Creema’s $10M In Funding Proves Japan Loves Its Etsy

Creema Wins Big

In the age of mass-produced products flooding online marketplaces, the idea of buying handmade, locally sourced goods seems more quaint by the year. However, that doesn’t mean certain consumers don’t mind paying top dollar for a personal touch.

Creema, the handmade marketplace operating in Japan, announced that it had received about 1.1 billion yen ($10 million) in Series A funding from Globis Capital Partners and the KDDI Open Innovation fund, TechCrunch reported. Creema claims more than 2.4 million listings on its sites courtesy of the 60,000 sellers that rely on its platform, and recent statistics point to a 450-percent spike in transaction volume since last year.

Not to worry for other players in the Japanese handmade market, as the overall average was still a tidy 250-percent increase. Etsy and other companies dream of that kind of “average.”

The growth of the market reflects the growth of Creema’s funding rounds. In 2014, the then-four-year-old startup secured 100 million yen (about $900,000) from KDDI, and recent news is filled with enough additional zeroes to have Creema CEO Kotaro Marubayashi ready to splurge on something slightly above the average price of handmade goods on the sight.