Daum Kakao announced that it nominated Ji Hoon Rim, current CEO of K Cube Ventures, as the new CEO of Daum Kakao. In order to swiftly drive change and innovation in the rapidly evolving mobile era, the company has decided to shift from a co-CEO structure to a single CEO structure. The strategic decision is expected to help bring out the company’s full potential following its merger last October. Ji Hoon Rim, CEO…

  Talent marketing company Kmong has successfully secured 700 million Korean Won (US $809,000) from East Gate Partners LLC, the fund management company leading Daum Kakao’s youth foundation investment trust. Kmong offers a platform for talent acquisition. Despite this being considered an intangible commodity, Kmong has had more than 130,000 transactions and currently boasts over 100,000 members. One of the most impressive numbers involve a particular seller with an accumulated sales total of one hundred…

Korean researchers at the Center for Nanoparticle Research, Institute for Basic Science in Seoul have developed a stretchable silver nanowire mesh that heats your joints no matter how you bend them. (IBS was founded in 2011 by the government of the Republic of Korea with the sole purpose of driving forward the development of basic science in Korea It comprises a total of 50 research centers in all fields of basic science, including mathematics,…

크라우드펀딩의 영역이 날이 갈수록 확장되고 있다. 특히 국내에서도 업계 관계자들의 노력 끝에 ‘증권형 크라우드펀딩 법안’이 법안 통과를 앞두고 있어, 이 시장은 향후 더 많은 관심을 불러일으킬 것으로 전망된다. 하지만, 크라우드펀딩에 대해 단순히 ‘개미 투자자들을 위한 새로운 대안’ 정도로 인식하고 있는 대중들이 많은 것도 사실이다. 따라서 업계에서는 시장이 제대로 안착하기 전까지, 크라우드펀딩에 대한 대중의 이해도를 높이고 건전한 생태계를 이루기 위한 노력 역시 계속되어야 할 것이다. 더불어, 새로운 시장에 대해 소비자들 역시 열린 마음으로…

On the 23rd August, Soft Bank Ventures confirmed their decision to invest into Brave Company is an internet publishing company. This investment is worth US$670k made up of $420k from Capstone Ventures and $250k from Soft Bank Ventures. Brave Company was formed in 2012 with the purpose of providing a platform optimised for the purposes of online lectures and learning materials. The purpose developed platform professionally organises lecture materials and courses.  …

SparkLabs (www.sparklabs.co.kr), Asia’s leading startup accelerator, is hosting their fifth demo day in Seoul, Korea. With over 1,700 people registered to attend, startup fever in South Korea is reaching an all-time high. “We expect to break the attendance record with over 1,000 people attending our 5th demo day. This is a testament to our track record of selecting promising startups and helping them grow into great companies. The SparkLabs demo day has…

A robotics team from South Korea took home the $2 million first-place prize in a competition this weekend to design robots that could aid humans in a natural or man-made disaster. The team is a collaboration between the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Humanoid Robot Research Center and from Rainbow Co., a company that was spun out of the research lab. The team’s humanoid robot, or HUBO, stands 5…

SoftBank Corp. (“SoftBank”) and Coupang today announced a definitive agreement under which a subsidiary of SoftBank will invest $1 billion in Coupang, the largest and fastest growing standalone e-commerce player in Korea. The investment is expected to close at the beginning of July, 2015 and will bring the total amount of funding raised by Coupang over the past year to nearly $1.5 billion. This funding will fuel Coupang’s innovations in its end-to-end fulfillment service, same-day…

Raising funds from venture capitalists is just like entering into a marriage, especially if a partner takes a seat on your board. There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a venture capitalist (who to marry) and how to best work with that person after receiving investment (after the honeymoon). Below are a few pointers from Eric Kim, Managing Partner of Goodwater Capital, who works closely with startups in Silicon…

Daum Kakao Corp., a leading mobile lifestyle platform provider, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Path as part of the company’s global expansion efforts. The acquisition will take form in Daum Kakao carrying out an asset acquisition of Path the social network and Path Talk the messaging app. “We created Path as a network that brings users a source of happiness, meaning and connection. We’re very proud of what we’ve accomplished…

“브라질에 축구가 있다면 한국에는 온라인 게임이 있습니다. 슈퍼셀은 피시방과 넥슨의 나라, 한국을 위해 헌신적인 노력을 쏟아부을 것입니다.” 클래시오브클랜을 포함한 단 3개의 게임만으로 포브스로부터 ‘역사상 가장 빨리 성장하는 게임 회사’라는 평을 들은 슈퍼셀(Supercell)의 일카 파나넨 대표가 오늘 ‘서울디지털포럼 2015’ 무대에 섰다. 그는 단 5년 만에 모바일 게임 업계를 장악할 수 있었던 슈퍼셀의 성공 비결을 문화, 운 그리고 실패라는 3가지 요소로 축약해 설명했다. 5년 전 슈퍼셀을 창립할 때 일카 파나넨 대표가 세웠던 원칙은 단순했다….

“이 문제는 해결 가능한 문제입니다. 제가 3년 전 배를 타고 있을 때 누구도 바다에 떠 있는 쓰레기를 청소하는 것이 가능하다고 생각하지 않았습니다. 하지만 적어도 해양 쓰레기 청소는 시도는 해봐야 할 만큼 인류에게 중요한 문제입니다. 그리고 그 첫 시도가 한국에서 가까운 곳에서 이루어질 예정입니다.” 2011년 그리스에서 스쿠버 다이빙을 하던 한 16살 소년은 물고기보다 더 많은 쓰레기를 바다에서 발견하며 이런 질문을 던졌다. “왜 아무도 이걸 치우지 않는 걸까?”. 이에 대한 답으로 그는 2013년 항공우주공학…

Recently, It was quite controversial about Net Neutrality in States. Net Neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication. Here, we have organized the events that happened recently about the Net Neutrality and made up an Infographics.

The Korean SMBA (Small and Medium Business Administration) agreed to establish a fund , ‘Korean Venture Fund(tentative name ‘Korea Fund’)’ IDG Capital(CEO Xiaoge Xiong), China’s second place venture capital. This fund is as much as $ 910 million USD. After the Korea-China FTA negotiation settlement, small and medium businesses’ interest in entering the Chinese market is increasing tremendously. Amongst this hype, SMBA has brought in ‘China IDG Capital’ which has the know-how of…

Daum Kakao Corp. today reported fiscal year and fourth quarter financial results under Korean-IFRS, the first to reflect the merged company’s consolidated earnings,. Daum Kakao’s consolidated revenue for the quarter was KRW 254 billion, and KRW 898.4 billion for the fiscal year 2014. With mobile services comprising of 53% and 49% of the revenue, respectively, the company continued to strengthen its position as the leading mobile lifestyle platform provider in Korea. KRW…

There are many co-working spaces where start-ups can build their prototypes. The government is continuously building new places as well. The only problem is, people don’t know they exist. If you open room #550 of Seun Arcade, a whole new world appears. From 3D printers to large-size laser cutters, it sure does looks like an ex-astronaut’s office. Astronaut San Ko founded TIDE Institute, an organization supporting tech-based start-ups three years ago, becoming…

MakeSense is a combined team of OnAirSoft and Nsynaps that used to work together at a robot lab, and currently is developing an educational application ‘Sici’ at Hansung University. They have come up with a new say of programming method through a block. The following is BeSuccess’ interview about ‘Everyone’s Programming’ with MakeSense.   – Introduce ‘Everyone’s Programming’ for us. ‘Everyone’s Programming’ is a set of an application that children can even…

The IoT will come into our daily lives more and more, as time passes. BeSuccess met Hellogeeks, a company that is building products that help general consumers to use the IoT technolicy.   ‘BitCube’ made by Hellogeeks is a tech kit that helps a programming layman can easily build a robot out of sensors, motors, LEDs, etc. and set control rules for the robot. – What is BitCube? BitCube is “The world’s…

Daum Kakao (co-CEOs Saehoon Choi and Sirgoo Lee) today revealed its first transparency report through its corporate website. Daum Kakao reemphasized its philosophy of placing protection of users’ information as its number one priority, and disclosed data regarding user information requests. Daum Kakao also plans to further its efforts to protect user privacy by regularly updating data in the transparency report and by actively engaging in social discussions for privacy protection. “It…

Editor’s Note: 다음은 본지의 도유진 필진이 디지털 노마드들의 이야기를 담은 다큐멘터리 제작을 시작하면서 만나게 된 제이(CEO & 공동 창업자, Moo.do)의 글을 본인 동의 하에 번역한 글임을 알려드립니다. 원문은 Entrepreneur에 ‘How I Built a Startup While Traveling to 20 Countries’ 라는 제목으로 1월 14일 게재되었습니다.  1년 전, 나는 내가 가진 모든 것을 처분한 뒤 40리터 백팩을 하나를 매고 샌프란시스코를 떠났다. 나는 20여개 나라의 45개 도시, 디즈니랜드 세 곳과 토끼 섬을 여행했고, 나의 스타트업을 위해 일주일에 50시간을 일했으며, 여기에…