If a person comes for the profit goes for another profit, a person bows for a power searches for another powerful men. Only the person comes for the mind lasts forever.” – from “The Rise of the Great Nations” by SangRae Cho. Smilegate group(CEO HyeokBin Kwon) is famous for a FPS game called ‘Cross Fire.’ Cross Fire which has 500million global users, 6million users for concurrent user, successfully localized the game in…

Cherubic Ventures kicked off 2016 with an annual summit in the glamorous Shanghai, where East meets the West. More than 200 guests from its portfolio companies, partners from top venture capital firms and business partners all attended to share their thoughts on the opportunities and challenges in the early-stage tech investment space in the world. As an early-stage venture capital firm with coverage across U.S and the Greater China region, Cherubic Ventures…

Kakao today announced that it partnered with Huace Group, China’s number one comprehensive film and TV media group, to bring five of its popular Daum Webtoon titles to the screens in China. Kakao and Huace group signed deals for four of its webtoons, with one additional title to follow imminently. Daum Webtoon is Kakao’s web comic platform which first introduced the concept and format of ‘webtoons’ in 2003. Since then, it has…

Social Network, a specialist platform servicing Korean trends (wave) has secured an investment of US$4.3m (KRW 5b) from Korea Investment Partners, Mirae Asset Investment, POSCO technical investment and Intellectual Ventures. In 2012, Social Network secured their early stage investment of the same amount from Travel Doctor, Shinhan Bank and Hong Kong’s Evo Revo. The total amount for investment is now close to US$9m (KRW 10b). Productions from Social Network includes; Sketchup, the top…

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…

2015년, 가장 가치있는 중국 브랜드로 1위는 텐센트, 2위는 알리바바가 선정됐다. 글로벌 시장조사업체 밀워드브라운이 새해를 맞이해 ‘가장 가치있는 중국 브랜드’ 100을 분석한 보고서를 발표했다. 최상위 10개 브랜드로 선정된 기업은 다음과 같다. ▲텐센트▲알리바바▲차이나모바일▲공상은행▲바이두▲중국건설은행▲시노펙▲농업은행▲페트로차이나▲중국은행. 텐센트는 기업가치가 작년 대비 무려 2배나 성장했고, 알리바바는 순위에 진입하자마자 텐센트에 이은 두 번째 자리를 차지했다. 100대 기업의 브랜드 가치를 모두 합산하면 4,642억 달러(한화 약 507조 2,777억 원)에 이른다. 정부는 빠질 때가 됐다: 5년 간 브랜드 가치 사기업 278% , 공기업…

According to an article on Business Korea, the Korean government is planning to invest at least $209 million USD over the next five years to promote the growth of the game industry. This comes in a year where game developer 4:33 Creative Labs raised around $110 million USD from Tencent / Line, Smilegate bought a $110 million USD stake in Sunday Toz, Devsisters went public at a $627 million USD valuation, we announced…

Based in Seoul, Chinese language education company CHINADA have secured $1 million USD from Soft Bank Ventures and Coolidge Corner Investment. Their digital educational program ‘Chinatan’ is unlike other typical systems that focus on grammar and reading. Instead it is aimed towards improving conversational skills. It simulates real life situations, such as markets, restaurants, university campus, hotels, etc. This allows students to experience day to day situations experienced by locals. To build…

1년을 산 사람은 시를 쓰고, 5년을 산 사람은 책을 쓰고, 10년을 산 사람은 ‘모르겠다’고 답하는 곳이 중국이다. 넓고, 다변하며 복합적이다. 장님이 코끼리를 만지듯 우리는 중국을 부분적으로 이해하고 오해한다. 김선우 대표가 유학을 계기로 중국과 연을 맺은 지도 거진 십 년. 그런 그가 ‘아직 중국을 모르겠다’고 답하는 건 이런 이유 때문이다. 갈 때마다, 볼 때마다 변하고 있어 무서운 곳이라고 했다. 그는 상해 푸단 대학에서 경영학을 전공한 뒤, 함께 유학 중이었던 선배들과 함께 차이나다를 창업했다….

We reported recently that Chinese investors have been making inroads into Korea. Now we are seeing the first signs of what fruits those investments are likely to bear. As reported by Business Korea, Korean gaming companies are beginning to target the Chinese mobile gaming market, in partnership with Tencent. In a new trend for the Chinese internet giant, Tencent is now actively opening its doors to Korean companies interested in entering the…

Korean developers are attracting increased interest from overseas firms. Tencent has already made a number of large-scale investments, and European companies are also actively seeking Korean gaming companies to bolster their growth. Due to current market conditions, it is likely that the Korean gaming market growth will have stalled by 2015, so Korean game companies are also actively looking for growth engines, particularly in overseas markets. It is also widely recognized that…

Korea, Still A Huge Opportunity For E-Commerce The amount of mobileshopping transactions is growing at an explosive pace. The mobile shopping transaction volume achieved more than 100% growth compared to a year ago, reaching near 4 trillion won (a little less than $400 million) in the third quarter of this year. According to the OnlineShopping Trend report released by the National Statistical Office on October 31, the volume of total online shopping…

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…

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,…

1. Korea comes in 2nd place for the fastest internet speeds, 1st in other metrics According to a recent report by Akamai Technologies, South Korea’ average peak connection speed was 72.1 Mbps, lagging behind Hong Kong with 73.9 Mbps. Despite this result Korea remains top in the world for a number of other internet speed metrics including, highest average connection speed (24.6 Mbps). Hong Kong is the runner-up in this metric, at 8.9…

As reported in Business Korea, Chinese handset maker Huawei is launching a mobile handset offensive against domestic powerhouses Samsung and LG, in the Korean market. The company will begin their invasion with a new flagship smartphone, set to compete with the more economical domestic options. Samsung Electronics will also make a stronger effort in the Chinese market to increase its market share, particularly in premium level handsets. Huawei is planning to target…

For as much as the last fifteen years Korea has been emerging as one of the front-runners in global tech innovation, but has failed time and time again to capitalize fully on the opportunities. Smartphones, 4G mobile internet, MP3 players, social networks, and mobile payments are just a few examples. Nowadays, the U.S. and China, not Korea, are spearheading the growth of these markets and Korea is at a dangerous position, likely…

[metaslider id=”17793″] After the successful releases of BeNative apps in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, SMATOOS is expanding its service with Speak Real English, an “English to English” learning application that helps English language learners practice through video lessons. With this app, SMATOOS hopes to provide an alternative to stuffy textbook learning and offer support to help users cultivate practical and natural-sounding English skills. “Speak Real English” features video content of real native English speakers filmed around…

MyRealTrip, a Korean startup that provides overseas travelers with personalized guided tours in thier mother tongue has just announced their third round of funding. SmileGate Investment led the round, contributing 70% of the funding, with Capstone Partners joining. This Series A round has provided an injection of almost $1M to help the company build out their Android and iOS mobile apps and expand to include Chinese travelers visiting Korea, as well as…

Established in 2009, the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) Beijing is arguably Asia’s most influential mobile industry conference. Taking place on May 5-6, 2014, GMIC will attract over 10,000 mobile industry executives, entrepreneurs, developers and investors from 30+ countries. This year, as part of our partnership with GMIC, our own Global Director, Nathan Millard, will be moderating a panel with four of Asia’s top investors from Korea, Japan, and China to discuss…