Monstar Lab Acquires Majority Stake in Nordic Mobile App Developer Nodes (Denmark)

Deal Overview

Monstar Lab, Inc. (headquartered in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO Hiroki Inagawa) acquired a majority stake in Nodes ApS (hereinafter, "Nodes"), a leading European mobile application development firm headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. The transaction was announced and closed on August 7, 2017, and was structured as a majority share acquisition accompanied by a committed follow-up investment program to fund Nodes' continued growth over the subsequent one to three years. This acquisition marked Monstar Lab's defining entry into the European market, a critical step in its global strategy to establish a meaningful footprint across all three major economic zones: Asia, Europe, and North America.

This transaction is included here as an example of the prior principal experience of our team. Prior to founding WellBear, our Co-Founder Yuta Sakurai led this deal in his role as the internal M&A lead at Monstar Lab. This is not a WellBear advisory engagement, but rather a representative example of our team's operator-side experience executing global-caliber cross-border M&A. Sakurai acted end to end as the internal principal: deal structuring, valuation, negotiation, due diligence, contract execution, closing, and initial PMI design under EU legal frameworks. Notably, the partner selection process for Monstar Lab's European market entry involved the screening and engagement of more than 50 digital agencies across Europe, with Nodes ultimately selected as the optimal partner. Our team led this entire selection-through-closing process internally at the acquirer.

Deal Summary

• Acquirer: Monstar Lab, Inc.
• Target: Nodes ApS
• Location: Target HQ in Copenhagen, Denmark, with offices in Aarhus and London. Acquirer HQ in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
• Industry: Mobile App Development / Digital Product Development / UI/UX Design
• Structure: Majority Share Acquisition with Follow-Up Investment Commitment
• Our Team's Involvement: Principal
• Announced and Closed: August 7, 2017

About Nodes

Founded in 2008 by Andreas Green Rasmussen and Daniel Højris Bæk, Nodes ApS was one of Europe's leading mobile app development firms, with its headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark and additional offices in London and Aarhus. The company employed approximately 75 to 80 engineers, UI/UX designers, and mobile consultants, and had established itself as a recognized brand across Denmark and the UK. Nodes served a client base that included government agencies, financial institutions, and multinational corporations such as Unilever, Samsung, GlaxoSmithKline, Abellio, Hiscox, and Weatherbys. The firm's portfolio included some of Denmark's most downloaded applications, notably the e-boks project, and in 2017 Nodes was named by Carnival.io to the list of the Top 12 European Mobile Product Development Agencies. The firm was widely recognized as one of the few European agencies to have successfully established a leading position in the highly competitive UK market, underscoring its standing as one of Europe's foremost digital product development firms in both technical capability and design excellence.

About Monstar Lab

Monstar Lab is a Japan-founded digital product development firm built around a distinctive global sourcing model. At the time of this transaction in August 2017, the group operated across 9 countries and 17 cities (including Tokyo, Osaka, Matsue, Chengdu, Qingdao, Shanghai, Singapore, Da Nang, Hanoi, Dhaka, Manila, Cebu, Beijing, Copenhagen, Aarhus, London, and San Francisco), delivering digital product development services alongside music streaming and mobile gaming businesses. Monstar Lab's differentiation lay in its ability to deploy the best talent from the optimal location for each client, a rare global operating model in the digital product development industry.

Synergy

This transaction represents a decisive step in Monstar Lab's vision of becoming the world's leading digital product development firm, with a strong presence across all three major economic zones: Asia, Europe, and North America.

Prior to this acquisition, Monstar Lab had already established capability networks across Asia (Japan, China, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Bangladesh) and North America (San Francisco). However, the group had not yet established a European delivery presence, despite the region's standing as one of the world's most advanced digital markets. The partner selection process was deliberate and rigorous: more than 50 European digital agencies were evaluated and engaged on criteria including brand strength, technical capability, management-team cultural fit, and market position (particularly in the UK), before Nodes was identified as the optimal partner.

The acquisition of Nodes delivered European capability at once, bringing a proven management team, approximately 75 to 80 specialist professionals, and a first-tier European client portfolio anchored by Unilever, Samsung, GlaxoSmithKline, Abellio, and Hiscox. Monstar Lab rapidly established a meaningful European business foundation through this transaction.

A distinctive feature of this deal was its structure. Rather than a simple share purchase, the transaction combined majority acquisition with a committed follow-up investment program spanning the subsequent one to three years. This structure positioned Nodes to simultaneously deepen its presence in existing markets (Denmark and the UK) and expand into new European markets such as Germany. Monstar Lab had publicly committed to generating half of its group revenue from overseas by 2019, and this acquisition was a strategic milestone toward that goal. For Nodes, joining a group with a worldwide talent network and global client base opened the door to growth opportunities not realistically available to an independent European agency, particularly in an industry where competition for top digital talent was rapidly intensifying.

Continuity

Nodes continued to operate under the leadership of its Co-Founders, Andreas Green Rasmussen and Daniel Højris Bæk, with the entire existing management team retaining their positions post-closing. The two companies shared the vision of "creating an ecosystem for diversity" and "changing the world through technology," and the stated plan was to accelerate the growth of the Nodes team and expand into additional European markets by leveraging both the scale of the Monstar Lab group and the follow-up investment commitment embedded in the transaction structure.

"Nodes shares our vision of creating an ecosystem for diversity and changing the world through technology. With an established brand in Europe and a team of top-class engineers and UI/UX designers, Nodes is the ideal partner as we pursue our goal of becoming the world's number one digital product development firm across Asia, Europe, and North America."

- Hiroki Inagawa, President and CEO, Monstar Lab, Inc.

"Since day one our ambition has been to attract the best and most passionate talent in the industry and to create awesome solutions for our clients. And since the fight for talent is increasing within the digital space with lots of large players broadening their services into our field of expertise, we believe that our partnership with Monstar Lab will enforce and broaden our ability to keep attracting talents in the future, and support our continued growth journey. Part of the agreement is that Monstar Lab will follow up with investments in order for us to keep growing both in existing markets and new markets around Europe during the next 1 to 3 years."

- Daniel Højris Bæk, Co-Founder, Nodes ApS

This entry is based on publicly available information (Monstar Lab, Inc. press release dated August 7, 2017; BusinessWire distributed release dated August 9, 2017; ABNewswire distributed release dated August 2017). Non-public transaction terms are not disclosed. This transaction is included as an example of our team's prior principal experience. WellBear Co-Founder Yuta Sakurai led the deal in his role as internal M&A lead at Monstar Lab prior to founding WellBear; it is not a WellBear advisory engagement.