It’s one thing for local entrepreneurs to scale across Southeast Asia. It’s quite another for foreign entrepreneurs to do the same. The economic and logistical constraints unique to the region are already difficult to tackle: lack of a universal payment method, like credit cards or PayPal; relatively poor infrastructure and logistics; and hard-to-reach consumers who are more inclined to purchase offline than on. But foreign entrepreneurs have the added disadvantage of being…

The award has recognized the company’s ability to ‘harness creativity and shape an impactful mobile ecosystem’ Kakao, the provider of KakaoTalk, Korea’s leading mobile messaging application and mobile social platform, has been named a 2015 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, making it the first Korean company to be recognized since 2001. Chosen from among 24 of the world’s leading technology organizations, the award recognizes the company’s ability to design transformative technological…

Kakao Corp., the company behind Korea’s biggest mobile messaging platform, aims to launch a wallet service in the next few months. This is the most recent addition to the Kakao platform, as the company continues to diversify its portfolio of services for users. It is hoped that Kakao Corp.’s namesake payment platform ‘Bank Wallet Kakao’ will help boost the ironically nascent mobile wallet industry in South Korea. Ironic, because Korea is praised…

  Cyber Agent Ventures has been actively expanding its portfolio of startup investments across Asia and due to their physical networks and offices on the ground around Asia have emerged as a powerful force catalysing the growth of the Asia-wide startup ecosystem. Their annual flagship event will be returning home to Tokyo on August 8th, after touch-downs in South East Asia, Seoul and China. RISING EXPO is looking for startups who aspire…

There has been much talk about Facebook’s inability to crack the tough, localized Korean market, but in an interview with Facebook’s top brass in Korea, this situation seems to be improving. Korea is a key test market for Facebook and this should send a message to other global tech companies hoping to do business in Korea, particularly those engaged with expansion on mobile. It was also proven last year that Facebook was taking…

Kakao Music, the most recent service from Korean social messaging platform Kakao Talk, passed 1.2M downloads  in just four days, after being launched. Kakao Music is a service developed jointly by Kakao, which is famous with its popular mobile messenger KakaoTalk, and Neowiz Internet, one of the top gaming companies in Korea. As a result of the successful partnership it is expected that Kakao Music will immediately become a strong rival to…

We have talked a lot recently about the mounting rivalry between Korea’s two major messaging services, Line and Kakao talk. But recent developments demonstrate that this rivalry still allows for pragmatism when it comes to strategic business decisions.

Korean Kakao Talk game, Everybody Cha Cha Cha, has infuriated Sony Computer Entertainment, who are beginning legal proceedings after claiming the Korean firm has stolen its intellectual property and game content.

A whirlwind networking day with networking extraordinaire, James Jung (Founder and CEO, beSUCCESS).

Anypang, South Korea’s mobile-based, HEXA style puzzle game, with 18 million smartphone downloads and 7 million daily users, played on KAKAOTALK Platform. Anypang’s sales projection is reaching 250,000,000 won (224,000$) on a daily basis. It’s service used some sensible choice architecture with multi-level marketing strategy