Japan-based marketing and advertising service provider Piala has formed a corporate venturing arm dubbed Piala Ventures.
The vehicle is set to launch in January 2021 with a target fund size between ¥1bn and ¥1.5bn ($9.7m to $14.5m). Investors including financial services firm SBI’s SBI Ventures Two and SBI FinTech Solutions subsidiaries will make limited partner commitments to the fund.
Founded in 2004, Piala provides e-commerce, advertising and marketing services. Its customers include some 800 companies across the healthcare, beauty and food industries.
The company had already partnered SBI FinTech Solutions in August 2020 to launch Piala Pay, which involves SBI purchasing future receivables from mail order companies by predicting their potential sales results based on repeat orders.
Piala Ventures will focus on direct-to-consumer healthcare, beauty and food technology developers at early, middle and late stage in Japan and elsewhere. It will concentrate on exits through mergers and acquisitions but does not rule out initial public offerings.
