ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Yoshihisa Suzuki, President & COO, hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it has entered into a capital and business alliance with FreakOut Holdings, Inc., (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Yuzuru Honda, Founder & CEO; hereinafter “FreakOut”), and will enter the data marketing business.participate in a marketing business involving data utilization.

With the widespread adoption of smartphones, the points of contact between companies and their consumers have diversified. To better respond to consumer demands for greater convenience and compelling experiences, companies now need to develop responses both online and offline. Companies that maintain touchpoints of contact with customers consumers are under constant pressure to devise new ways to approach customers in situations that are close to their purchasing decisions, and the methods for doing so evolve on a daily basis.

Since FreakOut provides Japan’s first and largest demand-side platform (DSP), was the first in Japan to commercialize an ad delivery service that makes automated Internetdigital advertising transactions automated and in real-time, it has employed its advance technological prowess to establish a leading presence in the advertising technology industry, and has been tapped as an advertising platform partner by Japan’s leading media outlets. FreakOut was also among the first to deploy location-based advertising solutions and in-vehicle advertising in cooperation with taxi companies utilizing the technologies cultivated through digital advertisingand generate revenue from the technologies cultivated through Internet advertising in the offline space by way of in-vehicle advertising in cooperation with taxi companies and advertising solutions utilizing positional information. The company is also actively pursuing overseas initiatives and is expanding into 16 countries with a focus on Asia including Taiwan, Indonesia and Thailand.

ITOCHU seeks to enhance the value of the consumer life value chain and is working to build its customer base and accumulate data in order to further increase points of contacttouchpoints with customers. Leveraging the digital advertising technologies and techniques in data collection and utilization possessed by FreakOut, ITOCHU hopes to combine its assets, including the data it maintains and customer contact pointstouchpoints through its lifestyle consumption and related businessesconsumer-related value chain to establish new sources of revenue in the digital marketing space.

The alliance partnership with FreakOut will extend beyond support for corporate marketing activities; the two companies will also jointly cultivate high value-added businesses including the development of customer contact pointstouchpoints that incorporate smartphoneutilizing mobile apps and other solutions. Additionally, through coordination with solutions providers such as BellSystem24 and support for business expansion overseas, particularly in Asia where the advertising market is undergoing remarkable growth, efforts are being made to establish coordination across a wide range of endeavors.