Business Canvas, a Korea-based document management SaaS company, closes $2.5M seed round

Business Canvas, a South Korean document management SaaS company behind Typed, announced today it has raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Mirae Asset Venture Investment, with participation from Kakao Ventures and Nextrans Inc. The seed round will be used for accelerating product development and global launch of open beta for its AI-powered document […]

Epic Games asks Apple to reinstate Fortnite in South Korea after new law

Epic Games has asked Apple to rejoin its Fortnite developer account in South Korea as the U.S. game maker plans to re-release Fortnite on iOS in South Korea, offering both Epic and Apple payments side-by-side, it said in a tweet. Epic has asked Apple to restore our Fortnite developer account. Epic intends to re-release Fortnite […]

Driven by livestreams, consumer spending in social apps to hit $17.2B in 2025

The livestreaming boom is driving a significant uptick in the creator economy, as a new forecast estimates consumers will spend $6.78 billion in social apps in 2021. That figure will grow to $17.2 billion annually by 2025, according to data from mobile data firm App Annie, which notes the upward trend represents a five-year compound […]

H2O Hospitality secures $30M Series C to expedite hotel digital transformation

The pandemic has triggered more demand for contactless and staff-less operations in the hospitality sector, and now H2O Hospitality, the unmanned hotel management company, has closed a $30 million round on the back of that boost. The South Korea and Japan-based startup automates front and backend processes including accommodation reservation, room management and front desk […]

Korean 3D spatial data tool startup Urbanbase closes $11.1M Series B+ round

Urbanbase, a Seoul-based company that develops a 3D spatial data platform for interior planning and design, announced today it has raised $11.1 million (13 billion won) in a Series B+ round as it scales up. This round of funding was led by Hanwha Hotel & Resort, which is a subsidiary of South Korean conglomerate Hanwha […]

Apple lowers commissions on in-app purchases for news publishers who participate in Apple News

Apple today is launching a new program that will allow subscription news organizations that participate in the Apple News app and meet certain requirements to lower their commission rate to 15% on qualifying in-app purchases taking place inside their apps on the App Store. Typically, Apple’s model for subscription-based apps involves a standard 30% commission […]

Final vote delayed for Korea’s plan to ban Google and Apple in-app payment rules

As Apple and Google continue to face increasing scrutiny over the rules they set for how third-party apps in their app stores charge for services, a significant development in that story is going down in South Korea. South Korea’s parliamentary committee passed on Wednesday (25 August) a landmark bill to prevent Google and Apple from […]

This Week in Apps: OnlyFans bans sexual content, SharePlay delayed, TikTok questioned over biometric data collection

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices […]

South Korean online secondhand marketplace Danggeun Market raises $162M at a $2.7B valuation

Danggeun Market, the publisher of South Korea’s hyperlocal community app Karrot, announced it has raised $162 million in a Series D round of funding with a valuation of $2.7 billion. (By the way, Danggeun means carrot in Korean.) This round of funding was led by DST Global, with additional participation from Aspex Management, Reverent Partners […]