Founded in December 2012 in Roppongi Tokyo, BASE Inc is an e-commerce platform, payment services provider and also a SME funding services provider. The company’s main business “BASE” is an e-commerce platform which allows businesses and individuals to create online shops. BASE is considered to be one of the most user-friendly platforms enabling businesses to go online in a matter of hours. The creation of a net shop using BASE is free of charge and BASE currently has more than 800,000 net shops in their network. BASE is monetised through its payment platform and the network has close to 27,000 online shops using BASE’s payment functions. BASE charges 3.6% of the transaction value + ¥40 per transaction as a settlement fee and another 3.0% as service fee. Apart from the transaction processing revenues, BASE also sells customisable online shop templates and App plugins, however, they only contribute to about 10% of revenues.

The company launched its second online payment service “PAY.JP” in September 2015. It provides payment processing services to web-based service providers and online shops (excluding BASE shops). “PAY.JP” is also a simple system like BASE and it can be introduced and maintained easily without any specialised knowledge in web design.

“YELL BANK” is the latest service introduced by BASE Inc. It provides funding to BASE online shops. Using store data, BASE Inc forecasts future sales and funding requirements for online shops and by taking future sales of the online stores as collateral, YELL BANK provides the online shops with required funding.

The company filed for an IPO to raise ¥600m-680m and it is expected to debut on the Mothers Board of the Tokyo stock exchange towards the end of October 2019.

New Shares Issued	0.52
Existing Shareholders	6.70
Overallotment Option	1.08
Total Shares Sold in the IPO	8.31
Book Building End	10/16/2019
Price Range	¥1,150	¥1,300
Size of the IPO	9,558	10,805
EV	16,616	19,517

EV/EBIT	n.a	n.a
EV/Sales	7.06	8.30

Source: Company disclosures

After Covid: The Future for Japanese Retail: Winners & Losers

No one really knows what will happen after the initial shock of the coronavirus fades away. Many observers in Japan, expert and otherwise, are...

Michael Causton

BASE Inc IPO: Excellent Customer Retention Justifies High Promo Costs

Founded in December 2012 in Roppongi Tokyo, BASE Inc is an e-commerce platform, payment services provider and also a SME funding services provider....

Oshadhi Kumarasiri