Japan sneaker marketplace raises $56m

Altos Ventures and Jafco also participated, alongside Kream, a similar shoe platform in Korea that is also backed by SoftBank Ventures. It values Soda at JPY24 billion, according to a statement, and brings total funding to JPY8.7 billion.

SoftBank Ventures, Base Partners, Colopl Next, and internet services company The Guild provided a JPY2.2 billion Series B earlier this year.

Soda is best known as the operator of sneaker reselling platform Snkr Dunk, which is marketed as a secure C2C service for a product category that is subject to counterfeiting. Snkr Dunk is said to have grown more than 1,000% during 2020. As of May 2021, Soda was tracking 900% year-on-year growth and claimed its highest monthly sales figures to date at $34.7 million.

The investment coincides with Soda’s acquisition of Monokabu, Japan’s second-largest online sneaker retailer, giving the combined group an 80% local market share in the resale category. The acquisition sets up Snkr Dunk, which currently has three million monthly users, to pursue a pan-Asia expansion starting in Indonesia and the Philippines next year.

Snkr Dunk is positioned more broadly as a streetwear portal through advertising featuring Japanese DJs and pop acts.

This is seen as a discrete marketing niche that plays well in private equity, with The Carlyle Group having recently sold US skateboarding brand Supreme in a $2.1 billion deal. Recent Japanese activity in this vein includes CVC Capital Partners acquiring streetwear maker A Bathing Ape.

SoftBank Ventures Asia projects the global sneaker resale market will see annual growth of more than 20% through 2030, when revenue will approach $30 billion. The VC firm has three portfolio companies in the sneaker marketplace category, including Soda, Kream, and China’s Nice.

“Soda is a key player in the Japanese market, and we are proud to continue supporting its ambitions," said J.P. Lee, CEO of SoftBank Ventures Asia.

"We expect that the volume of sneaker resale transactions produced by our portfolio companies in South Korea, China and Japan will exhibit a high growth curve, and we will actively utilize [SoftBank Ventures Asia’s] global network to help them create more strategic synergy and lead the Asian market.”

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Consumer
• Expansion
• Technology
• Japan
• SoftBank Ventures Asia
• Altos Ventures
• JAFCO
• TMT
• e-commerce