Digital Garage Forms Business Alliance with Credit Saison

- Collaborating on startup incubation and big data business -

Digital Garage, Inc. (JASDAQ: 4819, Head Office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, President & Group CEO: Kaoru Hayashi, henceforth DG) announced today that DG and Credit Saison Co.,Ltd. (The first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange:8253, Head Office: Toshima-ku, Tokyo, President and CEO: Hiroshi Rinno, henceforth Credit Saison) have agreed to form a business alliance to promote collaboration on startup incubation domestically and internationally and big data related business.

DG and Credit Saison have been collaborating on promoting settlement service business in Japan and Asia through the Credit Saison’s investment in econtext ASIA Ltd. (Head Office: Hong Kong, Chairman: Kaoru Hayashi / CEO: Takashi Okita, henceforth econtext ASIA) announced in March 2013. The partnership announced today will expand the collaboration of the two companies beyond the payment area.

 The main objectives of the business alliance are as follows:
(1) Co-incubating and collaborating with startups through DG’s global incubation business
(2) Jointly investing and incubating prospective startups through funds
(3) Developing new services by utilizing the two company’s expertise and resources for the advertising and marketing businesses including the DG’s big data initiative

To collaborate on the incubation business, Credit Saison plans to provide the data resource of its 35 million credit card members and its 8.9 million internet members as well as the technical information needed to develop services for its never-expiring “Eikyufumetsu Points” and its affiliated “Eikyufumetsu.com” website to DG’s incubation segment including Open Network Lab that supports global-minded entrepreneurial engineers to jointly promote the incubation and growth of the startup companies in the Internet business.

On the big data-related business, in order to provide high-quality research/marketing support business, O2O solutions, payment services, and new services the two parties will explore the possibilities of combining DG and DG Group’s media database acquired through the operation of its online settlement services and recommendation engines and through building consumer-targeted websites with Credit Saison’s database of its members’ demographic information and purchase histories.

Through these collaborations the two companies will promote creating synergy from their respective strengths and expertise and further strengthen their corporate values outside of the payment business domain.

[About Digital Garage] http://www.garage.co.jp/en/
Tokyo-based Digital Garage (JASDAQ: 4819) focuses mainly on 3 business domains: Incubation of Internet Startups, Marketing business and Online Payment Platform business. Since its inception in 1995, the company has pioneered various domains of Internet businesses in Japan, including portals, media representation, e-commerce, mobile communication and blogging. An investor in Twitter and Path, Digital Garage has created partnerships to customize the Japanese versions of Twitter and LinkedIn.

[About Credit Saison] http://www.saisoncard.co.jp/
Since 1982, Credit Saison has been issuing credit cards, and over the past 30 years, as a cutting edge service business, we have focused on customer orientation. We have secured a unique position in the credit card industry with innovative ideas to bring new products and services without being tied down to common practice in the industry. The company strives to become a “non-bank with multiple sources of revenue” apart from credit business in finance area including, leasing, credit guarantee, flat 35 home loan and high growth Internet business. We are also aggressively pursuing retail financing business in the Asian market where developing nations are showing remarkable growth.


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