Watcha Secures 36 Billion KRW Series D Funding Round Completed

Focusing on Enhancing Content Competitiveness... Strengthening Original Content Production and Exclusive Content

Watcha, an internet-based real-time video streaming (OTT) service, announced on the 21st that it has completed its Series D funding round and will focus on strengthening its content and infrastructure competitiveness. Following the first round of investment in July (approximately 19 billion KRW), the second round of investment worth about 17 billion KRW was recently completed. The total accumulated investment amounts to approximately 59 billion KRW.

The second round of investment included participation from Ebest Investment & Securities, LSS Private Equity, and Kakao Ventures. It also secured reinvestments from seed investors such as Kakao Ventures, Ebest Investment & Securities, Maple Investment Partners, and Neoplux. Kim Kijun, Vice President of Kakao Ventures, stated, "Watcha is the only company that has grown into a major OTT platform solely through data, technology, and operational know-how," adding, "It will demonstrate differentiated competitiveness that large corporations will find difficult to imitate easily in the future global competitive environment."

Having concluded its Series D, Watcha is concentrating its efforts on enhancing content competitiveness. It plans to produce original content and strengthen exclusive content. It is also venturing into discovering and investing in new types of content. This year, it showcased exclusive content such as 'Years & Years,' 'Why Women Kill,' and 'Mrs. America.' It also gained attention for investments that broke platform boundaries, including the YouTube content 'Ggaksanai 2' (Fake Men 2).

In October, Watcha acquired the video streaming solution company Gidsoft and is accelerating efforts to improve infrastructure and strengthen technological capabilities. A company representative said, "As the first domestic company, we now possess the technological capability to independently provide the latest video and audio technologies such as Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and HDR10+ services."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.