VNG has just invested in South Korea’s billion-dollar game startup Haegin, officially “jumping” into the Metaverse market and promoting its “go global” strategy.
In the series B funding round, Haegin has raised up to 100 billion KRW, 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’. From the very beginning, Haegin has attracted more than 8 billion Won in investments from Storm Ventures, Tencent, Bon Angels, Cona Venture Partners, Dev Sisters, etc. 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 1 year of release (from April 2021). This is a casual game that supports many mini-games, daily life experiences, character customization and housing… in a free-playing environment.
“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 also introduced variety of content through the expansion of the brand to the outside.
Currently, Haegin is developing two new mobile games related to sports and role-playing games, which are expected to be released this year. With the new investment, Haegin will actively promote its overall capabilities and expand its scale to become a global company through talent recruitment activities, improving working environment and welfare system, as well as expanding investment in the game business.
VNG’s representative said that through pouring capital into Haegin, VNG not only expands its business scope in the international market but also aims to become a global investor, especially in the field of Metaverse.
