Are sticky notes and post-its not cutting it anymore to organise your schedule? Are you interested to explore workplace management and timekeeping beyond Slack, Trello and Evernote? Korean workers are widely recognised as among the most hard working in the world. With office lights regularly going out in the small hours due to the pressures of hitting tough deadlines, it’s no wonder that Korean startups have been active in developing technology solutions…

Brich, an O2O service delivering the latest Korean fashion trends online, has secured an investment from Hana Financial Investment. The company was launched a year ago, and to date has raised US$860k (KRW 1b) from Hana Financial Investment and Mashup Angels. The Brich team members include those from other e-commerce companies like, WeMakePrice, G Market and Qoo10 and bring with them experience and technical ability. Users of Brich’s service are able to…

Baemin Fresh, a fresh food delivery service has acquired ‘Ongkasomsi’, provider of packed lunches. Through this acquisition, Baemin Fresh will actively seek to increase their range of food delivery services that are delivered to the doorstep of their customers. In 2008, Onkasomsi recruited chef Hong Su Min who is recognized for Korean fusion recipes. Through this partnership, the company developed over 150 thousand different menu items for packed lunches and catering services….

One of the biggest tech trends today is text messengers becoming platforms for other services. And one of the hottest text-based services is virtual concierge services. In the US, there is Magic, which recently received a 12M investment from Sequoia. In Indonesia, there is the YesBoss service supported by 500Startups. And even Facebook and Google have poured resources into developing services in this area. In Korea this new market segment is led…

Innovation can be defined in many ways. Among those, my favorite is to define it as the ability to kill and eat a great (even better, if it’s the entire) share of an existing market. And it is because in this world of surpluses of everything, pretty much the only way to create a market as an innovation is meant to is to kill the old industry by making it obsolete. There…

  19 January 2016 – NHN Entertainments have revealed their investment into Mocoplex, a company specializing in mobile advertising platforms. The motive for the investment was to strengthen NHN Entertainment’s capabilities in mobile advertising; a market which is experiencing tremendous growth. Once the investment of US$1.7m (KRW 2b) is finalized, it is likely NHN will proceed towards full acquisition. This investment will combine NHN Investment’s technical capabilities with Mocoplex’s various network capabilities…

Kongdoo Company, specializing in game MCN has succeeded in attaining a follow up Series B investment of US3.1m (KRW 3.6b) from Stic Investment, K Cube Ventures and Partner Investments. This investment comes within three months of the last investment in October of US1.7m (KRW 2b) investment from K Cube Venture and Partner Investments in October. The combined total recent investments are US$4.3m (KRW 5b). Established in March 2014, Kongdoo company is a…

  App Annie, the largest mobile app data and insights platform, announced that it has closed $63 million in total financing, with majority equity investment led by Greenspring Associates and additional participation from existing investors e.Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and Sequoia Capital. App Annie will use the new capital to improve and expand upon its suite of industry-leading products, and further scale global business operations to meet the growing…

Voiceloco, a communication software developer has succeeded in receiving an angel investment from the Credit Guarantee Fund for the technical excellence and business potential. Among others with investments through Credit Guarantee Fund, Voiceloco is a cut above the rest in terms of technical competitiveness and outstanding business potential. Credit Guarantee Fund launched their early development program called ‘First Penguin’, which is aimed at changing a startup within two years. Through the First…

JDLab released a new version of IUEditor, a website builder that supports back-end integration with Django, AngularJS and now WordPress. IUEditor allows users to develop a website without coding, using drag-and-drop. It supports various devices (smartphone, tablet, desktop), browsers and custom animation. Version 1.2.4, released on December 22, 2015, allows users to create their own WordPress theme with IUEditor. WordPress also provides paid themes for its users but they are difficult to…

Kakao have announced the decision to acquire 76.4% shares in Loen Entertainment, a company that is known to have pioneered the digital music service market in Korea through Melon for US$1.6b (KRW 1.9t). Melon is the top music streaming service in Korean. Through this acquisition, Kakao plans to combine Loen’s music contents with their mobile platform and secure a new market by allowing content developers to be more competitive. In securing the investments funds, Kakao have raised…

Day2Life, a simple day to day mobile time management solution has secured an investment of US$200k (KRW 240m) from 500 Startups, among the most recognized Silicon Valley startup accelerator programs. In securing a position in the program for 2016, the solution was assessed to be highly competitive. The mobile diary solution developed by Day2Life named June, provide a fully functional time management solution on a mobile device. Recent trends show an increase…

Taggle is a photo management application which integrates hashtags (#), a term which is familiar to Instagram users to create an simple and efficient way to mange photos. The company is among 6 companies with early stage accelerating programs with Silicon Valley’s SOS Ventures.  Taggle through the ‘Chinaccelerator’ program has secured an investment of US$95k (KRW 110m). Taggle makes it easy to organize photos through a their daily reminder function GTD (‘Getting…

Jienem, a guesthouse accommodation service specialist and catering for Chinese tourists has received an investment of US$200k (KRW 240m) from Angel Club an Accredited Investor (AI). In August last year, the company also received an early stage investment from specialist China marketing company, ‘On China’. Jienem provides an easy accommodation booking service that allows users to select accommodation in the categories of fashion, glamping, traditional Korean house, lodges, and boutique guest houses….

China Da the operator of China Tan, a digital Chinese language teaching service has secured investment from Mirae Assets, Softbank Ventures and Coolidge Corner Investment. This investment is the second investment for China Da, which secured an initial investment last year from Nexplat Korea, Lake Investment, Softbank Venture and Coolidge Corner Investment. Within one year of launching, the number of users has increased each month by 20 per cent. In creating their educational content,…

General Bio, a company known to be socially and environmentally responsible has received a total of US$4.6m (KRW 5.3b) investment from Mirae Assets, L&S Venture Capital, Coolidge Corner Investment and SJ Investment Partners. The company which kicked off in 2007 is a producer of organic laundry detergents and fabric conditioners. The R&D oriented company has continued to develop products that are environmentally friendly and biodegradable. Although the socially responsible status is noteworthy,…

Hello Nature, an online fresh produce platform connects producers directly with their consumers. On the 30th December, the company revealed that a ‘Series B’ investment amount of US$2.1m (KRW 2.5b) was confirmed from GS Home Shopping and Fast Track Asia. This is the second successful investment into Hello Nature following last year’s investment of US$1.6m (KRW 1.9b) by Softbank Ventures and Mirae Assets. The investment was made possible following the rapid growth…

Dining Code a Korean startup providing restaurant recommendation services has secured US$1.7m (KRW 2b) investment from Posco Technical Investment, ID Ventures, Seoul Investment Partners, HBIC and Magellan Technical Investment. The company had also received a seed investment amount of US$170k (KRW 200m) from K Cube Ventures in July 2014. Dining Code sources reliable restaurant data from tens of thousands of different blogs. The information used by the platform removes biases of personal…

23 December – Buzzvil a startup based in Seoul Korea and the creators of a mobile lockscreen advertising platform have received a series B investment of US$11.2m (KRW 13b). The investment comes from five (5) separate investors comprised of LB investment, KTB network, POSCO Ventures, Company K Partners, and ES Investment. This is the second investments for Buzzvil after their US$3.4m (KRW4b) investment from Softbank Investment two (2) years ago in December…

Huge institutions, archaic systems and lots of money at stake. These are the conditions that have brought tech entrepreneurs to the wildly exciting and growing arena of financial tech.Both venture capitalists and Wall Street are rushing into the space, investing $10.5 billion in fintech startups during the first nine months of 2015, up from $3.9 billion in the same period last year. and For Korea, If the government were willing to lower barriers…