Rakuten led a $100 million investment in Pinterest in 2012.
The Japanese e-commerce company announced the investment on May 17, 2012. Existing Pinterest investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, also participated in the round, along with several angel investors.
The deal was more than a financial investment. Rakuten described it as the beginning of a strategic partnership intended to help Pinterest expand in Japan and in Rakuten’s other international markets. Rakuten’s interest reflected Pinterest’s potential to connect visual discovery with online shopping.
The round is sometimes confused with later Pinterest fundraising or with investments by large technology companies such as Alibaba, SoftBank, or Tencent. Those companies were not the Japanese e-commerce firm that led this specific 2012 financing. Rakuten’s investment valued Pinterest at roughly $1.5 billion and helped fund its international growth.