Invested in SundaySky Ltd.

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President & CEO, Minoru Etoh), through the fund it operates, invested in SundaySky Ltd. (headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel; CEO, Shmulik Weller, hereinafter referred to as “SundaySky”), an Israeli-founded start-up company. SundaySky’s SmartVideo technology combines the power of video with personalized storytelling at scale to offer personalized video solutions that connect brands (companies) to their customers.

1.Overview of the investment

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc., through the fund it operates, invested in SundaySky, a start-up company founded in Israel. This is the second venture investment in Israel for NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc.

2.Background

For companies who have large groups of consumers as their customers, SundaySky’s SmartVideo Platform creates, manages, distributes and optimizes personalized video programs throughout the customer lifecycle (before and after a purchase). SmartVideos are generated in real time and enable companies to communicate to their customers with “one-to-one” videos.
There has long been the idea of providing each consumer the most appropriate content based on his data and online behavior, instead of offering the same content to every person. The introduction of such an idea is becoming easier as facility costs, including network and storage expenses, have lowered. Consumers’ exposure to videos via the Internet is also increasing more than ever with the spread of smartphones.
Given these trends, SundaySky, being competent in real-time video generation and distribution, has successfully introduced its SmartVideo Platform mainly to North America’s telecommunication carriers and financial companies. It is contributing to the improvement of customer loyalty, the reduction of call center costs, and the increase of sales per customer.
In order to improve customer loyalty and the effect of advertising measures, NTT DOCOMO Inc. has started using SundaySky’s technologies since the last fiscal year to distribute one-to-one SmartVideos that correspond to the different situations of each customer.
We invested in SundaySky on the prospect that the company will grow further as its business continues to expand and with the expectation that SundaySky’s technologies can contribute to NTT DOCOMO Inc.’s operations.