In hotel industry, there is a rather clear ceiling for their revenues; when the rooms are all booked out, it’s pretty much it. There might be some cash inflows from F&B and other event-related revenues such as renting out a conference room, but they are more-or-less still dependent to the room sales. Such a unique ceiling allows hotel operators different perspectives on revenues. First, they are less interested in extending their revenues,…

Technology has been integral in medical advancement and personal health. Now more than ever, technology is readily available to people of developed countries, mostly in the form of smart phones and devices. Recently, a surge in personal health gadgets and apps has been observed with the likes of Garmin Vivosmart, Fitbit, Samsung S Health and Apple Health gaining momentum in the market. These smart devices have the ability to not only enhance…

South Korean leading search company ‘Naver’ said its Q4 profit rose 5 percent from a year earlier. Net profit came to 141.5 billion won (US$118 million) in that period, compared with the 129.6 billion won a year earlier. Advertisement sales from its mobile search engine platform have been the main revenue streamline for its quarterly performance, accounting for 42 percent of the total advertisement sales. While sales from domestic advertisements moved up 15.2 percent, that…

Competition in Korea is heating up with the popularity of SPA brands in the fashion industry and big players like Laniege, Sulawhasoo dominating the beauty market. Local and international consumers are thronging to purchase fashion and beauty products coming out of Korea. With the playing field afire with dominant players, new entrants have to differentiate themselves to make a name for themselves. But what can they offer to stand out from among…

In Korea, like in many countries where English is not the lingua franca, there is an especially large gap when it comes to having the right words for an international audience. This language barrier comes in not only while traveling but also while conducting business internationally. More and more users are now relying on technology to help overcome language issues that they may face on a daily basis, while getting directions in…

Imagine a new Korean drama is in the works, but to bring it to life the producers need funding. How fast would your little sister hit that ‘fund’ button if it were available? Thanks to eased government regulations that button is now a reality for crowdfunding fans in Korea and beyond. In 2015 several Korean crowdfunding campaigns achieved huge results on US-based sites, like YOLK’s USD $1 million campaign on Kickstarter. Now…

Wearables gained huge popularity during 2015 with high-profile releases such as the Apple Watch and Pebble Time bringing wearables truly into the mass consciousness. Wearables are now high demand items and are on course to be one of the biggest tech trends of 2016. While early wearables were often criticised as useless accessories for tech geeks, in 2015 we saw the first popular applications make their way into everyday life and gain…

Estmob Inc’s Send Anywhere , the leader in cross-platform file sharing, announced this week that it closed a $6 million Series A round lead by Saemin Ahn of Rakuten Ventures. This deal comes on the heels of the company surpassing milestones of 1.5+ million monthly unique devices and 5+ million cumulative downloads across all major smartphone and desktop computers in 150+ countries. When speaking on the investment, Send Anywhere’s CSO and Co-founder Suhyuk…

Are sticky notes and post-its not cutting it anymore to organise your schedule? Are you interested to explore workplace management and timekeeping beyond Slack, Trello and Evernote? Korean workers are widely recognised as among the most hard working in the world. With office lights regularly going out in the small hours due to the pressures of hitting tough deadlines, it’s no wonder that Korean startups have been active in developing technology solutions…

Brich, an O2O service delivering the latest Korean fashion trends online, has secured an investment from Hana Financial Investment. The company was launched a year ago, and to date has raised US$860k (KRW 1b) from Hana Financial Investment and Mashup Angels. The Brich team members include those from other e-commerce companies like, WeMakePrice, G Market and Qoo10 and bring with them experience and technical ability. Users of Brich’s service are able to…

Baemin Fresh, a fresh food delivery service has acquired ‘Ongkasomsi’, provider of packed lunches. Through this acquisition, Baemin Fresh will actively seek to increase their range of food delivery services that are delivered to the doorstep of their customers. In 2008, Onkasomsi recruited chef Hong Su Min who is recognized for Korean fusion recipes. Through this partnership, the company developed over 150 thousand different menu items for packed lunches and catering services….

One of the biggest tech trends today is text messengers becoming platforms for other services. And one of the hottest text-based services is virtual concierge services. In the US, there is Magic, which recently received a 12M investment from Sequoia. In Indonesia, there is the YesBoss service supported by 500Startups. And even Facebook and Google have poured resources into developing services in this area. In Korea this new market segment is led…

Innovation can be defined in many ways. Among those, my favorite is to define it as the ability to kill and eat a great (even better, if it’s the entire) share of an existing market. And it is because in this world of surpluses of everything, pretty much the only way to create a market as an innovation is meant to is to kill the old industry by making it obsolete. There…

  19 January 2016 – NHN Entertainments have revealed their investment into Mocoplex, a company specializing in mobile advertising platforms. The motive for the investment was to strengthen NHN Entertainment’s capabilities in mobile advertising; a market which is experiencing tremendous growth. Once the investment of US$1.7m (KRW 2b) is finalized, it is likely NHN will proceed towards full acquisition. This investment will combine NHN Investment’s technical capabilities with Mocoplex’s various network capabilities…

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…

  App Annie, the largest mobile app data and insights platform, announced that it has closed $63 million in total financing, with majority equity investment led by Greenspring Associates and additional participation from existing investors e.Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and Sequoia Capital. App Annie will use the new capital to improve and expand upon its suite of industry-leading products, and further scale global business operations to meet the growing…

Voiceloco, a communication software developer has succeeded in receiving an angel investment from the Credit Guarantee Fund for the technical excellence and business potential. Among others with investments through Credit Guarantee Fund, Voiceloco is a cut above the rest in terms of technical competitiveness and outstanding business potential. Credit Guarantee Fund launched their early development program called ‘First Penguin’, which is aimed at changing a startup within two years. Through the First…

JDLab released a new version of IUEditor, a website builder that supports back-end integration with Django, AngularJS and now WordPress. IUEditor allows users to develop a website without coding, using drag-and-drop. It supports various devices (smartphone, tablet, desktop), browsers and custom animation. Version 1.2.4, released on December 22, 2015, allows users to create their own WordPress theme with IUEditor. WordPress also provides paid themes for its users but they are difficult to…

Kakao have announced the decision to acquire 76.4% shares in Loen Entertainment, a company that is known to have pioneered the digital music service market in Korea through Melon for US$1.6b (KRW 1.9t). Melon is the top music streaming service in Korean. Through this acquisition, Kakao plans to combine Loen’s music contents with their mobile platform and secure a new market by allowing content developers to be more competitive. In securing the investments funds, Kakao have raised…

Day2Life, a simple day to day mobile time management solution has secured an investment of US$200k (KRW 240m) from 500 Startups, among the most recognized Silicon Valley startup accelerator programs. In securing a position in the program for 2016, the solution was assessed to be highly competitive. The mobile diary solution developed by Day2Life named June, provide a fully functional time management solution on a mobile device. Recent trends show an increase…