Cosmetic ecommerce startup B2Link in Korea has secured a US$4.3m (KRW 5b) investment from PEF; a joint organization formed by IBK Industry Bank and SK Securities. This new investment adds to the US$4.6m (KRW 5.3b) investment last year by KB Network, DSC Investment and DR Capital to bring the total investment to US$8.9m (KRW 10.3b). After co-founding Memebox, Lee Jae Ho founded B2Link to distribute Korean beauty and baby products to China and…

Odd Concept, a startup specializing search engine for video content has US$860k (KRW 1b) from KB Investment. The company was founded in 2012 and has developed online technology for video content searches. The company has used the technology to link offline shopping businesses to create an unique O2O market. Kim Jung Tae from Odd Concept commented, “Till now, we have not actively promoted or marketed Odd Concept, but through this investment our…

Althea the top Korean beauty commerce company in South East Asia has been successful in securing an investment from 500Startups, which is among the best known Silicon Valley venture capitals. Although the company was only launched in April this year, they successfully secured an early stage investment with Bon Angels in May. Five months down the track, they have caught the eye of Silicon Valley’s 500Startups with a new investment. Key members of…

Korea’s largest angel investor, Primer, teamed up with US-based eCommerce investor, Sazze, to invest in Indie CF aiming to revolutionize mobile advertising with their service Hooreel that connects people in need of video ads to capable directors. Hooreel puts the power of an entire video production studio in the palm of every smartphone user, enabling people to plan, edit and broadcast their own viral marketing videos. With this investment, Hooreel plans to expand their…

  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…

As reported by Coupang’s President Bom Kim, his four year old ecommerce company has surpassed monthly turnover of 200 billion won (a little shy of $200 million USD). While the comapny started life as a daily deals site, it rapidly became an ecommerce focused enterprise, escaping the global downturn in daily deals that put market leader Groupon into major trouble this year. Kim now sees his largest rival as Amazon, which is…

Social Commerce In Korea Is A hot Topic These Days With Coupang’s Recent $300 Million USD Fundraise – Here’s a Review of the Market from our friends at Business Korea. In May 2010 social commerce arrived in Korea, thanks to local player, TMON. In the same year two other local players also started operations, Coupang and. Four years later, three companies are still operating at a loss, engaged in fierce competition. Coupang has…

“We want to be the Amazon of Korea. We are the largest online retailer here, and we’re one of the most well-funded tech companies in Korea.” CEO of Coupang, Bom Kim in an interview with Forbes To accelerate this growth Coupang has just announced another huge funding round, worth $300 million USD, from BlackRock Private Equity Partners. This follows fast on the heals of another $100 million USD round led around five months…