KDDI, one of Japan’s largest cellular phone companies with over 35 million subscribers, announced today a $5 million series C investment in Fuhu, creators of the Nabi tablet, the Fooz Kids suite of applications, and the UrDrive USB interface software. The deal follows a $15 million Series C investment in Fuhu made last year by Foxconn Technology Group and Kingston Digital.
“Fuhu and KDDI have a shared vision for children’s education best practices,” commented Kazuhiko Masuda, chief strategy officer at KDDI. “After considering many investment options, we believe Fuhu provides a unique combination of hardware and software expertise in a high performance device that will satisfy consumer demand for a quality smartphone and tablet experience.”
KDDI plans to localize Fuhu’s English content for the Japanese market with goal of launching children’s educational services co-developed with Fuhu.
KDDI next week plans to launch nationwide LTE services running across its 800 MHz and 1.5 GHz spectrum holdings. In conjunction with the launch of the iPhone 5 last month, KDDI launched LTE services in the 2 GHz band. KDDI has over 20,000 employees, $43 billion in revenue and 2.5 million FTTH customers.
