Yea Studio, the creator of Junimong, a popular kids drawing social networking site, has secured a $850k investment from East Gate Partners LLC and Big Basin Capital. East Gate Partners operates Daum’s Youth Startup Investment Fund while Big Basin Capital is a Silicon Valley venture capital firm focused on investing in Korean and American startups. This is the second early development investment for Big Basin Capital, and is a follow up to Mashup Angles, in which they invested in early 2014.
Joonimong is used in over 100 countries and is available on the Google Play Store. Currently, their app is available in 225 countries and as such, can be considered a global SNS. Within the first five months of their formal launch, Junimong was downloaded over 900,000 times — it now exceeds 2 million in total downloads.
Junimong allows children's drawings to be shared globally. Global usage data can studied to reveal how different markets, continents, countries, or cities are using the app. The data is used to develop new products such as advertising and educational programs for early learning markets.
What spurred East Gate Partners and Big Basin Ventures to invest was Junimong's ability “through the media of drawing, to provide to children a global play-like communication platform and enabling freedom of expression.” Additionally, the investors added that “Yea Studio is a global childrens’ SNS provider with a distinct vision, and a competent team to operate.”
Through this investment, Junimong aims to increase its domestic Korean memberships but also advance to the Chinese market through Xiaomi and Amazon, as well as additional global markets. Choi Won Man, a representative from Yea Studio, stated, “[I] imagine that in the future, children who shared drawings on Junimong will be able to meet in 10 years' time, and, in 20 to 30 years, introduce Junimong to their children.”
Junimong plans to further develop their service to better allow “children around the world to freely communicate.”
