Orr Hirschauge, Inbal Orpaz, Amir Teig, - Haaretz
A large chunk of the purchase price, however, is contingent on
Viber meeting business targets, so the final price tag could be considerably
lower.
Rakuten announced the deal on Friday, its latest acquisition in
recent years. Viber boasts Voice over Internet Protocol technology, which makes
international phone calls possible online.
“Viber understands how people actually want to engage and have
built the only service that truly delivers on all fronts,” Rakuten chairman and
chief executive Hiroshi Mikitani said in a statement. News of the acquisition
comes just days after Viber CEO Talmon Marco denied that the company was in
talks to be sold. But around six months ago, Viber approached investment bank
Goldman Sachs to help it find a buyer.
Marco founded Viber in 2011 with partners from iMesh, one of
Israel’s largest media and file-sharing companies. Although formally
incorporated in Cyprus, Viber maintains an R&D center in Israel. Mikitani
is expected to visit Israel in the next couple of weeks to meet with Viber’s
staff.
On Friday, Marco sent an email to Viber employees assuring them
that the company had no intention of pulling its operations out of Israel,
adding that it would boost the resources available for development activities
here. Meanwhile, Rakuten said it would not fiddle with Viber’s development
centers here and in Belarus.
Viber has about 280 million registered users around the world and
grew 120% last year, Rakuten said. Around 100 million people actively use the
product each month. The company’s instant messaging app, which allows users to
make mobile calls to both Viber users and nonsubscribers, makes it a rival to
Skype.
Viber has not received any funding from venture capital firms for
its VoIP technology, but it recently launched new services to diversify its
income sources. Among them is Viber Out, which allows users to make
international calls to non-Viber users at low rates.
The company’s financing methods have thus been unorthodox. Rather
than raising funds from outside investors or venture capital funds, the
founders have provided financing themselves. Their stake in iMesh let them
finance Viber’s operations from iMesh’s profits.
Rakuten’s acquisition of Viber is the latest foray in its acquisition
spree. In 2012, it snapped up Kobo, one of the world’s fastest-growing e-book
services, and Wuaki.tv, a video-on-demand and streaming service. In September
2013, it bought digital content platform Viki, which now reaches 65% of its 30
million monthly users through mobile devices.
“Rakuten … is truly dominant in its home market of Japan and has
been rapidly expanding globally,” Talmon said in a statement. “This combination
presents an amazing opportunity for Viber to enhance our rapid user growth in
both existing and new markets. Sharing similar aspirations with Rakuten, our
vision is to be the world’s No.1 communications platform, and our combination
with Rakuten is an important step in that direction.”