VNG has just invested in Korea’s billion-dollar game startup Haegin, officially “jumping” into the Metaverse market and promoting its “go global” strategy.
On March 28, VNG announced an investment in startup Haegin. In the series B funding round, Haegin has raised up to 100 billion won, equivalent to 81 million USD, officially joining the ranks of “unicorn” companies in Korea.
In addition to existing investors such as Bon Angels Venture Partners and Storm Ventures, Haegin also received capital from Kakao Games, Nepture, Netmarble, KDB Industrial Bank, Lotte Ventures, NetEase and VNG in this round.
Founded in 2017, Haegin is the first mobile game company listed on KOSDAQ (Korea). Haegin CEO Lee Young-il is the co-founder of Comus, the “father” of world-famous games such as ‘Summer’s War: Arena of the sky’, ‘Golf Star’, ‘Fishing’, ‘Home Run Battle’ and ‘Combus Professional Baseball’.
In the first rounds, Haegin has attracted more than 8 billion Won of investment from Storm Ventures, Tencent, Bon Angels, Cona Venture Partners, Dev Sisters,… as well as the participation of leading experts in the Game field.
From this platform, Haegin has launched to the world a series of multi-genre games such as ‘Home Run Clash’, ‘Overdogs’, ‘Extreme Golf’, and ‘Play Together’. These most successful titles alone contribute to more than 90% of the company’s total users and global revenue.
Notably, the metaverse game ‘Play Together’ has reached 80 million global downloads and 4 million daily users (DAU) in less than a year of release (from April 2021). In Vietnam, this game has also caused a trend during a long period of social distancing, the player groups have hundreds of thousands of members from all over the country.
‘Play Together’ also attracted the attention of the global metaverse market when signing strategic MOUs with major partners such as IPX (formerly Line Friends), Genie Music, Daehong Planning, and Dot Mill, and introduced diverse content through the expansion of the brand to the outside.
With the new investment, Haegin will boost its overall capacity and scale to become a global company through its talent recruitment activities, improvement of the working environment and benefits system, as well as expanding investment in the game business.
A representative of VNG said that by pouring capital into Haegin, VNG aims to become a global investor in the Metaverse field, in addition to expanding its business in the international market.
“More than the goal of becoming the number 1 competitive metaverse platform in the market, we will do our best to pioneer the realization of the metaverse world in a more interesting way,” added Mr. Lee Young-il.
@ Vietnambiz
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Source: Vietnam Insider