Altos, Mirae join $85m round for Korea sneaker trading platform
Kream, a Korea-based sneaker reselling business controlled by domestic internet giant Naver, has announced plans to raise KRW 170bn (USD 84m) from Altos Ventures, Mirae Asset, and its parent company.
A total of 35,707 preferred shares will be issued to Altos and Mirae Asset at a price of KRW 3.36m per share, according to a filing. Altos has committed KRW 100bn to pick up four-fifths of the external offering. Naver will subscribe to 14,877 common shares at the same price.
Naver launched Kream in 2020 with an initial capital contribution of KRW 70bn. Altos and SoftBank Ventures Asia participated in a KRW 20bn Series A in March 2021 and re-upped in a KRW 100bn Series B seven months later, joined by Mirae Asset, AVCJ Research’s records show.
Kream originally sat within Snow, which has since evolved into a laboratory for developing new user experiences based on Naver’s mobile artificial reality (AR) camera and accompanying photo and video messenger app. Other Snow spinouts to receive VC funding include metaverse platform Naver Z, which raised KRW 223.6bn late last year.
Korean media reported earlier this year that Kream had 4 million monthly active users, of which 85% were millennials in their 20s and 30s members of generation Z. The company facilitates sneaker trades between third-party users, offering daily special deals as well as a smart trading platform that tracks all transactions and enables users to predict prices much like they would stocks.
Last year, Kream acquired rival reseller community Nike Mania for KRW 8bn. Its major domestic competitor is Musinsa.
The global resale market for limited edition sneakers is said to be growing steadily, with Cowen & Company, a US-based boutique investment bank, estimating it would be worth USD 6bn by 2025.
Other investment activity in this space in Asia includes a Series D for Japan’s Soda, operator of reseller platform Snkr Dunk, last December. The round, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, valued the business at JPY 38bn (then USD 336m).
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