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The Southeast Asian insider in DeNA

Recently, the Asian technology scene has been flooded with a flurry of Japanese activity. One of the latest headlining companies is social gaming company DeNA. First, with the acquisition of Punch Entertainment Vietnam followed by Chile-based Atakama Labs S.A, the Japanese gaming giant has also set foot in Singapore and is currently using a Japanese incubator cum launchpad called CROSSCOOP Singapore. The recently launched KDDI and Singapore Economic Development Board supported incubation facility for Japanese companies transitioning into the region is capable of housing up to 50 companies and 170 staff. To find out more about DeNA’s expansion strategies and plans for the region, e27 met up with DeNA Asia Pacific Holdings managing director, Tetsuya Mori, to hear more about the Singapore headquarter’s roadmap. Mori draws from a very diverse and rich background starting with an MBA at Yale and stints at McKinsey & Co., Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital before joining the gaming industry. Mori’s investing experience has exposed him to the potential of Southeast Asia, with a special admiration for Vietnam which he calls ‘The Hidden Gem’. “As I started investing more, I start to discover that Southeast Asia is fascinating. The whole region has a very fast growth, driving every industry to the right trajectory and cultivating ‘promising tomorrow’ psych in everyone’s mind,” said Mori.


Mori explains that DeNA’s Singapore subsidiary is the only subsidiary of the company that has a “holdings” status. The reason is because DeNA sees a lot of potential in the region and has actually laid out three goals that they hope to achieve in the region. The first is to identify talent in the region and provide them with support. Mori explains that the mobile game industry, unlike the console game industry, does not require a huge amount of capital and that a single talent within the group can actually provide them with substantial advantages over their competitors. Such is the appreciation and value of talent that DeNA is looking to connect with the developers in the region to identify and get these developers on board. The second goal for DeNA is to establish partnerships within the region. Mori understands that as DeNA expands out into different countries, they require a lot of understanding of the various foreign markets. With plans to launch a mobile game in a Southeast Asian market by the first half of next year, it makes understanding the selected market even more crucial. According to Mori, “You’ll need lots of creativity, lots of local knowledge. This is not a market where you can go in and say ‘We are the big guys and we are going to put our flag on your soil.’ That is not going to work. You really have to fine-tune each market, you have to find out the right way, the right time. Otherwise, nothing will work.” DeNA’s third goal differs slightly from the earlier two and focuses on the practical business decision for DeNA’s globalization movement. DeNA’s primary Japanese market and also their investments in the US are one of their higher revenue generating sources. Their last fiscal year brought in about US $1.5 billion in revenue with profit margins close to 50 percent. However, these markets are also one of the highest taxed markets in the world and DeNA is, like any other expanding Japanese company, searching for global opportunities where they can maintain a sustainable growth trajectory for the company.

Tetsuya Mori struck me as one that is well-versed with the cultural practices of the region. He understands the negative implications of an acquisition and maintains that DeNA only resorts to acquiring a company if they have specific goals to validate a buyout. For example, in the case of Punch Entertainment Vietnam. “They (Punch Entertainment Vietnam) are a very efficient and effective engineering house with very good experience. We wanted to augment our in-house development capacity outside of Japan because hiring inside of Japan can be difficult and expensive,” said Mori. Mori also noted that Punch Entertainment’s value was also with their systematic development process that DeNA hopes to integrate into it’s own. Other than that, DeNA resorts to more conventional ways of winning the hearts of foreign developers through supporting them by providing tools, knowledge and if necessary, some funding.

Mori will be involved in three of Techventure 2011′s panel discussing on the coming of age in Asian innovations, venture incubation and adoption and mobile gaming.