Itochu Corp., NTT Data Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Victor Co. of Japan, and Marubeni Corp. have jointly established a company to fund and market digital content, the companies said Wednesday.
The joint venture, called Japan Digital Content, was established Tuesday with capitalization of 230 million yen and will begin operations in April, according to the firm. "There are diversified consumer needs for digital content, and what is lacking in Japan is some kind of agent that connects those consumers and digital content creators," said Hirobumi Doi, managing director of the new firm.
Doi also said that digital content, such as that used in broadcasting and video games, has usually been created for particular hardware, but its market will expand if digital content is distributed separately from hardware.
To support software developers, the company will establish a fund worth 1.5 billion yen with the investments made by those companies, as well as others. "The firm also acts as a venture capital for digital content creators," Doi said.
The four companies have invested 20 million yen each and the remainder comes from General Solutions, Inc. and the government-affiliated Tokyo Small and Medium Business Investment & Consultation Corp.