Google-backed online marketplace for crafted goods raises $18m.

At the end of last year, Unilever committed a further $450m to its corporate venturing unit for its third fund to help it expand in Asia and North America from Europe.

In April last year, Wittlebee raised $2.5m in its seed round from Google Ventures and venture capital firms Crosslink Capital and Rincon Venture Partners.

Japan corporate venturing players, Itochu Technology Ventures and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, have come back to invest in a series B round valued at $3.4, to help accelerate the growth of Japan-based VIP flash fashion sales site, Muse & Co.

Voyage Ventures, the corporate venturing unit and incubator service of Japan online commerce service company Venture Group, has invested an undisclosed amount of capital into Japan e-commerce and celebrity product endorsement site, Box2You, through its parent company Grow!

Trade ties between Turkey and Japan are growing in number and magnitude this year from single digit e-commerce deals to multi-billion dollar nuclear energy construction projects. In what is becoming classic 'Abenomics' export agreements in an effort to boost export revenues and urge Japan's private foreign investment, Netprice Limited, the corporate venturing unit of Japan e-commerce and incubator Netprice.com, has invested in Turkey-based consumer price comparison site, Akakce.com for an undisclosed sum.

Rocket Internet, the German e-commerce incubator, is heating things up again in Brazil with its latest $2.5m series B investment in Airu, an internet site that hosts independent retailers selling homemade and vintage goods. The latest deal reportedly almost doubles Rocket's investment in the Brazilian company.