KAYAC agrees to enter business and capital partnership with | KAYAC

KAYAC Inc. announces that it has reached an agreement, on Friday, June 9, 2017, with Wellplayed Inc. (head office: Meguro-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Yuya Tanida, Kyohei Takao; "Well Played") in entering business and capital partnership for developing and managing products for the esports (electronic sports) market.

１．Purpose of business and capital partnership

esports are sports played in computer and video games. It has been announced that esports will be an official medal event at 2022 Asian Games hosted by the Olympic Council of Asia. The esports market has been attracting global attention.

In the meantime, many competition games have been released not only in the consumer game market but also for smartphones. Both inside and outside Japan, the environment surrounding gaming and game players has been changing drastically.

Well Played has accumulated knowhow through planning, developing, and managing many esports events for consumer competition games and smartphone games in the esports market. KAYAC has accumulated knowhow on building a community of game players, holding online tournaments, and video technologies through planning, developing, and managing Lobi - Chat & Game Community (""Lobi""), one of the largest smartphone game community service. KAYAC has also developed knowhow on game content marketing through Game PR Team, a campaign business specializing in the gaming market.

Well Played and KAYAC have discussed generation of new business opportunities in the esports market taking advantage of the strengths of the two companies. As a result, we have reached an agreement to enter the following business and capital partnership:

（１）Developing and managing league content (long-term content) in eSports market
The two companies will develop and manage league content (long-term content) in the eSports market to provide game players and game developers with new experience and service.

（２）Developing and managing esports media
The two companies will build a new core system supporting smartphones and diverse devices, and jointly develop esports media using the system to revitalize the esports market.

（３）Maximizing business synergies for both companies
Through (1) and (2), we will strengthen business synergies and relationships in the medium and long term. Well Played will generate opportunities for more customers to experience eSports and KAYAC will create new business opportunities in the game business using existing services such as Lobi and Game PR Team.

２．Agreement in capital partnership

KAYAC will acquire shares in Well Played by taking all the new stocks allocated by Well Played to a third party. (See separate IR document that KAYAC will publish for details about allocation of new stocks to a third party.)

３.Business and capital partnership schedule

Resolution of KAYAC's board of directors: Friday, June 9, 2017
Date of agreement: Friday, June 9, 2017
Business and capital partnership start date: Friday, June 9, 2017

４．Future outlook

We believe that the business and capital partnership has only a minimal impact on our consolidated business results. We will make announcements as the need arises.