Invested in Jimoty, Inc.

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President & CEO: Minoru Etoh) today announced its investment, through the investment fund it operates, in Jimoty, Inc. (headquartered in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan; CEO: Takahiro Kato, hereinafter referred to as “Jimoty”) that engages in the planning, development and operation of the classified advertisement website “Jimoty,” a website that allows the user to post local community information on it inexpensively and easily.

1.Overview of the investment

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, through the investment fund it operates, acquired shares of Jimoty through a third-party allocation conducted by it.

2.Background

Jimoty engages in the planning, development and operation of the above-mentioned classified advertisement website “Jimoty” that allows the user to post on it, for individual local communities, an offer advertisement or notice, such as information on goods (an offer to sell or give), schools, job vacancies, real estate and events, free of charge, or inexpensively, and easily.
The Jimoty website shows information such as on citizens offering to remove surplus items of furniture for free or to adopt one’s pets and on job vacancies that are available in the local area. Thus, as a local community bulletin board service with characteristics that are non-existent in conventional online auction sites, the Jimoty website supports the casual and simple dealings and exchange between different residents in a given area.
Having already achieved a significant online traffic volume and market size in foreign countries, it is hoped that classified advertisement websites will grow substantially in Japan as well in the coming years. Under such circumstances, Jimoty is currently ranked among the top players in the country in terms of site user count and content volume in the classified advertisement website business field.
The above-mentioned efforts by Jimoty have a high affinity with media contents businesses and rural revitalization initiatives of NTT Group companies including NTT DOCOMO, which is hoped to contribute to these areas.