KTB Network specializing in company investments in the global field of cosmetics, fashion and electronics has confirmed an investment deal worth US$2.5m (KRW 3b) into B2Link.  This recent investment follows on from DSC Investment totalling US$1 million (KRW 1.3b) in September last year and January this year. The deal is expected should accelerate the developments required to become a global business. Since starting one year ago, the company has recorded first half year…

On the 4th September, judging of teams competing in the startup battle for beGLOBAL’s upcoming San Francisco 2015 conference event was finalized at an event at ‘Startup Alliance’, Korea. As part of the process startups teams were judged in a two stage process: first stage documentation review and qualification process, followed by second stage presentations. Of the teams that presented to the judging panel, the top 10 startups were selected for this years beGLOBAL…

Editor’s note : This article ‘Everyone’s livestreaming, broadcasting on mobile’ was originally published by e27’s Elaine Huang On smartphone screens worldwide, Kim Yubin and Lee Sunmi of famous Korean pop (K-pop) quartet Wonder Girls greet V users with singsong voices and peace hand signs. The two young celebrities banter playfully, amidst girly giggles, while fans litter the comments board with coloured hearts, compliments and ㅋㅋㅋ, which indicates laughter in Korean. V is South Korean conglomerate Naver’s app…

Editor’s note : This article ‘Make your own viral video ads to entice users with Hooreel’ was orginally published by e27’s Elaine Huang Late last month, South Korean startup IndieCF launched its first iOS application Hooreel which promises to let anyone and everyone with a smartphone “create their own viral marketing videos”. The free app is specifically targetted at business owners who might not have the equipment, resources or expertise to create…

Travel Note & Tour, developer of location based social travel service, Travel Note has announced its success in securing an investment of US $420k from Coolidge Corner Investment, specialist in venture capital for startups. After launching June 2013, Travel Note & Tour went on to win the 2013 excellence award at the Tourism Creation Ideas Contest. For two consecutive years, the startup has also been chosen as the leading creator of tourism business…

BonAngels Venture Partners who specialise in technology startup investments along with state run program Tech Incubator Program for Startup (TIPS) have invested US$590k into Maverick the provider of cloud SNS video editing app Alive. Last year, Maverick, an affiliate of KT, created an app called Alive that allows users to easily edit and share the video taken on smartphones.  Through the use of a cloud rendering engine, Alive can compose high quality…

Uvify a startup specializing in the development of autonomous unmanned drone technologies, has won an investment deal with K Cube Ventures.  This deal was confirmed on the 2nd September by K Cube Ventures who are widely known as leaders in technology investments. The investment deal is thought to be worth a quarter million US dollars. Aside from the K Cube Ventures investment, Uvify has secured further investments from two state run agencies with…

On the 2nd September, Brat Village an O2O startup announced that it had secured an investment from Strong Ventures and East Gate Partners.  This is the second investment is as many months following a recent investment from K Cube Ventures. Brat Village which was formed in December 2014, services total home care provider Doctor House. This service is quickly gaining a reputation as the go to O2O home care service provider for those wanting…

  As revealed on the 31st August, mobile service provider YellowMobile has reported Q2 sales total of US$66m which is up 533% from the same period last year.  Compared to Q1 figures, sales has grown by 38%. YellowMobile’s Q2 goals followed on from Q1 trends as they concentrated their efforts on expansion into foreign markets, and positioning itself for sector growth. The results of the 5 business streams categorised in order of magnitude are: O2O $27.6m…

On September 1, Softbank Ventures Korea announced a joint investment deal with Capstone Partners for an amount US$920k which is to be invested into Gaudi Audio Lab. When founded, Gaudi Audio Lab’s mission was to provides the ultimate sound experience that integrates sound and feeling.  This sound solution technology is aimed at complementing the emerging AR and VR markets. Key members include experts at the Wilus Institute of Standard and Technology who led…

On the 28th August, Softbank Ventures announced its US$1.7m investment into Converse who have developed the anonymous communication app called Around. Around is a SNS app that allows users to freely share their feelings about life, workplace, emotions, love affairs and family. Being an anonymous SNS platform, there is no need to cloak any of these feeling for social acceptance. Users of around have given the app a score of 4.9 out…

On the 26th August, ‘K Cube Venture’ specialists in mobile, internet and technology investments, confirmed a US$700 k investment into BitFinder.  BitFinder is a startup providing an Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) monitoring and control system solution.  This solution is Awair and allows users to be ‘Aware’ of the ‘air quality by determining what bits (particles) are in the air.  It does this through a concept called Internet of Things (IoT). Internet of Things (IoT) is…

Zimcar is an innovative house removal service developed by ‘Five Thirty’ who are located in the Cultural Creation Hub of PanGyo in the KyungGi province of Korea.  Recently, with the assistance of the Kyung Gi local council, Five Thirty have secured investments from ‘Big Bang Angels’. To celebrate this success, a signing ceremony was held on the 26th of August at the Kyung Gi Culture Creation Hub in PanGyo and was attended…

Fintech startup company BMO has received approximately US$1.8 million from investors including Yellow Financial Group, Settle Bank and Shin Hyun Sung the CEO of Ticket Monster for their P2P (peer to peer) loan service platform Honest Fund. Honest Fund is a peer to peer personal loans and investments service, that directly connects borrowers to lenders without banking institutions. The platform provides borrowers access to funds that do not impact on credit ratings…

If you’ve ever experienced the frustration in finding the right insurance plan then MyRealPlan is the solution you’ve been waiting for.  Of course, finding the right insurance plan is just the start, you then need to find the best value amongst the multitude of insurance service providers and their brokers, and the broker’s brokers.  But no need to worry, since MyRealPlan has this solved too, with their reverse bidding process, where insurance…

  Korean travel tour and activity startup, MyRealTrip has revealed that it had secured additional investment through Silicon Valley company AltosVentures. For MyRealTrip, this new investment comes 1 year after the combined US$840 thousand investment from SmileGateInvestment and CapstonePartners in June last year. The funding will provide the needed foundations in launching the business globally. MyRealTrip was founded in 2012 as a travel startup offering locals around the globe the opportunity to partake…

  On the 25th August, it was revealed that Yogiyo a popular food delivery service app in Korea had received further investment of $35 million from DeliveryHero.  DeliveryHero is a German company that provides online food service solutions internationally. This brings the total investments into Yogiyo to approximately US$55 million. Through this investment  Yogiyo will direct their focus towards achieving the total satisfaction of their customers, through continued development and improvement to products and services….

ChulGaBang, developed by HelloWorld, is an integrated platform for managing deliveries and operations of small-to-medium sized food companies. SBI Investments Korea, HB Investment, and Sejong Venture Partners have invested a total of USD $2.7M in the recent round. The phrase “chul gabang” means “bag made of iron” and, as the name suggests, ChulGaBang’s deliverers sport a metal case that is mounted onto scooters and used for delivering food. HelloWorld has integrated the processes of placing orders,…

Silicon Valley investment company Altos Ventures recently announced its US $3.0M investment in Trillionaire. Trillionaire runs a Korean cosmetic ecommerce service called HuiSeoul, which focuses on providing Korean beauty products exclusively to the Chinese market. The journey for HuiSeoul started in a single store in Myung Dong (Seoul) back in November 2014. The company reacted quickly to an identified market in China for Korean cosmetic and beauty products. In February 2015, HuiSeoul began, and started to…

Korean entertainment site Soompi has been acquired by Viki in a deal rumored to be less than US $10M. Viki was a startup that was purchased by Rakuten in a huge US $200M deal. This time, Viki is on the other end of the table and the divestor is Crunchyroll. The combination of Viki and Soompi will make the company the largest English platform for discussion and news on Korean entertainment. Korean dramas…