South Korea-based diversified internet company Daum Kakao has acquired early-stage venture capital firm K Cube Ventures for an undisclosed amount, Tech in Asia reported earlier today.
Daum Kakao is also investing a further $15m in K Cube’s fund, and will effectively use the firm as its corporate venturing arm. In December 2014, Daum Kakao set up a $91m corporate venturing division, K Venture Group, but has not yet revealed how the K Cube deal will affect that unit’s future.
K Cube will continue to operate independently. To date, it has backed approximately 40 startups, mainly in South Korea but also throughout the wider Asia Pacific region.
The firm’s investments include Qaster, a question and answer forum built on top of Twitter, film recommendation service Frograms and game developer A-33.
Internet portal Daum and instant messaging service Kakao merged in October 2014 in a transaction worth $9.4bn and in the process provided Kakao’s backers, internet companies Tencent and CyberAgent, with significant exits.
Venture capital firm DCM, which invested in the series A round alongside CyberAgent, reportedly made a return of between 20x and 30x on its investment.