South Korean startups hope Ably’s latest fundraising serves as momentum to revive the prolonged investment slump, industry sources said.“It is significant for a local startup to become a unicorn with a corporate value estimated at 3 trillion won by global investors when the industry has been suffering from the sustained funding winter since last year,” said a venture industry source.“I hope the deal will vitalize the sluggish startup industry overall.”TO EXPAND GLOBAL SALESAbly is set to increase sales of South Korean fashion items in the world’s markets as the terms of the investment contract included support for the expansion of local sellers on the platform into overseas markets such as Southeast Asia and North America.
Further details such as spending values and names of each investor were not available, although Alibaba discussed a purchase of a 5% stake in Ably for about 100 billion won with the startup in April.“The investment round will be concluded next month,” said an investment bank source.“Ably’s corporate value was estimated at 3 trillion won ($2.2 billion) in the process as far as I know.”Ably became the first unicorn, or a startup valued at $1 billion or more, this year in South Korea with the deal.
Ably secured monthly active users (MAU) of 8.33 million last month, becoming the No.1 fashion e-commerce platform in South Korea, with the industry’s first algorithm for artificial intelligence personalized recommendations it developed and the industry’s largest user data of more than 2.5 billion, according to data from app analytics firm Wiseapp·Retail·Goods.
The story "Korean fashion platform Ably to raise $144 mn from Alibaba, others" has 488 words across 17 sentences, which will take approximately 3 - 5 minutes for the average person to read.
Which news outlet covered this story?
The story "Korean fashion platform Ably to raise $144 mn from Alibaba, others" was covered 2 days ago by Korea Economic Daily, a news publisher based in South Korea.
How trustworthy is 'Korea Economic Daily' news outlet?
Korea Economic Daily is a fully independent (privately-owned) news outlet established in 1964 that covers mostly economy news.
The outlet is headquartered in South Korea and publishes an average of 14 news stories per day.
It's most recent story was published 6 hours ago.
What do people currently think of this news story?
The sentiment for this story is currently Positive, indicating that people regard this as "good news".
How do I report this news for inaccuracy?
You can report an inaccurate news publication to us via our contact page. Please also include the news #ID number and the URL to this story.
