Kakao Affiliates KEP and DK Tech Plan Merger in March This Year

Kakao Enterprise is set to merge KEP, which was spun off as a physical division, with system integration (SI) affiliate DK Techin.

According to industry sources on the 8th, Kakao plans to merge KEP into DK Techin in March.

DK Techin, which was spun off as a subsidiary from Kakao in 2015, is responsible for IT and system integration (SI) tasks within the group.

KEP is a company that was physically divided from Kakao Enterprise in January this year with a capital of 100 million KRW, operating voice AI assistant Hey Kakao, work collaboration tool Kakao Oak, chatbot services, and more. It was separated from Kakao Enterprise, which spun off from Kakao's first company-in-company (CIC), AI Lab, at the end of 2019. Kakao Enterprise recorded losses and downsized non-core businesses excluding the cloud sector, leading to the spin-off.

Kakao Enterprise and DK Techin have played a key role in the internal work transfer structure for Kakao's IT-related B2B (business-to-business) transactions. They have been evaluated as contributing to the growth of the group. Analysts suggest that once this merger is completed, KEP and DK Techin will make Kakao's internal transactions and work allocation much smoother.