Home Furnishing & Interior, Commerce, and More
Joint Promotion of Online and Offline Integrated Lifestyle Platform Business
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Yuri] Hanwha Hotels & Resorts announced on the 30th that it has participated as a strategic investor in the metaverse platform Urbanbase and plans to promote an online and offline integrated lifestyle platform business that includes home furnishing & interior and commerce in collaboration with Urbanbase.
On the 23rd, Hanwha Hotels & Resorts signed an investment contract to acquire new shares of Urbanbase and stated that, as a strategic investor, it is pursuing a turnaround strategy to innovate the structure of existing businesses and develop new business portfolios such as new ventures. The company participated in the Series B+ investment round, and although the exact investment amount and shareholding ratio were not disclosed, it is known to be around 13 billion KRW. The two companies had previously signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in June to promote new business initiatives.
Urbanbase is a spatial data platform that creates and commercializes core metaverse technologies. In May, it was selected as one of the '1000 Innovative National Representative Companies' by the Financial Services Commission and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. The company explained that it highly values its proven technology and scalability in the B2B market, including '3D Interior,' which builds 95% of apartments nationwide in a virtual world to enable interior simulation; 'All-in-One Augmented Reality,' which offers preference-based AR recommendations through spatial analysis AI; and '3D Automatic Modeling,' the foundation of the mirror world metaverse.
Hanwha Hotels & Resorts plans to accelerate the establishment of a metaverse ecosystem in core business areas such as home furnishing & interior and online and offline commerce within the construction and real estate industry, starting with this investment. Beyond simply 'connecting' the capabilities and infrastructure each company possesses, the goal is to 'integrate' business that transcends face-to-face and non-face-to-face interactions, and to build a metaverse ecosystem in cooperation with Urbanbase over the mid to long term. According to global market research firm Strategy Analytics, the global metaverse market size is expected to grow from $30.7 billion (approximately 34.1 trillion KRW) this year to $280 billion (approximately 315 trillion KRW) by 2025.
Moon Seok, CEO of Hanwha Hotels & Resorts, said, "We highly evaluated the business potential because Urbanbase’s 3D automatic modeling, virtual reality, and augmented reality technologies are core technologies that can accelerate digital transformation in the real estate development-related industry." He added, "Based on this investment in Urbanbase, we will expand into various business areas such as interior, remodeling, and commerce to become a total lifestyle platform company that can provide differentiated experiences to customers."
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