Altos Ventures reaches $60m close on South Korea fund

The Korean-American VC has a long track record of investing in the country over its eight-year history. However, this is the first time it has sought to raise capital for a Korea-only vehicle.

Han Kim, general partner and founder at Altos, told AVCJ that the investor response was slow to begin with, but picked up sufficiently that the fund broke through its original target of $30 million. It was then revised to $50 million with a hard-cap of $60 million.

"Initially it was a tough but as more people became excited about the proposal, and the investments we were making, by the end the response was fantastic," Kim said.

Just under 40% of the LP base comprises Korean investors - chiefly entrepreneurs and corporates - while the balance comprises institutional investors from outside Korea, mostly the US. Morgan Stanley is understood to be the largest investor, contributing 25% of the overall corpus. Other investors include US VC Green Springs Associates, US family office Mousse Partners and South Korean retail conglomerate GS Group.

The fund, which focuses on internet start-ups, has already made nine investments. The most recent of these was Channel Breeze - a mobile search app used to locate studio apartments for rent - which received a KRW3 billion ($2.9 million) Series A round of investment in August.

The launch of the fund coincided with the opening of the Altos' Seoul office. Based in the city's Gangnam district, the office is headed by Kim who is joined by Hee-Eun Park, a new principal at the firm and the co-founder of mobile dating company IUM.

The news comes at a time where there is increased interest in Korean venture capital among US-based investors. In the past year, a number of investors have either opened offices in Seoul or otherwise sought to increase their exposure to South Korea.

Silicon Valley-based Digital Entertainment Ventures (DEV) also set up a base in Seoul under the banner of DEV Korea; 500 Startups is said to be launching a fund there (it has already publicly pledged to back more Korean start-ups in 2014); and Strong Ventures has also increased its presence in the country.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Venture
• Fundraising
• South Korea
• Venture
• Fundraising
• Altos Ventures