Viber Owner Rakuten Launched $100 M International Backing Program

Japanese E-commerce Giant Rekuten which already have saw a huge success on stock rising and also came into the new for Viber acquisition for almost a Billion Dollar deal. Now company jumping into the investment industry, previously it had made few speculation into the companies like Carousell, Visenze, Coda Payments and other firms also. Now, it takes a further step into the game but announcing a $100 million international investment fund, which is totally focus of Israeli Entrepreneurs, US, and Pacific Asia also. The e-commerce giant hasn’t disclosed their plans but sys that the money is for startup only, which could be turn into acquisition if possible. An Executive says the money is not focused to only mobile applications but they also want to grow organizations working in other fields such as visual search, or digital content consumption.

              

Published on a Source “The new fund, which is based in Singapore and will be run by Rakuten Ventures managing partner Saemin Ahn, supports “Rakuten Ventures’ broader goal of long-term investments with startups that have the technology and potential to enable better user experience and facilitation,” says Ahn. “Over time, this will include an increased focus on growing the ecosystem, technology, membership, and financial returns.”

The whole business strategy is working around the fact that it wants to be large, Rekuten is hoping to have largest brand in the country so it expanding its roots to different trades. Recently it had purchased lot of firms such as Viber for $900M, E-reading platform Kobo for $315M and video streaming service Viki for $200M and Spanish streaming Wuaki.tv. Also it leading a fund into Pintrest, which will make it worth $1.5 billion in 2012, executives hasn’t said much but it’s clear that it going deep into industry.