South Korean financial super app Toss closes $405M Series G as valuation rises 7%

1 month ago TechCrunch

Indeed, unlike global fintech companies, including Klarna, Stripe, and Checkout.com, which have seen their valuations cut fairly dramatically in 2022, Viva Republica boosted its valuation again. Chief operating officer of Viva Republica Hyunwoo Seo told TechCrunch “profitability” is key now and is as significant as growth, particularly in these extremely tough market conditions. Founded by dentist-turned-entrepreneur Seung-gun Lee, CEO of Viva Republica, the company started as a money-transfer app, Toss, in 2015. Regarding its international growth strategy, Viva Republica could make equity investments in global companies, including Southeast Asia, following entering Vietnam in 2019. Viva Republica with Toss Securities, Toss Payments and Toss Insurance is expected to post about 1 trillion won ($ 767 million) in revenue next year, according to the company.
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SoftBank-backed on-demand laundry startup Laundrygo picks up $37M Series C

Mom-and-pop stores and franchises — mostly offline — account for about 95% of the laundry market in South Korea, according to Laundrygo CEO Sung-woo Cho. It occurred to him that “ordering and delivering laundry service via an app could be safer than I thought if even a thief doesn’t want to have laundry,” including, he imagined, laundry placed in front of a customer’s house. Laundrygo currently runs three main businesses: laundry pickup and delivery service via the app (Laundrygo), a B2B laundry service for hotels (Laundrygo Business) and the laundromat service (Laundry24). The startup also operates a clothes alteration service, LaundryX, and has built its AI-powered laundry screening system, which automatically sorts laundry. Last year, for example, Laundrygo acquired A+ Machinery, the U.S.-based laundry solution company, to enter into the smart factory business.

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Akros Technologies, an AI-powered asset management platform, raises funding from Z Holdings

However, asset management is still in the nascent stage of digitization, according to the chief strategy officer and co-founder of Akros Technologies, Jin Chung. Akros Technologies wants to disrupt the current asset management industry via its AI-driven asset management software platform that mines market data for stocks. The outfit is already in discussions with potential partners to expand its AI-powered product called portfolio management as a service, or PMaaS, an all-in-one operating system for portfolio management. The startup claims that its AI-powered portfolio management platform can reduce “the overall cost structure [of] the traditional fund development,” including management fees and unnecessary fees involved in the investment process, by more than 80%. Before co-founding Akros, Gim had more than nine years of experience in the asset management industry; Chung did research work for Bayesian deep learning in autonomous driving cars at Oxford Robotics Institute.

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P2P lending platform PeopleFund raises $20M Series C extension led by Bain Capital

Apart from the capital, PeopleFund also secured $240 million in debt financing in 2022 from Goldman Sachs, CLSA Lending Ark Asia and Bain Capital. In 2021, PeopleFund raised $63.4 million (75.9 billion won) in equity for Series C, also led by Bain Capital, to further develop its credit-scoring system. That means the outfit’s requirement capital is around $1.5 million to $2.4 million, according to the industry sources and local media. Meanwhile, the Korean consumer lending market has undergone a dramatic transition into the mobile sphere, with big players like KakaoPay and Toss leading the change. The Seoul-based P2P lending startup, founded in 2015, successfully closed its extension.

10 days ago TechCrunch

South Korean financial super app Toss closes $405M Series G as valuation rises 7%

More News On "TechCrunch"

SoftBank-backed on-demand laundry startup Laundrygo picks up $37M Series C

Akros Technologies, an AI-powered asset management platform, raises funding from Z Holdings

P2P lending platform PeopleFund raises $20M Series C extension led by Bain Capital

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