Quan Inc., a Tokyo-based startup known for having introduced the smartphone messaging app Lounge, announced today it had allocated new shares to Japan’s e-commerce giant Netprice.com and Singapore-/Tokyo-based investor East Ventures .
With this fundraising, the startup intends to enhance features of the Lounge app and intensify further development of Sticker Maker, an iOS app allowing users to send their friends animated stickers via MMS. The Sticker Maker app reached top spot in the SNS category on the iTunes app store in Thailand with more than 100,000 active users. The Lounge app also got lots of attention from Thai consumers during the last several months as well.
It was not disclosed exactly how much money the startup raised and how much shares have been allocated to the new share holders. Prior to the fundraising, the startup appointed Mr. Jun Ogawa as its director, an executive officer at Tokyo’s well-known tech incubator Motion Beat (previously known as ngi Inc).
Quan is in a unique/awkward position as it is collaborating and at the same time competing with other chat apps. But Quan founder and CEO Kazuhiro Mizuno did tell me that Quan will be changing its strategy from competing to collaborating with other chat apps. My speculative guess is that Lounge will not be able to keep up with the growing usage of WeChat, LINE, and KakaoTalk (in which Tencent invested) and so the Sticker Maker App could serve as a product to ride on that wave instead of competing head on. Anyway, stay tuned for a review of the sticker app later .
Our readers can find our past interview with Mr. Mizuno, which was conducted in Tokyo last January.