• About & Contact Us
  • SEO Community

Ulancer.com

    • Latest Stories

      What is new?

    • Meet the startups that pitched at EF’s 10th Demo Day in London

      September 27, 2018

    • Rally Rd., the app that lets you invest in classic cars, raises $7M Series A

      September 27, 2018

  • News
  • How to’s
  • Writing
  • Startups
  • Jobs
  • More
    • CMS Tools
    • APPS
    • Web Resources
      • Advertising
      • Firefox
      • Scripts
      • Tools

Chat app Kakao’s games business lands $130M from Tencent and others ahead of IPO

  • by Ulancer Contributor
  • In News
  • — 15 Feb, 2018


Korea’s dominant messaging firm Kakao is back raising funds after its games business, a standalone unit that is headed for an IPO, pulled in $130 million (140 billion KRW) from Tencent and a range of other strategic investors.

The company, which owns Korea’s top mobile messaging app and one of the country’s largest internet portals, operates a sprawl of business that include taxi-hailing, deliveries, comics, payments and more. It has adopted the spin-out approach favored by Chinese tech firms for a number of these entities, with Kakao Taxi — for example — raising more than $400 million from outside investors last year.

Recently, Kakao itself completed a placement in Singapore which netted the parent firm $1 billion for international growth, and now it is the turn of its games business.

Kakao Games pulled the capital in from Tencent — the $500 billion Chinese tech giant that was an early backer of Kakao itself — via two subsidiaries and Korea’s Netmarble Games, which is backed by Tencent. Other that participated in the round include game development studio Actozsoft, Bluehole Studio — the producer behind PlayerUnknown’s hit game ‘Battlegrounds’ and an existing Kakao Games partner — and M&A fund Premier Growth.

The focus appears to be international growth, as the company had explained in a media interview last month. To date, Kakao Games has helped Korean developers take their games overseas, but it is looking at other opportunities including M&A, according to comments from the head of its business in Asia.

Representatives from Kakao did not reply to a request for further comment.

Kakao span out the games business last year and, speaking at the time, it said it planned to list the unit this year. There are also plans for its Japan-based anime business, among others, to go public. The central Kakao business will then operate as a holding firm that presides over a range of other independent units.

Featured Image: Jon Russell/Flickr


News source

You might also like...

  • Amazon shipped over 5 billion items with Prime in 2017 2 Jan, 2018
  • FCC gets ready to kick off $2 billion rural broadband fund 3 Feb, 2018
  • Photoslurp bags $870k for its ‘shop the look’ UGC marketing platform 6 Nov, 2017
  • Meural raises $5 million and brings Canvas to over 100 stores 16 Nov, 2017
  • Previous story Fujifilm’s X-H1 camera adds top video chops to X Series still shooting prowess
  • Next story Data can only get you so far before your human ingenuity needs to kick in
  • RSS
    Receive Freebies & Latest Posts Directly To Your Email - it's Free!

    • Recent Posts
    • Most Popular
    • Comments
    • 7hrCggmJ-AMMeet the startups that pitched at EF’s 10th Demo Day in LondonSeptember 27, 2018
    • oNo38LV2tQIRally Rd., the app that lets you invest in classic cars, raises $7M Series ASeptember 27, 2018
    • Nearby.gifBerkanan is a Bluetooth-powered group messaging appSeptember 27, 2018
    • 2122.pngVinay Gupta to talk about Mattereum at Disrupt BerlinSeptember 27, 2018
    • slider_wp_03Best collection of WordPress Slider PluginsJuly 5, 2010
    • Joomla template builderTop 8 Free Joomla Template GeneratorsJuly 19, 2011
    • 40+ Best WordPress Plugins for Comments40+ Best WordPress Plugins for CommentsJune 18, 2011
    • wptheme2A Collection of Free WordPress ThemesJuly 11, 2010
    • Jason Hall on:Circle launches its stablecoin
    • Jason Hall on:Circle launches its stablecoin
    • Bharat Sarkari Naukri on:Spotify acquires online music studio Soundtrap as it goes after creators
    • PMP on:Online learning platform Unacademy gets $21M Series C from Sequoia India, SAIF and Nexus
  • Staff Picks

    • slider_wp_03Best collection of WordPress Slider PluginsJuly 5, 2010
    • Joomla template builderTop 8 Free Joomla Template GeneratorsJuly 19, 2011
    • 40+ Best WordPress Plugins for Comments40+ Best WordPress Plugins for CommentsJune 18, 2011
  • Recent Posts

    • Meet the startups that pitched at EF’s 10th Demo Day in London
    • Rally Rd., the app that lets you invest in classic cars, raises $7M Series A
  • Search Our Blog

  • Ulancer is an insightful freelance blog and resource site. We provide intuitive articles that cover Photoshop tutorials, time-saving management tips covering a broad range of topics. We also have an active freelance community forum, there you can meet other freelancers that share your common interest, socialize and chat about freelance trending news as the occurred.

© Copyright 2013 Ulancer.