In 1996, Mikitani started looking at various Business Models, and decided to launch an online shopping mall. At the time, Netscape was around, Amazon.com had recently launched, and Google didn't yet exist. On February 7, 1997, Mikitani founded the e-commerce company MDM, Inc. with three co-founders and US$250,000 of their own money, launching the online marketplace Rakuten Ichiba in Japan on May 1, 1997. The company was renamed Rakuten, Inc. in 1999, and Mikitani took it public on the JASDAQ in 2000. In founding the company, Mikitani envisioned an online marketplace focusing on the exchange between buyers and sellers, as a Hybrid between eBay and Amazon.com. It started as a small online marketplace with 13 shops and 6 employees, and has since grown into "an e-commerce giant."