Stronger Together

 

According to industry sources, an increasing number of Korean companies are making startup investment focusing on the correlation with their business rather than profitability. 

For example, the K-Venture Group, which was established in February this year by Daum Kakao Chairman Kim Beom-soo, is concentrating on the acquisition of IT startups. Game company 4:30 is also accelerating its investment in fledgling game developers. Yellow Mobile, which is running its mobile business in the five fields of shopping, ads and digital marketing, media, digital content and tourism and O2O, has taken over approximately 60 firms since 2014. They have the common traits that their startup investments have the purpose of creating synergy in their business. The same trend is shown in startups’ activities for external investment attraction.

Industry experts attribute the changing trend to those companies’ experience through which they have learned that finding an investment partner that can provide the synergy is more helpful. 

Venture capital companies are changing the direction of their investment in accordance with this trend as well. For instance, about 60 percent of Bon Angels’ 25 investment projects that started last year or this year are based on joint investment. Also, Softbank Ventures has shifted the focus of its venture investment from individual to joint investment. At present, about half of its investment projects adopt the latter.

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