Skyfall Inc. (CEO: Tomokazu Hasegawa, hereinafter “Skyfall”) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a capital and business alliance agreement with and factory Inc. (CEO: Rinji Aoki, hereinafter “and factory”) as of February 17, 2021.
Purpose of the business partnership
This partnership aims to provide further value to the e-book market (*) by combining Skyfall’s product development capabilities, advertising operations expertise, and customer base through “SKYFLAG” with and factory’s strong partnerships with publishers and media operations/development capabilities.
*According to Impress Research Institute’s “E-book Business Survey Report 2020,” the e-book market size in fiscal year 2019 was 347.3 billion yen, and is projected to reach approximately 566.9 billion yen in fiscal year 2024. On the other hand, with various businesses entering the e-book business and the diversification of entertainment content, competition for users’ disposable time is intensifying, and we believe that improving user engagement and building new revenue bases is required.
Overview of the business partnership
Under the vision of “making good products and spreading them to the world,” Skyfall has been developing and operating its business primarily through the development and operation of ‘SKYFLAG,’ an ad network specializing in long-term CPE reward delivery for smartphone apps and web services.
SKYFLAG’s reward wall has a proven track record of improving revenue by an average of 150% per month when switching from similar services provided by other companies. It has already been implemented in and factory’s “Manga UP!”, “Manga Park”, “Manga Mee”, “Sunday Webly”, “Young Jump!”, and “Manga TOP”, where it has achieved revenue improvements.
In this partnership, we are working to build a team structure that can provide comprehensive support to all e-book businesses, from maximizing and factory’s media revenue to assisting with user acquisition, monetization, and improving user engagement.
Beyond simply supporting the implementation of the ‘SKYFLAG’ reward wall, we are also preparing to jointly develop new advertising products and provide comprehensive digital promotion support specifically tailored to e-book publishers. With the established and strong team structure of Skyfall and and factory, we plan to combine our respective expertise to provide even greater value to the industry.
In the increasingly competitive e-book market, both companies share the same mission of maximizing media revenue and achieving long-term prosperity. By collaborating and creating synergies, we believe we can deliver value more quickly and with greater quality, which will ultimately lead to an increase in the corporate value of both companies. Therefore, we have decided to enter into a capital and business alliance.
Comments from representatives of both companies
Tomokazu Hasegawa, CEO of Skyfall
We are extremely honored that and factory, which provides comprehensive support for manga apps with a total of over 10 million monthly active users across all its apps, has chosen us as a partner to further develop the e-book market.
We have a clear vision of what we want to achieve together with President Aoki, and this business alliance will enable both companies to advance their businesses even further. We intend to continue to analyze the market and act in response to the increased competition wihout hesitation.
Until now, Skyfall has only provided user acquisition and monetization support through its “SKYFLAG” service. However, through our collaboration with and factory, we aim to build a system that can provide comprehensive support to e-book businesses, and we will strive to contribute to the further revitalization of the e-book market.
and factory CEO: Rinji Aoki
We are delighted to have entered into a capital and business alliance with Skyfall, and to be able to work together on our medium- to long-term growth strategy. Skyfall has been highly evaluated for its growth potential by third-party mobile ad evaluating organizations, and we are confident that it will establish a strong presence in the industry in the future. Currently, and factory jointly operates eight manga apps with partner companies. We intend to leverage this capital and business alliance to the fullest extent and work to create high synergies in business areas such as advertising revenue and promotion. Our medium- to long-term vision aligns with that of President Hasegawa, and we hope that both companies will contribute to the development of the publishing and e-book industries as a whole.
About “and factory”
| Company Name | :and factory Inc. |
| CEO | :Rinji Aoki |
| Address | :3-6-28 Aobadai, Meguro-ku, Tokyo |
| Business Description | :Smartphone App Business, IoT Business |
| Listing exchange | :Tokyo Stock Exchange, First Section |
| Securities code | :7035 |
| Established | :September 16, 2014 |
| Website | :https://andfactory.co.jp/ |
About “Skyfall”
| Company Name | :Skyfall Inc. |
| CEO | :Tomokazu Hasegawa |
| Address | :1F, Sumitomo Fudosan Shibuya Infos Annex, 12-10 Sakuragaoka, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo |
| Business Description | :Internet Advertising Business and Media Business, Game Business |
| Established | :October 2017 |
| Capital | :79,393,750 yen |
| Website | :https://skyfall.co.jp/ |
