NTT DOCOMO Ventures Invests in EVIRY, INC.

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President and CEO, Takayuki Inagawa; hereinafter “NDV”), through a fund it operates, has invested in EVIRY, INC. (headquartered in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan; CEO and Founder, Keisuke Nakagawa; hereinafter “EVIRY”), a provider of video-based marketing support and on-line video platform services.

Facebook, Instagram, and other social networking services (SNS) have become convenient and quite popular communication tools as smart phones are now in wide use. In response to the changes in communications, the use of powerful SNS influencers is drawing attention as a new effective marketing tool. At the same time, the content generated by SNS users is getting richer, shifting from simple texts and photos to videos, owing to the higher communication speed now widely available. Videos have an increasingly high importance in marketing of goods and services.

Accordingly, an increasing number of business firms have begun promoting video marketing, thereby making use of influencers. However, advertisers find it hard to choose the right influencer, while would-be influencers and talent agencies are not so sure how best to develop themselves or produce powerful influencers, respectively. Such challenges need to be overcome for video-based influencer marketing to be truly effective and widespread.

EVIRY operates “kamui tracker”, one of the largest YouTube databases in Japan and a YouTube channel analyzing system since March 2016. As of yet, the company has won over 7,000 users including YouTubers, YouTube channel operators, and businesses actively engaged in video marketing.

The overwhelmingly large data volume and the multiple analysis capability of kamui tracker make it possible to search and cast optimum influencers and to analyze the advertising strategy of the competition. It is also an easy-to-use tool for YouTube channel operators to manage the number of viewers, the estimated revenue, and other performances. Kamui tracker has garnered high praise among the users and is expected to achieve further growth. The efforts by EVIRY have a high affinity to the digital marketing business strategy that the NTT Group is pursuing; therefore, NDV has decided to make this investment on the basis that the efforts have the potential to create new values in this business domain.

Acting as a catalyst for innovative alliance of services between EVIRY and the NTT Group, NDV will be taking further initiatives for new value creation.

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