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….

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…

Hello Nature (Byung Yul Park, CEO), an online grocery retail startup, has announced a US$1.4 million investment from Softbank Ventures and Mirae Asset Venture Investment. Organic foods are popular among Koreans, and according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the organic food market is expected to reach near four billion dollars by 2014. Unlike other online grocery retailers in Korea, Hello Nature offers compact package delivery services called “nature-friendly…

Last December, Aileen Lee from Cowboy Ventures, identified 39 software startups that have reached valuations of over $1 Billion, and grouped them under the moniker of The Unicorn Club, in her landmark TechCrunch post. Since then, software startups with valuations of over $1 Billion are being commonly called “Unicorns” in Silicon Valley and worldwide. On the conclusion of a second very successful beGLOBAL 2014, where ten Korean startups featured in Silicon Valley, we…

The second beGLBOAL in Silicon Valley, September 12th, clearly demonstrated that Korean entrepreneurship has come a long way in the last 12 months. Here we take a look at two of the companies that showcased at the event which again gathered some of Silicon Valley’s top investors and entreperneurs to discuss global entrepreneurship and investing. Ten carefully selected Korean startups also showcased, hopeing to attract the attention of US investors, partners and…

Korea has long been known for lightning-fast internet and mobile broadband speeds. Now the country’s startups are also garnering global recognition. In the last 12 months Korean founders have been backed by the likes of Y Combinator, Tech Stars, Sequoia Capital, Altos Ventures, and Formation 8. Two local ventures also achieved ‘Unicorn’ status (a valuation of $1Bn or more) earlier this year. Kakao Talk, the country’s dominant mobile social platform is now valued…

Google, on an international mission to rapidly connect with the global startup community, has recently announced that it will open a startup campus in Seoul, Korea next year. This comes at a time when Korean entrepreneurs are beginning to prove that they have what it takes to make an impact, as exemplified by a statement from Google’s Bridgette Beam: “Korean innovators and entrepreneurs are some of the best in Asia, and Korean startups are making headlines around…

Healthcare wearables startup Ybrain announced today it closed on $3.5 million in Series A funding in a round led by Stonebridge Capital bringing company’s total raise to $4.2 million. The Korea-based startup, founded in Feb 2013 by a Caltech neuroscientist and Samsung engineers, offers healthcare wearables for Alzheimer’s disease patients. Ybrain is a brain signal based wearable device start up building mobile health and wellness solution platform for the healthy and impaired….

Korbit, Korea’s leading bitcoin exchange, wallet and merchant processor, has just closed a $3 million Series A funding round led by SoftBank Ventures Korea. Pantera Capital led the round from the US, with participation from BAM Ventures and previous investors Bitcoin Opportunity Corp., Tim Draper, Pietro Dova and initial investor Strong Ventures. Korbit launched their bitcoin exchange last year and have now added two new bitcoin services and aim to continue building the…

Spoqa is a Seoul-based startup that operates Dodo Points, a tablet-based loyalty platform for local merchants. Since its launch in April 2012, 1,500 local merchants in Korea signed up and Spoqa has driven 2.5 million customers to its partner merchants. Today the company has announced that it has closed its second round of funding, putting its total funding raised to $3.9M US dollars. With this round, Spoqa aims to aggressively expand its…

This article was co-authored by Alan McGlade (Digital Entertainment Ventures) and Nathan Millard (beSUCCESS) and appeared on Forbes on July 18 2014. As little as five years ago Korea’s startup scene was undistinguished, but now the nation has taken an important step towards establishing itself as a key technology hub in the Asia Pacific region and an essential partner for global investors and tech businesses. Two young Korean startups have gained the…

언제 어디서나 스마트폰은 이제 사람들의 가장 가까운 곳에 있다. 이전에는 컴퓨터가 했던 기능들을 스마트폰으로 하게 되면서 스마트폰의 사용하는 빈도수와 시간은 순식간에 증가하여 ‘모바일-퍼스트 마인드셋(mobile-first mindset)’은 일상 뿐 아니라 산업에도 깊이 스며들었다. 스마트폰이나 태블릿과 같은 모바일 기기는 건설, 쇼핑, 제조, 헬스케어, 교육, 법과 같은 다양한 산업에서 쓰이게 되었고 그 영향력은 지속해서 커지고 있으며 심지어 기업의 핵심 기술로 자리를 잡아가고 있다. 이러한 변화는 소프트웨어 기업가들이 제품을 만들 때 모바일 디바이스 관련 기술이 기업의 핵심이…

Hearing about employees giving up their highly-prized, stable, and well-paid corporate careers in Korea’s tech behemoths used to be incredibly rare. But the young team at ASDTech has done exactly that, choosing to give up salaries of well over $100k for the excitement and promise of entrepreneurship. Having founded ASDTech in 2013 after leaving LG Electronics, they developed their while-label cloud service, ‘Cloudike’, and have now secured their first major clients. Furthermore they have…

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…

StyleShare CEO Jayoung Yoon is only 25 years old, but has built a formidable fashion and style platform and has just secured a further $2.5M to expand her vision globally. This series B investment from LB Investment follows a seed round from Primer (20M KRW), and a seed round from Suprema & the founder of Daum ($08.M). StyleShare as a mobile fashion contents platform that allows users to share what they are…

일본 유명 벤처 투자사 ‘글로벌브레인(Global Brain)’이 동남아시아 최대의 온라인 뷰티 스토어 ‘룩솔라(Luxola)’에 투자했다고 오늘 26일 밝혔다. 이번 라운드에서 글로벌브레인이 투자한 금액은 100만 달러(한화 10억2,550만 원)이다. 이번 투자는 사모투자전문회사 ‘에프엔에이치펀드매니지먼트(F&H Fund Management)’와 공동으로 추진되었으며, 총 투자 금액은 300만 달러(한화 30억7,650만 원) 규모인 것으로 알려졌다. 글로벌브레인은 이번 투자의 이유를 “아시아 국가를 넓게 아우르는 룩솔라의 브랜드 영향력과, 경영팀의 역량을 높게 평가했기 때문” 이라고 밝혔다. 글로벌브레인은 향후 룩솔라의 아시아 지역 진출과, 일본 코스메틱 브랜드와의 제휴 업무를 도울…

Hello Market, who have just announced their first funding round of $2.5M, is a C2C marketplace platform service that allows users to sell, buy, and exchange goods and services through mobile platforms (Android, iOS) as well as the web. According to Co-Founder Alber Hahn their goal now is to continue to apply, update, and expand upon the craigslist C2C commerce model, with a current focus on further expansion into Japan. The Hello Market…

Originally Posted by TechInAsia ESTmob, the Seoul-based team behind file-sharing app Send Anywhere revealed today it has completed a US$1 million seed round led by Rakuten Ventures. ESTmob co-founder Suhyuk Kang said that they will use the funding to expand their user-base around the globe and ramp up the app’s feature set. Send Anywhere delivers a basic, somewhat mundane utility to device owners. After one downloads the app, a user selects a…

1. Samsung has released its latest Galaxy S5 smartphone and wearables in 125 countries around the world as it battles squeezed profits and challenges to its top market position. Such a large simultaneous launch is the biggest of its kind for any of its previous products. The previous generation S4, the best selling android phone ever, started selling in 60 countries, and the Note 3 was first released in 58 countries. 2….