Creema, Inc., operating the handmade marketplace "Creema," and KDDI commences capital and business partnership

• Creema, Inc.
• KDDI CORPORATION

June 6,2014

Creema, Inc., the operator of the handmade marketplace "Creema (in Japanese only)" (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Kotaro Marubayashi), and KDDI Corporation (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President Takashi Tanaka; hereafter "KDDI"), are to commence a business partnership on June 6, 2014 upon a capital tie-up of 100 million yen through the KDDI Open Innovation Fund run by Global Brain Corporation (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Yasuhiko Yurimoto).

Creema is a social commerce site where creators active in producing creative works nationwide and consumers can directly sell and purchase original works over the Web. Its service was launched in 2010 with a goal of "establishing a fair and enormous economic sphere in the world of product making where genuinely brilliant things are not left undiscovered."
Creema offers a brand new shopping experience: creators can easily sell their works to consumers in all parts of the nation while consumers can also directly and casually purchase the one and only original work of the creators from their smartphone. Today, 500,000 original works from about 18,000 creators are available on the site, serving more than 1 million users every month.
Furthermore, with regard to the total sales volume, Creema recorded an over-400% growth each year for three consecutive years and has grown into a service that is a major driver in the C-to-C market (Consumer-to-Consumer Business) in Japan. Creema, Inc. is also engaged non-online activities, such as the holding of a major Tokyo Big Sight event "HandMade In Japan Fes (in Japanese only)" and the shop management of the Creema Store in LUMINE SHINJUKU, as part of its efforts to enable consumers to purchase the works of creators with online shops on Creema at real locales.

The C-to-C market is currently flourishing in Japan against the backdrop of the recent proliferation of smartphones and expanding social networks. In particular, the hobby and handmade crafts-related market in Japan is estimated at 824.6 billion yen [1], with further growth still expected for the future. In this market, KDDI, aiming for the fusion of the Internet and the real world in its third 3M strategy "au WALLET concept," will support Creema's activities in a number of different ways. First, by promoting Creema on au services such as au Smart Pass while introducing au Simple Payment and au WALLET card payment on Creema, KDDI aims to expand au WALLET's economic zone and customer contact points, as well as the total volume of the whole EC business. [2]
KDDI will also sponsor HandMade In Japan Fes 2014, held by Creema, Inc. in July, as part of its joint support with Creema, Inc. for creators' activities nationwide and the product-making culture in Japan.

KDDI and Creema, Inc. will mutually and to their fullest provide the various resources that they possess today and in the future in order to offer a new shopping experience on the smartphone platform. Please refer to the attachment for details.

• [1]

  Reference: Hobby Association of Japan "White Paper on Hobbies ― 2013 Edition"

• [2]

  au Simple Payment and au WALLET card will be available as payment methods starting from July 2014.
  For details about the au WALLET card, please visit the following webpage.
  http://www.au.kddi.com/au-id/au-wallet/ (in Japanese only)

For more details, see the Attachment.
Attachment：Creema, Inc., operating the handmade marketplace "Creema," and KDDI commences capital and business partnership

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