Google, on an international mission to rapidly connect with the global startup community, has recently announced that it will open a startup campus in Seoul, Korea next year. This comes at a time when Korean entrepreneurs are beginning to prove that they have what it takes to make an impact, as exemplified by a statement from Google’s Bridgette Beam: “Korean innovators and entrepreneurs are some of the best in Asia, and Korean startups are making headlines around…

Healthcare wearables startup Ybrain announced today it closed on $3.5 million in Series A funding in a round led by Stonebridge Capital bringing company’s total raise to $4.2 million. The Korea-based startup, founded in Feb 2013 by a Caltech neuroscientist and Samsung engineers, offers healthcare wearables for Alzheimer’s disease patients. Ybrain is a brain signal based wearable device start up building mobile health and wellness solution platform for the healthy and impaired….

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…

Originally posted by Business Korea Seedstars World (SSW) recently held its regional startup contest which was last year won by Flitto, who went on to win the Global final in Geneva last winter. This year’s Seoul winner,Krowd Pop, aims to follow up this monumental first success in similar style. KrowdPop is a K-Pop concert service provider that has utilized crowdsourcing to take the risk out of holding overseas pop concerts by asking…

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…

Is Korea once again employing protectionist policies rather than embracing the opportunity presented by progress? Seoul is proud of being labelled one of the the most progressive tech-focused cities in the world. The capital has one of the highest smartphone penetration rates in the world. Its residents are well-known for their rapid tech adoption. Additionally it’s administration has been pushing a move towards innovation and tech development. However,  Uber will likely be…

This article was co-authored by Alan McGlade (Digital Entertainment Ventures) and Nathan Millard (beSUCCESS) and appeared on Forbes on July 18 2014. As little as five years ago Korea’s startup scene was undistinguished, but now the nation has taken an important step towards establishing itself as a key technology hub in the Asia Pacific region and an essential partner for global investors and tech businesses. Two young Korean startups have gained the…

Writepath Inc. has recently secured $500k from B-Dash Ventures and Pinehurst Advisors. The team intends to use the funds to further expand into Asian markets outside their base of Taiwan, with a focus on the huge opportunity in Korea. Founded in 2009 WritePath provides multi-lingual editing services and online translation solutions. Currently the company serves 22 countries and has three services in the market. One such, Top Admit, is now being touted…

You need only check out professional eaters on YouTube or Psy’s latest video to see that eating is a national obsession in Korea. What’s more, metropolitan Seoul is active 24 hours a day and is home to around 26 million people. Taking this into account its not surprising that the market size for the restaurant sector is around $60Bn per year, with more than 500,000 restaurants open for business. The area of…

Imagine if department stores in busy urban shopping districts could lock-in customers travelling into the area, before they even arrived. Kimgisa, a navigation app developed by Korean startup locNall aims to be the No. 1 player in the navigation and location-based marketing industry in Asia and make that marketing dream a reality. The team has already started working with large clients like Incheon International Airport to deliver targeted marketing to airport visitors…

Hearing about employees giving up their highly-prized, stable, and well-paid corporate careers in Korea’s tech behemoths used to be incredibly rare. But the young team at ASDTech has done exactly that, choosing to give up salaries of well over $100k for the excitement and promise of entrepreneurship. Having founded ASDTech in 2013 after leaving LG Electronics, they developed their while-label cloud service, ‘Cloudike’, and have now secured their first major clients. Furthermore they have…

Global Brain, an early and growth stage investor from Tokyo has just announced its most recent investment in a Korean startup. The “GB-V Growth Fund Investment Limited Partnership” managed by Global Brain Corporation, has invested an undisclosed amount in Mbite Inc., from Seoul, Korea. Founded in 2011 MBite is a global provider of game illustrators’ matching platform “rainbow.dot”. The fresh finances will be used to bolster R&D capabilities and hire a global sales team….

The Korean startup ecosystem has been exploding over the last couple of years. As more interesting startups begin to emerge, so the support services to power their success also become more diverse and more mature. There are a number of key accelerator programs in Seoul now, that offer a range of services and finance for early stage Korean companies. Interestingly there is also now a distinct push towards helping Korean startups connect…

Microsoft recently announced that it intends to fully enter the Korean internet search market later this year. This does not seem wise in a market that has been utterly dominated by Korean players for over a decade. Yahoo withdrew from the market after a fifteen year failed push into Korea. Google has fared a little better, having now climbed to around 10% – 15% market share, but it has been a long…

Junghee Ryu is a rare breed of Korean entrepreneur. Not only did he found a tech company that sold to Intel, but now he has decided to reinvest his returns into the Korean startup ecosystem and has opened his high-tech accelerator, FuturePlay, for business. Junghee founded Olaworks, an augmented reality technology company in 2006 and sold the company to Intel in 2012 for a reported $30M. Olaworks and a Silicon Valley-based tech company, both of which…

  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…

Korean gaming giants, Gamevil and Com2us, which were in fierce competition for the last 15 years, are now actively seeking to create synergy in line with their M&A deal that we reported last year. Following Gameville’s acquisition of Com2us, the two firms have working towards release of their new combined platform HIVE, which is now live. After struggling against the huge success of KakaoTalk’s gaming platform (released in July 2012), the two companies…

CHINCHIN is a social dating app that is creating a new type of interaction for the dating scene by connecting you with friends of your friends. This in a bid to remove the dangers of connecting online with complete strangers. Recently at beLAUNCH, the company won the Asan Nanum Foundation Prize, and $18k as a non-equity cash investment. With the increasing levels of spam on Facebook, people are now less willing to talk…

Seedstars World is an exclusive worldwide startup competition traveling to 30+ cities in 2014. On August 1st, the competition will be landing in Seoul to host a pitching event at D.Camp in collaboration with BeSuccess and the Swiss Embassy in South Korean. Seoul is a very special place for Seedstars World since it is the home of its 2013 grand winner: Flitto. 1 startup will be selected as “Seedstars Seoul Regional Winner”…

A team of Korean Engineers, PhD-level Neuro-scientists and ex-Googlers is taking on one of the most feared brain diseases we face in the modern age. Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) kills around 500,000 each year and the cost of care globally is estimated at $220Bn per annum. While this degenerative disease has no cure, YBrain has developed a solution for slowing the affects, with a rate of success believed to be greater than any…