Yello Mobile is a South Korean mobile service group. The article describes the company as pursuing expansion plans and seeking to fortify its investment activities. To support those efforts, Yello Mobile raised $10 million from Macquarie Capital. The funding was provided as a convertible bond. Proceeds are intended to fuel the company's expansion plans and strengthen its investment activities. The article does not disclose operating metrics, past financing rounds, or additional investors. Yello Mobile builds and operates a large portfolio of consumer apps across five categories: Shopping, Media, AdTech, Travel and Offline-to-online, and also runs a separate Yello Financial Group. The company has grown through acquisitions (over 80 app startups) and prior fundraising (nearly $150 million). Its two most popular apps are Coocha (shopping search) and Pikicast (entertainment). Yello reported revenues in the first three quarters of 2015 up 338% year-over-year and says it has achieved profitability in key segments. The company posted operating profits in AdTech, Travel and Offline-to-online while Shopping and Media showed negative EBITDA intentionally to scale faster. Yello is pursuing geographic expansion and has entered a strategic partnership with Japan’s SBI Holdings but says it has no intention to add new verticals for the time being. Yello Mobile aggregates more than 80 acquired startups into a platform spanning shopping, digital entertainment, online marketing, data analytics and O2O services. Its two leading apps, Coocha (8 million monthly active users) and Pikicast, drive audience growth and monetization efforts. The company reported Q3 revenue of 97.5 billion won (about $82M) and expects to be EBITDA‑positive in all but its digital media segment in Q4. Management is prioritizing audience build and ad monetization at scale while focusing on integrating its acquisitions into a coherent platform. Yello plans regional expansion across Asia, targeting adjacent markets such as China and Japan before broader international expansion. The company aims to use new capital to accelerate growth of its core apps and platform services. Yello Mobile operates a diversified portfolio of mobile-focused businesses across shopping and advertising, mobile travel, O2O, and mobile content and media. The company pursues growth primarily through acquisitions and currently holds roughly 50 startups in its portfolio, including Indonesian price-comparison site PriceArea and Seoul-based clock app AlarmMon. Founded in August 2012 and based in Korea, Yello Mobile has raised a total of $176 million to date. CEO Sanghyuk Lee said the new capital will be used for additional acquisitions and marketing to expand its regional footprint. The company looks for acquisition targets throughout Asia (excluding China) and typically requires founders and shareholders to remain as employees for three to five years after acquisition unless they sell their stock back to Yello. Management has indicated plans for an initial public offering next year.

Total raised

$187M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Convertible Note

Latest activity

Nov 2016