MONEX Group rebrands its venture capital enterprise in a move to concentrate further on investing in innovative start ups, a timely move for the conglomerate which today reported increased revenue figures for the year ending March 31, 2014
Japanese FX conglomerate MONEX Group (TYO:8698) has today announced that it is strengthening its corporate venture capital effort thorough one of its subsidiaries MONEX Business Incubation Inc, which will be re-branded to MONEX Ventures, Inc, which goes into active service tomorrow, May 1.
New business funding via venture capital is a method by which many start-up firms in the FX industry have taken their first steps, and MONEX Business Incubation has been active in providing funding for many new ventures since the establishment of the subsidiary in 2005.
Oki Matsumoto, incumbent Chairman and CEO of MONEX Group will assume the position of chiarman of the investment committee at MONEX Ventures, who, in turn, is expected to be joined by CEOs of start up companies that formed part of MONEX Ventures’ investment portfolio as members of the committee.
One such executive is billed to be Yusuke Umeda, Co-CEO of Uzabase, Inc, who will likely be joined by Yosuke Tsuji, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MoneyForward, Inc.
MONEX Group has confirmed in a corporate announcement that MONEX Ventures has a capitalization of 100 million Yen, and that its main activity will be to identify and nurture new business opportunities under the direction of its Representative Director, Satoshi Hasuo.
It could indeed be proffered that this is a good time for MONEX Group to seek to utilize its astute corporate experience to invest in interesting technological and financial start ups, as the company reported this morning that it concluded the first quarter of 2014 with a significant increase in earnings and net revenue compared with the same time last year, which is particularly remarkable when considering the omnipresent success experienced across the board in 2013, and the subsequent doldrums that have beleaguered so many firms in early 2014.
In its consolidated financial summary for the year ending March 31, 2014 which was released today, MONEX Group has detailed an increase in its commission income from 20,367 million Yen in the year ending March 31, 2013, compared with 33,542 million Yen in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.
Total revenue soared from 42,740 million Yen to 57,086 million Yen, with total operating expenses only rising approximately 5 million Yen.
Earnings per share rose from 13.02 Yen to 35.76 Yen, representing a substantial increment in the period of just one year. Indeed, the majority of the increase can be attributed to a hugely successful first accounting period during 2013, whereby between the months of April and September, many firms across the globe experienced record volume figures, however these fortunes did not recede for MONEX Group, which although experienced a minor downturn at the end of the last quarter of the accounting period, the company attracted new investment from Shizuoka Bank earlier this month, as well as having begun 2014 on a high with January’s figures having been the highest since the peak times of mid 2013.
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