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Kakao Mobility Corp. is getting a $44.15 million investment from Google. The American tech company is investing by buying new shares amounting to KRW56.51 billion.
Google’s investment was revealed through Kakao Corporation’s, Kakao Mobility’s parent company, regulatory filing that was submitted on April 1, Thursday. According to Yonhap News Agency, the deal will raise S. Korea’s leading taxi-hailing firm’s total value to KRW3.35 trillion.
The deal between Google and Kakao Mobility
Based on the investment deal, Kakao Mobility will award Google a 1.69 stake in the company. Currently, its taxi-hailing service called Kakao T has 28 million users, so the investment is good.
The two companies also agreed to work together in the development and advancement of cloud-based AI technology. Moreover, they will collaborate on Kakao Mobility and Google operating systems and software.
With this team up, they are expected to face competition against newly-launched UT, a joint business by SK Telecom’s subsidiary T Map Mobility Co. and U.S.’s Uber Technologies Inc. T Map Mobility's service called T Map Taxi is the next biggest taxi-hailing service in S. Korea after Kakao T. It has 750,000 monthly active users that are being served by its 200,000 registered drivers.
Maximizing the partnership and investment
Kakao Mobility further revealed that along with Google, they would be exploring more business opportunities to maximize their joint effort. Apparently, the alliance goes further than a simple investment, but they want to jointly discover new technologies and market them in both domestic and global stages.
“Through a long-term partnership with Google, Kakao Mobility will maximize synergy to become a global key player,” The Korea Herald quoted Kakao Mobility CEO Alex Ryu, aa saying. “Kakao will also serve as a hub business helping Korean businesses with innovative services.”
Frank Lin, Google exec who heads and oversees corporate investment in Asia, said that Kakao Mobility has been providing various mobility services in South Korea and Google is happy to give its support to the company. Meanwhile, it was reported that Google would complete the investment deal by turning over the full payment by April 22.
