이 기사는 2021년 08월 24일 08:07 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

South Korea’s Reverent Partners has participated in Seoul-based flea market app operator Danggeun Market’s 178.9 billion won ($152.4 million) Series D founding round, industry sources said on Friday.

Reverent Partners is the first homegrown private equity firm to invest in the ecommerce startup. Other investors in the funding round include Hong Kong-based investment firms DST Global and Aspex Management as well as existing venture capital backers such as Goodwater Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Altos Ventures, Kakao Ventures, Strong Ventures and Capstone Partners.

The funding round valued the startup at 3 trillion won, bringing it to unicorn status. The company’s value has increased tenfold over the past two years, from about 300 billion won in 2019, largely thanks to a sharp increase in users.

Danggeun Market, which operates local marketplace app Karrot, has grown rapidly in recent years. The company expanded the scope of its service to nationwide customers in early 2018. Its monthly average users have since increased greatly, from 500,000 in January 2018 to 14.2 million in January 2021.

“Danggeun Market is South Korea’s top hyper-local community platform with tremendous growth potential,” an official at Reverent Partners said, adding that they have closely watched Danggeun Market’s growth since the company’s early days.

Founded in July 2017, Reverent Partners mainly invests in growth companies in the technology sector, while expanding its focus to buyout deals. Its investments include semiconductor startup Fadu and big data firm IGAWorks.

Reverent Partners also acquired an 80% stake in Natural Way, a manufacturer of health supplement products, earlier this year for 75 billion won in partnership with Yonsei University. (Reporting by Se-hun Jo)