K Cube Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm, founded in April 2012, with the vision of harnessing the power of startups to change our world. As an investment arm of Kakao Corporation, K Cube Ventures has focused on investing in promising ICT/SW startups, primarily in mobile, tech, and game categories, between $100,000 and $2 million per startup. K Cube Ventures believes that early-stage startups not only need financial support, but they also need experienced mentors. With this in mind, K Cube Ventures assists startups in the areas of business development, networking, team building, strategy consulting, investment and financial affairs, HR and PR, and management. K Cube Ventures will continue to contribute to the creation of the virtuous circulation of venture ecology by permanently supporting various resource projects as well as financial support to portfolio companies. For more information, visit http://kcubeventures.co.kr/en.
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5. WishLink, Inc. was founded by two of Korea’s leading experts in
online shopping. In May 2013, less than a year since the launch of
its service ‘KakaoStyle’, its monthly revenue reached almost USD
$1 million.
In June 2015, they terminated the contract of ‘KakaoStyle’ and
transferred business rights to ‘Kakao’. They launched the Chinese
version of KakaoStyle, StyleDo, in late 2014.
Changed its service name ‘StyleDo’ to ‘StyleWish’, and launched
official Korean version in Nov. 2016. Since then, the company has
terminated its ‘StyleWish’ service in April 2017 and is currently
preparing a new service.
A service that uses deep-learning based artificial intelligence
technology to recommend fashion items and products.
Of the tens of thousands of items uploaded to the internet every
day, approximately 1,000 items are filtered and curated for the
target demographic of mid-20 to mid-30 year old females.
Products are automatically and manually categorized into types,
age groups, and styles so that a customer gets exposed to
approximately 100 fashion items and products.
The official launch is planned for after the end of its beta service
starting May 2017.
COMPANY SERVICE
6. The Mverse team mainly consists of KAIST graduates, and is led by
CEO Shi Hyun Joo, Co-Founder of Silicon Valley startup ‘Style Says’.
After the seed funding from K Cube Ventures, they raised follow-
up investment of o.8 million from Bon Angels partners Sep 2016.
‘Surprise’ aggregates the latest announcements about sales at
major stores such as Nike, Lacoste and Zara for easy viewing.
Users can subscribe to their favorite brands, so that the mobile
application remembers to notify them with coupons or deal info
when passing by the brand retail stores. Shopping feed is also
available, which provides various tips for high quality shopping
experience.
As of Sep 2016, ‘Surprise’ achieved 1.2 million downloads and 0.3
+ million MAU without any advertisement expense; and the rate
of revisiting is approx. 90%.
Currently secured more than 500 partner brands and 1 million
registered users.
COMPANY SERVICE
7. Vingle was founded by serial entrepreneurs Changseong Ho and
Jiwon Moon, famous husband and wife entrepreneurs who
successfully founded ‘Viki’, the Silicon Valley startup which was
acquired by Rakuten in 2013.
Idea of Vingle started in November 2011, while previous work for
Viki was still under way. The duo have successfully managed the
service so far, with more global users than ever.
Vingle is an interest-based community platform that allows people
to connect via their shared interests.
Launched its web version in July 2012, Android version in March
2013, and iOS version in June; Vingle’s cumulative downloads
surpass 4 million. As of October 2016, the service has exceeded
10 million monthly users and 30 million monthly page views in 30
countries around the world.
Vingle’s high-precision target advertising service introduced in
June 2016, can be provided in various forms such as display,
editorial, and video advertisement, so that the advertisement can
be optimized according to the brand, product and service.
COMPANY SERVICE
8. A Fin-tech company servicing ‘KaKao Stock', a service that enables
users to conveniently check stock quotes and related information
on mobile. It provides all kinds of securities related activities on
mobile.
In February 2015, Dunamu received follow-up investment of 2
billion Won from Qualcomm Ventures and Woori Capital, with
another 3 billion Won from Kakao Corp. They signed a strategic
business agreement for securities and financial services in
September 2015.
‘Kakao Stock’ allows users to easily check their stock quotes in real-
time through Kakaotalk. It has a social feature through which
users can see which stocks their friends are keeping track of. The
app was able to achieve 1.6 million cumulative downloads and 15
trillion cumulative turnover. The average monthly trading value
exceeded 1 trillion. (February 2017)
On November 2015, Dunamu established an investment
consulting firm as a wholly owned subsidiary. In June 2016,
Dunamu launched a mobile asset management service named
'MAP’. More than 11 financial institutions, including Samsung
Asset Management and Pacific Investment Advisors, provide MP
to ‘MAP’.
Recently released 'Fingerprint Login', 'NewsBot‘ and 'Premium
Service‘ functions, which analyzes the stocks and diagnoses the
supply and demand for the busy individual investors. The most
recent feature is called ‘AI Analysis’, and it uses self-developed
algorithms to analyze and evaluate stocks.
COMPANY SERVICE
9. Seedpaper offers practical, mobile-based content about daily
beauty.
The company launched its content brand ‚Self Beauty‛ which
offers easy-to-follow tips and guides featuring carefully selected
contents curated by celebrities and well-known experts of the
beauty industry.
Self Beauty’s content is available as a Kakao plus friend feature
since July 2012, a feature of Kakaotalk that allows users to receive
special contents from artists, brands and publications.
Self Beauty has acquired its superiority with simple contents, tips
easy enough for anyone to follow and achieve ‘beauty’ of their
own.
Contents of ‘Beauty Mate’ have been added on to ‘Self Beauty’ in
November 2014. The added content is composed of tips from
popular ‘power bloggers’ of the country, more specifically their
techniques and advices. The content will serve to enhance the
quality of the platform in terms of targetting online shopping
malls.
Self beauty launched ‘#onl’ which is a personalized shopping
information service that transmits information on products
featured in Instagram photos. Customers can receive product
information through text or email.
COMPANY SERVICE
10. HealthBreeze creates animations that make it easy for patients and
caretakers to understand complicated medical procedures. Its
founder and CEO ‘Chung Hee Doo’ was a general surgeon at the
Seoul National University Hospital.
Healthbreeze launched the world’s first prescription information
service ‘HiChart’ in 2011. Follow-up investment of 4 billion Won was
made in April 2015.
A cloud-based content service that provides easy-to-understand
animations of complicated medical information that medical staff
must explain at the site.
They have developed more than 1,400 kinds of content in
cooperation with various professional groups including major
medical institutions, societies, associations and research institutes
both domestic and abroad. Special medical information animation
about disease, examination and treatment are continuously
uploaded.
Currently, education for more than 1.4 million patients and
caregivers is being conducted through 'Hi-chart' in 10 major
hospitals, including the Seoul National University Hospital and the
Samsung Seoul Hospital.
In early 2017, they launched a new service named 'HealthBreeze'
for SMB hospitals through cooperation with 10 domestic medical
information companies. They are currently pursuing the Proof of
Concept (POC) project in North America and Europe through
Global Accelerator KIGA Labs.
COMPANY SERVICE
11. One of Korea’s most recognized icons in fashion design teamed
up with an industry expert in digital content to found byBox, a
fashion curation commerce.
Se Woon Jurn, CEO of ByBox, was a producer at Cheil Worldwide
Inc., where he was recognized for his successful execution of IPTV
content services. Ho Sub Kan, Chief Curator, is a professor of
fashion design at Hongik University as well as being a mentor on
a television program ‘Project Runway Korea’.
byBox is a curation commerce service for boxes of jewelry and
accessories created by Korean designers and curated by major
celebrities and experts. This enables customers to obtain unique
fashion items that are not available anywhere else, at reasonable
prices.
From fashion, living, to kids, byBox provides themed products
matching the customer’s life-style.
‘byBox season2’ opened with new contents and services of the
brand after large renewal of its online pages in August 2014.
COMPANY SERVICE
12. Companimals is a mix of the words ‘Companion’ and ‘Animal’,
indicating a situation where animals live together with people who
think of them as companions.
Companimals is dreaming of a focused, carefully curated service
where owners and their companion animals can harmoniously coexist.
A mobile community platform supporting and providing
online/offline activities and information relevant to their pets. The
service recommends the suitable community for each user based on
different conditions such as the needs of specific breeds.
Companimals hopes to provide easy-to-understand information, with
delicate illustrations of pets and easily recognizable infographic
contents. The contents regarding breeding, healthcare, and hospital
informations will by supervised by professionals.
Special features include a note function connected to animal
hospitals, adoption services, and lost pet prevention services. The
services together is expected to help Companimals become an
integrated information platform on pet raising.
Beta version of the service was launched in April 2016.
COMPANY SERVICE
13. Monaissance is a mobile literature contents company focused on the
subjects of humanities, for busy modern-day people.
The Monaissnace team consists of the developers from SERI CEO, a
high-quality knowledge platform serviced by the Samsung Economic
Research Institute.
With extensive development experience under their belts, the team
holds a wide network of professionals in various fields.
In July 2015, they launched ‘Classic 5 Minute’, a literature content
platform.
‘Classic 5 Minute’ offers must-know knowledge on classical literature
with 5-minute videos, and their content takes the form of realistic
motion, conversation, and animation. The content is mainly for
educational purposes.
After lunching the service through Kakao’s content distribution
platform in July 2015, it has secured over 190,000 subscribers as of
February 2016.
This year, 'Classic 5 Minute' video content will be published as a book,
and the company plans to expand its business abroad.
COMPANY SERVICE
14. COMPANY SERVICE
Bratvillage provides overall solution for issues regarding the house,
ranging from simple home care to interior services.
Seong Min Bang, Co-president of Limo taxi and founder of Easy
taxi, started Bratvillage with his team members. The whole team
worked together since Limo taxi and Easy taxi. Powerful
teamwork and suitable experience for the field is the key strength
of Bratvillage.
Following the follow-up investment by Strong Ventures and
Dongmoon Partners in Sep 2015, Bratvillage raised another 9.5
billion investment from Coolidge Corner, K-Bridge and Strong
Ventures in 2016.
An online platform connecting users with professionals for vast
range of homecare ranging from simple repair to total interior.
Partnership with qualified technicians and constructing companies
of each different fields enables Dr. House its comparative
advantage. Immediate response for applied problems and
standardized price of partner companies which are lower than
current market price, Dr. House is able to provide a high-quality
service at reasonable prices.
Recently expanded its services to Gwangju and Busan. It plans to
expand the service nationwide by early next year.
15. COMPANY SERVICE
Applepie studio consists of team members with over decades of
work experiences in app and server development.
including Hokyeong Kang who had managed various parts of
service including social, language and game.
The team launched materializing new smart pet service, all time
exposure of whom will be possible through newly adopted mobile
technologies.
Applepie’s smart pet service focuses on sharing feelings between
users and their smart pets.
Fully equipped with several technologies which were never used
before in the previous smart pet market, the service maximizes
contact point between pet and users without interfering user
experience.
As of September 2016, Korean version of the app has exceeded
3.2 million downloads, and US sales continue to rise after the
launch of the English version, accounting for 40% of total sales.
The company plans to launch a multilingual version in the future.
16. COMPANY SERVICE
Playmaker Studio provides social concert platform ‘BURUDA
CONCERT’.
Playmaker Studio consists of team members with rich field
experience in performance and concert including CEO Dongik
Shin who managed brand designing and brand marketing in one
of top Korean entertainment agencies and advertisement
companies.
Social concert platform based on cooperative consumption of
musicians and their fans.
BURUDA CONCERT makes it possible for users to request
performances of their favorable musicians at the same time for
singers and their agencies to predict demand of certain
performances they are planning to open.
The service is receiving positive response from Indi-musicians and
their agencies, where a single opportunity for performing their
music is rare despite of the musicians’ popularity and competence.
High rate of revisiting the service and continuous demand calls
from agencies show the crucial role BURUDA CONCERT serves in
the industry.
They opened a Naver V App channel and B2B service ‘BURUDA
Plus' last year. ‘BURUDA Plus‘ is offline music marketing service
that provides branded concert in a package to companies who
wish to continue music marketing.
17. COMPANY SERVICE
CULTUREHERO was started by C.E.O Jun Kyu Yang, who has been
responsible for the development and operation of the ‘Kakao
story’.
Standing out as a new type of life-friendly content platform, the
company has a strong understanding of know-how of content
management targeting the target users with the experience of
operating the Kakao story. Now turning to Food Vertical business
focusing on 'wife's table'
1 million follow-up investment from KDB Bank was made in
December 2016.
Wife's Table provides informational food recipes and daily tips
with easy accessibility combining text and images. Women in their
20-30s are a main target and are heavily consuming those
contents and adapting to their daily cooking life.
Since the launch of the apps on the local market, it achieved more
than 5 million downloads and 1.8 million MAU within a year.
In addition to providing content, the company is expanding its
business in kitchen commerce for cooking goods. Opening its own
studio early this year, they are focusing on the V-commerce sector.
18. COMPANY SERVICE
Text Factory was founded by a former lawyer, who established
and sold off ‘LAWnB’, South Korea’s largest legal information
website.
Text Factory provides a text message and KakaoTalk based
personal assistant service.
A character-based personal assistant service utilizing text
messages and KakaoTalk. It seeks to become the representative
O2O service of the secretarial area, revolutionizing our daily lives.
Without installing any apps, the service receives and processes
user's various requests in real time. It serves a wide range of
service areas such as restaurant reservations, purchasing,
information retrieval, quick-service, flower delivery.
Jan 2016, Munbiseo signed a MOU with six O2O(Offline to Online)
startups that gives priority to introduce these startups’ services
when they receive customer requests.
The service officially opened in April 2016, introducing a premium
monthly subscription service distinct from the general membership.
In July, a newly enterprise version ‘Munbiseo for Business' was
opened.
As of October 2016, within just six months since launch, it
achieved 1.5 thousand registered users and signed a partnership
with more than 60 vendors.
Currently, it is preparing for a new update involving chatbots.
19. COMPANY SERVICE
MUTzip provides Indie Fashion B2B sourcing platform 'Hot sauce‘,
which means ‘Hot trend’ and ‘Sourcing’.
CEO, Moon Goon, has over 18 years of experience in the indie
fashion business including wholesale and retail, and export.
Hot source is a mobile and web based Indie fashion sourcing
platform for B2B operators that solves the traditional methods of
existing deal process in the indie fashion B2B market.
The service helps convenient ordering and billing management
process between domestic indie fashion brands and home and
foreign buyers operating their editorial fashion shop.
The company achieved 0.3 million worth of order in just one
month through a profit structure that matches buyers and brings
commissions. Currently, more than 2,500 indie designers are
registered.
Hong Kong corporation was established at the end of last year
and business is being developed.
20. COMPANY SERVICE
Startup to service ‘WebDramaBox’, the premium web drama
production and distribution service for the 20-30 generation
mobile users.
MoMo has developed supervisory agency to recruit and train
professional web drama directors and crews.
Its ‘Lean production' production method drastically shorten the
production time and cost compared to existing broadcasting.
Crafted video contents are distributed through multi-channel
platform such as Facebook, Naver TV Cast (tvcast), YouTube and
etc.
It generates the contents of various genres and stories eliminating
limitations of those existing terrestrial and cable TV material.
In fact, Web drama 「Model student」 has achieved more than 1
million cumulative views and ‘equalizer’ has achieved 1.43 million.
‘Witness’ has exceeded more than 50 million cumulative views so
far.
Recently, MoMo has set up a domestic company in China, and will
adapt and produce Korea IP targeting to Chinese market.
21. Washon was founded in Dec 2014 by those who try to solve
inconvenience of existing laundry washing market. The team is
consist of laundry experts, customer service professionals and IT
experts.
Washon provides premium on-demand washing and dry cleaning
service leveraging mobile based technology. It picks up the dirty
duds from customers and deliver fresh, clean clothes back to them.
Washon provides affordable and convenient way of getting wash,
laundry and dry-clean done with prime quality.
The processing of washing, laundry and dry cleaning is done in
best-class setups with standardized process and inspection
procedures.
In July 2016, an updated version, ‘Washon 2.0’, focusing on the
user experience was released.
WashOn will introduce various services including premium laundry,
stroller/car seat care, and expand their service regions to deliver
products throughout the area of Seoul.
COMPANY SERVICE
22. The co-founders of Seerslab, Michael and JC each have over ten
years of experience developing mobile video and media services.
Seerslab was officially inducted in 'Summer Batch 2016‘ of Y-
Combinator and raised about 1.5 billion dollars from prominent
investors in both the United States and Korea.
Lollicam is a video creation app full of creative technologies and
contents that gives users total control of their videos. With their
built-in face tracking, it’s easy to add stickers, effects, and
animations that follow users around. Lollicam has partnered with
Facebook so users can record animated profile videos through the
app.
After launching in May 2015, it achieved 6 million downloads
without any marketing activities.
The service aims to become the go-to place where anyone can
connect with brands and public figures to make fun, short videos
that can be shared anywhere.
The company has promoted business cooperation with large
companies such as SK Telecom and SPC.
COMPANY SERVICE
23. Dr.Kitchen is a professional research company focusing on diet
food for diabetics. It was established by experts in related fields
like medical, nutritional, cooking, and business development to
realize the vision of improving diabetic diet.
They are offering rich and delicious diabetes diets that famous
chefs have created in compliance with medical findings.
Dr.Kitchen work to develop taste recipes based on medical
research on diabetes and provide it in the form of half-cooked
food through processing the ingredients.
It featured not only 370 different recipes developed by proven
chefs from five-star hotels but also fully complies with medical
standards from advanced research institutions such as Korea
Diabetes Association (KDA), American Diabetes Association (ADA),
ect.
They successfully made industry's first clinical trial that verifies the
effect of the diet in the highest levels of reliability.
It will expand the service to other diseases such as hyperlipidemia,
high blood pressure, obesity and cancer-based on the
accumulated research and data.
Mobile app will be launched in 1H'17
COMPANY SERVICE
24. COMPANY SERVICE
VITA (Value In Technology Asia) PTE. LTD, is a Jakarta-based
software service company. VITA’s founding members were some
of the key personnel behind the successful Korean game
developer ‘Neople’,
The team behind the global hit title ‘Dungeon Fighter Online’ and
now a subsidiary of Nexon Corporation; the rest of the team also
comprises of highly seasoned veterans of mobile, IT, and local tech
businesses for over 10 years.
Cashtree is a mobile advertising application which turns lockscreen
into billboard upon installation. Since its launch in November
2015, 7.3 million users were acquired in about a year.
The company has hosted advertising from diverse industries
including e-Commerce, FMCG, gaming, applications, finance, etc..
Since August, it began collaborating with RCTI broadcast station
to support one of their TV programs which will help Cashtree
penetrate more traditional user base and thus accelerate its
growth even faster.
This will help grow Indonesian mid class’ internet usage, resulting
in positive growth of overall mobile industry. On the other hand,
as a mobile advertising service providing most effective channel to
reach B and C class, Cashtree will be able to attract more brands
to advertise as we grow our user base.
25. Jubilee Works was founded in September 2014 by key personnel
from Yahoo Japan and Kakao Japan, led by Chief Culture Design
Officer(CCO) Cha Jin Park, a former CEO of Kakao Japan.
The team has gotten over $2 million in investments from K Cube
Ventures, Toei Animation, Plantree Partners, Seibu Shinkin Capital,
and SMBC Capital Markets.
Launched in March 2015, Jubilee TimeTree is a calendar service
app for private planning and sharing schedules for small groups.
Jubilee TimeTree which lets small groups such as friends, family,
and co-workers to share their schedules via a shared calendar.
There they can coordinate with each other and plan ahead.
The service currently has 2.3 million registered users, more than 1
million of which are active users. It is available in 13 languages,
including Korean, English and Japanese.
As of November 2016, it has secured about 3 million subscribers
mainly in Japan.
.
COMPANY SERVICE
26. Finger Plus is a start-up that operates the "Video Advertising"
bidding service based on V-Commerce(Video to Commerce)
Solution.
The team is consists of competent, networked and experienced
co-founders who can do well in the advertising business
associated with Video Commerce.
To go beyond the existing old advertisement method like product
description and image, Finger Plus is offering a new concept
advertising service that offers customers with context and also
provides a purchase stimulus trigger when they enter the
commerce page.
COMPANY SERVICE
27. Korea Credit Data is a FinTech company that develops CreditCheck,
non-face-to-face risk assessment solution specialized in small and
medium-sized business loans.
Dong-ho Kim, who founded the ‘IDINCU' in 2011 and led the
company's growth for 5 years, established his second business in
2016 on the basis of data analysis and service design experience.
‘Credit Check', a financial information evaluation solution for
business operators and 'Cash Note', an automatic bookkeeping
solution launched in December 2016.
‘CreditCheck’ is risk assessment solution for SME loan that
analyzes the financial transaction data of a company in a non-
face-to-face manner and repayment ability of the company quickly
and precisely.
With a self-developed scraping engine collecting scattered
financial transaction data, it applies a machine learning-based
algorithm to calculate the values required for risk assessment in
real time.
Contributing to the accuracy of the risk assessment of the financial
sector by improving SME loan review process which had difficulty
in grasping accurate repayment ability.
The company will focus on expanding alliances with financial
institutions and upgrading services.
COMPANY SERVICE
28. In July 2015, the team launched a mobile community service 'Baby
Friends’, which focuses on the connection of mothers who feel
lonely by adapting to new communities and raising children after
the marriage.
They plan to concentrate on upgrading services and discovering
various business models.
‘Baby Friends’ is a mobile social community service that helps
mothers form a new social relationship.
Unlike the existing Infant care community, it focuses on the core
functions of the SNS and aims for a user-oriented community
without operator intervention.
It matches mothers who are raising a baby of similar age living
around the user, and provides various communication functions
such as real-time conversation.
Users can record their baby's growth process as a photo in the
'Page' menu and get their saved photos as a free photo book
once a month.
The service is planning on expanding into English-speaking
countries in year 2018.
COMPANY SERVICE
29. Daangn Market was co-founded by Jaehyun Kim who founded
‘Thinkreals’ and sold it to Kakao Corp and Yonghyun Kim who was
in charge of planning new services in Kakao Corp.
The team is optimized for developing and servicing a region-based
trading platform as they all have a rich experience of Commerce,
local services, and platform business.
Daangn Market is a region-based C2C second-hand transaction
service that can directly trade used goods between residents in the
neighborhood.
If user registers its product on mobile after authenticating the
neighborhood through GPS, the transaction will be going on by
real-time chat. Users' reliability evaluation function for supporting
secure transactions is different from existing used transaction
service.
With a one-month retention rate of 70%, the service boasts a
150K MAU, and each user spends around 15 minutes per day
using the service.
Currently available in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon, Gwangju,
Daejeon, Daegu, Cheonan, and Jeju, will be expanded nationwide
next year.
Based on local P2P transactions, Daangn Market plans to evolve
into a regional-based service that connects wider transactions
such as Craigslist in the US and 58.com in China.
COMPANY SERVICE
30. UN7QI3 was co-founded by Sanghyun Kim and Kyungjin Shim.
Having led service development and service planning teams at
NHN Business Platforms and Kakao, the pair has worked together
for more than 8 years.
Having officially launched on January 2017, ForceTeller is a digital
fortune telling service that provides entertaining content to help
busy modern-day individuals find their mental balance and
stability.
ForceTeller offers various traditional fortune telling methods from
both the East and the West. The results are then drafted into
snack-sized contents told by friendly 2D characters, and the
content can be shared through different social media networks.
UN7QI3 has created its own set of logical algorithms (Fortune
Analysis System; FAS) to provide its users with accurate, detailed,
and even personalized fortune telling. As the user continues to
use the service, additional data is collected to help enhance its
quality.
Having picked up 40,000 users within the first month of its service,
UN7QI3 aims to launch a mobile application and expand into
Taiwanese and Japanese markets later this year (2017).
COMPANY SERVICE
31. Founded on January 2017, Cleaning Lab is led by CEO Hyunju
Yeon, the former head of Kakao’s O2O Home Services. Because
key members of Kakao’s Home Clean Services have joined forces,
they boast a comprehensive understanding of the O2O home-
cleaning market.
Cleaning Lab’s platform plans to become a one-stop on-demand
home service platform for all sorts of home-related issues.
A relay service connecting clients that would like their house
cleaned with managers that are looking for work. The two would
be connected through Cleaning Lab’s mobile application.
Cleaning Lab is planning on simplifying the search, reservation,
and payment processes for its clients, while allowing for managers
to pick the projects that meet their conditions. Both platform
participants have something to gain from using the service.
Furthermore, Cleaning Labs is on the forefront of quality control.
It is the first in the industry to deploy ‘Smart matching systems’ to
maximize the efficiency in matching the client and the manager. It
has built a standardized payment process based on automatic
settlement systems and fixed prices for its services. Managers will
go through professional manager training to polish their skills.
Currently available only in Seoul and the metropolitan area,
Cleaning Labs will be available to all major South Korean cities by
early 2018.
COMPANY SERVICE
32.
33. Frograms is made up of named engineers and data scientists,
mainly KAIST and POSTECH graduates. The team is led by CEO
Park Tae Hoon, who formerly developed new services at Korean
game developer Nexon.
Frograms has raised $2.5 billion in Round A and seed funding
from three VCs in 2013.
Their personalized movie recommendation service ‘Watcha’ and
video streaming VOD service ‘Watcha Play’ has been successful in
attracting users.
In January 2016, video streaming VOD service 'WATCHA PLAY'
was officially launched.
Based on the ratings of 'Watcha', users can enjoy unlimited
viewing of video contents reflecting their tastes at 4,900 won per
month. It has a total of 20,000 contents including movies, dramas,
documentaries, and animations.
It was selected as '2016 App of the Year' by Google Play and
Apple App Store six months after launch, and the number of paid
subscribers reached 6.5 million as of February 2017.
Recently, support for chrome cast has been added, moreover their
app is installed in Samsung Smart TV and KT Skylife set-top box.
‘Watcha Play’ plans to continuously upgrade its business by adding
more content and expanding the platform.
COMPANY SERVICE
34. The WIV Labs team is made up of Korea’s definitive experts in
search engines. Its programmers developed Korea’s #2 search
engine, Daum, end-to-end from scratch.
WIV Labs aims to create a marketing platform that helps people
who suffer from a lack of budget or experience efficiently and
easily work on Facebook ads.
WIV Labs’ new service analyze how much efficient are the
Facebook ads depending on exposed position, bidding methods
and target audiences through a variety of experiments.
It automates each step required to enforce the Facebook ads
based on the analysis results, and optimize customer’s ads .
It will continuously enhance the AD optimization solution. Its plans
are to target global advertisers with an English version that will be
released this year.
COMPANY SERVICE
35. Qurion creates Semantic Vertical Search Engine focused on
Summarization and Personalization of User-Generated Content
Woojoo Lee, CEO of Qurion has vast experience including
semanti search at Naver, and Sam Fung, a senior engineer has 9+
years of experience at Google as a senior web solutions and
applications engineer.
Existing search services for User-Generated Services and Products
Review Content still stuck at Search 1.0 technology that is based
on basic information retrieval technologies such as string match
and link analysis.
User has to read too many reviews to get useful information.
Wide variety of opinions expressed in the reviews make it
confusing and hard to remember.
Lacking next-generation search technology with semantics-based
relevancy models and analysis, clustering, summarization and
personalization.
COMPANY SERVICE
36. Lunit is a startup that revolutionized medical diagnosis area based on
AI(Artificial intelligence) technology. The team mainly consists of
M.D. and Ph.D holders from KAIST.
Ranked #7 at the ‘Image Recognition Competition 2014’, the world's
most acknowledged contest for image recognition technology. Again,
Ranked #2 in ‘object location recognition’ in 2015.
37 million follow-up investment from Interbest and Mirae Asset
Venture Capital in Nov 2015
Lunit applied deep-learning-based recognition algorithm ito medical
field to provide medical image diagnosis service.
Depth learning algorithms based on in-depth neural network-based
artificial intelligence mimicking the way the human brain works. It has
the highest accuracy of existing image recognition technologies.
Using the images recognized by the deep-learning model as mass
medical data, it improves accuracy and objectivity of conventional
medical image reading, which is limited only by human vision.
#1 prize in the TUPAC(Tumor Proliferation Assessment Challenge ) of
MICCAI 2016 in October 2016. RSNA Annual Meeting 2016, the
world's largest radiological society, presented 4 abstracts, the largest
number in the industry.
Selected as the only domestic company in CB Insights Top 100 AI
company rankings ‘The AI 100’, Top 7 in medical diagnosis field.
COMPANY SERVICE
37. Dining Code is a startup that utilizes big data technologies, which it
has been building up for several years. The company uses this
technology to provide a reasonable restaurant ranking system and
reviews.
In late 2015, raised 2 million follow-up investment from several VCs
Launched in December 2013, Dining code analyzes millions of
restaurants related blog entries and applies the results to its own
searching mechanism of big data technology.
With its own big data analyzing system and text mining technology,
dining code filters advertisements and spams from the data pool and
provides genuine, useful information including rankings, foods,
location, and atmosphere, among many others.
Filtering ads and providing blog posts with trustworthy information is
the key point of Dining Code, which differentiate itself from the
existing services which depended mainly on user rating or partial ads.
In November 2014, Dining Code launched app version adding key
features like 'Smart Keyword Auto-completion‘ and 'SNS Share'
based on good responses from the web.
As of August 2016, the service secured more than 1 million monthly
active users (MAU) in Web and mobile.
Dining Code is preparing an additional monetization model that can
contribute to the eating-out ecosystem as a service connecting users
and restaurants.
COMPANY SERVICE
38. UVify is a startup developing technologies related to UAV(Drone),
aiming to create new values for the world.
The goal of UVify is to develop unmanned aircrafts that anyone can
easily use. With its indoor autonomic flying planes, indoor GPS
technology, and robot control systems, the company is targeting the
personal robot market.
Raised follow-up investment of 4.5 billion from NCSoft late 2016
Based on its experience gained in various R&D projects, UVify aims to
achieve better mobility and automation by minimizing the
shortcomings of current UAVs.
Using computer vision technology, accurate three-dimensional
position recognition is performed, and obstacles encountered during
flight are detected. This base technology is applied to the racing
drone which should show extreme performance, so drivers can show
off their best skill.
UVify has already created a prototype of racing drones and teamed
up or sponsored overseas top-tier players. 'Draco‘, their drone with a
maximum speed of 100 miles per hour, will launch this summer.
In the future, Uvify plans to increase the brand value through the
technology recognized by the racing drones industry, and also to
develop competitive products that can be used by general users.
UVify is currently planning a Kickstarter campaign for June 2017.
COMPANY SERVICE
39. Stratio is a team of four members in Electrical Engineering at
Stanford University who have come up with a new infrared imaging
technology that works with a smartphone. This new sensor costs far
less and offers much higher resolution than existing technologies.
The company was selected on SBIR(Small Business Innovative
Research) program which is run by US NSF(National Science
Foundation) in May 2014.
Stratio launches its ‘LinkSquare’ infrared scanner for food,
pharmaceuticals, materials, and physical objects at the 2016
International CES.
LinkSquare is a device that measures the intensity of wavelengths of
light. Since the reflected light spectrum varies from one object to
another, Stratio claims it can figure out what a specific pill’s reflective
signature is and then compare known pills to others you may want to
scan to see how they match up.
In 2016, they were awarded ‘2016 Smart Device Competition’ and
‘Smart Device Competition’ hosted by Ministry of Science, ICT and
Future Planning.
Following the year 2016, attended the CES held in the US this year.
Crowd funding for 'Link Square‘ will be opened at ‘Kickstarter’ around
June this year.
COMPANY SERVICE
40. Vitruv is an edu-tech startup that runs a mathematical education
platform ‘Mata Math' based on its own AI algorithm and big data.
Vitruv was founded by members of the first graduating class of
the Hansung Science Highschool, with a strong emphasis on
mathematical expertise and experiences in the education
businesses. Professor Oh Tae-hyung, the current CEO, is an in-
service mathematics instructor. Dr. Jung Do-seop received his
degree in Artificial Intelligence, and is also the creater of SNUme,
Seoul National University’s math assignment submission system.
Vitruv raised 0.2 million in follow-on investment in January 2017.
Mata Math is a personalized mathematics education system that
finds students' weak points from the submitted answers and
recommends optimized personal learning paths to individuals.
Beginning with domestic high school mathematics service in 2015,
they are preparing to expand the service to middle schools.
Launched a service in Taiwan last October. currently discussing
service partnerships and investments with renowned Chinese
companies. Vitruv plan to actively seek service in Asian countries
such as China and Japan where edu-tech market is growing.
In January, they won the Intel China-sponsored start-up
competition held at Zhongguancun Avenue in Beijing, China.
More recently, Vitruv partnered with Pagoda Educations to create
and service a big data based artificial intelligence for personalized
English learning.
COMPANY SERVICE
41. COMPANY SERVICE
Start-up research and development of system biology in the field of
artificial intelligence to improve the limits of traditional biology.
The team consists of professionals and experts in the field of machine
learning and artificial intelligence. C.E.O Jin-Han Kim is an expert in
machine learning and artificial intelligence with a long experience of
research and accomplishment of tasks.
They won the 3rd prize in the Synergy Prediction section of the Drug
Challenge of the Global Technology Competition 'Dream Challenge'.
3.4 million follow-up investment was made in July 2016.
A computer modeling technique that learns medical & biological
information by applying the results of AI and system biology to
pharmaceutical fields and predicts mechanism of drug actions.
Improving the efficiency of drug development by solving the problem
of searching for combinations and disuse of existing drugs that are
more effective in the treatment of diseases, and by optimizing
screening of drug candidates and clinical patients.
‘StandigmAI for drug repositioning', an artificial intelligence(AI) based
drug replacement solution, was first unveiled at' PMWC 2017 'held
in Silicon Valley in January this year. The final version of ‘StandigmAI’
is scheduled to be released this year.
They plan to collaborate in the field of pharmaceuticals and
functional cosmetics through the commercialization of the
technology in the future.
42. COMPANY SERVICE
DABLE consists of team members who developed Korea’s first
recommendation platform using big data technology. Based on
advanced technologies in big data and machine learning, the
team currently services an omni-channel personalization platform.
It raised follow-up investment of 1.1 billion from Stonebridge
capital and K cube ventures July 2016.
Since May 2015, DABLE is servicing ‘Dable News’, an intelligent
news recommendation service offering fully-optimized articles to
site visitors by real-time big data analysis and natural language
processing technology. The latest interests of users are analyzed in
real-time to provide a list of recommended items that reflect the
current needs of each individual user.
More than 150 domestic media such as Chosun Ilbo, Joongang
Ilbo, and KBS have used the personalized recommendation service.
Including community and mobile app services, more than 200
companies are using the service. With the most recent partnership
with NDSoft, Dable currently provides its services to over 1,900
domestic media outlets that use NDSoft’s products.
‘Dable Native AD’, DABLE’s another service, is a native advertising
platform that provides native ad to the target audience based on
the customer’s interests and their residential areas.
DABLE won the Grand Prize at the '2016 Korea Online
Advertising Festival (KOAF)' hosted by KISA and Ministry of
Science, ICT and Future Planning In December 2016.
43. COMPANY SERVICE
Bitfinder is a Silicon valley based startup developing an indoor air
quality solution, founded in 2013 by Ronald Ro (CEO) and Kevin
Cho (CTO).
The team of software engineers, data scientists, industrial and
visual designers combine a range of consumer product and
technology development experience from IDEO, Boeing, Samsung,
and Cisco, among others.
It raised $4.5 million series A funding from Altos Ventures and
Samsung Ventures in Aug 2016.
After successfully showcasing at CES 2016, Awair was officially
launched in more than 45 countries including the US, Canada,
China, Japan, Australia and South Korea.
AWAIR is the first product to track and analyze indoor air. It is also
the first product to collect personalized data from the user's
environment and provide actionable insights to improve air quality
based on user’s unique lifestyle routines and health needs.
Bitfinder has recently partnered with Nest, Amazon, and IFTTT to
integrate Awair into their systems, allowing the device to act as a
sensor transmitting data to the respective hubs.
With the latest launch of ‘Awair Glow’, Bitfinder has secured a
lineup of IoT devices that control the operation of non-smart
products such as fans, heaters and air purifiers according to air
quality. Moving beyond simple analysis, it plans on integrating
various devices around its products to optimize the indoor setting.
44. COMPANY SERVICE
BinaryVR was founded by Jihun Yu who worked for Industrial
Light and Magic, where he did research and development on the
facial motion capture technology for feature films.
BinaryVR was founded by BinaryVR develops 3D avatar creation
and facial expression tracking technology for VR gear, enabling
users to create a personalized 3D face from 2D facial photos to
track and retarget the facial animations in real-time in an avatar or
any transformed CG mode.
Participating in 2016 CES and 2016 MWC, BinaryVR enabled
facial expression tracking demo for VR in partnership with
hardware startup.
They launched a camera/video apps ‘Juke Face’ with their own VR
mask function, which lets users swap faces with celebs/animal
characters in real time.
Their technology will be grafting for the face recognition solution
for High Fidelity, and they plan to expand to mobile launching a
social game applying VR technology.
Earlier this year, BinaryVR launched a development kit that works
with VR devices such as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
45. COMPANY SERVICE
OBELab is a deep tech startup developing fNIRS(Functional near-
infrared spectroscopy) technology based portable device detecting
brain functionality.
The team is led by the chief executive officer ‘Hyeonmin Bae’, a
Ph.D at KAIST and experts in brain science.
NIRSIT
Conventional brain activity measuring devices have limited
amount and kind of information that can be measured due to
limitations of the number of channels and space limitations.
'NIRSIT' is a brain activity meter based on fNIRS(Functional Near
Infrared Rays) method, which revolutionizes existing brain activity
measurement methods. When a user puts a helmet-like imaging
device on his head, people can confirm the degree of brain
activation with a tablet PC within 10 seconds.
It is being sold overseas for research purposes since September
2016.
In April 2017, OBELab will acquire medical device approval from
Korea Food and Drug Administration.
They are developing software services for processing and
analyzing the fNIRS data measured by the current device, and are
working on various aspects with the brain researchers and the
medical team.
46. COMPANY SERVICE
WhaTap Labs is B2B tech startup developing cloud based IT
monitoring solution.
Founded in 2015 by CEO Dongin Lee, CTO Sungcho Kim, a
named expert in APM(Application Performance Management)
area that formerly worked at Jenifer soft, and CSO Hanjoo Lee, a
co-founder and CEO of the startup accelerator ‘Spark Labs’ that
has experienced in the Internet hosting industry.
'WhaTap‘ is a cloud-based monitoring solution based on its
patented 'ActiveStack' technology. It collects and analyzes the
physical state of the server and the performance data of the
service in real time to monitor and notify the failure and predict
the cause of the failure through the analyzed data.
In 2015, they introduced SaaS SMS(System Management System)
for the first time in Korea, and plan to open up advanced
APM(Application Performance Monitoring) service.
They won grand prize at the ‘2016 K Global DB-Stars Award’
hosted by Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and
KOREA Data Agency last Nov.
47. COMPANY SERVICE
CodeSquad is comprised of tutors from NHN NEXT who are
experts in software(SW) and education. They aims to be a high
quality SW education dedicated team for those who prepare for
the future with SW technology.
With new user-specific training courses and programs,
CodeSquad is trying to improve the current situation of lacking
SW professional mentors and education institutions and
contribute to the formation of a healthy SW ecosystem.
CodeSquad’s <Shared CTO> course addresses the most important
technical issues for startups and small and medium-sized
developers.
After a diagnosis of the current technology status for startup, it
connects engineers who have acquired the appropriate technical
competencies, or directly train them.
In addition, <Masters Course> is not a group lecture, but an
educational program that can be used directly in practice as an
individual project type. It provides three levels of training and
mentoring for each level.
48. COMPANY SERVICE
Xen ARM-based virtualization vehicle security solution company.
With the advent of autonomous driving and connected cars, they
aim to build a industrial standard solution that addresses the
anticipated vehicle security issues.
The C.E.O Sang-Bum Seo, a former managing director of
Samsung Electronics R&D division, is a specialist in Xen
virtualization who has developed Xen ARM virtualization open
source for the first time in the world.
Perseus’s Xen ARM-based virtualization security solution separates
the vehicle's key intelligence domains and other domains by highly
virtualized technologies and effectively distributes resources within
the vehicle to help ensure reliable vehicle security without
compromising performance.
Protects against the hacker's attack via malware and DDoS to
block the vehicle's software and to operate safely.
It eliminates the need for additional hardware modules and
reduces the cost of SoC(system-on-a-chip) used in automotive
electronics such as electric and electronic circuits. It also enables
vehicle OEMs not to lock-in, which means it’s easy to supply and
apply to automobile manufacturers and manufacturers.
From 2017, Perseus will introduce the developed technology at
major international motor shows, and plans to cooperate with
customers such as vehicle OEM and SoC vendors.
49.
50. The Fincon team is made up of key members who formally created
the hit online MMORPG ‘C9’ (which took the Grand Prize at the
2009 Korea Game Awards) at Webzen.
Following an initial investment of 3.5 million in 2012, it raised 4
million of follow-up investment from K Cube Ventures in January
2017.
Fincon’s first mobile RPG ‘Hello Hero’ was once ranked the #1 free
game in the iTunes App Store and #3 popular app in Google Play,
also rose to the #5 game in the global Google Play ranking at one
point. It had over 1700 downloads and 410 Facebook fans as of
February 2016.
Fincon’s second action-RPG, ‘Agel Stone’ was officially released in
July 2015. it awarded the '2015 Studios to Watch' in Game of the
Year by Facebook and 'Best of 2015' by Apple App Store.
Fincon directly services the game over 150 countries that gamers
can freely connect with one another regardless of regional
boundaries or device.
Late 2016, 'Angel Stone' is officially acquired edition number for
Chinese market , and scheduled for service in May 2017.
In addition, two new titles 'Hello Hero Epic Battle' and 'Hello Hero
All Stars' based on ‘Hello Hero' will be released in domestic and
overseas markets in the 3Q/17.
COMPANY SERVICE
51. Mobile game company founded by former CEO of NHN
Entertainment Wook Jung. Merged with SPAC to be listed on the
KOSDAQ market in December 2016.
Launched various lineups starting with Nexon Pro-baseball master
in 2013. Among their titles, the Sichuan Province series and its
subsidiary's social casino games are the main sources of revenue.
Overseas sales account for more than 80% of total sales by 2015.
Neptune plans to launch more than 8 new games within this year.
A sequel title and Chinese version of LINE Puzzle tantan have
been developing and baseball games are scheduled to launch in
2017.
In January 2017, raised 1 billion worth of strategic investment
from Kakao Corp. now Neptune has developed a strategic alliance
to launch all mobile games except for sports games, which are
developed and published for domestic launches, through the
Kakao game platform, including two new friends IP games.
Neptune plans to secure funding for mobile game sourcing
through its investment in Kakao, and to use it to acquire
promising developers and acquire strong game IP.
Mobile baseball game 'Legend Lineup' was officially released in
April 2017.
COMPANY SERVICE
52. Dryad was founded in May 2012 with the goal of introducing a
brand new genre of combined TCG/RPG.
The team launched its first mobile TCG Legionz, seizing 1st place
within 3 days, 9th place of earning in T-Store, and have been
growing since. The game has been equally successful in the
English-speaking regions thanks to its prior success in Korea. They
also launched the second title, ‘Yo! Villains’ in September 2015.
Yo! Villains
A casual mobile strategic game dealing with the adventures of
villains to save the world fell into chaos caused by the resurrection
of King of the devil.
‘Yo! Villains’ is combines the fun of strategic play with a variety of
skills and synastry balance for hero types, providing essential
elements of RPG including a player-vs-player (PvP) mode and a
character creation system.
With rich contents, user can enjoy being a new ruler of Etera by
crushing the Deven Empire all the while fending off other player's
Gulid.
COMPANY SERVICE
53. Dubaki was founded by the team behind successes including the
mobile 3D MMORPG ‘Dragon Mist’ and the large-scale mobile
shooting game ‘Air Hunter,’ which won praise when WeMade
Entertainment showcased it at the E3 Expo and the G-Star Global
Game Exhibition.
Mobile Shooting Defense game ‘Monster Doors’ optimized for
touch function was officially released in August 2014.
In 2014, they won the start-up game prize of ‘the Korea Game
Awards’ and signed a publishing contract with China's big game
developer 'Hour Farm’.
In February 2016, Nexon signed a publishing contract with
MMORPG 'Giantica‘. In January 2017, the first and second pilot
test was carried out ahead of the official release this year.
COMPANY SERVICE
54. The Valcon team is made up of six game developers who spent
many years working together to develop MMORPG titles at Nexon
and XL Games.
April 2015, Valcon launched a new type of mobile defense game,
Bugmon Defense.
Bugmon Defense is a mobile defense game with enhanced
moving control and skill system. Simple action of dragging makes
it possible for the game to emerge from previous defense genre
by transforming the static contents into the battle.
Reinforced control supports diverse strategies, while tailored
system provides missions based on different levels of players.
Continuous motivation occurs through growth and PVP system
equipped in the game.
COMPANY SERVICE
55. Red Sahara was founded by key members who formerly worked
together at Webzen Games, building a strong sense of teamwork
and creating successful large-scale games over the course of 4
years.
Red Sahara launched a mobile strategy RPG titled ‘Immortal
Warrior’ in April 2014 , once ranked #8 top grossing game in
the Kakao Game Platform and #6 top grossing app in the Google
Play Store without any publisher support or active marketing.
In March 2016, Redsahara launched its latest game ‘Immortal
Warrior Ⅱ:Winners’, The game successfully recruited a pre-
reservation of 80 million people, then became instant success
after launching into market - ranked top 20 grossing apps in the
Google Play Store within 2 days.
Late 2016, they signed a contract for using Tera IP with 'Blue
Hole studio‘. They plan to launch a next title 'Project S’ within the
year.
April 2017, they signed a global publishing deal with Smilegate
for their newest game ‘War Reign’. The game is planned for soft
launch in first-half of 2017, and the official release will follow.
COMPANY SERVICE
56. Next Age was founded by key members who formerly worked
together at Game High, building a strong sense of teamwork and
creating successful #1 FPS Game in Korea called ‘Sudden Attack‛.
After launching mobile FPS ‘7DAYS’ of zombie concept
successfully, Howling Soft launched a mobile FPS game titled
‘Sand Storm’ in September 2014.
They changed company name to Next Age after acquisition of
Thum Age. currently developing a new title.
COMPANY SERVICE
57. CoCoon Games was founded by key members who formerly
worked together at Paprika Lab, acquired by GREE.
They launched a mobile strategy RPG (tribal wars) games titled
‘Songs of War’ in November 2014.
The Tribal war game, ‘Songs of war’ is a strategic fantasy game
with the concept of the middle age offering dynamic fun of a
hero system and tribe wars via mobile phone.
Its goal is to be a representative tribe-war-type mobile game
nationally with the enforguilds cement on the element
encouraging group competition of satisfying national users.
In 2016, it signed a strategic global investment contract with
Nexon for two new mobile games. Their next titles will be globally
available this year.
COMPANY SERVICE
58. BlackBeard was founded by former key members of Activision
Blizzard and NC Soft. The company is set to develop a sci-fi mobile
game, ‘Dystopia’ which is to be launched this year.
Konwoo Kang,who is CEO in BlackBeard,had participated in
planning and development of ‘Blade&Soul’ which is among the
greatest hits game of NC Soft. Other team members also have
several years of experience in game development with each other.
‘Dystopia’ is a high quality sci-fi action RPG game based on the
story about the invasion by aliens and the battle against them in
the year 2120.
The game has a unique control system which overcomes the limits
coming from mobile devices, providing a greater sense of
maneuverability. Also the game’s outstanding graphics produce
greater level of engagement for users.
The game aims to support multi-platform including mobile, online
and console and on the basis of that, ‘Dystopia’ will eventually
pursue global expansion.
‘Dystopia’ will be released within this year.
COMPANY SERVICE
59. The A-33 Studio team is led by the chief executive officer ‘Kim
Dong Sun’ who was in charge of the development, launch and
operation of ‘Counter Strike Online’ which is one of the top 3
online FPS games in Korea. The team consists of developers who
have worked together for ‘CS Online’ and ‘Combat Arms’ at Nexon,
one of the top online game makers in the world.
Based on their experiences on development and live operation of
online FPS games, the team is building a mobile FPS game named
‘Diving Soul(working title)’ with an emphasis on strategic aspects.
A new control scheme will be applied to the game in order to
overcome the common limitations caused by the nature of mobile
devices.
‘Diving Soul(working title)’ will be launched by the first half of
2017.
COMPANY SERVICE
60. The team is consist of veterans with more than 10 years of
experience in commercializing a number of famous games from
major domestic game companies such as Webzen, Neowiz, and
NC Soft.
Supreme Games have experience developing various genres
ranging from MMORPG, action, and high-quality graphics games
and also have ART and animation capabilities, which are key
elements of action RPGs.
Raised 2 billion investment from NHN Entertainment in October
2015 .
The uniqueness of PROJECT TOP comes from one-button smart
action feature that enables various actions appropriate for each
situations, with real time weapon changing system and extreme
combo skills.
With users who want to play while riding public transportation,
the game provides vertical screen mode that requires only one
hand to play. Also, various party play contents are available, which
will strengthen its social features and enable players to cooperate
and help each other grow.
They signed a Southeast publishing contract for ‘Project TOP’ with
True Digital Plus(TDP) in October 2016, and achieved an export
contract with Hong Kong publisher '6waves' in November of this
year.
Currently serviced in Vietnam market.
COMPANY SERVICE
61. KoKomo is comprised of experienced team members who have
successfully developed, launched and operated various online
games including ‚Lineage2‚, the first 3D MMORPG in Korea which
has been loved by many users for more than 10 years, and
NCSoft’s flagship MMO title ‚Blade&Soul‚.
Contrary to today's trend in the game market which is inclined
towards TCG and other midcore RPG games, KoKoMo would like
to focus on hardcore RPG genre which remains as blue ocean.
They are aiming to develop a flagship mobile MMORPG game that
can also target gamers in Asia, who have similar characteristics
and interests to gamers in Korea.
‘OverLord’ focuses on a special theme ‚space‛ where users can
freely create autonomous game contents of their own.
Players can locate characters possessed in a game, in certain
blocks, create and facilitate fields, dungeon and villages on them.
These blocks gather around a group, which again connects with
those of other players and consequently a small world of its own is
created.
Active Persistent World of ‘OverLord’ perfectly differentiate itself
from other games, where users can clear game missions, with AI,
friends or guild.
The game is planned to launch in the first half of 2017 with the
support of Kakao Game S,
COMPANY SERVICE
62. The paranoid joy team is led by the chief executive officer ‘Kang Ji
Hoon’ who was a former representative of ‘Webzen Ymir games’.
The team consists of key members who have worked together at
Neowiz Games, Webzen, Ymir, acquired by Webzen.
Their mobile turn based strategy RPG titled ‘Demigod War’ was
officially launched in late 2014, now it is available in about 132
countries.
They unveiled latest mobile SPRG 'Yoda‘ in the Indian market in
March 2016, achieved 0.1+million downloads .
Secured the IP of famous animation broadcast ‘cartoon network’
in 2016. They will introduce new titles including self-developed
games and external lineups.
‘Yoddha: Deva Sangram’ is a mobile RPG that mixes time period
battle fun with strategy and is predicated on numerous
mythological heroes from round the world that may be collected
to fight aboard user in user’s battles against the darkness.
Started official live service in Korea November 2016.
COMPANY SERVICE
63. Kong Doo Company was co-founded by Kyong-jong Seo, who has
various experience as an E-sports professional gamer and game
commentator.
A comprehensive entertainment company specializing in games
with over 70 former and current top e-sports players as crew
members. Actively developing e-sports business not only in Korea
but also in overseas markets such as China.
In January 2016, 3.6 million follow-up investment was made from
K Cube Ventures, STIC Investment and Partners Investment.
They showcased game related contents through famous Internet
broadcasting & VOD service platform such as Africa TV, Youtube,
TwitchTV, with various E-Sports leagues and game marketing,
Established a branch office in China in 2016. Currently, online
game broadcasting is being offered on six platforms including
LongzhuTV and DouyuTV. In addition to online game
broadcasting, Kong Doo Company plans to expand the online
game academy business actively.
At the end of last year, they founded a professional game team
‘Team Kong Doo’ and signed a contract with SKT T1 for a global
content management.
They plan to launch a full-scale e-Sportainment business in the
global market this year.
COMPANY SERVICE
64. Salt Lab is made up of key members of ‘Red duck’, the developer
of popular online FPS <A.V.A> and <Metro conflict>, which
received three awards at the 2007 Korea Game Award.
Most of the members have more than 10 years of experience in
developing and operating FPS genre.
4 million follow-up investment was made from K Cube Ventures
and Smile Gate Investment in Aug.2016.
Salt lab is developing first mobile FPS games designed using
unreal engine 4.
Aiming for other mobile shooting games, the game will feature
rich option of both PvE and PvP gameplay, and also allows the
gamer to play from either a first- or third-person perspective.
Based on mature story and finest graphics offered by unreal
engine, they pursues high-end mobile FPS game for global
market.
The game will be officially released in 2017.
COMPANY SERVICE
65. Affinity is comprised of key personnel who experienced a number
of hit games at ‘Joy City’ and ‘Nexon’.
C.E.O Song In-Soo, a former representative of ‘Joy City‘, has spent
the past 14 years at ‘Joy City’ leveraging his background in
development, producing and overall game business.
‘Historia’ is an ancient western history-themed role-playing RPG
game that globally launched in May 2015.
The story of ‘Historia’ is based on forming legions by collecting
heroes derived from ancient mythology. The game was featured
‘recommended apps’ in the global Google Play store with its
unique advantage.
COMPANY SERVICE
66. Nerd Games was founded by key members who have 10 years of
experience to develop ‘Lineage 2’ and ‘Tera’ in NC Soft and
Bluehole Studio where all the members formerly worked together.
The team is currently making mobile mini AOS game backed with
various experiences to develop, launch and service for MMORPG
and mobile RPG.
Crusader is mobile lively siege-warfare game with Disney-like
heroes targeting ‘Star craft-generation’ who likes numerous
characters and real time action.
The concept of AOS with numerous playable characters, users can
enjoy enrich collection & growth system and strategic play with
skill of various heroes.
The game will be opened in the local market this year and will be
expended to global market.
COMPANY SERVICE
67. MOAI Games is made up of members with more than 10 years of
experience in Korea’s top MMORPG including ‘Lineage 2’ and
‘EOS’.
The team is lead by the chief executive officer ‘Chan Lee’, who was
responsible for handling the overall development process of
‘Lineage 2’ at NCsoft, and ‘EOS’ at nvius where he founded.
MOAI Games is currently working on a mobile MMORPG
implementing superior graphics with the Unreal Engine 4. The
game is to create an exciting and unique combination of PC MMO
system in an optimized form to the mobile platform.
Following the launch in the local market in 2018, it is expected to
enter the global market in 2019.
COMPANY SERVICE
68. CWAVE Soft was founded by the chief executive officer , Eun-do
Chae, who oversees the development and operation of Nexon's
online masterpiece ‘Maple Story’.
More than 70% of the team members has formally worked at
major game companies including ‘Nexon’ and ‘Ncsoft’, and have a
more than 10 years’ experience on famous online titles such as
<Vindictus>, <Sudden Attack>, and <Maple Story>.
Hyper Universe is a side-scrolling MOBA genre online game that
depicts a battle between psychics, based on the world of a multi-
universe .
With an MMO culture, the game built seven tiers to each stage.
They are optimized for side-scrolling battlefield that allows users
to maximize strategic play arising from vertical movement.
Officially launched in December 2016, it plans to expand service
to overseas market reflecting response from domestic market.
COMPANY SERVICE
69. V8 is a casual SNG game developer consisting of key personnel
from Party Games, one of the most influential casual game
companies. The team is comprised of experienced members who
have successfully developed, launched and operated various
casual genre like ‘I Love Coffee’, ‘Alice in the woods‘.
V8 is currently focusing on its live-service ‘Minions Forest', while
developing their next game in the casual SNG genre aiming at a
launch date in 2017.
It was minion Forest for Kakao is for the Dark by Adventure SNG’s
stories obtain a forest in danger with the advent of its predecessor
Dyke inherited the fun of Alice in the woods for Kakao and
minimize the stress that users can receive, SNG has enhanced the
ease of content.
The game was ranked the #1 popular game in the Google Play
Store within 3 days, and the monthly break-even point(BEP) was
achieved 2 months after the official launch in the market.
With growth in the local market, they are planning to expand
globally.
COMPANY SERVICE
70. SHIFT UP was founded by Hyoung-Tae Kim, a former AD of
NCSoft. Mr. Kim is the most well-known Korean game illustrator
for AD of ‘Blade & Soul'
Destiny Child is co-developed by Next Floor and SHIFT UP. The
game is a mobile CCG featuring vivid movement providing by
special Live2D technology. Famous musician took the charge of
background music in Destiny Child.
The game attracted 930,000 gamers in pre-registration event, and
ranked #1in top sales category of both Google Play and Apple
App Store within five days after the launch.
In about a month, it surpasses 1 million downloads.
COMPANY SERVICE
71. Indie game developer consisting of 2 people; CEO Jung-Hyeok
Shin and AD Gi-Ho Jeong. The team has unique way to combine
the fun elements into the indie-specific framework.
‘Red Bros’ is casual RPG that allows players to place and defeat a
mercenary/native force in battle with touch-friendly drag and drop
functionality.
The game officially launched in April 2017, and is currently
planning a global expansion.
COMPANY SERVICE
72. Playsnak is a Berlin, Germany / Los Angeles, California based next
generation game company focusing on mobile & VR game
development & publishing.
Led by industry veteran Paha Schulz and co-founded with diverse
industry veterans with average 15 years+ work experience from
the game & entertainment industry with collective CVs counting
Crytek, NCsoft, Electronic Arts & Nintendo, Playsnak is comprised
of veterans with massive experiences & know-how of game
publishing business & game development.
In the time of the global games industry with maturing mobile
games market & rising VR games market, Playsnak focuses on
publishing 3rd party mobile games from Asia in the Western
market and developing high-quality VR games to become a
leading next-generation game company.
COMPANY SERVICE
73. EVR Studio is JVC that was established in January 2016 as a vision
for leading global content companies in the VR field.
For synergy between Barunson E&A’s game development know-
how and FXGear’s computer graphics and video technology, the
two companies invested to establish for EVR STUDIO.
‘Project M’, currently under developed at EVR, is based on unreal
Engine 4 from Epic Games and uses VR audio solution from local
company Gaudi Audio Lab.
It is a powerful story-based VR platform game. Users are able to
communicate with various characters equipped with AI(artificial
intelligence) through communication and events, and to love in
the process.
In January of this year, the C.E.O f EVR Studio gave a lecture on
virtual reality(VR) at Taipei Game Show 2017, the largest game
exhibition in Taiwan.
COMPANY SERVICE
74. Subsidiary of Barunson ENA, a gaming company.
The Studio 8 team is led by Hyuntae Jeong, the PD that led the
development projects for ‘The War of Genesis’ and ‘Lineage 2’.
The engineering team is led by Woosik Jeong, formerly of the
‚Lineage 2‛ team. Jihoon Kim, the AD of ‚Blade and Soul‛, is the
acting AD at Studio 8 as well.
The team is currently developing a PC MMORPG game ‘Astellia’,
which will go through its CBT within the first half of 2017
(published by Nexon Corporation).
A PC MMORPG developed using the Unreal Engine 3.
Users will be prompted to collect ‘Astells’, characters themed by
the constellations. Astells will support the player in battle.
The ‘Astell’ feature makes the game unique in that the TCG
(trading card game) concept has been added to the traditional
MMORPG genre. Users will be required to think strategically while
having fun collecting cards.
COMPANY SERVICE
75.
76.
77. Family CEO Day is a monthly networking event for K Cube Ventures’ family
companies.
Executives share advice & discuss opportunities for cooperation
Contributes to Korea’s startup ecosystem as a forum for knowledge sharing
& networking
K Cube family companies have access to an innovative online & mobile
platform where they can:
Share their best practices and past experiences
Make more efficient and effective executive decisions through opinion
sharing
78. K Cube Ventures provides our family with diverse opportunities for business
collaboration through our wide network of industry experts including investors,
incubators, startups and media outlets. We also:
We also provide advice for expansion in Asia and overseas networking,
Assist with HR, PR and management issues such as tax, legal and accounting
matters
We offer numerous lectures of professionals in certain areas, willing to provide
practical information for startups. Thus we aim to form a meaningful network
which can satisfy the need of individual startups.
79.
80. is an venture capital firm founded in
April 2012 with the vision of harnessing the power of startups to
change our world.
Brian Kim, the creator of Korea’s icon of innovation, Kakao,
founded K Cube Ventures together with Jimmy Rim, known for his
investments in internet, mobile and gaming startups including
SundayToz, the maker of Anipang.
Thus far, K Cube has invested in about 90 companies and will
continue to invest in startups in categories such as data analysis
technology, social and commerce. (Between $100 thousand to
$1.5 million per startup on average.)
March 2015 Kakao acquired 100% of K Cube Ventures truly
achieving the strategic cooperation for business know-hows and
active investment.
K Cube Ventures believes that early stage startups not only need
financial support, but also experienced mentors. To this end, K
Cube Ventures assists startups in the areas of business
development, networking, team building, strategy consulting,
investment & financial affairs, HR & PR and management.
In addition, K Cube is committed to sustaining the active
networking and knowledge sharing that exist among our startups
through our unique family culture and contributing to the
development of Korea’s startup ecosystem.
81. • Current: Chairman, K Cube Ventures
Chairman, Kakao
• Previous: CEO, NHN Corporation
Founder, Hangame
• B.S. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering from
Seoul National University
• Current: CEO, Kakao
• Previous: CEO, K Cube Ventures
Principal, Softbank Ventures
Consultant, Boston Consulting Group
Strategy Manager, NHN Corporation
• B.S. in Industrial Engineering from KAIST
82. • Current: Partner, K Cube Ventures
• Previous: General Manager, Naver / Manager
of Strategy and Business Development, eBay Inc.
/ Consultant, Boston Consultant Group
• M.B.A. from University of Michigan
• B.A. in Department of French Language and
Literature/Business Administration from Yonsei
University
• Current: Partner, K Cube Ventures
• Previous: Co-Founder & Executive, Idea Works /
Associate, VirtualTek /Manager, SK
Communication / Manager, CJ Corporation
• M.A. in Graduate School of Information From
Yonsei University
• B.S. in Nuclear Engineering in from Seoul
National University
• Current: Co-CEO, K Cube Ventures
• Previous: Partner, K Cube Ventures
• Previous: CEO Staff Planning&Coordination
Team NC Soft / Executive Director, NC Soft
• M.A. & B.S in Civil Engineering from KAIST
• Current: Co-CEO, K Cube Ventures
• Previous: Partner, K Cube Ventures
Executive Director, Solmine Communications, LLC
/ investment principal, SoftBank Ventures Korea /
senior associate at CJ Venture Investment.
• B.S. in Business Administration from Sogang
University.
83. K Cube Ventures invests in internet, mobile, game and
tech startups. We believe that we can provide our best
support to startups that are in our field of expertise.
The seed stage to the growth stage. K Cube Ventures proceed
from the initial investment in startups to invest on a $1.5
million level scale.
Between $100 thousand and $1 million per startup on
average.
We not only provide financial investment, but also give
startups access to K Cube’s network and business insights. We
give assistance for needs such as recruitment, entry into
global markets, creating partnerships with large companies
and public relations.
K Cube Ventures takes a minority stake in the company
without securities or guarantees. We invest with the goal of a
venture exit through an IPO or M&A within 7-9 years.
K Cube Ventures aims to become a startup’s best friend. We
want to be the first people that a gifted entrepreneur or team
will call when they consider doing a startup. We also want to
help cultivate the Korean startup ecosystem through our active
early stage investment and our ultimate goal is to assist startups
that will create innovation on a global scale.