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Scentan Ventures takes part in $2m round for Japanese curation app Antenna

  • Andrew Woodman
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Singapore's Scentan Ventures has joined Tokyo-based strategic investor Macromill in investing JPY1.5 billion ($15.5 million) in Glider Associates, the Japanese startup behind smartphone curation app Antenna, for a 25.6% stake.

Antenna, which is available on the Android operating system, describes itself as a "curation magazine" - allowing users to pull together and share news from various sources on topics such as fashion, movies, music, art and food.

According to a release, marketing research firm Macromill plans to support the development of the business and the app by leveraging its own expertise and networks.

There have been a number of VC investments in Japanese mobile app space over the last month: Samurai Incubate Fund invested an undisclosed amount in Japanese mobile app developer Unirings, which developed child monitoring app Mimamoru; Femto committed JPY100 million of seed funding to Toreta, a start-up developing apps for the food service industry, and East Ventures has invested JPY50 million toward flea market app Mercari.

According to the App Annie Index, which analyses the global mobile apps market, Japan recently overtook the USA as the leading country for monthly revenues on the Android app marketplace Google Play, accounting for 29% of the global total.  

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