Aeon : Investing in US start-up Boxed to accelerate Aeon’s “digital shift” (71KB)

April 11, 2018 AEON CO., LTD.

Investing in US start-up Boxed to accelerate Aeon's "digital shift"

Aeon Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Chiba Prefecture; Group CEO, President: Motoya OKADA; hereinafter, "Aeon") will invest in Boxed.

Mr.Gabriel Naouri, Senior Advisor to the CEO of Aeon Group and CEO of Figana Corp, declared : "This strategic investment underlines the strong commitment of Aeon to allocate a higher portion of its ressources to its digital transformation. With its unique technology and know-how, Boxed.com will allow Aeon to better serve its customers through its omnichannel strategy"

In December 2017, Aeon announced its Group-wide Medium-term Management Policy leading up to 2020. Under the policy, as part of its group strategy, Aeon hammered out its strategies to speed up its "digital shift," namely, increasing its focus on the digital market, as well as allocating a higher proportion of its investment to IT, digital and logistics resources.

Boxed utilizes a highly automated logistics and algorithm approach to product selection using artificial intelligence (AI). Furthermore, the company's online wholesale business has achieved rapid growth with both B2C and B2B customers.

Through this investment, Aeon will widely employ Boxed skills to tailor to each customer's needs by using AI, while applying its know-how on a proprietary data platform that draws on the company's logistics expertise and technology for big data analysis and utilization. The investment is expected to encourage Aeon's employees to take on a digital mindset, spurring Aeon's "digital shift" strategy.

Accumulating its global-standard management infrastructure achieved through collaborations with a variety of partners around the world, Aeon endeavors to maximize customer satisfaction by creating synergistic effects between digital and brick-and-mortar stores.

Investment benefits:

• 1. Logistics Partnership

  By forming a proprietary task force and inviting Boxed's logistics managers to join in, Aeon will learn about the company's logistics know-how.

• 2. Data platform Partnership

  Aeon will learn from Boxed's expertise on data management/utilization and AI technology for its online business.

[Corporate profile]

Company name: Boxed

Headquarters: New York, the United States Established: August 2013

Representative: Chieh Huang

Number of employees: 500 (includes Fulfillment Centers)

Number of logistic centers: 4 (New Jersey, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Dallas) Primary line of business: E-commerce