South Korea's Yello wants to be No 1 in Asia

Having reached unicorn status, Yello Digital Marketing aims to expand further, particularly in Southeast Asia, reports Tech in Asia

Yello Digital Marketing has a plan. The Korean-headquartered digital marketing start-up has been making headlines for a couple of years now, mainly through its aggressive acquisitions across Asia. Since it was founded in 2012, it has grabbed majority stakes in over 80 start-ups, mainly in the shopping, media, adtech, travel, and online-to-offline (O2O) categories.

A $100 million investment in late 2014 from Silicon Valley-based fund Formation 8 at a $1 billion valuation gave the company unicorn status. Earlier this month, it was announced the company has raised an additional $47.2 million from existing investor Formation 8 at a $4 billion valuation.
 

“[South Korea’s] digital industry has matured quite fast compared to its market size,” YDM CEO David (Sang-hyuk) Lee tells Tech in Asia. “The industry has always thought about how it can expand outside of our market, not just recently but for a while.” And when it comes to expanding, David says, the company saw two options; Southeast Asia or Northeast Asia.
 

The company chose to focus on the former. While Southeast Asia’s market is a lot more uncertain than its Northeast counterpart, the latter is much more mature as a market, and therefore less attractive in terms of opportunity. “What we are looking for is three years from now,” David says. “What is most important for us, more than making money, is whether we can be leading this industry in this region.”
 

The five Southeast Asian markets YDM chose to focus on – Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam – are home to early-stage companies that are starting to prove their business model and building local expertise and knowledge.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.