Rakuten is Leading a $100 Million Investment in Pinterest
The Japanese online giant will join the group of investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, and a number of angel investors. The social networking site which has received more than eleven million unique views in 2012 has a great chance of entering e-commerce.
"While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining. We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest's vision and Rakuten's model for e-commerce. Rakuten looks forward to introducing Pinterest to the Japanese market as well as other markets around the world,” said Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten.
Pinterest seeks to help people discover things they love, by connecting people through their shared interests. Bringing Rakuten on board gives us an amazing opportunity to move a step closer to this goal," said Ben Silbermann about the future prospects of Pineterest resulted from the deal.
The strategic partnership between the two companies, while the giant social network Facebook going public, has stirred a novel interest in the social media market.