BankSalad Raises 40 Billion KRW Investment... Reattempts Unicorn Status

Raised 40 Billion KRW Investment from SKS MyData
Series D Completed... Raised 30 Billion KRW More Than Expected
"To Be Used for Discovering New Growth Engines and Improving Performance"

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] BankSalad, a specialized company in MyData (personal credit information management), has secured an investment of approximately 40 billion KRW. Attention is focused on whether it will regain its reputation as a leading domestic fintech company seeking new growth opportunities and ascend to unicorn status (a privately held startup valued at over 1 trillion KRW).

According to industry sources on the 16th, BankSalad held a board meeting the day before and finalized an investment of a total of 40 billion KRW from SKS MyData LLC and Shinhan SKS Corporate Financial Stability Private Investment Partnership. Accordingly, 113,047 convertible preferred shares will be issued through a third-party allotment. The issue price is 353,835 KRW per share. This completes the Series D investment round that has been ongoing since last year. A BankSalad representative explained, "In this round, we raised 135 billion KRW, exceeding the initial target of 100 billion KRW," adding, "The funds will be utilized in various ways to support company growth."

With this, BankSalad has received a total investment of 100 billion KRW from SKS MyData over three rounds in this funding phase alone. SKS MyData and Shinhan SKS Corporate Financial Stability are private investment partnerships established by SKS Private Equity, a private fund management company of SK Securities. They are reportedly set up mainly for specialized investments in MyData companies. Additionally, KT (25 billion KRW) and Kia (10 billion KRW) had also decided early on to invest in BankSalad.

BankSalad plans to use the newly secured funds to discover new growth engines and expand sales. The area of recent focus is digital healthcare. Since the end of last year, it has been providing free genetic testing to enable personalized health management using customers' genetic information (DNA). The exchange of data related to subscription products and insurance premiums with life insurance companies such as Samsung Life is also interpreted as a strategic move with digital healthcare in mind.

Previously, BankSalad started in 2017 as a household ledger application and expanded its asset management services based on expenditure analysis, earning recognition for setting the direction of the domestic MyData business. However, as the government-led MyData business gained momentum, various financial companies launched similar asset management services, making it difficult to secure competitiveness in the simple asset management market. It is challenging to guarantee growth solely through the card and loan product recommendation business based on user expenditure analysis, which accounts for over 70% of sales.

In fact, last year's performance was somewhat sluggish. According to the 2021 audit report registered in the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system, BankSalad recorded an operating loss of 42 billion KRW last year. This is more than 1.5 times the deficit of 27.4 billion KRW from the previous year. During the same period, sales decreased by about 16%, from 4.1 billion KRW to 3.4 billion KRW. This is attributed to increased costs such as building the standard application programming interface (API) infrastructure for the MyData business, labor costs, and advertising expenses.

Going forward, BankSalad will secure new growth drivers with this investment while also having the opportunity to reorganize its financial situation through cost efficiencies achieved via the API infrastructure it has built so far. An industry insider said, "Since BankSalad proposed the direction of the MyData business based on asset management early on, its recognition and potential are significant," adding, "The investment community is closely watching BankSalad's future moves."