beLAUNCH 2014 is shaping up to be everything we have promised, NE Asia’s foremost tech startup and entrepreneurship event. This post highlights some of the themes you can expect from the event, and don’t forget to book your early bird tickets before the end of March for the best prices Click here. Tech Trends: This year beLAUNCH will be tackling some of the hottest themes in tech. It has been seven years…
Mobile Shopping Users In Korea Exceed 20M For First Time A recent survey has shown that Koreans using mobile shopping applications has grown such that there are now more mobile shoppers than there are KakaoGame players in Korea. According to Rankey.com who conducted the survey, the number of shopping app users totaled 21.63M, as of January 2014. This figure is 2.7M higher than the number of KakaoGame Play users and represents a…
Samsung unveils Tizen-based wearable devices Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest maker of smartphones, unveiled its first wearable devices that run on its own mobile operating system Tizen in Spain on Sunday, as it seeks to break its heavy reliance on Google Inc.’s Android software. The unveiling of the Samsung Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo, Samsung’s successors to the Galaxy Gear, which was released in September last year, also comes as…
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 Corp., developers of Korea’s favorite messaging service and social platform, Kakao Talk, will be listing its stock publicly next May. This follows the recent news that SundayToz also successfully listed its stock in August 2013, and demonstrates further growth in the domestic tech industry, that has been attracting much attention in the international press attention recently. What’s more interesting though is the potential opportunity that Facebook has presented following today’s news that…
The application period for JFDI’s next session is open, but only for a few short days, before decisions are made about which founders will join the program this time around. Apply here now. In the past year JFDI has worked with 19 teams from all over Asia and as program Director, Ray Wu, looked back on his experience leading entrepreneurs he realized the importance of what JFDI is doing to build the startup community in…
Business Network Korea (BNK) is a flourishing business community in Seoul. Both Korean and foreign professionals who join their events operate under the simple philosophy of connecting for mutual business interest, with a particular focus on entrepreneurs and SMEs. Attendees have been finding high value through the events, which help young companies in Korea / Asia build a greater presence through collaboration. About BNK events: BNK events feature a “Speed Networking” session,…
Google, which has been relatively slow in expanding its market presence in South Korea, is now fast catching up to local rivals in display Ad sales (one segment of online advertising), according to industry sources. This news will be a surprise to many who have been watching Google’s advance in Korea with skepticism, as reported by beSUCCESS only a month ago. This news will also fall sweetly on the ears of…
The local market for mobile advertisement nearly doubled year-on-year in 2013, a government report showed Tuesday, amid the soaring number of smartphone users in the country. The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said the size of South Korea’s mobile advertising market was estimated at 416 billion won (US$392 million) last year, a leap from the 215.9 billion won (US$202.5 million) in 2012. Last year’s figure accounted for 4 percent of…
IBM Korea and HP Korea are curtailing their operations in Korea, demonstrating two further examples of overseas tech leaders that have struggled in Korea, a country proud of its domestic high-tech heritage. The cuts are the result of poor performance in both their HW and IT business in the Korean market. Other overseas tech giants that have failed to engage with the Korean market include Yahoo, who withdrew entirely at the end…
Naldo today announced a new online instant-delivery ordering service that aims to disrupt a domestic industry worth $5Bn. The company provides “immediate delivery of almost any item for B2B and B2C customers within a maximum timeframe of 90 minutes via a browser-based online ordering-system”. The existing offline instant-delivery market in Korea is already huge and sprawling, but Naldo aims to provide a much more streamlined and cost-efficient experience to customers. The early…
Published on the Wall Street Journal, February 11 2013 First Year Raises Efficacy Concerns; Government Says Project Continues to Improve In the past year, the South Korean government has sponsored a raft of overseas programs to give its young startups exposure to global tech trends. Government officials here hope that a thriving local startup scene could soon put fresh Korean technology names on the global stage—and they are sparing no expense to…
On December 20th we announced that Korea’s top social networking service for couples had launched V2.0 of their service. This followed with news from Japan on February 4th that the App had hit the number one spot in the social category. And Now a third momentous announcement within two months: Between has now added Japan’s DeNa as a strategic investor to build on recent success and the current trend towards ‘platforms’ that…
According to a recent article on Forbes, and indeed my own insight from having worked very closely with Korean startups over the years, “A new start-up powerhouse is on the horizon – South Korea”. While the US, Israel, and Europe have long led global innovation in the tech industry there is excitement in the startup ecosystem in Korea, with a number of highly notable stories emerging. What is also encouraging is that where…
Partnership creates first Korea-focused accelerator for tech startups with a dedicated Silicon Valley Fast Track™ program Silicon Valley-based BootstrapLabs, a global accelerator for foreign entrepreneurs and Seoul-based Coolidge Corner Investment (CCVC), a technology venture firm with $22M under management, today announce the formation of BootstrapAccelerator Korea, a Seoul-based 6 month accelerator program specifically designed to assist young and promising korean technology startups to relocate in Silicon Valley and build global businesses. Additionally,…
The Korean ecosystem is buzzing with the news that one of their own, translation service Flitto, has this week been crowned as the best startup in the World at the final of the Seedstars World global startup competition. The team at Seedstars spent almost nine months travelling to 20 different cities across the globe to find the best startups in each region. The regional winners were then invited to the grand final, and offered…
The Korean government has just announced the long-awaited news that the first “Start-up Visa” in Korea has been issued to a Korean-American entrepreneur, Jason Lee CEO of J.J. Lee Company. It is unknown why he was not able to apply for an F-4 visa, which is available for non-Koreans with Korean heritage, but it marks another stride forward in Korea’s massive push towards establishing its position as one of the world’s most vibrant…
Korean educational startup Smatoos has just launched an iOS app called Formula for English Conversation (our translation) for people in Japan and Korea, which focuses on improving English speaking skills, as reported in TechInAsia. It’s free, and the Android version will be released within the first quarter of this year. Like other English education apps out there, this app was developed to remove the common frustration of language learners who cannot come…
Korean researchers have developed a next-generation mobile communication technology that enables devices to directly communicate, long range, without going through a base station. The solution allows direct communication between LTE devices, a world first, and was successfully demonstrated it in the company’s mobile communication lab. ETRI’s technology was highlighted by the international standardization organization, 3GPP, as a stand out new-tech innovation last year and was praised for having a wider communication range…
Korean startup Coinplug has closed an investment round paid partly in bitcoin. This news comes shortly after another Korean Bitcoin startup, Korbit, also raises $400k from a dream team of Silicon Valley investors, as reported by beSUCCESS here. Coinplug raised $400,000 from Cupertino-based fund SilverBlue, with half the amount raised in bitcoin and the rest in fiat currency. The startup plans to launch a digital currency exchange, wallet and merchant platform in Korea in mid-December….
