Vungle, the way developers put video ads in their apps, has opened a South Korean office to accelerate growth and global expansion for the country’s startups through high performance in-app advertising. Vungle Korea is led by industry heavyweight, Hong Kim, former CEO of Groupon Korea. Kim brings a solid background in startups and finance, along with a passion for growing companies globally to his new role with Vungle. “South Korea’s startups have…

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,…

ZeroWeb is a local network mobile platform developed for small to medium business people.  Recently it received an investment amount of US$2.6m from GS Home Shopping.   This brings their half year investment total to almost US$6m.  Back in March, Posco Technical Investments and BK Investments each invested US$2.9m for a combined US$5.8m series A investment.  Series A investments of this magnitude in Korea is considered extremely high. ZeroWeb plans on using this…

RedTable is a Korean startup providing data analysis services for restaurants.  It was first established by a group of masters and doctorates from the Sae Jong University, Department of Hotel and Tourism.  Recently RedTable secured investments to the scale of US$930k. As revealed by ‘Red Table’, the investment was made by three companies: US$418k from East Gate Partners, US$410k from Angel Investment and the balance from Medium Business R&D.   Red Table was established…

Simfler have developed an app called ‘Baby Time’ which is designed to  make parenting simpler and easier by managing the associated parenting activity data.  The app records and manages activities like feeding intervals, sleeping periods and nappy change times. Along with this essential data, the app provides relevant advice and information on child growth phases, customized growth diary and lullabies. The app features an intuitive interface allowing the user to record a…

Ylab is a Korean webtoon developer and is the creative force behind popular titles such as ‘Fashion King’, ‘Josun Dynasty’ and ‘Abyss of the Sky’.  Recently, Value Investment Korea made an investment of US$2.5m into Ylab.  This investment has been confirmed by representative from both companies.   Ylab was founded by webtoon author Yoon In Hwan who published ‘Blade of the Phantom Master’ which amassed more than 6 million views.  Within the first…

  Viva Republica, a Fintech startup has developed Toss, an easy money transfer solution that removes cumbersome identity or security card requirements.    On the 21st July, Viva Republica revealed that it had secured total $4.2m (US) investment from KTB Network, Altos ventures and IBK. With this investment, Viva Republica plans to step into the e-transactions with services that offer real time transfers and a deposit service for non account holders. Toss…

  The YAP Company is a Korean startup providing O2O commerce platform using an independent hybrid beacon technique. Recently, New World Group (Hong Kong) has combined with Korean investors, to provide YAP Company with a combined US$34.8m (KRW 42b) investment. YAP’s platforms, deliver essential information and benefits that are tailored according to the users time, location, circumstances, and necessities. YAP single-handedly embodies the entire transaction process of payment settlements requiring coupons, mobile stamps, and…

Park Sung Chul, a representative of Yanolja (a Korean phrase for “let’s play”), announced on July 27 that the company has now raised $8.5M from Partners Investment. Partners Investment is known for investing in startups that demonstrate potential growth. With this first investment, Yanolja hopes to grow from offering accommodation ads to covering all accommodation related industry sectors. This will allow accommodation franchises and B2B businesses that have an offline presence to create a solid mobile…

  On the 4th of August, ‘K Cube Ventures’ a specialist in mobile, internet and special technology investments, revealed that it had invested into ‘Brat Village’, an O2O (online to offline) home care service provider.  A key member in the ‘Brat Village’ startup is Mr. Sung-Min Park who was a founding member of ‘Easy Taxi’ and previous to this of ‘Limo Taxi’. ‘Doctor House’ developed by ‘Brat Villlage’ is a mobile service…

Scatter Lab, a big data analysis company specializing in analyzing chat emotions, announced a series A investment of 1.3 billion won from Softbank Ventures and KTB. Both companies have an equal share in the investment, each investing 650 million won in the company. Scatter Lab was founded in 2011 as a startup specializing in analyzing emotions, aiming to give people a more valuable chat experience. It now operates a service caller Ginger, which is an artificial intelligence…

  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…

MCN (Multi Channel Network) specialist Treasure Hunter announced its success in attracting an investment worth US$3.3m (KRW 4b) from DSC Investment. This announcement was made by Song Jae Ryong the representative from Treasure Hunter. This follows investments of US$5.6m (KRW 6.7b) in May which was led by the company’s stategic partner 4:33 and three other venture capitals located in Korea and overseas. In total the company has raised nearly US$9m (KRW 10.7b)…

beSUCCESS a professional media company with a particular focus on startups, will be holding the beGLOBAL SF 2015 conference in San Francisco on October 15 and has commenced receiving applications to participate from startups for this years event.   beGLOBAL SF 2015 is the sister event of beGLOBAL Seoul 2015, which was held in in Dondgdaemum DDP back in May.  The Seoul event is Asia’s largest startup conference whilst the San Francisco event seeks…

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…

  On August 17th, Wemakeprice a company dealing with social commerce, announced it had raised a total of $85M following the third release of its shares through NXC. Through this investment, Wemakeprice plans to seek the necessary talent and improve its systems in order to accelerate and improve the shopping experience for its customers and partners. NXC specializes in online and mobile games production as well as distribution through its subsidiary Nexon. Kim…

Mesh Korea specializes in the development of online platforms that support the distribution and logistics requirements of businesses. On August 18, a representative from the company, Ryu Jung Bum, confirmed that Mesh Korea had raised US $3.4M from SBI Investment and Korea Development Bank (KDB Capital). Prior to this investment, Mesh Korea raised a total of US $6.8M from both domestic and oversea investors, including an investment from VentureSquare back in January. Mesh Korea, which…

Yea Studio, the creator of Junimong, a popular kids drawing social networking site, has secured a $850k investment from East Gate Partners LLC and Big Basin Capital. East Gate Partners operates Daum’s Youth Startup Investment Fund while Big Basin Capital is a Silicon Valley venture capital firm focused on investing in Korean and American startups. This is the second early development investment for Big Basin Capital, and is a follow up to Mashup Angles, in which…

Korean entertainment site Soompi has been acquired by Viki in a deal rumored to be less than US $10M. Viki was a startup that was purchased by Rakuten in a huge US $200M deal. This time, Viki is on the other end of the table and the divestor is Crunchyroll. The combination of Viki and Soompi will make the company the largest English platform for discussion and news on Korean entertainment. Korean dramas…

Silicon Valley investment company Altos Ventures recently announced its US $3.0M investment in Trillionaire. Trillionaire runs a Korean cosmetic ecommerce service called HuiSeoul, which focuses on providing Korean beauty products exclusively to the Chinese market. The journey for HuiSeoul started in a single store in Myung Dong (Seoul) back in November 2014. The company reacted quickly to an identified market in China for Korean cosmetic and beauty products. In February 2015, HuiSeoul began, and started to…