Led · Equity · Dec 2021

Kakao Mobility operates Kakao T, a ride-hailing app, and offers bike rental, designated driving, parking search, navigation and other mobility services. The company is developing an AI-powered mobility platform and autonomous driving technology and obtained permission in March 2020 from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to operate an autonomous vehicle pilot for five years. The firm says it will use new capital to advance its AI platform and fund autonomous driving development, and will enter logistics and last-mile delivery through a strategic partnership with GS Retail using its transportation management system (TMS). Kakao Mobility and GS Retail also plan to launch a pet taxi service next year. The company reports more than 30 million registered users and 230,000 taxi drivers on its platform. According to industry sources cited in the article, Kakao Mobility posted $237 billion in revenue in 2020 and expects to generate profits in 2022. Kakao Mobility was spun out from Kakao to run the company’s mobility services, including Kakao Taxi, Kakao Driver and Kakao Navi. The business manages Kakao Taxi, which handles about 1.5 million ride requests daily, Kakao Driver with 2.7 million monthly users, and Kakao Navi with 10 million registered users. The unit’s spin-out and leadership under newly appointed CEO Joohwan Jung are intended to enable swifter decision-making and aggressive expansion. Kakao Mobility plans to use new capital to launch a corporate Kakao Taxi service, integrate more deeply with Kakao Pay, test a drive service, roll out additional overseas expansions (including activity in Japan), and update Kakao Driver and Kakao Navi. The spin-out leverages Kakao’s larger platform, which the article says has some 50 million monthly users and is installed on over 95% of smartphones in Korea.