Danggeun Market, the publisher of South Korean Karrot's
hyper-local community app, announced it has raised $ 162 million in a $ 2.7
billion Series D funding round. (By the way, Dangeun means carrot in Korean).
This funding round was spearheaded by DST Global with
additional contributions from Aspex Management, Reverent Partners, and existing
investors such as Goodwater Capital, Altos Ventures, SoftBank Ventures Asia,
Kakao Ventures, Strong Ventures, and Capstone Partners.
The latest funding has officially turned Danggeun Market
into a unicorn, raising a total of $ 205 million.
The company plans to leverage its local commerce
capabilities with Danggeun Pay or Karrot Pay scheduled to launch later this year and Danggeun's Karrot platform enables approximately 300,000 local SME
partners to go digital by offering offline services. online (O2O). Danggeun
Market consumers have access to everything from delivering fresh local produce
to basic services including cleaning, education, real estate brokerage, and
used cars in their local communities.
The proceeds from the funding for the new round will be used
to further global expansion, business diversification, R&D, investment in
advanced artificial intelligence, and talent recruitment and equitable learning
technologies.
“Danggeun Market plans to focus on accelerating further
expansion of the overseas market within the next two years after the close of
Series D funding, and in South Korea, we will diversify our business with an ongoing goal,” founder and co-CEO Gary Kim said in an exclusive conversation
with TechCrunch.
Danger Market, which is short for “your neighborhood market”,
was founded by Gary Kim and Paul Kim in 2015.
Danggeun Market also plans to launch its Karrot Pay payment
service, expand offline to online (O2O) service for South Korean SMEs using the
Karrot platform, and invest in advanced artificial intelligence and personal
learning development on its Swiss platform so that users can stay ... -
continued Kim.
Danggeun Market is expected to receive approval from South
Korea's Financial Supervision Service (FSS) for two licenses, such as Payment
Gateway Operator (PG) and Payment Media Operator, from September to launch
Danggeun prepaid payment service this year. Market, Karrot Pay. - said, Kim.
Danggeun Market, which has already launched its global
version of the Karrot hyperlocal community app in the UK. As of November 2019,
the Karrot app is currently running in 72 local communities in four countries:
UK, USA, Canada, and Japan.
“We are seeing several active deals in Manchester,
Birmingham and Toronto,” Kim said. Danggeun Market launched Karrot in Canada
and the US in September and October 2020, respectively. It opened in Japan in
February 2021, according to Kim.
When asked about the next location of the overseas market,
"Dangyn Market will not indicate a specific market this time." We'll
tweak our overseas penetration strategy a bit by launching the Karrot app
globally and tracking organically growing countries, then reducing the number
of countries to increase the number in specific cities.
The company will continue to search for high-density areas
in overseas markets and will maintain a distance limit, a unique feature of
Danggeun that only displays lists of people from Denta de Vended desire, most
miles (approximately 15 km) throughout the United Kingdom. for the provision of
public works in a super-located place.
Gary Kim said the next round depends on the growth of its
global expansion. According to Kim, if her global business works well and
Karrot attracts more users around the world and achieves active MAUs and
transactions set by the company, Danggeun Market will definitely attract
additional funding in two years time. “We are in no hurry with an IPO at this
stage, as we can now raise enough capital in the private market. We want to
consider going public after a stable profit, ”Kim said.
Danggeun Market now claims to have more than 21 million
registered users (South Korea has just 20.92 million households) and has seen
more than 300% year-on-year growth since 2018.
The company reached 1.8 million monthly active users (MAU)
in 2019, 4.8 million MAU in 2020 and finally increased to 14.2 million MAU in
2021, tripling every year over the past three years old. According to the
global app analytics platform App Annie, Danggeun Market users spend an average
of two hours and two minutes per month on an app.
“In recent years, Danggeun Market has demonstrated
overwhelming dominance in the Korean C2C market ... with unique user behavior
from location-based communities, Danggeun Market continues to deliver superior
performance,” said DST Investment Management supernatural manager John
Lindfors.
“COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of people wanting
to connect with their neighbors and society. When meeting a friend over coffee
can no longer be taken for granted, we realize the importance of our
relationship and community. The Danggeun Market service connects the online and
offline world, enhancing both personal and purely digital interactions. The
core of Danggeun Market's growth is its end-to-end digital platform, which
allows consumers to truly feel part of their communities, as well as to feel
part of a larger network that can grow and be a managing partner of Goodwater.
Capital, Eric Kim said.
