Rakuten, who is one of Japan’s biggest and most successful e-commerce companies announced that they invested US$100 million to Pinterest. In recent years, Rakuten has been aiming to replicate their success in Japan in the global market. They have aquired Buy.com in 2010, and Kobo in 2011. They’ve been also making more acquisitions and investments in Asian and Europe.
Rakuten said that there were many overlap between e-commerce and social media, and the deal would reinforce their social part of the businesses.