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Mergers & Acquisitions Mubadala, Goldman Sachs to invest $700 mn in Kakao Mobility

United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co. and Goldman Sachs are set to invest a combined $700 million in Kakao Mobil...

Earnings KakaoBank posts record Q1 profit, eyes Thai expansion after Indonesia

KakaoBank Corp., a leading South Korean internet-only bank, posted its highest quarterly profit in the first quarter, defying a drop in interest inc...

Markets Kakao shares sink on SK Telecom’s stake sell-off news

Kakao Corp. shares underperformed its peers and the broad market on Friday after SK Telecom Co. sold off its entire stake in the South Korean platfo...

Corporate strategy Dongwon Industries to delist wholly owned Dongwon F&B

Dongwon Industries Co., the holding company of South Korea’s seafood-to-logistics Dongwon Group, will delist its canned tuna-manufacturing sub...

Korean stock market NPS pours $3.9 bn to buttress Korean stock market

South Korea’s National Pension Service, the country’s largest institutional investor, has come to the rescue of the domestic stock marke...

Entertainment Kakao Entertainment scraps IPO, seeks new buyer

Kakao Corp., South Korea’s largest mobile platform, is looking to sell a majority stake in Kakao Entertainment Corp., dropping a plan to take ...

Entertainment Kakao Entertainment sheds loss-making units, revives IPO prospects

Kakao Entertainment Corp. has been divesting unprofitable music labels and digital content platforms, which it has gobbled up over the past few year...

Bio & Pharma ABL Bio lands $2.8 billion license-out deal with GSK

ABL Bio Inc., a South Korean biotech company, will license out its proprietary blood-brain barrier shuttle platform, called the Grabody-B, to UK-bas...

Mergers & Acquisitions VIG taps KDB financing to buy 40% stake in Kakao Mobility

South Korea’s private equity firm VIG Partners’ buyout of minority stakes in Kakao Mobility Corp., the nation’s most popular taxi-...

Leadership & Management Kakao founder Kim to resign as control tower chair

Kakao Corp. founder Kim Beom-soo, also known as Brian Kim, will step down as chairman of the South Korean tech giant’s top decision-making bod...

Korean Investors Samsung to invest $10 million in US-based C2N Diagnostics

Samsung Group companies will jointly invest $10 million in C2N Diagnostics LLC, a U.S.-based company specializing in blood-based Alzheimer’s d...

Electronics LG Electronics deepens ties with US startup Apex.AI

LG Electronics Inc. has invested in Apex.AI, a US-based startup developing safety-certified software designed to accelerate the transition of softwa...

Artificial intelligence Kakao set to announce AI partnership with OpenAI

Kakao Corp., South Korea’s dominant mobile platform, is expected to unveil a business partnership with OpenAI to incorporate the technology of...

IPOs Korean B2B fintech firm Dozn plans Kosdaq IPO for $202.5 mn market cap

South Korea’s business-to-business fintech service provider Dozn is planning an initial public offering on the Kosdaq in February for an estim...

Robotics Koh Young gets OK from FDA for brain surgery robot

Koh Young Technology Inc., a South Korean developer of 3D optical inspection devices used in electronics manufacturing, said on Monday it got 501K...

Webtoons Piccoma tops consumer spending ranking in Japan

Kakao Piccoma, a Japanese digital comics app subsidiary of South Korean mobile giant Kakao Corp., topped the consumer spending ranking in the Japane...

Korean startups TALOS dives deeper into brain aneurysm icebergs

 A single neurosurgeon dedicates his or her entire professional career to performing surgeries on an average of fewer than 10,000 patients with...

Korean stock market Korean stocks diverge: Winners, losers of Yoon’s martial law debacle

South Korean stocks showed clear divergences on Wednesday amid a mixed market outlook as President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law declaration, re...

Entertainment SM's UK K-pop group Dear Alice to debut with Gamma

South Korea's SM Entertainment Co. partnered with the US-based music label "Gamma." to globally debut its first British K-Pop boy group Dear Alice.A...

Logistics Kakao Mobility, Samyang Logistics partner on fulfillment services

Kakao Mobility Corp., South Korea’s most popular ride-hailing app operator, said on Monday that it partnered with logistics firm Samyang Logis...

Future mobility Self-driving tech startup RideFlux raises $1.9 mn in Series B

RideFlux Inc., a South Korean autonomous driving technology startup, raised 26 billion won ($1.9 million) in a Series B funding round about four mon...

Future mobility Kakao Mobility to launch outdoor robot delivery

Kakao Mobility Corp., South Korea’s largest taxi-hailing app operator, said on Monday that it signed a business agreement with Robotis, a comp...

Webtoons Instagram poised to crack Korean webcomics market

Big tech has begun its encroachment on the South Korean webcomics market, largely dominated by local players over the past two decades, fanning fear...

Artificial intelligence Kakao to launch AI messenger service Kanana in H1 2025

South Korea’s platform giant Kakao Corp. will roll out Kanana, a conversational AI agent-integrated messenger app, in the first half of next y...

Future mobility Kakao Mobility, Samsung C&T to co-work on robot, parking solutions

Kakao Mobility Corp., South Korea’s largest taxi-hailing app operator, announced on Friday that it signed a business agreement with Samsung C&...

Banking & Finance Liner raises $20 mn in Series B funding

South Korean AI search startup Liner said on Friday it raised 270 billion won ($200 million) in a Series B funding round led by Atinum Investment an...

Regulations FTC fines Kakao Mobility $55 mn for alleged unfair taxi-hailing service

South Korea’s antitrust body has fined Kakao Mobility Corp., the country’s largest taxi-hailing app operator, 72.4 billion won ($54.9 mi...

Korean startups Near Brain gives hope to millions of stroke patients worldwide

Strokes are the second leading cause of death and the third leading cause of disabilities globally, according to the World Health Organization.To fi...

Robotics CJ Logistics, Aidin Robotics to co-develop logistics robots

South Korea’s CJ Logistics and Aidin Robotics recently signed a memorandum of understanding to co-develop and commercialize logistics robots.U...

Artificial intelligence OpenResearch gets $7.5 mn seed round

OpenResearch, an AI search service founded by former Kakao Brain CEO Kim Il-Doo, said on Thursday that it got a seed round 10 billion won ($7.5 mill...