Must It Secures 10 Billion KRW Investment from Kakao Investment

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] Online luxury commerce MustIt announced on the 31st that it has secured a bridge round investment worth 13 billion KRW from Kakao Investment and K2 Investment Partners. This comes about nine months after raising 15 billion KRW in a Series A round last July. The total accumulated investment amount has reached 28 billion KRW.

Kakao Investment valued MustIt at 230 billion KRW in this bridge round and made a strategic investment of 10 billion KRW. K2 Investment Partners followed up with an additional 3 billion KRW investment, continuing from their Series A participation.

MustIt has recorded an average annual growth rate of over 80% and is the only company in the online luxury commerce sector to have posted profits for 10 consecutive years. Last year, it achieved an annual transaction volume exceeding 250 billion KRW, securing the top market share position. In March of this year, it surpassed its highest-ever monthly transaction volume of 29 billion KRW.

Through this investment, MustIt plans to explore building a partnership with Kakao and seek cooperation between the two companies. As a leading luxury vertical platform, it aims to improve customer experience within the online luxury market and widen the gap with latecomers. To this end, it will allocate resources to technology development for service advancement, marketing, and talent recruitment, and provide enhanced big data and digital-based services such as improved product search and filtering functions and personalized product recommendations to enhance customer experience.

Kim Taek-hoon, Vice President of Kakao Investment, said, "MustIt has proven overwhelming performance over a long period through an effective marketplace business model. We decided to invest because it is a platform that simultaneously possesses the core commerce strengths of price and product competitiveness."

Cho Yong-min, CEO of MustIt, stated, "This investment is a recognition of MustIt's value and achievements, which have focused on qualitative growth by enhancing customer experience so far. Taking this opportunity, we will explore innovative service development plans to create customer synergy through partnership with Kakao and contribute to leading the development of the online luxury industry as a market-leading company."

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