Korea media platform gets $12m Series C

KB Investment and K2 Investment Partners also came in as new investors. They were joined by existing backer Kakao Ventures. It follows a $5.4 million Series B in 2018 and brings total funding to date to $20 million.

Founded in 2015, Dable recommends personalized content to media, e-commerce, and other content providers such as blogs and apps. The company makes five billion recommendations to 500 million users per month, resulting in 100 million clicks per month through its platform. It claims its engineering team helped develop Korea's first product recommendation platform.

Dable covers Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The company has partnered with more than 2,500 premium media outlets and become the most used personalized recommendation platform in its home market, as well as in Indonesia and Vietnam.

Average annual sales growth has been more than 50% since the company’s inception, according to a statement. In 2020, sales reached about $27.5 million, rising 63% from the previous year and driven by expansions across Asia. Key growth markets include Taiwan, where the company is generating about $400,000 in monthly sales, two years after launching locally.

Dable plans to accelerate its international expansion with a view to servicing all Asian countries by 2024. It wants to enter Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, mainland China, Australia, and Turkey this year. The US and Europe are longer-term goals.

"Dable creates meaningful business performance by incorporating AI solutions into the media and advertising fields," Kijun Kim, a partner at Kakao Ventures, said. "It's no wonder that it doesn't stop at its success in Asia but thrives in international markets as well. It is a company whose future is highly anticipated.”

Personalized content recommendation contributes to media revenues by increasing article consumption and dwell time. The technology helps shorten information search processes and aims to promote more streamlined internet usage by providing only content users are interested in. It can also allow advertisers to expose ads on premium media sites subject to service provider partnerships.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Technology
• Media
• Expansion
• South Korea
• KB Investment
• TMT