Japan-based household service marketplace operator Minma.jp has raised ¥4bn ($36.4m) in equity and debt financing from investors including corporates Nippon Life, Globis, Sony and Zenrin DataCom.
Insurer Nippon Life, education company Globis and consumer electronics producer Sony provided the equity portion of the round through Nissay Capital, Globis Capital Partners and Innovation Growth Ventures (IGV) respectively, while navigation and mapping service Zenrin DataCom invested directly.
The funding includes an undisclosed amount of debt financing supplied by state-owned financial services firm Japan Finance Corporation.
Founded in 2011, Minma runs a lifestyle-focused marketplace called Curama.jp which lists companies that provide business and domestic services such as cleaning, business trip photography, consumer electronics installation, housekeeping and renovation.
More than 200 categories of such services are available on the platform and the number of registered businesses exceeded 33,000 as of December 2019.
The company has also entered into a business partnership with Zenrin DataCom which will support Minma’s partners and customers through its map and location data, enabling identification of potential buyers and available offerings nearby.
The funding will go towards marketing, product development, global recruitment, human resources training and investment in related startups, with Minma having already backed a chat service developer.
According to The Bridge, Nissay Capital had led Minma’s series A and B rounds, the latter of which took place in 2017, though no further details were disclosed.
Gen Tsuchikawa, chief executive and chief investment officer of IGV, said: “We appreciate that Minma’s greatest strength lies within its synergistic marketplace building – partner businesses’ high-quality services are attracting new users and thereby increasing the number of listings.” [Translated from Japanese by Global Corporate Venturing]
