YJ Capital launches Fund II, backs Indonesia fashion site

According to a release, the new fund will have a total corpus of JPY20 billion ($169 million) with Yahoo! Japan providing the bulk of the capital - JPY19 billion - and the GP putting in the rest. The vehicle is several times the size of the YJ Capital's JPY3 billion maiden fund, which was launched in 2012.

The fund is looking to take part in instituional VC rounds with a focus on start-ups in the mobile, internet, and internet-of-things (IoT) segments. It will also target businesses that can provide synergies for its parent company.

The fund is also looking opportunities in the fast-growing e-commerce and financial services sector, with a particular focus on Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia. The undisclosed Series A investment in VIP Plaza is in keeping with this thesis.

VIP Plaza launched in February last year with the backing of CyberAgent Ventures, a Japanese corporate VC unit. It is a flash sales site, with sales driven by heavily discounted products offered within a small time window.

The company claims to have around 3.5 million page views per month, with around 80% of the traffic coming via mobile devices. The business model conforms closely to that of other e-commerce start-ups elsewhere in Asia, such as India's FashionandYou and China's Jumei. Both have obtained VC backing.

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• Topics
• Consumer
• Technology
• Venture
• North Asia
• Southeast Asia
• YJ Capital
• Consumer
• Venture
• Japan
• Southeast Asia
• Indonesia
• TMT