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Japan's Rakuten to acquire VC-backed US eBook firm

  • Holden Mann
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Japan's Rakuten will pay $410 million to acquire US-based digital book marketplace OverDrive from Insight Venture Partners, a US private equity and venture capital firm.

In a release, Rakuten said that the acquisition of Overdrive will help the company to grow its digital content offerings. OverDrive's distribution platform, which includes over two million titles, will be integrated with Rakuten's global network, as will its ebook rental service.

Rakuten has called digital content one of its strategic pillars, along with e-commerce and finance. Other acquisitions in this space include Canadian ebook company Kobo and video streaming service Wuaki.tv in 2012, and video site Viki in 2013.

Speaking to Reuters, a spokesman for Rakuten called OverDrive's ebook rental service "phase 2" of its ebook strategy, of which the Kobo acquisition was phase 1.

The OverDrive deal comes just a week after Rakuten led a $530 million funding round for US car-booking app Lyft. In addition, last year the company bought e-commerce mobile app Slice from its VC backers, and paid about $1 billion for online discount store Ebates.com.

OverDrive, founded in 1986, has been owned by Insight since 2010. The company provides ebook rental services to schools and libraries worldwide and markets touchscreen browsing stations to libraries. It also allows users to stream music and videos via its mobile apps.

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