4. K CUBE VENTURES FOUNDERS
ORIGINS
What is most needed in Brian Kim
Korean startup ecosystem? Chairman of board
@profound
K Cube Ventures started with this
question and realized Korea still lacks Present
early stage investment and mentorship in Chairman, KAKAO
software industry. We know early stage Chairman, PODOTREE
companies need more than money.
Past
So we founded an early stage VC in April Founder & CEO of NHN, Hangame
2012 to solve this problem. Seoul National University (BS, MS)
The firm was founded by the innovative
icon, Brian Kim, founder and chairman of
KAKAO, and Jimmy Rim, who funded
many internet, mobile, game companies
like ANIPANG and led them to a huge
Jimmy Rim
success.
Founder & CEO
K Cube Ventures usually invests KRW @jimmyrim
100M to 1B and focuses on internet,
mobile, gaming and tech companies. Past
Principal, Softbank Ventures
Also, to better support early stage Consultant, The Boston Consulting Group
companies, our firm created an unique Strategic Manager, NHN
“family culture” that promotes vigorous KAIST (BS)
networking among K Cube portfolios and
build a community of entrepreneurs who
inspire, support and educate each other.
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5. CEO’S SIGNATURE TEAM
DEALS
Historic mobile game, ANIPANG Jun Kim,
Senior Associate
kijun@kcubeventure.co.kr
• Mobile game that gained nation-wide
popularity and recorded historic performance Past
(20M+ downloads, 10M+ DAU, 3M Corporate strategy. CJ holdings (`11-`12)
concurrent users, Daily revenue 300M+ KRW) Growth strategy, SK Communications(`05-`10)
Co-founder. Ideaworks (`04-`05)
Virtualtek, SW engineer (‘99-’02)
Successful IPOs Seoul National University (BS)
• KINX (Internet Infra)
• HANTEC ENGINEERING (Energy)
• Cheoum&C (B2B E-commerce) Dongpyo Lee,
Associate
dp@kcubeventure.co.kr
Past
Successful M&A M&A department. STX(`11-`12)
• Lotiple (Realtime discount coupon service) Airforce officer (’08-’10)
Rosie Yoon,
Promising Companies
Admin team lead
• Dadam Games (game) rosie@kcubeventure.co.kr
• Doobic (game)
• NGINE studio (game) Past
• NBIZ (Online ad platform) and many others Wonik Investment Partners (`99-`12)
Hangil Banking Corporation (`92-`97)
*Deals described here are past success stories before Jimmy founded K Cube Ventures
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6. K CUBE
FAMILY
K Cube Portfolios
FROGRAMS WISHLINK
FOUNDERS FOUNDERS
CEO Taehoon Park (CS, KAIST, NEXON) CEO Minwook Kim (head of Commerce, NHN)
CTO Kyungyoon Oh (CS, KAIST, Gold medal in International Olympiad in Informatics, CTO Cheonjoo Sheo (head of engineering team at 11st, Daum shopping)
ACM-ICPC world finalist)
Choongjae Lee (CS, POSTECH, ACM-ICPC Asia finalist)
Haneul Choi (CS, POSTECH, DEFCON 3rd place)
SERVICE SERVICE
Invested KRW 800M. Utilizing personalization and automation technology, ‘Watcha!’, the Invested KRW 500M. Launched ‘KAKAO STYLE’, mobile shopping-advertisement
movie recommending service launched in August 2012 and the number of movie ratings platform and catalogic fashion service in September 2012. Currently Kakao style holds 70K
surpassed that of big portals and reached 8 million by March 2013. (Naver has 6 million, items and more than 100 e-commerce sites are registered.
Daum has 1 million movie ratings) Frograms awarded GOLD prize at ‘Global K Startup URL : wishlink.net
2012’, which was hosted by Google and Korea Communications Commission. Watcha’s
mobile application soon to be launched in May.
URL : frograms.com
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7. MVERSE GREEN MONSTER
FOUNDERS FOUNDERS
CEO Sean Joo (CS, KAIST, top graduate, consultant at Bain & company) CEO Jisoo Ha (Venture capitalist in Asia Investment)
CDO Teaeun Kim (Industrial Design, KAIST, Awarded Reddot design award) CTO Changwoo Lee (Engineering head of Thepot),
CDO Changhyun Lee(Design head of Thepot)
SERVICE SERVICE
Invested KRW 100M. Launched MNOP designs to provide best experiences in mobile Invested KRW 470M. Launched ‘Flava’, a personal life log service specialized in
commerce. (Slick UX/UI, curation, story based commerce) Started with design products, beautiful and emotional mobile UX/UI. ‘Flava’ currently has 1M+ downloads and was
preparing category expansion. picked by editors at appstore in 70+ countries.
URL : greenmon.net
URL : mverse.co.kr
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8. VINGLE KIDS NOTE
FOUNDERS FOUNDERS
Serial entrepreneur & married couple who led Viki.com to a success. CEO Jangwook Choi (Engineer, AhnLab, founded Volt before)
CEO Jiwon Moon (MA, Education, Harvard) CEO Junyoung Kim (Sales Rep, AhnLab)
COO Changsung Ho (EE, Seoul National University, Stanford MBA)
SERVICE
SERVICE
Invested KRW 300M. Launched a communication platform for nursery/kindergarten.
Invested USD 450K. Launched an interest-based social media ‘Vingle’ in 2012 and
Teachers can send child’s pictures and communicate with parents via “Kidsnote”
monthly active user surpassed 1 million. A truly global service that is gaining traction in the
application. More than 2,500 nursery/kindergarten registered. Record high retention
US, Germany, Southeast Asia etc. Android mobile app released in March 2013.
attained.
URL : vingle.net
URL : kidsnote.com
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9. FINCON BITAVE LAB
FOUNDERS FOUNDERS
Key members who developed MMORPG C9, which was awarded the GRAND PRIZE at ‘the CEO Mingook Kim (Consultant at Boston Consulting Group, Wharton MBA)
best Korean Game’ in 2009, formed a team to develop a world class mobile RPG CTO Hyuntaek Young (CS, POSTECH, Neowiz, KOSCOM)
CEO Chunggil Yu (PD ,C9) CDO Jinsung Kim (KAKAO)
Junghyun Kim (Client lead, C9) Jaeyoung Kim (Server lead, C9)
Sunghwan Kim (Character lead, C9), Kiyoung Nam (Team lead, Webzen)
SERVICE SERVICE
Invested KRW 350M. Launched its mobile RPG “Hello Hero” in February 2013 and Invested KRW 300M. Launched ‘SocialKlass’, word-of-mouth marketing platform in
created a great sensation in gaming industry thanks to its high quality. Enjoying TOP 5 in 2012. Gained market insight in social media and user interactions and will launch a new
gross revenue ranking at both markets (Google Play, Apple appstore) social based commerce service soon.
URL : fincon.co.kr URL : bitave.com
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10. NEPTUNE DRYAD
FOUNDERS FOUNDERS
CEO Wook Jung (Hangame, CEO) CEO Youngjo Seo (Daum Mobile game PD)
CTO Sanghoon Kwon (NHN Japan) CTO Seongjoo Kim (Flowgames CTO )
COO Hansang Cho (Hangame, COO) PD Jungdae Lee (Daum Mobile game PD)
SERVICE SERVICE
Invested KRW 500M. A baseball simulation game ‘Nexon Pro Baseball Master’ was Invested 500K. Dryad, a game company founded in May 2012 plans to debut its mobile
released in October 2012. Also, Neptune released a serial baseball game for Kakao in Feb game that combines RPG and TCG. Its goal is to develop a Korean TCG-type that reflects
2013. the tastes of domestic users differentiated from Japanese TCGs which are gaining
URL : neptunegames.co.kr popularity
URL : dryadgames.com
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11. DUNAMU PERFECT SUNDAY
FOUNDERS FOUNDER
CEO Cheehyung Song (Bachelor of CE/Master of Economics, Seoul National University, Serial entrepreneur who founded Bebetown and got acquired by Edutopia.
previously worked at Danal, Artpoli) CEO Shinyoung Park (Industrial Design, KAIST, Bebetown, SKT, Funji)
CEO Haeil Lee (BS/MS, Seoul National University, Designed Shinhan Global Banking System)
SERVICE SERVICE
Invested KRW 200M. Launched a news service ‘newsmate’ that analyzes popular news Invested USD 100K. Perfect Sunday is located in Silicon Valley that services
in social media and delivers it to uses. Available both as online and mobile service. ‘lovelylovely.me’, a jewelry commerce site. Plans to positively cooperate with domestic
URL : dunamu.com designers to sell Korean ingenious items globally.
URL : perfectsunday.co
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12.
13. FAMILY DAY NETWORKING KNOWLEDGE SHARING
Source Fortune Korea Online and mobile platform where K Cube Family and K Cube ventures communicate 24/7
Family day is a monthly CXO gathering among K Cube Ventures’ portfolios. Management K Cube Ventures provides an online/mobile knowledge sharing platform to our portfolios
team of K Cube portfolios share their own expertise, experience etc. and has built a where they can ask questions, share content and learn from each other, so better
trusted network. Also K Cube invites legendary figures in Korean IT industry to deliver a decisions get made faster.
speech to K Cube portfolios.
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14. BIZ DEVELOPMENT INCUBATING
FRIENDS PROGRAM
Source TYPE MAGAZINE
Having broad human network in Korea and globally, K Cube Ventures provides business K Cube Ventures also runs an incubating program to build a healthier startup ecosystem.
development opportunities to its portfolios. Selected engineers/designers can freely utilize office space and infrastructure and get
mentored by K Cube Ventures. Hackathon held regularly.
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15. K CUBE SESSION &
CONFERENCE
K Cube Ventures regularly holds open conferences to foster entrepreneurship
and share knowledge to Korean startups.
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16.
17. FAQs
1. Investment Areas 5. How we Help
We invest in internet, mobile, game and tech-based companies because we Money is the smallest part. We actively support our portfolios by providing great
believe we should invest in areas we know well to help portfolios. network, business development opportunities etc. But mostly, the biggest
advantage of being a K Cube portfolio would be being a part of K Cube Family, a
trusted network that helps each other very actively.
2. Investment Stage 6. How we Exit
We fund companies at extremely early stage (even before the company is Our fund has a relatively long life time (7-9 years) We expect our portfolios will
established) All needed is GREAT TEAM with GREAT VISION. have a chance to IPO or get acquired within that timeframe.
3. Investment Amount 7. Our Goal
Although it’s case by case, we usually fund USD 100K to 1M K Cube Ventures wants to become the first investment partner whenever an A-
class entrepreneur considers a startup. Also through our disruptive activities as a
VC, we hope we will foster entrepreneurship in Korea and bring great products,
services, technology globally.
4. What we look for
We put great emphasis on team. Also we love companies who try to solve a real
problem rather than presenting buzz words. We love pain-killer product/services.
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