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Top 10 Most Valuable Korean Venture Companies: Kakao Still Reigning With Its Unquestionable Supremacy
2014년 04월 15일

Original data for this post taken from an article in Korean on Under The Radar, with additional editing from Hugh Yoon and Nathan Millard: Under The Radar, a prominent IT and Startup focused blog, recently published a top 10 list of venture backed enterprises in Korea. Not surprisingly, Kakao was placed number one in the list by a wide margin. In Korea, unlike most other venture ecosystems around the world, success is…

Seven Top News Items From The Korean Tech Scene This Week
2014년 04월 15일

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….

Bitcoin in Korea Forging Ahead Despite Global Concerns
2014년 04월 14일

Korea is adapting quickly to bitcoin, and while there is some uncertainty about how quickly the cyber-currency will roll out more widely there are signs already that it is here to stay and hopes that Korea will become a leader in the industry. Already Korean Bitcoin startup Coinplug has raised two rounds of funding to rapidly expand their growth (see previous article here). The company has also quickly moved from a purely…

A Year of Success in the World of Cookie AWWWESOMEness : The Cookie Run Art Team
2014년 04월 12일

Last week Cookie Run, one of the most popular mobile games in Korea, celebrated its one year anniversary after a year that has been huge the game and the developer team behind it. The game has seen four consecutive quarters of outstanding revenue and two months ago released on LINE. Since this global release, Cookie Run had over 10 million downloads in Thailand alone, and the game continues to dominate in Asia…

Facts That Make The Korean Startup & Tech Environment One of The Most Interesting in Asia
2014년 04월 11일

This article gives a round-up of recent news from the Korean startup and tech environment. Please feel free to suggest updates and additional news. If you want to check out Korea for yourself, we suggest coming to Seoul, May 14-15, for beLAUNCH, Korea’s top tech and startup event. While the event is based in Korea we welcome startups from across the world and have secured a top line-up of global speakers who…

Discover Korea’s Top Startup Event in May: beLAUNCH Agenda Now Live!
2014년 04월 11일

May 14-15 sees the return of beLAUNCH, Korea’s top tech and startup event for the Global Entrepreneurship Community. This year the event will be held in the brand new and impressive Dongdaemun design Plaza in the heart of traditional Seoul. Now that we are only a few short weeks away from launching the event we are able to officially release the full agenda for the conference that features some of the biggest…

Wearables, Med-Tech & Devices, and Mobile Gaming Come to The Fore at Sparklabs Third DemoDay in Korea
2014년 04월 10일

SparkLabs, a startup accelerator in Korea, hosted its third Demo Day in Seoul yesterday.  While startups in earlier batches were all based in Korea, the most recent session welcomed companies from Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo and Seoul and sought to disrupt a wider range of industries from mobile music to wearable tech to professional online photo distribution, than previous batches which predominantly focused on mobile and e-commerce. This sets a trend which…

Korea’s Changing Landscape for Entrepreneurs
2014년 04월 10일

Korea is a country traditionally tied up in confusion societal order with a fierce preservation of tradition and status quo. Yet with this backdrop for tradition, Korea has obtained the highest levels of Internet access and lighting speed connections with intent now to upgrade to an unprecedented next-generation 5G wireless service that will be able to download full-length movies in one second. While the older generation listen to calming folk song and…

Korean Startup, Malang Studio, raises 2.0 billion KRW For Expansion From Yellow Mobile
2014년 04월 10일

Malang Studio, well known for their popular alarm app, AlarmMon, has recently raised 2.0 billion KRW (aprox. $1.9M)  in its latest fund raising round from Yellow Mobile, a leading local mobile-centric company who’s business portfolio ranges from mobile commerce to media/publishing and marketing/advertising. This fund raising by Malang is the latest of the series of milestones that the company has accomplished in recent months. Early this year, the company achieved a break-even in its monthly financial…

The Other Side of Competition – Telecom Operators Penalized for Subsidizing Smartphones in Korea
  ·  2014년 04월 10일

Fierce competition in one of the most technologically advanced market with the highest smartphone penetration, is forcing telecom operators to resort to “smarter options” to sell. For telecom operators this is a matter of survival in a highly competitive market. But, these “options” may not always be within the legal framework of the Government, and result in undesirable consequences. This is exactly what happened in Korea, where telecom operators are fighting to…

Korean Accelerator SparkLabs Recent Batch Graduates, Here’s Four of The Best
2014년 04월 10일

Review of The Best of Sparklabs Session 3 Startups, from beSUCCESS Writer Christine Bernard 1Day1Song is a Korean music discovery app. For a full day, the app will play a song from its artist of the day and will then display an exclusive background information provided by the performer. They have already launched on iOS with 64,000 users, and will launch on Android this summer. The app will also be launched in…

Samsung Galaxy S5 launches 2 weeks ahead – Dampens worldwide launch on 11th April.
  ·  2014년 04월 09일

The much awaited global launch of Samsung Galaxy S5 missed its launch date. The launch planned on 11th April, was not delayed, but started selling 2 weeks ahead of schedule. This was pulled off by Samsung’s telecom and distribution partners in Korea – SK Telecom and KT. SK Telecom was the first to start selling the device on Thursday 27th March. Later, KT also decided to start selling, as it did not…

What Made Silicon Valley’s DFJ Make a Follow-on Investment In A Bitcoin Startup From Seoul
2014년 04월 09일

Coinplug, one of Seoul’s foremost bitcoin startups has just announced that they have raised a second round of funding from Silicon Valley VCs, to the tune of $400k. This replicates a funding round that the company received just last November for the same amount. What is also impressive is that both rounds have come from Silicon Valley based Investors, a once rare occurrence for Korean startups. This story also follows news we…

Introduction to Top 100 Korean Tech Startups You Should Know: Part 5
2014년 04월 04일

Finally, we’re back after some pause! It seems like we have some great lineup of startups for our list today. Some of the tech companies mentioned here are really hot in the Korean startup scene at the moment. I was personally impressed by these companies while writing the piece, and I’m sure you want to know them if you’re interested in Korean startups as well. If this is your first time reading…

The Korean Peninsula in the Throws of Two Wars, Deadly Missiles and Cute Characters
2014년 04월 01일

There are two wars tearing apart Korea at the moment. One involves flying missiles and deadly danger, and the other is a tech battle between cute characters. While the south has returned fire today against the North for firing missiles into disputed ocean off the coast of the peninsula, Line and KakaoTalk are battling against each other in a cold war that is developing between the two mobile messaging apps.   LINE…

Korea is 10 years ahead of the World in the use of Technology to Improve Transportation Systems
  ·  2014년 03월 31일

Public transportation systems are still clumsy to use. If you are in the stone ages of technology, you are standing in queue to buy your ticket. Then joining another queue to get your ticket verified and enter the station. And not to forget, you are asked to tender exact change at the ticket counter; another hassle. If you are in the more developed world, you need to carry a card that helps…

Korea’s Pivotal Moment As Entrepreneurship Takes Centre Stage
2014년 03월 31일

In January in Davos, Switzerland, South Korea’s first female President, Park Geun-Hye pushed forward with a multi-billion “Creative Economy” policy. Although Korea has seen a great rise in GDP and living conditions in the last 50 years, President Park now believes the current economic growth environment in Korea has reached its limit, and just like startups often need to, she has decided to pivot the Korean economy to embrace innovation as a…

Korean Gaming Heavyweight, Smilegate, Buys $112 million stake in Sundaytoz, Becomes Biggest Share Holder
2014년 03월 28일

Smilegate, Korea-based maker of online games, has just announced a $112 million buyout of 20% of Sundaytoz’ stock in a move that makes the company behind global success, Crossfire, the largest stake holder. Smilegate is one of the most successful players in the Korean online gaming industry. For the last last two consecutive years Smilegate has been the proud owner / developer of the world’s highest grossing online game. Crossfire, with revenues of…

Life Moves Fast at Korean Startups, Shakr Media’s Newest Hire Shares His Experience
2014년 03월 28일

Within two weeks of joining Shakr, a Seoul and San Francisco-based video creation startup, I was on a 4:00 p.m. flight to San Francisco to represent the company at Google’s annual conference for it’s biggest advertising partners. The plane touched down at 9:00 a.m., I went into the bathroom at the airport to put on a suit, grabbed a “you might need two hands for that” sized black coffee, and went straight…

Introduction to Top 100 Korean Tech Startups You Should Know: Part 4
2014년 03월 26일

Demoday, a web platform for Korean Startups, recently came up with a list of 100 hot Korean startups in 2013, and we thought this might be a great chance to write an introduction to the Korean startup world. Every week, we will introduce you to 20 startup companies that got into the list in alphabetical order. Here’s the first 10 companies of our list for this week: Handstudio Category: Contents Key People:…