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Japanese video recipe media Kurashiru acquired by Yahoo Japan for $84M

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Tokyo-based Dely, the Japanese video-centric culinary media startup offering recipe discovery portal Kurashiru, announced today that it has been acquired by Yahoo Japan. YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan, acquired a 15.9% stake of the media startup with their first investment back in 2016. By additionally injecting 9.3 billion yen ($83.8 million US) at this time, Yahoo Japan has agreed to acquire a 45.6% stake of the startup. Dely was established in April of 2014. In September of the same year they received funding from Anri and began a food delivery business as their inaugural service. However, after judging the outlook for such services difficult, they pivoted to video curation media last year, their current business model. Since its launch back in February of 2016, Kurashiru has published 18,000 recipe movies, attracting 2.9 million users via social network channels, and has acquired 12 million mobile app downloads, mainly by attracting female consumers in their 20s to 40s. Tokyo-based Every, the Japanese startup behind online recipe media Delish Kitchen which is considered to be one of Kurashiru’s closer competitor services, has raised a total of 5.43 billion yen (about $48.2 million) to date. See also: Japanese video recipe app…

Tokyo-based Dely, the Japanese video-centric culinary media startup offering recipe discovery portal Kurashiru, announced today that it has been acquired by Yahoo Japan. YJ Capital, the investment arm of Yahoo Japan, acquired a 15.9% stake of the media startup with their first investment back in 2016. By additionally injecting 9.3 billion yen ($83.8 million US) at this time, Yahoo Japan has agreed to acquire a 45.6% stake of the startup.

Dely was established in April of 2014. In September of the same year they received funding from Anri and began a food delivery business as their inaugural service. However, after judging the outlook for such services difficult, they pivoted to video curation media last year, their current business model.

Since its launch back in February of 2016, Kurashiru has published 18,000 recipe movies, attracting 2.9 million users via social network channels, and has acquired 12 million mobile app downloads, mainly by attracting female consumers in their 20s to 40s. Tokyo-based Every, the Japanese startup behind online recipe media Delish Kitchen which is considered to be one of Kurashiru’s closer competitor services, has raised a total of 5.43 billion yen (about $48.2 million) to date.

See also:

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy

Yahoo Japan’s public transit app surpasses 10M downloads

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Yesterday Yahoo Japan announced that its Yahoo Transit application, which tells you directions and transit times for walking, trains, buses, and planes, has surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone as of May 18th. The app was initially released for iOS way back in 2008, and for Android back in 2011. It consistently ranks among the top tier of apps in iOS’s navigation category and Google Play’s transportation category in Japan. Via Venture Now

yahoo-transit

Yesterday Yahoo Japan announced that its Yahoo Transit application, which tells you directions and transit times for walking, trains, buses, and planes, has surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone as of May 18th.

The app was initially released for iOS way back in 2008, and for Android back in 2011. It consistently ranks among the top tier of apps in iOS’s navigation category and Google Play’s transportation category in Japan.

Via Venture Now

To aid China-based buyers, Yahoo Japan will support Alipay

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From Nikkei Asian Review, there’s news that Yahoo Japan will support the use of popular Chinese electronic money solution Alipay, starting in June: To make a purchase on Yahoo Shopping from China, a buyer must use the Tenso.com brokerage service. Tenso.com ships products bought on the e-commerce site once buyers have completed purchase procedures on the broker’s site. Until now, payment options were limited to credit cards and U.S. electronic payment service PayPal. By adding Alipay, which is widely used in China, Yahoo hopes to expand sales through Yahoo Shopping by making it easier for Chinese consumers to buy merchandise. Alipay claims 550 million registered users, and about 8.5 million daily transactions.

yahoo-japan-alipay

From Nikkei Asian Review, there’s news that Yahoo Japan will support the use of popular Chinese electronic money solution Alipay, starting in June:

To make a purchase on Yahoo Shopping from China, a buyer must use the Tenso.com brokerage service. Tenso.com ships products bought on the e-commerce site once buyers have completed purchase procedures on the broker’s site. Until now, payment options were limited to credit cards and U.S. electronic payment service PayPal. By adding Alipay, which is widely used in China, Yahoo hopes to expand sales through Yahoo Shopping by making it easier for Chinese consumers to buy merchandise.

Alipay claims 550 million registered users, and about 8.5 million daily transactions.

On 3rd anniversary of Japan’s tragic quake, Yahoo Japan to donate 10 yen for every ‘3.11’ search

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On the third anniversary of the 3/11 Japan earthquake, Yahoo Japan has an admirable campaign running today to provide some support for the ongoing recovery efforts in affected regions: Three years have passed since that fateful day and we at Yahoo! Search wanted to show our support, as we know so many others want to, for Tohoku. We wanted to find a way to transform such showings of support into actual help for the revitalization of Tohoku. On March 11th, 2014, for every person who uses Yahoo! Search from the Yahoo! JAPAN homepage to search for “3.11”, Yahoo! Search will donate 10 yen per person to the general donation fund established by the recognized charity The Great East Japan Earthquake Recovery Support Foundation. Yahoo Japan, via @darrell_newson/@fluffymiffy

On the third anniversary of the 3/11 Japan earthquake, Yahoo Japan has an admirable campaign running today to provide some support for the ongoing recovery efforts in affected regions:

Three years have passed since that fateful day and we at Yahoo! Search wanted to show our support, as we know so many others want to, for Tohoku. We wanted to find a way to transform such showings of support into actual help for the revitalization of Tohoku.

On March 11th, 2014, for every person who uses Yahoo! Search from the Yahoo! JAPAN homepage to search for “3.11”, Yahoo! Search will donate 10 yen per person to the general donation fund established by the recognized charity The Great East Japan Earthquake Recovery Support Foundation.

Yahoo Japan, via @darrell_newson/@fluffymiffy

Japanese app cleverly sneaks snapshot of girls in a kissing pose

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Japan is often known for its unusual products, and we have written a little about them in the past. One app that is pretty ridiculous, but also very sneaky and smart at the same time, is Yahoo’s ‘Kiss-Shiyo!’ Android app. Its name when translated means “let’s kiss.” Think of a girl that you find attractive, for example. You’re not dating her and you probably won’t in the future, but you still find her attractive. You wonder what she would look like when she’s trying to kiss someone. That’s when the Kiss-Shiyo app comes in handy. The app will produce a picture showing you how she’d look when she’s about to kiss someone — all without revealing your ulterior motive. The brilliance of the app lies in how it produces this picture. Kiss-Shiyo is camouflaged to look like a fortune telling app. It displays a candle displayed on the screen, and if you ask her to blow it out and make a wish, the app takes her photo. That’s it. It’s super simple. If the girl has some sense of humor, you will not only get a cute photo of her, but hopefully also a good laugh. Kiss-Shiyo is a creation…

Kiss-Shiyo-Yahoo

Japan is often known for its unusual products, and we have written a little about them in the past. One app that is pretty ridiculous, but also very sneaky and smart at the same time, is Yahoo’s ‘Kiss-Shiyo!’ Android app. Its name when translated means “let’s kiss.”

Think of a girl that you find attractive, for example. You’re not dating her and you probably won’t in the future, but you still find her attractive. You wonder what she would look like when she’s trying to kiss someone. That’s when the Kiss-Shiyo app comes in handy.

Kiss-Shiyo-candleThe app will produce a picture showing you how she’d look when she’s about to kiss someone — all without revealing your ulterior motive. The brilliance of the app lies in how it produces this picture. Kiss-Shiyo is camouflaged to look like a fortune telling app. It displays a candle displayed on the screen, and if you ask her to blow it out and make a wish, the app takes her photo. That’s it. It’s super simple.

If the girl has some sense of humor, you will not only get a cute photo of her, but hopefully also a good laugh.

Kiss-Shiyo is a creation that came out of Yahoo Japan’s Lab, an experimental initiave from the internet giant. On its website, the Lab showcases different projects, including Yubichizu and FashionNavi. Yubichizu is an intuitive web app for tablets that lets users draw on a map to find the distance to nearby stores for example. FashionNavi, meanwhile, is an color-focused image search designed specifically for fashion.

You can download Kiss-Shiyo app on Google Play.

How can Yahoo Japan fend off emerging e-commerce challengers?

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This is part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013 See the original story in Japanese. The Japanese e-commerce market has a volume of $83 billion, but that accounts for only 10% of the country’s entire retail market [1]. Users in Japan have shifted to browsing on mobile, and that’s where the Japanese e-commerce industry will move as well. On day one of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013, we heard from Yahoo Japan’s Takao Ozawa, whose title within the Internet giant is the head of ‘shopping company’. He shared some thoughts about how e-commerce companies can give users ways to discover new things to buy [2]. E-commerce giant Rakuten is said to be have over 100 million items on its platform, which helps you understand how important discovery and recommendation technologies will be for the e-commerce industry in the future. This session was moderated by Hirofumi Ono, of Infinity Ventures Partners. In a response to his queston about how e-commerce platforms should communicate or suggest possible purchases to customers, Ozawa noted that there are three keys: curation, search, and recommendation. He elaborated: Yahoo (Japan) is a search technology company. We’re actually using Google’s engine though. When you try…

takao-ozawa_at-ivs-2013-fall-kyoto

This is part of our coverage of Infinity Ventures Summit Kyoto 2013

See the original story in Japanese.

The Japanese e-commerce market has a volume of $83 billion, but that accounts for only 10% of the country’s entire retail market [1]. Users in Japan have shifted to browsing on mobile, and that’s where the Japanese e-commerce industry will move as well.

On day one of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013, we heard from Yahoo Japan’s Takao Ozawa, whose title within the Internet giant is the head of ‘shopping company’. He shared some thoughts about how e-commerce companies can give users ways to discover new things to buy [2]. E-commerce giant Rakuten is said to be have over 100 million items on its platform, which helps you understand how important discovery and recommendation technologies will be for the e-commerce industry in the future.

This session was moderated by Hirofumi Ono, of Infinity Ventures Partners. In a response to his queston about how e-commerce platforms should communicate or suggest possible purchases to customers, Ozawa noted that there are three keys: curation, search, and recommendation. He elaborated:

Yahoo (Japan) is a search technology company. We’re actually using Google’s engine though. When you try to find something with a keyword like ‘TV’ on our platform, it gives you back few relevant results. This was fortunately fixed. Compared to other recommendation platforms, we have more capability to assess what pages or sites our users have browsed, and which ones can give them more relevant recommendations. We all know Amazon is very good at recommendation. But Yahoo Japan might provide better results since it has such an enormous number of active users in this country.

Yahoo News is also optimizing its interface for mobile browsing, and that may represent another chance to drive traffic to the e-commerce channel by inserting recommendations between articles. Our readers may recall news curation app Gunosy found success inserting ads between news headlines or articles.

Speaking to the recent trend of emerging ‘instant’ e-commerce platforms such as Stores.jp and Base, he encouraged retailers using these platforms to use Yahoo Shopping too, and that prompted a big laugh from the audience.

I think what Stores.jp and Base are providing are functions. I expect to give retailers ways to automate setting up a shop on Yahoo Shopping when they do that on both Stores.jp and Base. We’re a media platform, which is better at acquiring users. I think the combination of function and media will make for the best business results.

I’m skeptical if Yahoo Japan is serious about partnering with the emerging e-commerce platforms, but it is interesting to see how the platforms will generate a strong lead for their merchants.


  1. According to the Japanese ministry of economy, trade, and industry.
  2. A serial entrepreneur who launched a second-hand book and video marketplace EasySeek, established a professional baseball team at Rakuten, and invested in many emerging startups like Star Festival, Nanapi, and Tokyo Otaku Mode. He sold his social marketing agency Crocos to Yahoo Japan back in August of 2012, and joined YJ Capital (the investment arm of Yahoo Japan) to help cultivate its investment and e-commerce businesses.

5 great ideas acknowledged at Yahoo Japan’s ‘Internet Creative Awards’

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Here in Japan, internet giant Yahoo Japan holds its ‘Internet Creative Awards‘. The awards began back in 2006 to discover and support digital creators. Winning products are carefully selected by participating judges, and the final results were just announced from a list of 340 nominees. The awards are divided into general (individual creators or projects) and corporate creators. Let’s take a look at some of the winners from the ‘general’ portion. The grand winner was Dots Dog, a cute app designed for children ages one to three years old. All a child needs to do is to touch the iPhone screen at three points to draw three dots. The dots, wherever they’re placed, will be turned into a face of a dog. The app recognizes the size of the dots, making the dog’s expression unique each time. Kannon is a soon to be released iPhone app that turns everyday sounds into a real-time animation. The app picks up on surrounding noises like the squeak of a chair, breathing sounds, or people chatting. The resulting animation could look like a face, or a mysteriously random letter. The app will be available for download soon for the price of 170 yen. Kigurumi…

Yahoo-internet-creative-award

Here in Japan, internet giant Yahoo Japan holds its ‘Internet Creative Awards‘. The awards began back in 2006 to discover and support digital creators. Winning products are carefully selected by participating judges, and the final results were just announced from a list of 340 nominees.

The awards are divided into general (individual creators or projects) and corporate creators. Let’s take a look at some of the winners from the ‘general’ portion.

The grand winner was Dots Dog, a cute app designed for children ages one to three years old. All a child needs to do is to touch the iPhone screen at three points to draw three dots. The dots, wherever they’re placed, will be turned into a face of a dog. The app recognizes the size of the dots, making the dog’s expression unique each time.

Dots-Dog

Kannon is a soon to be released iPhone app that turns everyday sounds into a real-time animation. The app picks up on surrounding noises like the squeak of a chair, breathing sounds, or people chatting. The resulting animation could look like a face, or a mysteriously random letter. The app will be available for download soon for the price of 170 yen.

Kigurumi Camera is an app (for iPhone and Android) that turns any facial photo into a kigurumi. Kigurumi is a costume people put on when they’re tyring to represent cartoon characters or animals. The app doesn’t do much but it makes a sort of a weird twisted photo of your face putting on your kigurumi. It was awarded for it’s mysteriousness and since people often shared the resulting photos online.

A few friends of a soon-to-be-married couple invented a new kind of ring. It’s called ‘Sao-ring’ (Sao comes from the name of the bride), and it’s sort of a prank because when the ring is placed on the groom’s finger, it sends out his location to his wife. When he takes it off, the signal is turned off. But why would he ever if he loves her truly? This project is fun, but the use of geolocation technology here is intriguing.

Saoring

Arart (AR-art) is an iPhone app that breathes life into things on the screen. When a user holds up an iPhone to an art work, the art expresses itself on your iPhone screen. Check out the video below.

Japanese mobile moguls on how to succeed with smartphone content

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This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013. On day one of B Dash Camp 2013 in Osaka, we heard an all-star panel speak on the many issues surrounding mobile content in Japan. The moderator was Katsuaki Sato, the CEO of Metaps, and the lineup of speakers included: Shinji Kimura, from news reader app Gunosy. Shin Murakami, operating officer and chief mobil office of Yahoo Japan Eiji Takahashi the president and CEO of Alim Hiroki Teshima, director and executive officer at United Inc (maker of CocoPPa). On the factors that lead to success Gunosy’s Kimura-san explained a little about their news reader application. He notes that they have a general news section, but also a new features that they released today called a content partners channel. Regarding how to succeed with mobile content, he explained: I think it’s really timing that matters. SmartNews Gunosy came out when I think many people were feeling fatigue from Twitter and Facebook. We had an image of how to solve that, with our app confronting that issue head on. In a way, were were meeting a demand, serving news via email. It just worked out to be the right…

bdash-smartphone-content
United’s Hiroki Teshima; Shin Murakami, Yahoo Japan; Eiji Takahashi. Alim; Shinji Kimura, Gunosy

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

On day one of B Dash Camp 2013 in Osaka, we heard an all-star panel speak on the many issues surrounding mobile content in Japan. The moderator was Katsuaki Sato, the CEO of Metaps, and the lineup of speakers included:

  • Shinji Kimura, from news reader app Gunosy.
  • Shin Murakami, operating officer and chief mobil office of Yahoo Japan
  • Eiji Takahashi the president and CEO of Alim
  • Hiroki Teshima, director and executive officer at United Inc (maker of CocoPPa).

On the factors that lead to success

Gunosy’s Kimura-san explained a little about their news reader application. He notes that they have a general news section, but also a new features that they released today called a content partners channel. Regarding how to succeed with mobile content, he explained:

I think it’s really timing that matters. SmartNews Gunosy came out when I think many people were feeling fatigue from Twitter and Facebook. We had an image of how to solve that, with our app confronting that issue head on. In a way, were were meeting a demand, serving news via email. It just worked out to be the right timing.

In terms of montetization, he added:

If you are taking about tens of millions of users, you need to work on satisfying them, and you can work out the business model at a later stage.

alim
Eiji Takahashi, Alim president

Takahashi started off by introducing Alim’s recently launched game Brave Frontier, noting that they ‘respect’ the structure of Puzzle & Dragons and trying to combine familiar content that Japanese users can enjoy. He disclosed some figures about Brave Frontier, which are as follows, noting that these are pretty high for an RPG:

  • 520,000 user accounts
  • 340,000 monthly active users
  • 120,000 daily active users
  • monthly PU rate of 10% and monthly ARPPU of 5,000 yen

Takahashi also spoke a little on the use of ads vs viral marketings in promoting a mobile game:

When we started on iOS, we had an affiliation with the Famitsu app, but beyond that it was word of mouth. We had a pre-launch registration. But before our first 100,000 users, there were no ads at all. But when you reach a ceiling, you’ll need to consider investing in ads. (Moderator asks, “TV?”) I can’t say too much more (laughs).

He also acknowledge that the fate of a mobile business can be somewhat beyond your control, especially in the early days.

I think it’s complete luck, because we didn’t expecxt this at all. We had to suspend our service a few days after launch because we couldn’t quite handle the demand. We thought that we can attract a number of users, but we had no idea how much it would be. It was completely beyond our expectation.

united-yahoo
Hiroki Teshima, United; Shin Murakami, Yahoo Japan

Murakami of Yahoo Japan said that their company has over 95 million downloads across iOS and Android. Community Factory, which they bought, has over 25 million downloads in total across their apps. Noted that Kakaotalk was also doing well in Japan with 10 million downloads, even though Line is the leader here.

He appeared to envy the position of up-and-comping startups, which show more agility than an entity than Yahoo Japan ever could:

In order to get the timing right, I think if you are in a venture company you need to look at the market size of your sector. Becoming number one in a niche industry is possible, and you can catch a wave without too much hesitation.

Teshima-san from United gave a brief intro to CocoPPa, which just surpasses 15 million users worldwide. He was wearing a Mercari shirt as well, showing his support the e-commerce app that they recently poured $3 million into.

Things never go as expected, but if you have many ways to attract users, you should be ok. I think there should be a plan B and C, not just a plan A.

From the beginning I we prepared a Chinese and Korean version. We used Conyac, and it was a very simple translation, but it was good enough to help us go global. I would advise that if you think your app can go global, then don’t skimp on translation costs.

He noted that they might try expanding into the browser to offer their service on the web. He explained that collecting valuable information from people is a good way to hedge risk in business.

Top 5: Private social networks for families

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In the age of online sharing, many people have become less hesitant to share family photos on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Many people would rather share private photos just among family. Here in Japan, there are a few options out there for such people. Here’s a list of five such made-in-Japan apps. 1. Wellnote ¶ Wellnote is a private social network for families provided by WellStyle. The app allows families to share family pictures, and even print and send 30 of their favorites for 525 yen (per address). Other features includes baby health-management, where family members can track the growth of their baby. Wellnote has also partnered with major enterprises such as Nissen and Gakken to provide education and other family-related news within the app. 2. Mago-Love ¶ ‘Mago-Love’ means ‘love for grandchildren’ in Japanese. On Mago-Love, users can share family photos with selected people. The app is simply designed, allowing even not so tech-savvy grandparents to skim through photos and comment on the ones they like. By bundling up many photos, the app can create movies or send them out as printed postcards. 3. Kazoc ¶ Yahoo Japan released its app for families back in Feburary of this…

Nicori

In the age of online sharing, many people have become less hesitant to share family photos on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Many people would rather share private photos just among family. Here in Japan, there are a few options out there for such people. Here’s a list of five such made-in-Japan apps.

1. Wellnote

WellNoteWellnote is a private social network for families provided by WellStyle. The app allows families to share family pictures, and even print and send 30 of their favorites for 525 yen (per address). Other features includes baby health-management, where family members can track the growth of their baby. Wellnote has also partnered with major enterprises such as Nissen and Gakken to provide education and other family-related news within the app.

2. Mago-Love

Mago-LoveMago-Love’ means ‘love for grandchildren’ in Japanese. On Mago-Love, users can share family photos with selected people. The app is simply designed, allowing even not so tech-savvy grandparents to skim through photos and comment on the ones they like. By bundling up many photos, the app can create movies or send them out as printed postcards.

3. Kazoc

KazocYahoo Japan released its app for families back in Feburary of this year. It’s called Kazoc. The app is designed to be a digital alternative to the kind of handbooks that mothers use to keep track of their baby’s health while pregant. The app requires users to login using their Yahoo credentials.

After the baby is born, mothers can record the baby’s height and weight, and it also works as a checklist for vaccines and medical checkups. The invited family members can chat in the feed and share photos. Free accounts allows you to save up to 1,000 photos, and with a monthly fee of 250 yen users can save up to 5,000 photos.

4. Nicori

NicoriNicori might be a good app for those of you with grandparents who have not yet switched to smartphones. The app allows users to send photos using a dedicated URL that can be viewed on feature phones or computers every time a photo is posted to the app. Nicori allows photos to be shared with up to ten people, and for every photo the sharing settings can be specified so that only selected family members can see. All uploaded photos can be viewed in a calendar, giving you a better idea of how you’re spending your days with your children.

5. Raku-Communication

Raku-CommunicationThe concept behind Raku-Communication is to make families feel as if they’re living under the same roof even when they live apart from each other. By using Raku-Communication, in addition to just sharing photos, grandparents can feel as if they live together with their grandchildren by exchanging memos with them. Calling requires all your attention, and can steal away your time when you’re busy doing other things. Notes gives families a way to communicate on their own terms. You can also attach hand-written notes to photos if you like.

Some non-Japanese alternatives worth checking out:

Yahoo Japan acquires e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic

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Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) announced recently that it has taken over leading Japanese e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic. Financial details were not disclosed. Since its launch back in 2001, the latter has been a provider of price comparison sites and commerce-focused vertical media such as Travel.jp, Hotel.jp, and Coneco.net to Japanese online consumers. The company is also known to have invested in Indonesian price comparison site Telunjuk and Singapore’s travel metasearch service Flocations. Upon the acquisition, the company was split into two companies corresponding to different business fields. One company rebranded as Osenikku and will continue operating Coneco.net. And the CEO formed a new company called Venture Republic, which take care of the travel-related media. As a result, the comparison site business has been entirely handed over to Yahoo Japan. Since December of 2010, Venture Republic has been providing user-generated product reviews on consumer products in Yahoo Japan’s e-commerce channel. With the acquisition, the portal giant aims to provide a better user experience to its e-commerce customers. Venture Republic was founded by Japanese businessman Kei Shibata back in 2001, and subsequently listed on the JASDAQ market back in 2009. Later on it was delisted when he bought back its shares.

coneco.net_screenshot

Yahoo Japan (TYO:4689) announced recently that it has taken over leading Japanese e-commerce portal provider Venture Republic. Financial details were not disclosed.

Since its launch back in 2001, the latter has been a provider of price comparison sites and commerce-focused vertical media such as Travel.jp, Hotel.jp, and Coneco.net to Japanese online consumers. The company is also known to have invested in Indonesian price comparison site Telunjuk and Singapore’s travel metasearch service Flocations.

Upon the acquisition, the company was split into two companies corresponding to different business fields. One company rebranded as Osenikku and will continue operating Coneco.net. And the CEO formed a new company called Venture Republic, which take care of the travel-related media. As a result, the comparison site business has been entirely handed over to Yahoo Japan.

Since December of 2010, Venture Republic has been providing user-generated product reviews on consumer products in Yahoo Japan’s e-commerce channel. With the acquisition, the portal giant aims to provide a better user experience to its e-commerce customers.

Venture Republic was founded by Japanese businessman Kei Shibata back in 2001, and subsequently listed on the JASDAQ market back in 2009. Later on it was delisted when he bought back its shares.