VALUE COMMERCE

ValueCommerce Co., Ltd. (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director, President and CEO: Jin Kagawa) has decided to invest in UPBOND Corporation (Head office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Gin Takashi Mizuoka), a provider of Web3/NFT*¹ services. Details are provided below.

Recently, a growing amount of attention has been turned to the appropriate management and usage of “life logs”*², which contain individuals’ basic information, product purchase history, medical information, and other activity data.
Companies’ moves toward a cookieless approach have resulted in users being supplied with mismatched information. The world needs new marketing methods.

UPBOND partners with companies at the forefront of various industries to create a platform for user-controlled life logs*⁶, primarily through the use of blockchain*³ and DID*⁴/VC*⁵-based Web3 technologies.
In January 2024, ValueCommerce revised its Medium-Term Management Plan*⁷, and one of the initiatives set forth in the revised plan was major investment in new business fields. This investment in UPBOND represents one of those investments.

ValueCommerce will use UPBOND’s platform technologies to begin developing a system for the lodging industry, one of ValueCommerce’s existing business segments.
The collaboration between the two companies will create new customer DX*⁸, help address the issue of personnel shortages being faced by enterprise operators, and produce new services that address social issues, such as how to improve the efficiency of personal information handling operations and implement stronger security measures.

Through this investment, ValueCommerce and UPBOND will each use their technologies and assets to accelerate their product development.

Notes
*¹ Web3/NFT: Web3 is a concept for the next generation of the internet. Instead of data all being centralized in a small number of companies, it will be decentralized among internet users, and users will be able to connect with each other directly.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are unique, non-fungible items of digital data in the form of digital tokens that use blockchain technology.
*² Life log: Log of basic information, such as name, gender, and address information, movement history, health information, activity information such as product purchase history, and additional history such as the results of basic and movement history analyses and rating information
*³ Blockchain: A ledger of transactions developed as a core technology used by crypto-assets
*⁴ DID: Decentralized identifier
*⁵ VC: Verifiable (digital) credential
*⁶ User-controlled life log: A life log that is actively managed and utilized by its owner
*⁷ Revisions to our Medium-Term Management Plan: Financial Statement Briefing Materials and Revisions to Medium-Term Management Plan (announced on January 30, 2024) https://ssl4.eir-parts.net/doc/2491/ir_material_for_fiscal_ym1/148985/00.pdf
P34-39
*⁸ Customer DX: Customer digital transformation. Initiatives that seek to improve customer experiences and increase engagement with customers by digitalizing all customer contact channels.

UPBOND Corporation
Led by its mission of weaving a society from the power of individuals, UPBOND aims to create a user-controlled life log platform by providing individuals with full control over their own life logs. Its main services are Login3.0, a user-controlled login platform that solves the problems people face with company IDs, and UPBOND Wallet, a Web3 wallet that enables people to utilize their own user-controlled life logs.
https://www.upbond.io/

About ValueCommerce Co., Ltd.
ValueCommerce has two strong axes: “Customer attraction” to EC websites through affiliate marketing (performance marketing) and “sales promotion” through pay-per-click advertisement within the digital mall and EC site management tools. We are a performance-based marketing company that provides total solutions from “customer attraction” to “sales promotion”, helping Ecommerce businesses maximize their profits.
https://www.valuecommerce.co.jp/en/

＜For any media inquiries, please contact us at＞
ValueCommerce Co., Ltd., Public Relations
E-mail: press@valuecommerce.co.jp