taxi hailing app Kakao

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...

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...

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-...

Retail Baemin, Yogiyo see record transaction drops in Feb amid Coupang's rise

South Korea’s top and third-ranked food delivery apps, Baedal Minjok (Baemin) and Yogiyo, saw their biggest-ever monthly drops in transaction ...

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...

Games Chinese games expand foothold in South Korea

Chinese games are making deep inroads into South Korea, increasing their presence in the mobile gaming market amid a lack of restrictions on foreign...

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...

Retail Coupang Eats starts food delivery service in Japan

Coupang Eats, a food delivery app operated by South Korea's No. 1 e-commerce platform Coupang Inc., launched its first overseas service in Japan.Acc...

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 Korea's No. 1 fitness app Planfit eyes bigger market beyond home in 2025

A new year has arrived, and with it come the New Year’s resolutions. However, if you are one of those who feel you've already failed to keep y...

Korean startups Language learning app Speakeasy joins ranks of unicorn startups

Speakeasy Labs Inc., a South Korea-focused language learning app operator, has joined the ranks of unicorn startups after raising $78 million at a v...

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...

Korean startups Everyone deserves a good night’s sleep: Munice CEO

Insomnia is a common clinical phenomenon in modern societies profoundly affecting many people’s health and well-being, and South Korean startu...

Korean games Cookie Run: Tower of Adventures named Google Play's Best Game

"Cookie Run: Tower of Adventures", the globally popular mobile game of South Korean game developer DevSisters Corp., was selected the Best for Googl...

Bio & Pharma Macrogen's GenTok to feature on Samsung Health app

South Korea's biotech company Macrogen, Inc. signed a supply agreement to integrate its genome analysis platform, GenTok, into the Samsung Health ap...

Retail S.Korea’s food delivery apps relish fresh boom in demand

South Korea’s online food delivery market is poised to hit record-high transactions in 2024 as lower fees triggered by Coupang Eats’ fre...

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...

Tech, Media & Telecom S-1 releases CCTV monitoring service

South Korea's security service provider S-1 Corp. said on Monday it launched CCTV Monitoring Service, a system designed to notify customers of any r...

E-commerce Naver to lead hyper-personalized shopping trends with super app

Naver Corp., South Korea's largest internet portal, will launch an AI-driven shopping app in the first half of 2025 to boost its lackluster e-commer...

Retail Lotte Mart to launch grocery shopping app

South Korea's Lotte Mart and Lotte Super will introduce a grocery-focused app, Lotte Mart Zeta, in the first half of next year to expand its digital...

IPOs South Korea’s Viva Republica drops Korean IPO plan, seeks US debut

Viva Republica Inc., a leading South Korean fintech unicorn and operator of mobile financial super app Toss, has dropped its plan to go public in th...

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&...