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Coupang attracts $ 100 million from Sequoia Capital

Posted May. 30, 2014 04:00,   

한국어

Coupang, a Korean social e-commerce company, has raised 100 million U.S. dollars in a round of financing led by Sequoia Capital. According to the company on Thursday, the investment led by Sequoia Chairman Mike Moritz involves renowned U.S.-based investors such as Greenoaks Capital Management, Rose Rose Park`s Disruptive Innovation Fund and LaunchTime.

Sequoia Capital is an investment company in Silicon Valley, which invested in many global companies such as Apple, Google, Cisco, Oracle, Yahoo, YouTube, and Dropbox. It invested in Apple in 1978, and bought stakes in Yahoo and Google in the 1990s when there was a boom in Internet search engines. As a result, people got to believe that “the companies that Sequoia Capital picks for investment always succeed.”

It is the first time that the company made a major investment in Korea since it has invested mainly in China in the Asia Pacific region .

Coupang says that the investment has recognized the growth potential of the Korean online and mobile commerce market globally. The e-commerce company has achieved one trillion won (982 million dollars) in annual transaction volume in two years since its service in August 2010. “I’m very pleased to have a great partner, Sequoia Capital, at an important time when Coupang is growing fast by changing the paradigm of e-commerce with a creative innovation,” Coupang CEO Kim Bom said, adding, “With this investment, I will develop a strategic business so that we can gain an upper hand in the fast growing market.”

It is noteworthy that this investment has been led by Mike Moritz himself. Moritz said, “It`s rare to find an entrepreneur like Bom Kim, who has blended the freshest innovations in e-commerce with the exceptionally fertile needs of the South Korean market.”

It is the second time that a foreign investor courted a Korean social e-commerce provider. Groupon, the largest social e-commerce provider in the U.S., took over Ticket Monster in November last year. Foreign investors seem to invest in such Korean companies as social commerce market is fast growing in Korea, which has advanced online and mobile commerce and can be fostered as a bridgehead to other Asian markets.