Altos Ventures announced on the 25th that "PI Corporation (PI) has secured Series A investment from Altos Ventures." This investment marks PI's first external funding round, with Altos Ventures participating solely, and the amount is approximately 4 billion KRW.
PI is a new media entertainment company founded in July 2021 by CEO Son Seongsu, a first-generation influencer with 4 million followers. Currently, PI has exclusive contracts with about 100 short-form creators and 300 live creators.
Key influencers include Yubin Kelly (7 million), Kim Hyemin (7 million), Jitto Muk (2 million), ChillLit (1.5 million), and Jung Ria Alea (5 million). The combined followers across their TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube accounts exceed 200 million.
The core business is a creator development system. PI discovers talents who have few followers or have not yet started on social networking services (SNS) and supports the production of short-form content for platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube based on their charm and interests.
Additionally, through its proprietary system, PI rapidly increases visibility by nurturing relatively promising but lesser-known emerging creators into mega celebrities with over 1 million followers. Since November last year, PI has expanded into TikTok live streaming and started cultivating about 100 streamers. Currently, among the top 10 creators in domestic live sales, including the number one creator, six belong to PI.
PI conducts various brand campaigns to enhance creators' exposure effects. Major clients include Dior, Calvin Klein, Nike, Vans, MLB, Samsung Electronics, Amorepacific, and Lotte Chilsung. PI has also achieved success in music marketing, producing over 150 music challenges such as Bruno Mars' "Young, Wild and Free" and Hwasa's "I love my body," which have collectively garnered over 10 billion views.
PI has established itself as a powerful marketing partner, with major domestic labels conducting TikTok challenges as an essential marketing tool for new artist releases. PI is also focusing on the global expansion of Korean shorts content.
Son Seongsu, CEO of PI, stated, "The short-form content market has now opened its doors. Through this investment, we plan to discover new businesses in the vast potential short-form content area, including commerce and exclusive brand launches, nurturing new media idols not seen in existing markets, and producing short-form dramas."
Oh Moonseok, partner at Altos Ventures, explained, "PI has proven its execution capability by rapidly developing emerging creators into mega celebrities and has found a successful revenue model through global music challenges and brand collaborations."
He added, "Given TikTok's rapidly increasing market share in the global digital advertising market and the shift of major SNS and commerce platforms' marketing focus from text or images to short-form video content, we expect PI to become a key player, which led us to decide on this investment."
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