Acquires 35% Stake
SK Square, which was split off from SK Telecom, has chosen blockchain and metaverse-related companies as its first investment targets.
SK Square announced on Nov. 29 that it has invested about 90 billion won in Korbit, a Korean virtual currency exchange, to acquire a 35 percent stake in it. As a result, SK Square has become the second-largest shareholder after NXC, Korbit’s largest shareholder.
Korbit started a Bitcoin-Korean won transaction service for the first time in Korea in 2013 and was acquired by NXC in 2017. It is currently an affiliate of Nexon, one of the largest game companies in Korea.
SK Square intends to link Korbits non-fungible token (NFT) trading market and Metaverse exchange “Korbit Town” with its own metaverse platform “Ifland.”
SK Square also invested 8 billion won in On Mind, a 3D digital human production company affiliated with Kakao, to acquire a 40 percent stake. On Mind is an unlisted company established in April 2020 and was incorporated as a subsidiary of Neptune under Kakao Games in November of the same year. SK Square plans to create more realistic Ifland avatars or produce more realistic virtual influencers through its investment in On Mind.