Rakuten Viber takes over Chatter Commerce – Purchase while chatting available soon

Rakuten Viber, one of the leading texting apps in the world, today announced the takeover of Chatter Commerce, the startup which created the first keyboard for mobile commerce in the world – ShopChat.

This business move is the result of the successful four-month testing period of the Instant Shopping option on Viber in the US market, where 30% of the users have already used this option since it was introduced in March 2017.

Japan’s Rakuten Inc, the parent company to the Rakuten Viber app and an electronic commerce giant, previously invested in the Chatter Commerce shares, during the first round of its capital increase.

Instant Shopping provides the experience of purchase within the chat itself to Viber users – directly on the network, together with people they might go shopping with anyway. This enables them to browse, forward and discuss the products that interest them and to directly communicate with their favorite brands.

The Chatter Commerce team, which consists of seven IT engineers based in San Francisco, will become members of the Rakuten Viber team.

Zephrin Lasker, CEO and co-founder of Chatter Commerce, will become the global manager of the e-commerce departments of Rakuten Viber. He is to create a global mobile e-commerce strategy, focusing on expanding to new markets, and run further technological research and innovations which will enrich the experience of using Viber this way.

– We founded Chatter Commerce on the basis that people should be able to do much more in their chats than what is currently available. Rakuten Viber’s innovative vision extends beyond the minor details of feature optimization that most messaging apps are focused on today. Their objective is to dramatically expand the role messaging apps have in people’s everyday lives – Lasker notes, as said in the press release.

Viber Media S.à r.l.

Rakuten Inc

Rakuten Viber

Viber

Chatter Commerce

ShopChat

Instant Shopping

Zephrin Lasker