The Japanese venture capital firm CyberAgent Ventures Inc opened a new office in Taipei yesterday with the aim of expanding its investment in Taiwanese mobile application startups.
“We plan to invest in another two Taiwanese companies, one of which is an Internet portal, by the end of this year,” Alice Fang (方倩勻), president of CyberAgent Taiwan, said in an interview at the opening ceremony.
“The investment will be around US$1 million in each company, same as our earlier investment in the Taiwanese Web site iPeen (愛評網),” she added.
CyberAgent, which is based in Tokyo, has a market value of US$1.8 billion. It has offices in cities throughout Asia, including Shanghai and Shenzhen, China, and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
Its investments are spread throughout more than 70 companies in Japan, China and Thailand, including Japan’s biggest social networking site Mixi Inc and mobile social gaming firm DeNA Co Ltd, and China’s online video Web site Tudou Holdings Ltd (土豆網).
In April, CyberAgent spent US$1 million to acquire a 20 percent stake in the restaurant information site iPeen.
The capital is expected to be used to expand iPeen’s human resources this year from 30 to 70 employees. It is also expected to help boost iPeen’s revenues from NT$30 million (US$1 million) last year to NT$90 million this year with the launch of more mobile services for Android-powered smartphones and tablet PCs, according to iPeen.
Next year, CyberAgent will look to invest a total of US$23 million in 25 startups in the greater China area, mostly mobile application developers, Fang said. The company is in talks with a Hong Kong-based gaming app developer API Force, she said.
“We prefer mobile app developers because such companies have a worldwide impact when their products are distributed online,” Fang said. “We think this sector is full of potential.”
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