US and German startups funded by Mirae Asset join ranks of unicorns

Mirae Asset Venture Investment Co. is forecast to rake in more than 400 billion won ($325 million) for its investment in Moloco Inc. 

Mirae Asset poured 13 billion won into the artificial intelligence-powered mobile ad solutions provider and expects to enjoy more than 400 billion won worth of profit from valuation. 

The venture capital arm of the Mirae Asset Financial Group has been discovering leading startups in the United States, Europe, and Asia since four years ago. 

Three startups that the VC has invested at their early stages have risen to the ranks of unicorns or private companies worth $1 billion or more. 

Moloco has a post-money valuation in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion as of Aug. 17, 2021, based on calculations by PrivCo.

The startup has raised a total of $192 million in funding over 6 rounds, according to CrunchBase. Their latest funding was raised on Aug 17, 2021 from a Series C round.

Mirae Asset Venture Investment announced Thursday it has invested 24.9 billion won in startups based outside of the peninsula in Q1 of this year. Throughout 2021, the company invested 79.3 billion won into overseas startups. 

“Overseas startups are attractive investments as their profits tend to surge once listed on Nasdaq,” a Mirae Asset employee familiar with the investments told The Korea Economic Daily. 

The venture capital arm’s revenue surged 114% on-year in 2021 to reach 274.8 billion won.

The best overseas investment made by Mirae Asset was for the Silicon Valley-based Moloco founded by Ikkjin Ahn.

Over the course of three funding rounds since 2019, Mirae Asset put in 13 billion won into the company. Moloco’s valuation jumped 41 times in the three years from Mirae’s first investment in the company till now. 

Last year, Moloco raked in 500 billion won in total sales; in which 150 billion won were in net sales. The net profit stood at 80 billion won. 

The AI solutions provider plans to get listed on Nasdaq within two years. 

IN US, EUROPE AND SOUTHEAST ASIA 

Mirae Asset also poured in an additional 10.8 billion won into San Francisco-based OnboardIQ Inc. earlier this month. Its accumulated investment into the operator of Fountain stands at 12.9 billion won. 

Fountain is a talent platform for automated hiring and recently became a unicorn. 

Germany’s MPN Marketplace Networks GmbH also grew to be a unicorn after investment from Mirae Asset. The operator of Chrono24, the online marketplace for used luxury watches, is widely expected to go public in Europe within this year. 

GameOn, which provides customer service through chatbots, also turned out to be a successful investment by Mirae Asset. 

The startup claims to partner with sports, media, and entertainment companies to launch brand-building, money-making NFT-based games. GameOn boasts exclusive contracts with the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Major League Baseball (MLB), PGA Tour, and FIFA.

Since 2019, Mirae Asset invested 15.7 billion won into the company. 

The VC arm of the Mirae Asset conglomerate is also looking to Southeast Asia for diamonds in the rough.  

Last year, it injected 9 billion won into VNG Corp., the operator of a popular messaging app in Vietnam. It poured in 3.7 billion won into India’s Raise Financial Services earlier this year. 

Write to Heo Lan at why@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.