Ahn Cheol-soo: "AhnLab Invested in Metaverse 10 Years Ago and Earned Over 1200 Times"

US Game Company 'Roblox' Private Company Era Investment
"If the National Pension had invested in companies like this, concerns about depletion would have been less"

Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate of the People’s Party, is attending and speaking at the 4th Central Election Countermeasures Committee meeting held on the 13th in the 9th conference room of the National Assembly Members' Office Building in Yeouido, Seoul. / Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Juhyung] Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate of the People’s Party, revealed on the 13th that 'AhnLab,' a vaccine software company he founded, invested in an overseas metaverse platform and earned a huge profit. Ahn criticized, "If the National Pension Service had invested in companies like this, concerns about pension depletion would have been greatly reduced."

At the party’s election campaign committee meeting held at the National Assembly that day, Ahn said, "Ten years ago, in 2011, a U.S. company was seeking investors, and when I looked into it, the company was creating a metaverse gaming platform. Through a venture capital fund, I invested about 20 million won in that company."

He continued, "Now, ten years later, the stock price of that company, which was invested at 9 cents (about 106 won) per share at the time, closed at $115.89 (about 135,600 won) last Friday (the 10th)," emphasizing, "It has risen more than 1,287 times in ten years."

He added, "The 20 million won turned into 25 billion won. The name of that company is Roblox, the most searched word by Korean people on Google this year."

Regarding the profit close to 25 billion won, he said, "Since it was AhnLab, not an individual, that invested, the entire amount belongs to AhnLab," but also argued, "If the National Pension Service, which had 348.9 trillion won in reserves 10 years ago, had invested even just 1 trillion won, which is 0.286% of its reserves, in companies like this, concerns would have been greatly reduced."

He stated, "I shared this to emphasize how important leadership and politics are in reading the times and the future," and urged, "Citizens, please compare the candidates’ insight, willingness to innovate, and implementation strategies."

Roblox logo and game characters / Photo by Roblox Facebook capture

Meanwhile, the metaverse platform 'Roblox' mentioned by Representative Ahn is an online game first released in 2006.

The developer, 'Roblox Corporation,' was a private company developing the platform with venture capital funding but went public on the U.S. Nasdaq stock market last March.

At the time of the IPO, the reference price was set at $45 (about 53,000 won) per share, but after about nine months, it is currently trading around $115. The stock price has more than doubled in less than a year.

According to Roblox Corporation, 55% of U.S. youths under 16 are registered users of Roblox, and the average daily active users approach 40 million, making it a leading player in the metaverse industry.

Roblox also ranked first in the '2021 Domestic and Global Search Rankings' released by Google, the world’s largest search engine, this year.

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