Business Overview
Business Overview
Business Model
Business model connecting three different technologies in context
Digital Garage has established a structure that links the three different technologies of INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY / MARKETING TECHNOLOGY / FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY in a context that enables continuous business growth.
The ability to utilize these specialized technologies in a one-stop and seamless manner is a business model that has remained unchanged since Digital Garage’s founding.
Business Domain
Since its establishment in 1995, the company has been based on marketing/payments, reading current trends, thinking about what is needed for the future, and taking on unprecedented challenges. Digital Garage’s business is connected to the present and the future.
DG
FinTech Shift
DG
FinTech Shift
The integration of payments, data and technology.
This is a group strategy that combines the Digital Garage Group’s three largest assets in Japan: “Payment Platform,” “Media Business,” and “Global Startup Investment Business” based on the purpose of “Designing New Context” for a sustainable society with technology.
Core Business
With one of the largest comprehensive payment platforms in Japan at its core, Digital Garage operates a marketing business that provides one-stop solutions in the digital and real world, and a startup investment and development business that reaches out to promising startups and technologies in Japan and overseas.
Technology for the Future
Technology Development Capabilities to Support Business
We are building a better society through social implementation from the perspectives of both technology and business.We are conducting R&D on technologies that will change society in the future, and developing products and services that will become the pillars of our new business.
2022–
Gen AI / web3
Digital Architecture Lab (DA Lab) was established as a new R&D organization. DA Lab conducts research and development focusing on web3 and AI. Through industry-government-academia collaboration, DA Lab conducts research and development of next-generation technologies and seeks to foster social impact through collaboration with startups and major companies, cooperation with Digital Garage's businesses, and community building.
2016–
Blockchain
We began developing a next-generation payment platform utilizing blockchain technology early on, including an investment in Blockstream, a developer of blockchain-related technology. He also established DG Lab, an open innovation R&D organization with Kakaku.com, and in 2018, established Crypto Garage, a joint venture with Tokyo Tanshi Corporation to provide crypto asset finance services for corporate clients based on blockchain technology.
2010–
Startup Incubation
While world-class startups were being born one after another in Silicon Valley in the U.S., we wondered if we could create a foundation for creating new businesses through trial and error in Japan, and launched Japan's first accelerator program, Open Network Lab (ONLAB). Several Onlab graduates have gone public and some have grown into unicorn companies. Not only in Japan, but in 2013, Onlab opened an incubation center in San Francisco called DG717.
2002–
Media
We began investing in and nurturing the business of Kakaku.com, which operates "Kakaku.com" and "Tabelog". The following year, Kakaku.com was listed on the then Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers market. We are creating synergies in a variety of businesses, including DX promotion in the food and beverage industry and next-generation e-commerce businesses that utilize cutting-edge technologies.
2000–
Payment
In 2012, VeriTrans (currently DG Financial Technology), a leading company in the online payment industry, joined the company, adding a new pillar of comprehensive payment services, including credit card payment services. The Digital Garage Group has acquired the position of one of the largest payment platforms in Japan.
1997–
E-Commerce
We built the system for Japan's first online CD store, Tower Records, at a time when Amazon had not yet expanded into Japan.
In 1999, we launched the e-commerce site WebNation.
1995–
Digital Marketing
In 1993, one of the founders, Joichi Ito, launched Japan's first personal homepage "Tomigaya/TOMIGAYA". After hearing the news, requests for website production began to pour in from various sources. This led him to embark on work in website production and Internet-based promotions, and in 1995 Digital Garage was launched.