Japan’s language learning service Rarejob announced today it has fundraised 330 million yen (approximately $3.3 million) from KDDI Open Innovation Fund, YJ Capital, and CyberAgent [1]. This follows its previous funding of about 20 million yen, which came from Tokyo-based VC firm Global Brain back in April of 2008. Rarejob was launched in 2007, and has been providing conversational English-language learning at affordable rates, doing remote conversation lessons with people in the Philippines over Skype. According to the startup, they have acquired more than 170,000 Japanese users in total. Most of their teachers are attending or have graduated from the University of the Philippines, the highest profile university in the country. With this funding, the startup plans to improve the quality of the service and developing some other new businesses. The startup aspires to develop a platform and more optimized lesson programs, which may motivate its users to learn more foreign languages. KDDI Open Innovation Fund is jointly managed by KDDI and Global Brain. YJ Capital is, of course, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan.  ↩