Goldman Sachs lists Moloco CEO among exceptional entrepreneurs

Moloco Inc., a Silicon Valley-based ad-tech solution startup, said Wednesday that its co-founder and Chief Executive Ikkjin Ahn was named one of the most exceptional entrepreneurs of 2023 at Goldman Sachs’ Builders and Innovators Sumit in Healdsburg, California, in late October.

South Korean national Ahn co-founded Moloco in 2013 after building software and monetization experience at YouTube and Google. Moloco focuses on machine learning that provides digital growth and performance to app publishers and e-commerce platforms. It has offices throughout the US, the UK, Germany, Korea, China, India, Japan and Singapore.

Under the CEO’s leadership, Moloco's revenue has increased by more than five times from 2020 to 2022 and has been profitable for 13 consecutive quarters until the April-June period of this year.

The startup was valued at more than $2 billion by Fidelity Management & Research Co., Singapore-based EDBI Pte Ltd., New York-based GPI Capital L.P. and Neuberger Berman Group LLC.

“Like everyone in this year’s class, Ikkjin has been a visionary in his field, pushing forward innovation and redefining markets,” said David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Moloco is expanding its businesses in retail media and monetization for streaming media.

The company has developed Moloco Retail Media Platform, which enables e-commerce operators to customize ads to their business goals. The machine learning-powered service optimizes ad formats for each online shopping website.

Its Moloco Monetization for Streaming and over-the-top (OTT) automates media companies’ financial advertising strategy from bidding, budgeting, and targeting to creatives and performance evaluation.

Write to Jin-seok Choi at iskra@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.