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…

‘Timeline Dungeon’ developer NOVN have announced that they recently received $500k USD from NC Soft. As NC Soft expands its business interest from game and contents to a range of other entertainment areas, this investment will enable NOVN to release Timeline Dungeon in January 2015. This investment follows up a seed round of funding from ‘The Ventures’. NOVN’s Timeline Dungeon plans to open a new genre with their first title. It is…

Korean gaming company ‘SundayToz’ and The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Development and have created the ‘AniPang Fund.’ The fund will be aimed at startups in the following fields: Gaming, Social, digital content, platform based technology and contents based technology. The ‘AniPang Future Contents Investment Association’ will operate under the management of Smilegate Investment. While the fund will primarily focused on startups in Korea, a representative from SundayToz has confirmed that they are…

According to an article on Business Korea, the Korean government is planning to invest at least $209 million USD over the next five years to promote the growth of the game industry. This comes in a year where game developer 4:33 Creative Labs raised around $110 million USD from Tencent / Line, Smilegate bought a $110 million USD stake in Sunday Toz, Devsisters went public at a $627 million USD valuation, we announced…

oIDIOCRACY is a cross format game that allows both PC and mobile users to play simultaneously. As a board game it is also accessible to players of all groups of ages. “I was very happy with the reasonable terms of investment from our Hong Kong investors, and the quick turnaround process,’ stated a company representative. “We are now adding the final touches, ready for release.” While the team’s first title is for…

4:33 Creative Lab, a top Korean mobile game designer, has joined hands with two of the world’s largest mobile messengers, Tencent and Line Corp. The enormous investment of 1,300 billion won (around $100 million USD) will help the company break into overseas markets and will assist in their plans to go public in 2015. Announcing that it had successfully attracted funds from the mobile messenger operators, the Seoul-based mobile game company said…

Gaming in Korea has enjoyed around 15 years of great success. Among Korea’s top performing gaming ‘startups’ of the last 15 to 20 years are several that have achieve well over billion dollar valuations. These include NCSoft ($1.2Bn), Nexon ($3.7Bn), Com2US ($1.3Bn), and Devsisters ($755M) which just went public this month. Smilegate, another domestic star, is still private and its estimated valuation is creeping towards $4Bn. Where other areas of software innovation…

Devsisters, the darling of Korean gaming over the last two years has listed its stock publically in what has been one of the most down played IPOs I am aware of. In fact, so down played that I wasn’t aware of it until today. At the time of the IPO the company valuation was $627 million, ranking the it 32nd most valuable company in Korea. The IPO happened on October 6th. Devsisters…

Dates: Sep 15 – 16, 2014 Venue: Parc 55 Wyndham, San Francisco, CA GamesBeat 2014 is VentureBeat’s sixth annual event on disruption in the video game market. The event gathers top execs, investors, analysts, and entrepreneurs from the hottest companies to explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. This year’s theme is “Total World Domination.” Gaming is competing on the world stage to become the dominant medium for entertainment….

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….

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…

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…

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…

Korean mobile game maker Gamevil has acquired Com2uS. Gamevil announced on October 4 that it signed an agreement to acquire a 21.37-percent stake in Com2uS for 70 billion won. Under the terms of the deal, Gamevil will have the controlling stake in Com2uS. Although Gamevil is the acquiring party in this transaction, it actually did less business than Com2uS last year. Gamevil reported full-year revenues of KRW 70.2 billion ($65.5 million), compared…

Korea was the first nation where online gaming was a lucrative career. And, having lived in Korea for five years, I have seen the huge potential in the online gaming market here, which attracts gamers to “PC Rooms”, like the one below, 24 hours a day. But, surprisingly, Korean produced games are now losing the fight against foreign competition. It has been claimed recently that Korea is losing its reputation as an…

Microsoft has announced the startups that will be taking part in the Kinect Accelerator 2012. The Kinect Accelerator is a Microsoft Accelerator powered by TechStars, leveraging the successful TechStars model.