Japanese multinational Rakuten is reportedly planning to buy PopSugar, an online media network of websites with special focuses on celebrity news, for approximately $580m.
Tech Crunch cited sources familiar with the matter as saying that PopSugar was looking for a buyer, and Rakuten might have looked like a lucrative choice of the company.
Rakuten is not well known in the US, but the company is popular in Japan as it owns Viki, a Hulu-like international TV show site, and also has several businesses under its belt including banking, e-commerce, smartphones.
According to reports, Rakuten is willing to spend for digital content companies as it previously bought OverDrive for $410m and has received several inbound acquisition requests.
The company has also been investing in US-based startups in an attempt to expand its reach in the country.
PopSugar’s target audiences are women, and it also has a fashion brand site ShopStyle that generated $1.2 bn in sales last year for its retail partners.
According to reports, this makes the celebrity-focused site ideal for Rakuten to push its products in the US market.
