Front office (investment) as well as middle office (global LP relationships & fundraising).

Fortunate to have returned to the seed-focused venture capital firm, now under the ownership of Kakao Corp but still with retained independence for early stage investments. The firm already have produced numerous unicorn companies by then, and with a more established team, it secured "founder's favorite" VC alongside with Altos Ventures.

Ended up backing interesting, unique companies with strong moats. Most proud of:

• Rebellions.ai
• MinervaProject.com (Minerva University)

Also was able to capitalize on growing interest of foreign LPs into the Korean market, and, have struck a hallmark partnership with a Singaporean sovereign fund whom we invited as a fund investor in 2020. This feat was no easy to achieve due to systemic differences between the two firms, and was utterly worth it.

An interesting detour of career, so to speak.

Immediately after joining K Cube Ventures in 2015, the firm went through a sudden & unexpected transition of ownership change. The chairperson sold the management company to Kakao Corp., the other big franchise he founded and controlled. And soon thereafter, the founding CEO of K Cube Ventures became the CEO of parent company. I was summoned up on a special mission because of him needing direct reports as CEO Staff member.

However, due to internal demand, hands on deck were needed for the chairperson-level initiative to incorporate a DeepMind-equivalent subsidiary called Kakao Brain Corp. to stay relevant in the AI race. This ended up being a special, one-off gig, to be the lone operator to handle all backend matters of launching the business (except HR/recruiting) for the nascent child company. For 5 months I was solely responsible as a Deputy of corporate matters, ranging from working with in-house counsels and finance team members to incorporate the subsidiary, and run all operational tasks needed until hiring of non-R&D members.

Afterwards, I transferred over to the business unit responsible for AI business (smart speaker & voice assistant platform) to work on business development efforts.

A major career pivot.

During the post-Samsung self sabbatical, stumbled upon a job opportunity at the rising micro-VC founded by the esteemed chairperson of Kakao, Brian Bum-soo Kim. Wanting to gain breath of exposure into various different industries and businesses, I considered the switch a timely and choice one. And the firm saw the technical background and experience valuable for future deep tech investments.

This transition turned out to be "pivotal" jump also made at the right time, when Korean VC/startup ecosystem was going through its Cambrian explosion. Talent and energy were flowing in, as well as capital, and proper breakout companies were coming up. 2013~2014 vintage turned out to be stellar in hindsight - and watching those then-green companies grow into what they are now is truly rewarding.

Storage software stack for Galaxy smartphones.

As a Korean national the mandatory conscription is the inevitable; luckily, being at right place and time, Samsung wanted to poach anyone who could lead or aid in the crusade against Apple. I ended up switching to the dark side because of the expat offer they sugarcoated with.

Although it was truly difficult to close the American chapter of my life after spending 10 years abroad, in the end it worked out as the best scenario for taking care of the military requirement. As part of the special quota program, I had to stay employed for 3 full years at Samsung in order to have it count as alternative service.

Storage firmware for iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Apple TV.

It was the best first gig to have out of school. The company was undergoing the famed inflection point with the advent of iPhone on top of the iPod momentum, and so the journey with industry top talent was truly something else.

Cum Laude

• Lase Innovation is commercializing laser particles (invented by Prof. Andy Yun of Harvard Medical School) small enough to be injected into living cells, for scientific barcoding purposes. Laser barcodes to be applied to Flow Cytometry, Microscopy, Single Cell Sequencing for drug & disease researchers to inspect cell or tissue samples better.

• Autonomous driving startup BlueSpace.ai was founded by founders and members of Drive.ai (acq. by Apple) to create perception software, based on 4D lidar tech, no pre-training required, for fleet vans and buses
• Chosen as 2021 NASA iTech Cycle I company
• youtube.com/watch?v=NumYBO…

• Opportunistically invested into minervaproject.com, the backend business entity for Minerva University (minerva.edu), at a later round than Benchmark Capital, ByteDance, and TAL Education

Key interview questions:
Q. 카카오벤처스는 초기 투자자 역할을 하고 있다. 초기 투자란 어떤 의미인가? / 벤처 캐피털이 정량적 지표가 없는 초기 스타트업을 대상으로 투자를 감행하려면 창업가 정신을 중점적으로 볼 수밖에 없을 것 같다.
Q. 스타트업에서 디자인에 대한 인식은 어느 정도인가? 디자이너가 공동 창업자인 소개할 만한 스타트업이 있다면?
Q. 카카오벤처스는 투자한 포트폴리오 기업을 ‘패밀리’라고 부른다. 호칭에서 투자사와 포트폴리오 관계를 넘어선 끈끈한 우정이 묻어난다. 미래의 패밀리가 될 창업가들에게 들려주고 싶은 조언이 있다면?