KnowRe, a Korean education technology company with a cloud-based adaptive learning program for secondary mathematics has just secured $6.8 million in a funding round led by Softbank Ventures. KTB Network Co., LTD, Partners Investment, SparkLabs Global Ventures and a number of other investors joined the round. KnowRe launched in March 2014 after a year-long beta period in which the company hosted a successful pilot program involving dozens of middle and high schools in…

MangoPlate announced today a series A funding round from Softbank Ventures Korea. As described on their Google Play download page, “MangoPlate is your go-to app for discovering the best restaurants in South Korea. Available in English and Korean, MangoPlate will help you resolve your daily problem of where to eat by connecting you with trustworthy people as well as the best restaurants in South Korea.” Ryan Lee, Executive Director at Softbank Ventures Korea…

Only three years after the first acquisition Yello Mobile has raised $78M, is nurturing an alliance of 35 startups, is profitable to the tune of $1.5M per month and plans to IPO next year. This is surely one of the most exciting startup stories in Asia this year. Here is part one of a two part article about their founding story, growth, and ambitious plans for the future. Part 2 coming tomorrow….

During my time working with Korean startups there has been an almost universal fear of the dangers of entry to the Chinese market. But as Korean founders become more globally minded, and more confident in themselves, fear is being replaced with confidence and success stories are beginning to emerge. In addition, Chinese-Korean relations have never been better, and I expect that in the years to come great opportunities for cross-border opportunity will…

“We look forward to another success story with startups here in Daejon,” said President Park Geun-hye during a ceremony to launch yet another innovation center in Korea. While government support for Korean startups has been impressive, is it time for the politicians to take a step back? At some point the ecosystem must be allowed to develop of its own volition and startups surviving off the back of government handouts alone must…

Sources in the Goverment have confirmed that a total of around $1 billion was invested in startups in the first nine months of the year. This represents a 9.5% increase from a year earlier. The number of startups that received investment also increased to 619 from 579 over the same period. The increase in funding has been attributed to a rise in activity by institutional investors and private venture funds, as well as government investment…

It has been widely reported that Apple’s market penetration has been waining in Korea, in the face of extreme local competition from Samsung and LG. However, a mobile open market research report from Goodmobile has shown that Apple is perhaps back in favor with Korean consumers. After the release of the iPhone in Korea Apple enjoyed a sustained period of popularity, but in the last couple of years the US manufacturers favor…

KakaoTalk Confirms They Will NOT Comply with Government Wiretapping Warrants A cyber censorship battle is being waged between the private and public sectors. Daum Kakao CEO Sirgoo Lee in particular has been embroiled in the controversy over cyber surveillance. He explained why he will not comply with government demands for records held on KakaoTalk, citing user privacy as his priority:  “I’ve honored court warrants for eavesdropping so far, but wiretapping warrants violate the law….

리더의 길은 외롭고, 쉽지 않다. 한 단면을 통해 존경받는 리더의 모든 것을 알기는 어렵지만, 그들의 삶을 이끈 동력이 무엇이었는지를 배우는 것은 별다른 교과서를 가지고 있지 못한 세상 모든 리더들에게 큰 도움이 될 것이다. 오늘은 그들의 육성이 담긴 영상 인터뷰를 통해 존경받는 리더에 대한 인사이트를 전한다.  1. 스티브 잡스 (Steve Jobs / 1955~2011) “훌륭한 인재들은 스스로를 관리합니다. 그들은 남의 관리를 필요로 하지 않죠. 무엇을 해야하는지 아는 순간 그들은 어떻게 해야하는지 스스로 알아냅니다. 관리가 필요…

  Samsung Ties Up With SK To Develop 5G   South Korea’s top mobile carrier, SK Telecom, said they are partnering with Samsung to develop the 5G industry, seeking early advancement in one of the highly watched mobile sectors. “We signed an MOU to conduct joint research in network technologies and new services related to the 5G,” SK Telecom said. The company currently dominates half of the local mobile market. World First LTE Tech…

As reported by TechCrunch, natural language platform wit.ai has announced a $3M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz in a deal that has emerged shortly after the team graduated from Y Combinator. The company is tackling a need for smart speech recognition and natural language processing services, which are becomming a thriving industry thanks in part to the boom in IoT technologies. Wit.ai offers developers an API for building natural language interfaces. For startups that currently…

Tribeluga is a Seoul-Beijing based startup accelerator with the core mission of connecting Startups to new (and traditionally tough) markets, primarily China and the US. Today the company’s President, Lili Luo, launched the accelerator in a glitzy opening event in Seoul that attracted media from across the globe. Dignitaries from the US, Korea and China, including the Mayor of Palo Alto also attended. The event was arranged to officially open the accelerator,…

Correction: The ‘won figure’ for the investment originally quoted was wrong and should be 18 Billion won (not 180 billion won. The fugure of around $18 million is correct. Bain Capital has today announced that they have led a series A investment into Korean car sharing company, Socar. The total investment raised in this series A round is 18 billion won (equivilent to around $18M). Insiders point to a dramatic rise in…

Kakao Talk Promises that encrypted messeging will be available this year Daum Kakao, the operator of South Korea’s most popular mobile messenger Kakao Talk, said it plans to adopt a “privacy mode” in an apparent bid to allay users’ concerns about security. There has been much in the Korean press on this matter recently and Telegram has been making the most of the situation, garning massive local suport in Korea. “The new…

Until a couple of weeks ago Koreans had never heard of Telegram, the super-secure Berlin-based messaging app that is now causing waves. Telegram is attracting droves of Korean users away, for increased security. In Korea, KakaoTalk is installed on 95% of smartphones, and Kakao messages surpassed SMS messages a few years back. Kakao is known for its ease of use and expressive emoticons. But now Kakao, which has established a near-monopoly in Korea, is facing a serious…

Edited from Business Korea: Korea is once again proving to be a market where rapid adoption of new tech services (particularly mobile) can occur at phenomenal speed. Samsung’s Milk Music, Kakao Corp’s peer to peer payments service, and Berlin-based Telegram messenger are the most recent examples. These services have attracted hundreds of thousands or even millions of subscribers in the first few weeks after release in Korea, the world’s ‘most wired nation’….

지난달 “Money without borders or barriers, as easy as sending an SMS”을 슬로건으로 걸고 있는 스타트업, 37코인스(37코인스)에 합류하게 되었다. 현지 파트너들과의 프로젝트를 위해 방콕에 머무르는 동안 이 팀이 둥지를 튼 곳은 태국의 대표적인 협업 공간이자 태국 스타트업 생태계의 중심부를 맡고 있는 허바(Hubba)이다. 허바는 방콕하면 흔히 떠오르는 여행자들의 거리 카오산 로드나, 시암 파라곤 같은 거대한 쇼핑몰들로부터 살짝 동쪽 외곽으로 비껴난 에까마이(Ekkamai)에 자리하고 있다. 허바가 문을 연 2012년까지만 해도 방콕, 아니 태국 전체에서 스타트업을…

Sparklabs fourth batch recently kicked off and I had the chance to speak with one of their most promising startups, OnnuriDMC. OnnuriDMC operates a mobile advertising platform, CrossTarget, that the founders believe has solved a major issue for mobile advertisers; being able to track users in the mobile app environment in real time. Background In the PC environment advertisers are able to easily track user behavior through cookies, but this is generally…

K Cube Ventures, an early stage investment firm in Seoul, announced today that they have invested about $200K in Bitcoin startup ‘Devign Lab’. Devign Lab has developed a bitcoin market called Coinone. Devign Lab claims to be the first web based home trading system (HTS) in South Korea and aims to provide up to date bidding/contract information for users. Their one click payment system ‘Coinpay’ provides payment services with a 0% transaction fee. Their mobile application is currently in…

beGLOBAL was the annual event held in Silicon Valley, hosted by beSUCCESS. In the following piece we take a look at two of the teams that were selected to pitch to investors at the event. Kairos Watches claims to have built the world’s first mechanical watch and has secured well over $1M in pre-sales. Team Blind has developed a secret messaging system to allow employees to communicated in the work setting anonymously….