Deal focus: VCs dine on Korea's MangoPlate

Mukbang - a portmanteau derived from the Korean words for eating and broadcasting - is essentially people making videos of themselves eating meals for others to watch online. The hobby, popular among young Koreans, is part of a broader trend that has helped drive massive growth in the restaurant industry. And it is one that MangoPlate, a restaurant review platform which recently won VC backing, is trying to tap.

"We found dining out is actually a pretty humongous market, worth $70-80 billion a year," explains Joon Oh, CEO and co-founder of MangoPlate. "It is a massive market and no one is really taking advantage of it."

This sense of an unexploited opportunity was no doubt shared by Qualcomm Ventures, SoftBank Ventures Korea, and Yahoo Japan's YJ Capital, which together agreed to invest $6.1 million in the company last week. James Kwon, a director at Qualcomm Ventures, says part of this growing obsession can be put down to increasing internationalization in the country.

"Every year about a half a million young people go abroad to study where they experience diverse food and culture. When they come back they look for that diversity in Korea," he says. "So search and discovery platforms like MangoPlate are becoming a very important part of this trend."

The platform started out as a labor of love when the four founders put together a spreadsheet of their favorite eateries. At the time the only source of restaurant reviews was Wingspoon, a platform offered by web portal giant Naver, and food blogs. The former was shut down - a result of government pressure on large conglomerates like Naver to trim their operations - and the latter were known for being little more than paid advertising.

"The list started out with 50 restaurants but we kept adding to it and more people got involved," says Oh. "By the time we got to 2,000 restaurants we said, ‘Why don't we just create an app for it?'"

No longer a spreadsheet, the new platform allows users to provide reviews and photos of their restaurant visits, and also analyzes restaurant data, individual preferences and social networks in order to make better restaurant recommendations.

The company now claims to have around 40% of Korea's restaurants covered, and aims to double that to around 80% within the next year by focusing on customer acquisition, better features, and expanding coverage into new territory.

"Accumulating users and accumulating information on restaurants is the top priority for us," says Oh. "We now have very good coverage in Seoul, but our coverage outside of the capital - in cities like Busan - is not as good, so we will look to grow there."

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Consumer
• Expansion
• Venture
• GPs
• South Korea
• Qualcomm Ventures
• SOFTBANK Ventures Korea
• YJ Capital
• Consumer
• TMT
• Technology