Rakuten expands in India by setting up new facility

Japanese Internet services and e-commerce group, Rakuten’s India unit, is opening a new office in Bengaluru on Thursday, in a bid to expand globally.  The new facility houses product, engineering, and advanced research and is Rakuten Group’s “largest outside Japan,” according to the company. 

The hub will further enhance the company’s capability for deep-tech innovation and research and development (R&D) in areas such as e-commerce, fintech, content and entertainment, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) in computer vision, speech, and natural language processing (NLP), the company said in a statement. 

Rakuten's online shopping platform is not available in India, but the $15 billion company already has an India office in Bengaluru that was set up in 2014, which, according to the company, was “the largest among its nine technology hubs outside Japan”. It currently has around 2,000 employees, responsible for developing software for the company's online brokerage arm, as well as running a 24-hour security operation. 

The new facility is even bigger as the company looks at India as one of its “key markets for expansion”. Located in Cubbon Park, the 20 storeyed building boasts of around 3 lakh square feet (sq-ft) of space and includes cafeterias, meeting and breakout rooms, a creche, a gym, and a dedicated floor for health and wellness and has a capacity to accommodate over 3,000 employees.  

“India is and has been central to our growth strategy. Our new R&D centre will build on the high value-added engagements that Rakuten has been delivering from India on deep tech and product innovation," said Yasufumi Hirai, Group Executive Vice President, CIO and CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) of Rakuten, Inc. He added that the “modern and environment friendly facility provides a perfect environment to return to office post pandemic and is designed to foster collaboration and innovation”.  

Rakuten ‘SixthSense’, the company’s first B2B software-as-a-services (SaaS) product, an observability intelligence and software testing automation platform, hit the market last year. 

“Coming together in person to collaborate and build community will remain an important part of our future work,” said Sunil Gopinath, CEO of Rakuten India, who said, the company is set to “welcome employees back to the workplace where teams can collaborate, engage, and socialise in ways that we have missed during the pandemic”.