Originally posted on The Bridge: Kei Kajitani is the Japan general manager of Korea-based VCNC, heading up the company’s efforts to promote their couples app Between here in Japan. After the app’s recent 2.0 release back in December, it appears to have picked up some steam in a number of markets around the world, including Japan where it is has ranked as the top social networking iOS app since Wednesday. He tells…

Noom, Inc., the creator of fun and easy-to-use health and wellness apps, announced today that it has closed a $7 million Series A round of funding led by New York-based RRE Ventures with participation from TransLink Capital, Scrum Ventures, Recruit Group Japan, Qualcomm Ventures and Harbor Pacific Capital. RRE’s Jim Robinson IV will join the company’s board. “Noom has designed a comprehensive mobile weight loss program complete with guidance and motivational support…

Lee Kun-Hee: “Research & development center(s) should work around the clock, non-stop,” “get rid of business models and strategies from five, ten years ago and hardware-focused ways.” Though the South Korean company is currently the largest seller of mobile phones, its traditional strength has been hardware not software. 20 years ago when he urged Samsung executives and employees to “change everything except for your wife and children.”   First Google bought Nest,…

Korean startup Coinplug has closed an investment round paid partly in bitcoin. This news comes shortly after another Korean Bitcoin startup, Korbit, also raises $400k from a dream team of Silicon Valley investors, as reported by beSUCCESS here. Coinplug raised $400,000 from Cupertino-based fund SilverBlue, with half the amount raised in bitcoin and the rest in fiat currency. The startup plans to launch a digital currency exchange, wallet and merchant platform in Korea in mid-December….

Having achieved 18M downloads and the number 1 spot in 20 countries back in 2009 with Oven Break, the company’s first release, Korean game developer Devsisters has just released their global follow-up, Cookie Run, on the Line games platform. Despite early success with Oven Break, they struggled to maintain momentum and effectively withdrew from the global market, choosing to focus on their home turf in Korea. This was due struggles in maintaining…

The below is the review segment for Korea. For the full article please click here to be redirected. Samsung 4Q13 profits to fall: Samsung Electronics has estimated its operating profits for the fourth quarter of 2013 at about KRW8.3 trillion(US$7.8 billion), down 18% from the prior quarter. Consolidated sales for the 4Q are set to stay flat on quarterat KRW59 trillion, Samsung disclosed. The forecast operating profits represent a 6.1% decrease compared tothe KRW8.84 trillion…

While many believe that the USA leads the world in innovation, with Silicon Valley as the heart of everything, there are other nations that are making an impact. Bloomberg recently conducted a survey of 215 countries to determine their ‘Innovation Quotient’ and ranked South Korea as number 1 in the world for 2013. South Korea has achieved phenomenal economic growth over the last four decades, and is now is a position globally…

Recent statistics show that 1.5 million to 2 million foreigners live in Korea, accounting for over 3 percent of the nation’s population. A range of programs are being offered to help them better adapt to life in Korean society. In a bid to help immigrant families, university student Ji Byung-ju came up with a unique idea early this year to provide immigrant mothers with postnatal services from midwives of the same nationality. “Despite…

President Park Geun-hye championed her creative economy vision at this year’s meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She suggested creative economy as a way out for countries experiencing slow growth amid high unemployment and income inequality.At the same time, she pitched Korea as an attractive place to invest to the participants in the forum. She held one-on-one meetings with the CEOs of some of the world’s top corporations to…

Originally posted on TechCrunch Moms feeling guilty about baby-spamming Facebook with their child’s photos and their every precious moment now have a more private alternative for those updates, thanks to a new mobile social network called Smile Mom. The app, which is designed to connect moms with others nearby, has already grown to 14,000 users during its beta testing phase. The founders behind the new app are formerly of Paprika Lab, a…

Supported by President Park’s effort to foster a Korean creative economy, a deluge of cash flooded into the Korean startup ecosystem in 2013. Including many conferences hosted by the government-affiliated organizations, countless programs to assist startups were organized both domestically and abroad. Of the many themes these programs publicized repeatedly, one keyword that stood out was “Going Global”. The concept of “global” is trendy and attractive yet so vague and such a…

G. 이사회의 딜레마 알마 벤쳐스(Alma Ventures)의 주요거래조건(Term Sheet)을 받아들이고 승인하기 위해 이사회가 모였다. 물론 이미 전화로 이메일로 내용은 다 알고 있고, 어느 정도 개개인의 의견이 피력된 상태이다. 물론 개별적으로 1:1로 이야기할 때와 다 같이 모여서 의견을 정리할 때는 조금은 다른 형태의 역학관계가 발생하기는 한다. 어쨌든 의사결정은 단순하다. 1) 알마 벤쳐스의 2천 만 달러(한화 약 215억) pre, 백 만 달러(한화 약 108억) 라운드 주요거래조건을 받을 것이냐, 2) 그냥 기존투자자들끼리 라운드를 구성하느냐 (insider round),…

출근해서 점심 먹기까지 3시간 남짓. 글리프(Glyph)가 킥스타터(kickstarter)에서 25만 달러(한화 2억 6천 만)를 모금하는 데 걸린 시간이다. 킥스타터에 웨어러블 기술 관련 프로젝트가 130여 가지나 진행되고 있는 상황에서, 유독 글리프에 높은 관심이 집중된 이유는 무엇일까. 글리프의 사례를 통해 국내 웨어러블 기기 관련 스타트업이 취할 수 있는 필승 전략을 짚어 보았다. 글리프(Glyph), 망막에 직접 영상을 투사하는 개인 극장 테크크런치는 22일(현지 시간) 글리프가 가상 현실에 초점을 맞춘 오큘러스 리프트나 순간 밀착형 구글 글라스와 다르게 미디어 중심의…

Seedstars World startup competition will hold its Grand Final in Switzerland on February 4th. 20 startups from emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes including Seoul regional winner Flitto will compete to win a $500k equity investment. Seedstars World (SSW), the worldwide startup competition in emerging markets and fast growing startup scenes is two weeks away from its final event. Seedstars World team travelled to 20 different cities in 2013 to bring back…

Japan has been much harder hit by the global financial crisis than its North East Asian neighbors and has since struggled to catch back up. The country’s recovery has of course further been hampered by the devastating tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis in Fukushima. Suffice to say that Japan has seen better days, and now news that in the lucrative semiconductor market Japan is also losing out to Korea. According to research…

F. Series B-1 펀딩 드디어 알마 벤처스(Alma Ventures)로부터 계약 내용 협의서를 받았다. 알마 벤처스가 제시한 조건이 상당히 가혹하지만, 다행이라면 펀딩을 받아서 회사가 망하지 않았고, 투자자의 지분도 약간은 살아있다는 점이다. 물론, 불행이라면 여하간에 회사의 가치가 많이 떨어졌다는 점이다. 이번 라운드는 다운라운드(downround,이전 투자가격 보다 낮은 가격으로 펀딩을 받는 것)와 함께, 회사의 지분구조에 많은 변화를 가져왔다. – 투자형태: Series B-1 – 원래는 Series C 이후에 Series D 라운드로 생각하고 있었으나,  다운라운드와 함께 회사 지분구조의 변화를…

‘Anipang 2,’ SundayToz’s follow-up release to its big hit ‘Anipang’ from 2013 has been accused of plagiarizing one of their hottest competitor games, Candy Crush Saga. Until now, ‘Anipang 2’ has only made basic announcements about its developing, and not the details about the game. The title was released on Google Play Store on January 13th and showcases a different game stage structure from its predecessor, Anipang. The issue is that the new…

I have published a number of stories about Google, Naver and Daum, the not so fair battle-ground of Korean internet, but this piece is also very worth while sharing, as it goes into great depth about the issue and also suggests that finally Google may be on the rise. The Korean hit drama series “Respond, 1994” which went off the air two weeks ago after attracting a huge following on cable TV,…

It’s been a while since we have reported any news from Kakao Talk, which developed mobile messenger KakaoTalk in 2012. The company now plans to make forays into the news services market, having established itself as one of the ‘new platforms’, which have been billed as one of the hot trends to watch for 2014. Kakao is preparing to provide news service on a curation format that enables users to take a…

Korean camera app Cymera, developed by SK Communications, has surpassed 60 million in cumulative downloads. Launched in March 2012, Cymera achieve over the 10-million downloads in just nine months and reached the 60-million milestone in just one year. It is also worthy of note that Cymera achieved 45 million downloads in foreign countries, a rare feat to be achieved by a Korean dev-house. Cymera gained popularity first in Southeast Asian countries, including…