Investment in Phone Appli Inc.

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President & CEO, Toshiki Nakayama), has invested in Phone Appli Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President, Yosuke Ishihara), a company that provides web telephone book applications to corporations, via a fund under its management.

1. Overview
NTT DOCOMO Ventures, via a fund under its management, acquired shares of Phone Appli through the company’s third-party allotment.

2. Background
With the heightened awareness of “workstyle reform” promoted by the government, companies have made efforts to improve job efficiency and productivity and reinvigorate communications.
Phone Appli provides numerous services for clients ranging from large companies to small and medium-sized companies, in order to enable them to improve communication efficiency. Also, the company is actively engaged in the development of services utilizing new technologies, for example, the development of solutions related to “workstyle reform” utilizing IoT. In the market, which is expected to substantially grow, Phone Appli has expanded business by taking advantage of its experience in developing web telephone book applications that have various communication tools used by a company integrated and linked together.
Phone Appli’s services have an affinity with NTT DOCOMO’s “Office Link”, a nationwide mobile internal line service. NTT DOCOMO Ventures hopes that solutions to be used together with the services will provide a wide range of functions such as helping companies to reduce communication costs and ensuring appropriate working hours for workstyle reform and contribute to the creation of new value.
＊”Office Link” is trademark of NTT DOCOMO, INC.