DaumKakao has launched the driver’s version of ‘Kakao Taxi’ Android app on the 13th. This application is a prerelease version to recruit drivers before  launching the passengers’ version of the app. Any registered taxi drivers can download the app and register as a member. To register, drivers will have to enter their names, first 6 digits of their social security number, license number, upload their photos and license image. DaumKakao then approves…

Often young startups face difficulty in making decisions when they look for the right source for incubating and investments. Even if you are lucky enough to find a VC, explaining your product to someone who has no background knowledge could feel like talking to a wall. To help with these issues, we have prepared a report containing backgrounds, interested fields, and startup development directions for 2015, of top the 5 accelerator in…

Full time job (after 3 months internship) & Part time Working in HQ of beSUCESS in Seoul, South Korea Main Task : Korean and Global IT, Tech, Startup Reporting, Writing and Editing Articles Key Responsibility : Fluent Enough to Write Articles in English Interested and Curious about Korean Startup Ecosystem and beSUCCESS Understanding Journalism and duty as Writer. Wanting to Contribute to Korean Startup Ecosystem, Especially Helping them to Go Global Send Resume and…

B2C distribute portal service Mesh Korea (CEO Jeung-bum Yu) announced total of 4 billion won (roughly $4 million USD) of investment from multiple investors including EG Partners (Daumkakao Young Adult Startup Investment Union). In addition to EG Partners, Shinhan Capital, Seoul Investment Partners, and Solborn Investment, also decided to participate in the investment of Mesh Korea due to its growth potential. Since the establishment of January 2013, Mesh Korea has provided distribution…

On last month, Woowa Bros. (CEO Bong-jin Kim)’s delivery app ‘Baedal Minjok’ reached their best record as they surpassed 5 million monthly orders. On December 2014, the report shows 5.2 million delivery counts, a 20% increase from November’s 4.3 million. The estimated total transaction fee is approximately 95 billion won. 2014’s annual delivery broke 40 million mark as well indicating a 230% increase compared to 2013.  Statistic Korea report shows that there…

Company builder Fast Track Asia announced their 8 million dollar funding from Wonder Holdings and Insight Venture Partners of United States on the 5th. This is the second investment under Wonder Holdings’ lead and participation of previous investor Insight Venture Partners since December 2012. Min-ju Lee of Atinum, Eun-sang Lee of Carbon Eyed, ex-Nexon CCO Sang-bum Kim and other previous as well as current IT founders funded 3.3 million dollars for the…

Daumkakao announced the announcement for their buyout of ‘Kids Note’, a smart alarm notification service for daycare services. Daumkakao now owns 100% of the share and Kids Note became the subsidiary company. Kids Note is a service that allows kindergarten or daycare teachers to post children’s daily schedule, diet, pictures, and other announcements with PC and other smart devices for the parents to have live-time access. About 30% or 14,000 kindergartens, daycares,…

This year, Coupang reached the top of the social commerce game with two major investments. In order to chase Coupang ‘WEMAKEPRICE’ announced their buyout of Ticket Monster (TMON). There was reserved bidding session for TMON until the morning of 31st. 10 fund manager companies including Carlyle, Affinity,  KKR, Anchor Partners, and WEMAKEPRICE participated in this session. TMON came out on 2010 as the very first domestic social commerce platform. It was purchased…

On January 2nd, Small and Medium Business Administration revealed their startup support plan, 2015 TIPS. TIPS is a technology startup support program designed to attract more private investments. Through angel investors from major corporate, TIPS selects promising teams and provides aids like governmental R&D. Small and Medium Business Administration established this ‘Israel style’ startup support program last year and it gained a great amount of popularity because once a startup team secures…

Altos Ventures, headquartered in Silicon Valley, has invested $2 million USD in Hyperconnect, the developer of live time video communication technology and the service host for the video messenger ‘Azar.’ Hyperconnect has developed a very distinct client/server technology stack for WebRTC based real-time video/voice communication. It is very secure and reliable for various settings in 200 countries with very high quality video chat. The technology is built on P2P so the management…

A leader in navigation solutions from Korea, Thinkware, has developed a new product with imbedded augmented reality technology. The new iNavi X1 model allows the driver to view the actual image of the road on which they are driving and see a range of useful traffic information. The company in Seoul unveiled the “iNavi X1” that combines augmented reality with advanced driving assistance system (ADAS). The AR solution called “Extreme AR” within…

‘Timeline Dungeon’ developer NOVN have announced that they recently received $500k USD from NC Soft. As NC Soft expands its business interest from game and contents to a range of other entertainment areas, this investment will enable NOVN to release Timeline Dungeon in January 2015. This investment follows up a seed round of funding from ‘The Ventures’. NOVN’s Timeline Dungeon plans to open a new genre with their first title. It is…

“When it comes to innovation Korea is a global leader” – Mark Zuckerburg The above statement comes from a speech Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO delivered recently, and demonstrates a changing tide of thought about Korea. No more the ‘Land of Morning calm’ it once was, Korea is emerging emboldened onto the world stage, ready to prove itself, no matter what. My recent article described Korea’s top accelerators and their efforts in providing…

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…

Jae-ho Choi CEO of Drama & Company has announced that their business card organizing app ‘Remember’ has secured $2 million USD from Daekyo Investment, CyberAgent Ventures, and Capstone Partners. This is the second round of funding for the company this year, after Capstone Partners invested $1 million USD. The additional funding will help them prepare a stable foundation for ongoing service development and management. Unlike the previous OCR based business card organizing…

  As announced in Sparklabs Bi-Monthly Review, Korean startup Jandi confirmed that it has raised an angel round of nearly US$2 million, co-led by Softbank Ventures and Cherubic Ventures. Jandi is a business communication platform for PC, iOS, and Android devices that allows teams to securely and instantly communicate while also easily being able to share files, search through past messages, and more. There are, of course, other apps that address these concerns,…

Recently Job Planet and Fortune Korea co-hosted ‘Korea’s Top 50 Working Environments’ at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Seoul. A studyvwas conducted of both large scale companies as well as small & medium sized enterprises, including the startups. From April to November a short list of 792 was chosen from a total of 140,000. After final assessment, 50 companies were awarded on the night. The criteria to select the most satisfying work…

After three years in operation, NFLabs, Korea’s most promising Big Data startup has raised series A funding from Big Basin Capital, Bon Angels and Coolidge Corner investment. The funding of $1.5 million USD will be primarily used to bring the startups big data analytics and visualization software to a global audience. NFLabs CEO Sejun Ra explained, “the investment will really boost our expansion to North America. We will focus on speeding up…

Korean gaming company ‘SundayToz’ and The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Development and have created the ‘AniPang Fund.’ The fund will be aimed at startups in the following fields: Gaming, Social, digital content, platform based technology and contents based technology. The ‘AniPang Future Contents Investment Association’ will operate under the management of Smilegate Investment. While the fund will primarily focused on startups in Korea, a representative from SundayToz has confirmed that they are…