The Power of the 2nd Venture Boom... SoBang Ventures Doubled Its Investment Amount This Year

SoftBank Ventures to Invest 550 Billion KRW This Year, Double Last Year
40% Invested in Domestic Startups Including 10 Billion KRW Bet on ‘VoyagerX’
Exit Cases Continue with ‘2 Trillion KRW Jackpot’ Hyperconnect as Representative
"Will Continue Aggressive Investment Next Year... Plans to Establish New Fund"

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Junhyung Lee] The global venture capital (VC) SoftBank Ventures' investment amount this year has more than doubled compared to last year. SoftBank Ventures invested about 40% of this year's investment amount in domestic startups. This is due to the significant expansion of the domestic startup ecosystem, fueled by the second venture boom. SoftBank Ventures plans to continue its aggressive investment stance next year by raising multiple new funds.

According to SoftBank Ventures on the 18th, the amount the company invested in startups last year was about 550 billion KRW, more than double compared to last year (about 220 billion KRW). Considering that there are ongoing investment contracts within the year, SoftBank Ventures' investment amount this year is expected to reach around 600 billion KRW.

SoftBank Ventures invested in about 50 startups newly this year. Among them, 24 are domestic startups. SoftBank Ventures invested 40% (about 220 billion KRW) of the total investment amount in domestic startups.

Nam Se-dong, CEO of AI startup 'VoyagerX' (center). [Photo by VoyagerX]

The startup that SoftBank Ventures bet the most investment amount on this year was 'VoyagerX.' VoyagerX is an artificial intelligence (AI) startup founded in 2017 by CEO Nam Se-dong, known as a 'genius developer.' CEO Nam is a developer who created Neowiz's chat service 'SayClub' and Naver's camera application (app) 'B612.' In addition, SoftBank Ventures participated in significant domestic startup investments such as the resale platform 'Cream' and Rapolabs, the operator of the 4050 women's fashion app 'Queenit.'

There were also consecutive successful exit cases. Hyperconnect, which was acquired by the US Match Group in February this year, made a '2 trillion KRW jackpot.' It is the second-largest acquisition amount for a domestic startup, following Woowa Brothers, which was acquired by Germany's Delivery Hero for 4 billion USD (about 4.75 trillion KRW) in 2019. The web novel platform 'Radish,' which SoftBank invested in last year, was acquired by Kakao Entertainment in May. The acquisition amount was about 500 billion KRW.

Danggeun Market logo. [Photo by Asia Economy DB]

The rise of portfolio companies to unicorn status (unlisted companies valued at over 1 trillion KRW) was also notable. Among the domestic and international startups SoftBank Ventures invested in this year, seven became unicorns. Carrot Market, a major portfolio company of SoftBank Ventures and a secondhand trading platform, raised 178.9 billion KRW in Series D funding in August, boosting its valuation to 3 trillion KRW. Carrot Market's valuation was 40 billion KRW when SoftBank Ventures invested 4.5 billion KRW in 2018. This means the company's valuation increased 7.5 times in just three years.

The company stated that it will continue active investments next year. A SoftBank Ventures official said, "We are currently establishing concrete plans, including forming new funds next year," adding, "The growth rate of investment amount next year could be similar to this year." The official added, "The second venture boom influenced the increase in investment amount as there are more places to invest," and "We are focusing on startups that innovate the market by responding swiftly to environmental changes such as COVID-19."

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