Japanese video ad firm App-CM ties up with GHV for India foray

Startup accelerator Green House Ventures (GHV) will help Japan-based video advertising platform App-CM identify clients in the Indian startup space.

GHV will be the point of contact for interfaces with Indian clients, according to the memorandum of understanding signed by the two parties.

"Asia is the next big destination for unicorns, mainly led by hi-tech driven companies. With this collaboration, GHV will bring Japanese technology to Indian and Asian markets and enable ventures from India to gear up and get the most of the booming Asian markets," Vikram Upadhyaya, evangelist at GHV, told Techcircle.in.

India will be the first international market for the Japanese firm. "We are looking to expand the scale of our network in this fast-growing market," said Atsufumi Otsuka, CEO, App-CM Inc.

The online and mobile advertising industry is currently witnessing a huge spurt across the globe, and Asia is the next big market for digital content. Bangalore-based InMobi competes with Facebook and Google for a pie of the growing mobile advertising market.

According to a report by media buying and planning agency GroupM, advertising revenue in India was expected to touch $8.1 billion (around Rs 49,000 crore) in 2015. By 2020, it is expected that mobile advertising will account for nearly 50% of the entire advertising spend in India.

GHV Accelerator was launched by serial entrepreneur and Indian Angel Network member Upadhyaya. It has put money in RoadGods, PindropMusi, LazyLad, MyTaxiIndia, Foodport, Pick My Laundry and FitMeIn, besides other tech startups. In December 2015, GHV invested in two startups – Applop and CaRPM. GHV's aim is to on-board 25 startups by early 2017.

Moreover, hyperlocal mobile commerce startup LazyLad, which was also the first startup under GHV's accelerator programme, has got a commitment from Japanese and US-based investors to raise up to $2.5 million (around Rs 17 crore).