Latest on Korean Startups

Mergers & Acquisitions
Musinsa drops plan to buy Japan-focused rival fashion platform
South Korea’s top online fashion platform Musinsa withdrew a plan to acquire a local rival that focuses on Japanese shoppers.The move indicates that South Korean unicorns, startups with a valuation of more than $1 billion, have begun accumula
May 25, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Childcare app Piloto aims to instill healthy device use
Childcare app operator Piloto won first place at the May startup demo event hosted by D.Camp. The startup accelerator’s parent company,...
May 25, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Venture capital
Humbling experience leads to VC success – LG Tech Ventures CEO
Kim Dong-su, CEO of Silicon Valley-based LG Technology Ventures said that the failures he experienced while working at a boutique investment firm ha...
May 24, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Startup accelerator D.Camp generates $22 billion in value in 10 years
Since its inception in 2012, the Banks Foundation for Young Entrepreneurs has generated more than $28 trillion won ($22 billion.)The goal of the fou...
May 23, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Startups race for top talent to fill CTO positions
Just a few years back, fashion startups in South Korea rarely saw the need for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The same was true for the so-c...
May 20, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
SwatchOn connects fabric wholesalers to overseas fashion designers
“We had the overseas market in mind from the get-go,” global fabric sale platform SwatchOn’s CEO Lee Woo-seok told The Korea Econo...
May 19, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Cryptocurrencies
Crypto investors threaten Terraform founders with class-action lawsuit
Cryptocurrency investors in South Korea have threatened to file a class action lawsuit against co-founders of the disgraced blockchain platform oper...
May 17, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Cryptocurrencies
Police identify visitor to Terra founder's home as crypto streamer
The uninvited visitor to Terraform Labs co-founder and CEO Do Kwon's Seoul residence has been identified by police. An AfreecaTV streamer who g...
May 17, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Startup accelerator D.Camp opens Busan office
For the first time, South Korea’s startup accelerator D.Camp has opened an office in the port city of Busan. The joint effort between D...
May 16, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrency Luna plunges 99% after linked stablecoin loses peg
The value of Luna, the cryptocurrency linked to stablecoin TerraUSD, now hovers just above $0. Just a week ago, its market capitalization was around...
May 13, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
CJ ventures into fandom platform with $17 mn investment
CJ Group, one of South Korea’s largest family run conglomerates, or chaebol, is venturing into the fandom platform business with a 22.4 billio...
May 11, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Metaverse
SKT, SK Square invests $40 mn in Korea metaverse game firm
South Korea’s top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. and its spin-off SK Square Co. have together invested 50 billion won ($40 million) into a loca...
May 06, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Fabless startup FADU eyes unicorn status with $157 mn funding
FADU Technology, a fabless startup that develops architecture for solid-state drive (SSD) controllers and storage products, is seeking to raise 200 ...
May 06, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Retail investment amount in startups triples on-year in Q1
South Korea’s retail investors are increasingly more bullish in startups than in manufacturing or retail firms. The Ministry of SMEs an...
Apr 28, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Startup accelerator Klim Ventures secures $4 mn in bridge capital
South Korea’s startup accelerator Klim Ventures announced Tuesday it has secured 5.5 billion won ($4 million) worth of bridge capital. ...
Apr 26, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Venture capital
S.Korean accelerators FuturePlay and Bluepoint Partners rev up for IPOs
South Korea’s two well-known accelerators FuturePlay and Bluepoint Partners are preparing for initial public offerings, buoyed by record high ...
Apr 25, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Online education startup Day 1 Co. completes $28 mn Series D funding
Education content provider Day 1 Company announced Thursday it has completed a Series D funding worth 35 billion won ($28 million.)A number of ventu...
Apr 22, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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IPOs
Korea’s tough IPO review drives bio startup to Nasdaq
A South Korean bio startup is aiming for a Nasdaq listing, deeming that the country’s exchange sets the bar too high for an initial public off...
Apr 22, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Top-ranking S.Korean universities become hotbeds for promising startups
South Korean universities have become hotbeds for promising startups. Leading the trend are two of the country's best-known higher education ...
Apr 21, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Bio & Pharma
Boryung takes 'health is wealth' to whole new level – space
South Korean biotech and pharmaceutical companies are expanding their footholds in the global space medicine market. Boryung, formerly Boryung Pharm...
Apr 20, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Future mobility
Hyundai Motor expands partnership with quantum computing firm IonQ
IonQ and Hyundai Motor Co. announced a new project on Wednesday designed to apply quantum machine learning to image classification and 3D object det...
Apr 20, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Fortune-telling app receives $4 mn in Altos Ventures-led Series A funding
Chunmyung and Company, the operator of its namesake fortune-telling app, announced on Tuesday it has secured Series A funding worth five billion w...
Apr 19, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Venture capital
South Korean conglomerates race to establish CVCs
One after another, South Korea’s household name conglomerates are establishing corporate venture capital (CVC) firms under their holding compa...
Apr 19, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Samsung Group
CJ, Samsung to launch $600 million e-commerce logistics fund
CJ Logistics and an affiliate of Samsung Life Insurance have joined forces to launch a real estate investment fund worth 740 billion won ($600 milli...
Apr 18, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Venture capital
US and German startups funded by Mirae Asset join ranks of unicorns
Mirae Asset Venture Investment Co. is forecast to rake in more than 400 billion won ($325 million) for its investment in Moloco Inc. Mirae As...
Apr 15, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
S.Korea’s luxury e-commerce startups poised to become unicorns
South Korea’s e-commerce startups are enjoying massive hikes in their valuations on the back of robust online spending by millennials and memb...
Apr 14, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Artificial intelligence
NCSOFT unveils AI dataset to rival hyperscale language models
NCSOFT Corp. unveiled an artificial intelligence (AI) conversation dataset it developed with Korea University’s research center on Thursday....
Apr 14, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Korean startups
Creator tech startup Awake Corp. attracts over $892,000 in seed funding
Awake Corp., a startup that operates platforms to assist online creators, recently attracted 1.1 billion won ($892,473) in seed capital. The total a...
Apr 12, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Webtoons
South Korean comics platforms dominate global top 10
Six manhwa platforms operated by South Korea’s tech juggernauts rank among the top 10 paid digital comics platforms worldwide. Manhwa is ...
Apr 12, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
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Blockchain
Hanwha Solutions CEO meets with US blockchain VCs
President and co-CEO of Hanwha Solutions Corp. Kim Dong-kwan met with heads of major blockchain venture capital firms while visiting the United Stat...
Apr 11, 2022 (Gmt+09:00)
1 Min read
Latest News
- 1 Lee Jae-myung to meet with top business leaders this week ahead of G7 summit
- 2 Korea to allow non-profits to buy consumer bad loans
- 3 LG to drive future growth in emerging markets with battery prowess
- 4 South Korean President Lee, Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba seek closer ties
- 5 Naver Ventures to plant flag in Silicon Valley with TwelveLabs bet