Innovative Startups Seeking Talent from 'Nekarakubae' Alumni

AI, E-commerce, and Edutech Startups Secure Talent from IT Giant Companies

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] The competition to secure talent in South Korea's rapidly growing startup sector, fueled by the second venture boom, is accelerating.

According to industry sources on the 27th, innovative startups across various sectors are recruiting highly skilled professionals with strong individual capabilities and extensive project experience to secure growth engines that will lead market changes.

Notably, movements of personnel from the symbolic 'Naver, Kakao, Line, Coupang, Baedal Minjok' (Ne-Ka-Ra-Ku-Bae) companies in the IT industry are drawing attention. These individuals are moving to promising startups in diverse fields such as intellectual property (IP), e-commerce, distribution logistics, store management, and edutech, fully leveraging their expertise.

MarkVision Welcomes Director of Development Seunghyun Lim from Kakao and Product Director Minkyoung Kim from Coupang

AI company MarkVision recently welcomed Seunghyun Lim, Director of Development from Kakao, and Minkyoung Kim, Product Director from Coupang.

Director Lim graduated from KAIST with a degree in Computer Science and has held key roles in system design, technology development, and product-related technical tasks at leading domestic companies such as Kakao, KTH, and TmaxSoft. Having played a pivotal role in building Kakao's business platform, Lim now leads the entire process of platform development and advancement at MarkVision, including AI model development and improvement for counterfeit product detection and automated reporting, as well as designing data pipeline infrastructure.

Product Director Kim graduated from Wellesley College and Harvard Graduate School of Education, successfully leading numerous projects at global companies such as Google and Radish. She served as Senior Product Owner at Coupang. At MarkVision, Kim plays a central role in discovering customer needs, designing testing processes, and building stable infrastructure to develop an innovative IP protection platform.

Meanwhile, MarkVision currently operates an AI monitoring service that automates counterfeit product detection and removal reporting across over 100 e-commerce sites in 26 countries, securing numerous well-known domestic and international brands such as Ralph Lauren Korea, Gentle Monster, and Lezhin Comics as clients.

Market Kurly Establishes CTO Position, Recruits Former Kakao Executive Hyungkyu Ryu as CTO

Market Kurly's operator, Kurly, has strengthened its development capabilities by recruiting former Kakao technology executive Hyungkyu Ryu as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

CTO Ryu previously worked at NCSOFT and was responsible for cloud-related tasks at Kakao. At Market Kurly, he is known to oversee technology development. Previously, Market Kurly did not have a separate CTO position and managed development at the leadership level, but this recruitment has established a C-level executive in the relevant field.

Additionally, Market Kurly has expanded its total number of developers from about 90 earlier this year to around 180 recently, aiming to enhance logistics and data infrastructure as well as improve customers' app experience and usability to boost platform competitiveness.

Small Business Store Solution Startup Spoqa Recruits Former Baedal Minjok PO Jihyun Cho

Spoqa is accelerating digital innovation in the domestic food ingredient market by appointing Jihyun Cho, a platform planning expert who successfully led various projects at Baedal Minjok, as head of the 'Dodo Cart' team.

Cho, who majored in Computer Engineering, began his career as a developer at Hyosung FMS, progressing through payment service development and external project management to become a veteran planner encompassing planning and technical consulting. He later served as a platform planner at Baedal Minjok, head of the Baemin order payment planning team, new business planning lead, and offline operations team leader for Baemin Order (now Packaging Order), becoming a top expert in planning and development. He is also credited with creating the well-known Packaging Order service at Baedal Minjok. Recognized for these achievements, Cho was recruited as PO for Spoqa's Dodo Cart, contributing to a 300% growth in service-registered stores and a 250% increase in monthly transaction volume, earning high praise for his performance.

Meanwhile, alongside new talent recruitment, Spoqa recently officially launched the ingredient supplier search feature in its food cost management app 'Dodo Cart' and is focusing on expanding restaurant owners' choices and fostering a transparent distribution ecosystem through customized agricultural product supplier connection services for each store.

Mesh Korea Recruits SCM Strategy Expert Byungjun Choi, Formerly of Coupang and Woowa Brothers

Mesh Korea, operator of 'Vroong,' has established an Operations Headquarters and appointed Byungjun Choi as its head. Choi has 24 years of experience as a supply chain management (SCM) strategy expert at leading domestic and international companies including Coupang, Woowa Brothers, and Tesco.

Choi began his career at Samsung C&T and led the domestic introduction of advanced logistics projects while at Homeplus. At Lotte Shopping, he served as head of SCM at Lotte Mart, introducing automated forecasting and ordering systems that contributed to company-wide logistics operation improvements. Later, as SCM head at Coupang, he helped improve operational efficiency at key logistics hubs, the fulfillment centers (FCs), and increased the success rate of Rocket Delivery through sales forecasting.

Mesh Korea plans to strengthen logistics infrastructure and secure stability through the Operations Headquarters to increase business profitability. Furthermore, through this organizational restructuring and strategic personnel appointments, the company intends to aggressively expand logistics hubs while focusing on systematization and efficiency of operations.

Masspresso Welcomes Former Line Executive Chaeseon Jang as CBO, Accelerating Leap to Personalized Education Platform

Masspresso, which operates the AI-based math problem search service 'Qanda,' has strengthened its team by recruiting Chaeseon Jang, former Chief Business Officer (CBO) at Line.

CBO Jang graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and, after working at SoftBank Ventures Asia, oversaw business development and partnerships at Line Thailand. She also served as Vice President (VP) of Global Business Development at Line Pay, COO of the camera app 'Retrica,' and VP of the blockchain-based social network platform 'Maro' (formerly TTC Protocol). Currently, at Masspresso, Jang focuses on expanding domestic and overseas markets and developing business models.

Masspresso is advancing beyond problem search services toward becoming a personalized education platform by enhancing Qanda's learning recommendation algorithms. In addition to Jang, the company is recruiting senior personnel from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kakao, and NHN through large-scale experienced hiring.