worked with Yahoo Japan where he launched behavioral targeting and rich media ads. Yuzuru Honda, the founding CEO of competing ad-tech startup FreakOut is also known for having sold content-matching ad platform Brainer to Yahoo Japan. Yahoo Japan seems to have produced many men of talent in the space. There were very few platforms that could provide 10 billion monthly impressions when we launched our company When Mr. Yamazaki launched ScaleOut back in 2006, the market was not as mature as it is today. He explains: There were very few platforms that could provide 10 billion monthly impressions when we launched our company. Since the market has no concept about RTB (real-time bidding) advertising, we developed an ad distribution platform which can steadily provide…

IMGP0051
From the left: Nobot CEO Kiyotaka Kobayashi, Mediba CEO Takashi Ohasa,
ScaleOut CEO Daisuke Yamazaki, and ScaleOut CMO Kenichi Sugawara

See the original story in Japanese.

There was a big move in the Japanese ad-tech market yesterday. Mediba, an ad-focused subsidiary of Japan’s second largest telco KDDI, announced its takeover of ad-tech startup ScaleOut. The purchase price was not disclosed but it’s reportedly worth more than 1 billion yen (10 million dollars). Some of our readers may recall that Mediba acquired smartphone-focused ad network startup Nobot back in August of 2011.

ScaleOut’s CEO Daisuke Yamazaki previously worked with Yahoo Japan where he launched behavioral targeting and rich media ads. Yuzuru Honda, the founding CEO of competing ad-tech startup FreakOut is also known for having sold content-matching ad platform Brainer to Yahoo Japan. Yahoo Japan seems to have produced many men of talent in the space.

There were very few platforms that could provide 10 billion monthly impressions when we launched our company

When Mr. Yamazaki launched ScaleOut back in 2006, the market was not as mature as it is today. He explains:

There were very few platforms that could provide 10 billion monthly impressions when we launched our company. Since the market has no concept about RTB (real-time bidding) advertising, we developed an ad distribution platform which can steadily provide ad impressions for media companies.

Subsequently we launched a RTB-enabled DSP (demand-site platform) service since the market trend was being shifting to RTB advertising. In terms of focusing our resources on our core business, we wondered if we should stop receiving outsourced business. Based on discussions with with Mr. Hiroyuki Watanabe [1], we made up our mind to concentrate on providing DSP services.

IMGP0035

Scale Out was founded back in 2006, and launched DSP services back in 2012. That means they have been working on it for about five years. In terms of focusing on DSP services, B Dash Ventures helped them make the significant decisions. Yamazaki added:

Our system development didn’t proceed as expected, and we had some money problems. But Watanabe helped us a lot both mentally and financially. Up until we invited CMO Sugawara to our board, everything around our business was decided based on discussion with me and Watanabe.

Watanabe knows the ad-tech startup industry since he also helped other startups in this space, such as Nobot. Mr. Watanabe explained:

Prior to investing in the startup, I shared my perspective on the future of the Japanese ad business and ad-tech industry. Based on that, Mr. Yamazaki and I completed the startup’s management policy and business plan together. To bring more talent to the board, we invited Mr. Sugawara as a supervisor for sales and marketing.

Why has ScaleOut partnered with Mediba? Yamazaki raised the recent smartphone shift as a reason. He explained:

To date, online advertising has been targeting PC users, and smartphone ads have no big share in the market. A smartphone ad is typically placed in a limited space but shares much space on the screen. For users, you typically check information resources briefly with a smartphone, and maybe dig deeper on a PC.

If we can provide clients with solutions that allow them to see user behaviors across multiple platforms, that would be a significant differentiation point. For clients, in terms of drawing user attention, smartphones will definitely work better than PCs. We learned this after we’ve switched to DSP services, and also learned this meets the KDDI-Mediba ‘3M’ strategy [2]. That’s one of major reasons why we’ve partnered with Mediba.

To date, online advertising has been targeting PC users, and smartphone ads have no big share in the market.

We should also mention the company’s own technology called Data Management Platform, DMP for short. The startup formed a team focused on data analytics, and will launch an ad service using much accumulated user behavioral data. Yamazaki added:

I assume most ad networks will change ad distribution in the future. They will typically pick the best choice of available ads using behavioral data analytics. If we can launch a platform for ad distribution across multiple browsing devices, we can distribute the best ad optimization to every single user. Google is the biggest holder of big data accumulation, but KDDI-Mediba dominates the Japanese market in this space.

Ads may be noisy for users sometimes. And in order to provide users with ads that serve as useful information or recommendations, we need to evolve in partnership with KDDI-mediba.

Based on the analysis of enormous user data using the company’s DMP technology, their clients can distribute the best optimization of ads to their users through the platform.

Adtech startups don’t typically expose much about what they provide, but we’re glad to have a glimpse into that ScaleOut has in store. Let’s wait and see how this particular acquisition will impact the Japanese ad industry.


  1. The CEO of B Dash Ventures. He invested in the startup and joined its board back in April of 2012.
  2. This represents KDDI-mediba’s business strategy, referring to multi-device, multi-network, and multi-media.

Japan’s Mediba scoops up ad tech startup for $10M

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. Japan’s Nikkei reported earlier today that mobile ad company Mediba has taken over ScaleOut, a Tokyo-based ad tech startup. The purchase price is reportedly 1 billion yen, or approximately $10 million. Mediba is an ad-focused subsidiary of Japan’s second largest telco KDDI. Some of our readers may recall that the company acquired ad-network Nobot back in August of 2011. ScaleOut runs a demand-side platform (DSP) which allows digital ad buyers to do more through a single interface. For instance, when you place an ad the platform typically helps you determine which network yields the best cost performance. In this space, we’ve seen more than 20 companies already enter the market, including Japanese internet giants CyberAgent and GMO, as well as FreakOut which raised more than $5 million back in March from Yahoo Japan. To learn more about the acquisitions that have happened in Japan in recent years, you can find out more on our acquisitions timeline. We’re also preparing bring you a special interview with the startup’s CEO Daisuke Yamazaki, so please stay tuned for that as well.

426b83c5411168ebde7d073ccce45321

See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Nikkei reported earlier today that mobile ad company Mediba has taken over ScaleOut, a Tokyo-based ad tech startup. The purchase price is reportedly 1 billion yen, or approximately $10 million. Mediba is an ad-focused subsidiary of Japan’s second largest telco KDDI. Some of our readers may recall that the company acquired ad-network Nobot back in August of 2011.

ScaleOut runs a demand-side platform (DSP) which allows digital ad buyers to do more through a single interface. For instance, when you place an ad the platform typically helps you determine which network yields the best cost performance.

In this space, we’ve seen more than 20 companies already enter the market, including Japanese internet giants CyberAgent and GMO, as well as FreakOut which raised more than $5 million back in March from Yahoo Japan.

To learn more about the acquisitions that have happened in Japan in recent years, you can find out more on our acquisitions timeline.

We’re also preparing bring you a special interview with the startup’s CEO Daisuke Yamazaki, so please stay tuned for that as well.