Rakuten invests $100m in Pinterest
Rakuten has announced a $100m investment in Pinterest, to help the social media pinboard to expand.
Rakuten, which owns sites such as Buy.com and Play.com, aims to help the company expand into Japan and Rakuten’s other markets.
Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten, said: “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.”
Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, added: “Our goal is 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.”