Company:Rakuten Aquafadas

Rakuten Aquafadas

Formerly	Aquafadas
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Computer software Digital Publishing
Founded	2006
Founder	Claudia Zimmer Matthieu Kopp
Headquarters	Montpellier , France
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Yasufumi Hirai (Chairman) Olivier Alluis (CEO) Florian Lemoine (CTO)
Owner	Rakuten
Number of employees	55
Website	aquafadas.com

Rakuten Aquafadas is a software company specialising in no-code development platforms to build mobile apps for smartphones, tablets and web designed for enterprises and digital publishers. Headquartered in Montpellier, France , Rakuten Aquafadas is a major subsidiary of Rakuten.

Sector

Rakuten Aquafadas creates mobile application tools for enterprise designed to support businesses in their digital transformation. With Rakuten Aquafadas software companies can build smartphone, tablet and web apps for their sales reps, investors and communications teams. Aquafadas also specialises in solutions for digital newspapers, magazines and e-text books.

Company history

The founders

Claudia Zimmer (CEO), previously an architect, and Matthieu Kopp (CTO) with a degree of engineering (École Centrale Paris) and PHD in astrophysics. With 11 years of software development experience, they previously spent 5 years running the Application Networks startup in London and founded Aquafadas in 2006.

Headquarters

Rakuten Aquafadas first base was Cap Omega, a business incubator.[5] Today, Rakuten Aquafadas' headquarters is in MIBI (Montpellier International Business Incubator) in Montpellier.

Key dates

• 2004: Creation of the first software, iDive
• 2006: Aquafadas founded as a company by Claudia Zimmer and Matthieu Kopp. PulpMotion, the second software, launches.
• 2007: BannerZest - software designed to create Flash banners - enters the market. The same year Ave!Comics, book store for digital comic books owned by Aquafadas, starts to gain attention in the comic books world.
• 2008: VideoPier launch
• December 2008, the latest Lucky Luke comic book on iPhone goes on sale thanks to the Ave!Comics3 tools
• 2009: SnapFlow launch
• May 2009, creation of Ave!Comics3 Production
• 2010: BannerZest for Windows goes live. BannerZest Fun Pics Facebook app launches. Plug-in PulpFx created in partnership with Noise Industries goes live. Digital publications for Fnac and Orange enter the market. Launch of mobile apps for: RMC Sport, La Tribune and Reader's Digest.
• 2011: Partnership with Quark to make Aquafadas technology compatible with Quark 9 et Quark QPS. Adobe InDesign 4 Plugin designed for digital publishing goes live. New clients using Aquafadas tools for their digital publications: La Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais, Reader's Digest, La Tribune, Bayard, and Carlsen.
• 2012 : The Canadian e-reading company Kobo acquires Aquafadas.
• 2015: Aquafadas acquired by the Rakuten Group, the internet services company.
• 2017: Aquafadas becomes a major subsidiary of the Rakuten Group, appointing Yasufumi Hirai as Chairman and Koichiro Takahara as CEO.
• 1 July 2017: Aquafadas becomes Rakuten Aquafadas as a part of corporate rebranding and integration within the Rakuten Group

Ave!Comics Production

The subsidiary company of Aquafadas, transforms and publishes comic books on smartphones, tablets and web readers.

International presence

Partner network

Aquafadas has an international presence with 25 partner companies across the world:

• Latin America: Panama ; Mexico ; Brazil ; San Salvador ; Argentina ; Costa Rica.
• North America: Canada ; USA.
• EMEA : Emirates ; Kuwait ; Turkey ; France ; Spain ; Italy.
• Asia : Japan (3 partners), China (3 partners), Thailand.

Kobo acquisition in 2012

The Canadian e-reading company acquires Aquafadas in 2012. In 2015 becomes a part of the Rakuten group.

Rakuten Group acquisition in 2015

The internet services company Rakuten acquires Aquafadas by merging with Kobo.