There should be no more doubt that investors are convinced that Mercari is the next big thing for ecommerce in Japan. Following a US$14 million round in March, Mercari confirmed today that it had raised a further JPY 2.36 billion (US$21.8 million).
Many repeat investors, like Global Brain, Globis Capital Partners, GMO Venture Partners, and East Ventures*, participated. But the most notable new investor is the World Innovation Lab (WiL). Founded by Gen Isayama, WiL describes itself as a “change agent bridging the US and Japan, startups and enterprises.” Mercari’s ability to secure WiL as an investor shows the company is ready to make an aggressive, determined push into America.
Mercari’s app offers a digital resale market for users, which has caught on in Japan. As of last month, it recorded over five million total downloads and tens of millions of dollars of goods sold every month. The company launched an English-language app in America last month as well. ...continue reading ...
Tech In Asia 10/9/2014 [en]
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- One of Mercari's competitor, Fril announced a few weeks ago to raise $10 million. In terms of fundraising as well as number of users, Mercari is ahead in the C2C marketplace industry in Japan. But, Mercari looks to much more challenging target, US market. Several games from Japan have hit the market, but few Japanese services other than games have been successful. Mercari says it had a good start in the US market. In another popular mobile app category, news curation, SmartNews is ranked at the top at US App Store ranking in the category. We expect that 2014 will be recorded as the first year for Japanese mobile apps to seriously enter the US market outside of gaming.
- http://www.mercariapp.com/
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