Mirae Asset joins $260 mn funding for food delivery startup Jokr

Mirae Asset Global Investment Co., South Korea’s leading asset manager, has participated in a $260 million Series B funding for Jokr, a New York-based grocery delivery startup that operates in the US, Latin America and Europe.

The Korean asset manager made the investment via its US affiliate. Alongside Mirae Asset, Activant Capital, Balderton, GGV Capital, Greycroft, G-Squared, HV Capital, Kaszek, Monashees, Moving Capital and Tiger Global participated in the Series B funding. In July, GGV Capital, Balderton and Tiger Global led the US startup’s Series A funding of $170 million.

Founded in March of this year, Jokr is led by food delivery service giant Foodpanda founder Ralf Wenzel. The startup’s corporate value soared to $1.2 billion through the Series B funding.

Mirae Asset Financial Group has been actively investing in overseas startups in recent years. In March 2018, Mirae Asset Securities Co. and Korea's top online platform operator Naver Corp. formed the Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, which had a combined commitment of 1 trillion won as of July 2018, and invested $150 million in Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab Holdings Inc. Toyota Motor led the total $2 billion investment round with participation from OppenheimerFunds, Ping An Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Macquarie Capital at the time.

In July of this year, through the joint venture-capital fund, Mirae Asset Group participated in a $145 million fundraising by Indian social media service Sharechat, which has more than 160 million monthly active users.

In April, the group and global home appliance giant LG Electronics Inc. launched a 100 billion won ($84.7 million) JV-capital fund to support promising startups. At the time, LG said it and Mirae will each inject 50 billion won into the fund to be managed by Mirae Asset Capital Co. over the next 10 years.  

Write to Jun-Ho Cha at chacha@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.