Friday, May 30th, 2014
SEOUL, KOREA - Korea's major social commerce operator Coupang has succeeded in securing funding of US$100 million from Sequoia Capital, an American venture capital firm. The Korean company said on May 29 that it received investment from a Sequoia Capital-led consortium including Greenoaks Capital, Rose Park Advisors, and Launchtime.
Sequoia Capital, founded in 1972 in Menlo Park, California, is famous for investing in companies like Apple, Google, Cisco Systems, Oracle, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Zappos, PayPal, and Dropbox. The latest investment, according to Coupang, was based on the judgment of Sequoia Capital that Coupang would be one of the leaders of the next-generation e-commerce market.
Kim Beom-seok, Coupang president, said, "At an important juncture of the e-commerce market making an explosive growth, we are so glad to meet strong reinforcements. We will do everything in our power to take the leading position in the e-commerce market."
It was reported that the investment was the brainchild of Michael Moritz, chairman of Sequoia Capital. He said, "Coupang is a very special company in the world's e-commerce market, with big growth potential."
Launching services on August 2010, Coupang has become a giant retailer with sales revenue over 1 trillion won only within two years. It is the only company with more than 7 million users in the mobile commerce market. For 22 consecutive months since July 2012, the company tops the market in terms of user numbers.