Altos, Mirae Asset re-up Korea's Kream in $39m round
Altos Ventures and Mirae Asset Capital have each made their third investment in the past 18 months in Korean e-commerce player Kream, with the latest round amounting to KRW 50.6bn (USD 38.8m).
The investment was structured as an issuance of convertible shares and led by Samsung Group, which contributed about KRW 25bn, according to a filing. Mirae Asset invested KRW 11.8bn, while Altos put in KRW 4.8bn. Axiom Asia also participated, investing KRW 3.5bn.
Last November, Altos and Mirae Asset committed KRW 170bn alongside Kream’s parent company, Korean internet giant Naver. That round, a Series C, also featured US-based Moore Strategic Ventures.
In October 2021, Altos and Mirae Asset were joined by Softbank Ventures Korea (now SoftBank Ventures Asia) in a KRW 100bn Series B. Altos and SoftBank Ventures provided a KRW 20bn Series A earlier that year.
Kream was launched by Naver’s Snow innovation unit in 2020 with an initial capital contribution of KRW 70bn and a focus on the second-hand trading of limited edition sneakers. Shoes and streetwear remain core to the offering, but this has since diversified into luxury goods, home appliances, and gadgets.
Korean media reported last year that Kream had 4m monthly active users, of which 85% were in their 20s and 30s. The company acquired rival reseller community Nike Mania for KRW 8bn in 2021. Its major domestic competitor is Musinsa, which raised KRW 330bn from Sequoia Capital and IMM Investment across two rounds in 2019 and 2021.
Streetwear is recognised as a discrete niche that plays well in private equity. Activity in recent years includes CVC Capital Partners acquiring Japan’s A Bathing Ape and The Carlyle Group selling US skateboarding brand Supreme in 2020 for USD 2.1bn.
SoftBank Vision Fund 2 made a Series D investment of undisclosed size in Japan’s Soda, operator of the shoe reselling platform Snkr Dunk in late 2021, valuing the company at about USD 336m.
Altos, SoftBank Ventures, and Kream have all made investments in Soda, which is the dominant operator of its kind in Japan. Local VC firms Base Partners, Colopl Next, and The Guild are also backers.
Kream is an investor in Singapore-based electronics marketplace Reeblo, having backed a USD 20m Series A tranche alongside Moore Strategic Ventures last year. Reeblo extended the Series A earlier this week with a USD 29m commitment also featuring Moore.
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