Kakao Corp

Kakao is a mobile lifestyle platform company with services spanning messaging, mail, search, news, advertising, gaming, e-commerce, music, maps and more. Its content platform offers a diverse array of content that can be enjoyed by users of all interest range. Daum News offers tens of thousands of news articles from top news outlets every day, and Story Funding, the country’s first crowdfunding service, is building a healthy platform for new information in hand with users. Kakao Music, Kakao Page, Daum Webtoon and more, enrich user's daily lives enabling users to easily share and enjoy music, cartoons, novels and more.

Kakao Game is a mobile gaming platform that allows users to compete with friends on their social graph. Its popularity has resulted in explosive growths for the Korean mobile gaming industry while establishing mobile games as a mainstream phenomenon.

The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Jeju, South Korea.

Funding Rounds

Number of Funding Rounds

Total Funding Amount

6

$1.20B ₩500B

Kakao Corp has raised a total of $1.20B ₩500B in funding over 2 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Mar 19, 2020 from a Post-IPO Equity round.

Announced Date	Round	Money Raised	Number of Investors	Lead Investors	Post Valuation
Mar 19, 2020	Post-IPO Equity	$170M	1	Anchor Equity Partners	—	Detail
Jan 22, 2018	Post-IPO Equity	$1B	—	—	—	Detail
Jun 30, 2017	Post-IPO Equity	₩500B	1	TPG	—	Detail
Mar 3, 2014	Post-IPO Equity	$10M	1	Berjaya	—	Detail
Aug 29, 2011	Post-IPO Equity	$20M	5	—	—	Detail

Investments

Number of Investments

Number of Lead Investments

11

6

Kakao Corp has made 11 investments. Their most recent investment was on Oct 20, 2021, when Superplastic raised $20M.

Date Company Name	Round	Money Raised	Industry	Lead Investor
Oct 20, 2021 Superplastic	Series A	$20M	Animation	—
Jul 16, 2021 Neubility	Seed	$2.50M	Courier Service	Yes
Mar 21, 2019 Tidesquare	Corporate Round	₩34.70B	Travel	Yes
May 10, 2018 Kakao Japan	Corporate Round	₩79.90B	Apps	Yes
Dec 27, 2017 Dunamu	Series C	₩13B	Blockchain	—

Investors

Number of Lead Investors

Number of Investors

3

8

Kakao Corp is funded by 8 investors. Anchor Equity Partners and TPG are the most recent investors.

Investor Name	Lead Investor	Funding Round
Anchor Equity Partners	Yes	Post-IPO Equity
TPG	Yes	Post-IPO Equity
Berjaya	Yes	Post-IPO Equity
CyberAgent	—	Post-IPO Equity
DCM Ventures	—	Post-IPO Equity
Korea Investment Partners	—	Post-IPO Equity
Maverick Ventures	—	Post-IPO Equity
Wemade	—	Post-IPO Equity

Employee Profiles

Number of Employee Profiles

12

Kakao Corp has 12 current employee profiles, including Executive Joh Su-yong

Executive

Executive

Executive

Board member

Board member

Exits

Kakao Corp has had 1 exits. Kakao Corp most notable exits include Tapas Media

Date	Company Name	Exit Type	Industry
May 10, 2021	Tapas Media	M&A	Comics	Detail

Acquisition

Kakao Corp has acquired 11 organizations. Their most recent acquisition was Lotiple on Nov 19, 2011. They acquired Lotiple for 0.

Date Company Name	Industry	Acquisition Type	Price
Nov 19, 2011 Lotiple	E-Commerce	acquisition	—	Detail
Jun 4, 2012 Thinkreals	Computer	acquisition	—	Detail
Jul 30, 2012 ISEEYOU Co., Ltd.	Computer	acquisition	—	Detail
May 26, 2014 Daum Communications	Email	acquisition	—	Detail
Sep 15, 2014 Seoul Bus Mobile	Mobile Apps	—	—	Detail