{"id":14441,"date":"2011-06-21T15:14:22","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T06:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/?p=14441"},"modified":"2011-06-21T15:14:22","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T06:14:22","slug":"kddi-buys-5-stake-in-gps-game-provider-colopl-for-us6-2-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/kddi-buys-5-stake-in-gps-game-provider-colopl-for-us6-2-million\/","title":{"rendered":"KDDI Buys 5% Stake In GPS Game Provider Colopl For US$6.2 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nLaunched in Japan as early as 2005, “Colopl”<\/a>, a simulation in which cell phone users manage a virtual colony, is probably one of the earliest geo-aware games out there. The namesake company made “Coloni-na Seikatsu Plus” (Colony-like Life) available to subscribers of NTT Docomo, SoftBank Mobile, and KDDI au.
\nIn the game, players collect a virtual currency dubbed “pura” when traveling from one point in Japan to another. They can then use this money and virtual items collected in those places to create a “colony” on their cell phone (more information in English on how the game works here<\/a> and here<\/a>).
\nThe concept took off, Colopl inked a few deals<\/a> with partner companies, and in November last year (when Colopl had 1.5 million users), KDDI entered a partnership with the company.
\nAnd today the Nikkei is reporting that Japan’s 2nd largest carrier is ready to buy a 5% stake in Colopl that’s worth 500 million Yen ($6.2 million). In other words, the company is now valued at $125 million – a very high sum, as far as the Japanese market is concerned. By way of comparison: last year, Foursquare’s valuation at the last round of financing stood at $95 million<\/a> pre-money.
\nKDDI is Foursquare’s partner<\/a> in Japan since February. The carrier also invested<\/a> in Tokyo-based mobile app startup Tonchidot, struck a tie-up <\/a>with social games maker Rekoo (both last year), and invested in mobile social gaming juggernaut GREE<\/a> in 2007.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Launched in Japan as early as 2005, “Colopl”, a simulation in which cell phone users manage a virtual colony, is probably one of the earliest geo-aware games out there. The namesake company made “Coloni-na Seikatsu Plus” (Colony-like Life) available to subscribers of NTT Docomo, SoftBank Mobile, and KDDI au. In the game, players collect a… Continue reading KDDI Buys 5% Stake In GPS Game Provider Colopl For US$6.2 Million<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,17,24],"tags":[83,703,1432,1724,1942],"class_list":["post-14441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cellular-phone","category-japan","category-news","tag-games","tag-colopl","tag-gps","tag-investments","tag-kddi","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiajin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}