[Exclusive] 'Seohak Ants' Essential Platform' Investing to Raise 57.6 Billion KRW Investment in Korea

Seeking $40 Million Investment
Becoming an Essential Platform for 'Seohak Ants'
Discussing Collaboration with Korean Securities Firms

Screenshot of Investing.com Korea official Facebook account.

The world's largest financial information platform, Investing.com, has begun raising investment funds in South Korea. It is also expected to pursue collaboration with domestic securities firms that are competing to attract individual overseas investors beyond simple investments.

According to the financial investment industry on the 18th, Investing.com is currently raising $40 million (approximately 57.6 billion KRW) in South Korea. IDC Holdings, which owns Investing.com, is issuing new Class A convertible preferred shares at a pre-investment corporate valuation of $250 million (approximately 360 billion KRW). Investors are being recruited from both individuals and institutional investors.

Along with fundraising, Investing.com is considering various collaborations with domestic securities firms to expand its business in Korea. As part of cooperation with Korean companies before an initial public offering (IPO), it plans to promote pre-IPO equity investments. Securities firms such as Mirae Asset Securities and Toss Securities have shown interest. A financial investment industry official explained, "As demand for overseas market investments such as the U.S. stock market is rapidly increasing among domestic individual investors, various collaborative synergies can be expected. Domestic securities firms are focusing on attracting 'Seohak Ants' to the extent of competing to lower management fees for overseas investment exchange-traded funds (ETFs), so they could not help but be interested in the scalability of Investing.com."

Investing.com is one of the world's largest financial information platforms alongside Bloomberg and Reuters. Since its establishment in 2007, it has provided information on over 300,000 financial products including stocks, futures, options, various economic indicators, and schedules. As of last year, it offers services in 196 countries in 23 languages, including Korean. It has an average monthly unique visitor count of 75 million and 50 million registered members. The estimated monthly active users (MAU) in South Korea alone range from 1.8 million to 2 million. Based on this, it has expanded various advertising businesses, increasing revenue by an average of 23% annually.

In particular, the number of paid subscribers is rapidly increasing. Right after COVID-19 in 2021, there were only 54,000 paid subscribers, but this grew 3.5 times to 193,000 last year. It is projected that by 2028, the number of paid subscribers will reach 1.1 million. This is the background that domestic securities firms, fiercely competing to capture 'Seohak Ants,' are eyeing.

In fact, individual investors disappointed with the domestic stock market are increasingly showing interest in overseas stock markets. According to data received by Rep. Lim Kwang-hyun of the Democratic Party from the National Tax Service, the foreign tax credits refunded by the National Tax Service for overseas investment funds last year amounted to 213.4 billion KRW, a 30.52% increase compared to the previous year. Although it was only 70.7 billion KRW in 2017, it has grown at an average annual rate of 17.1% over the past seven years. Until now, taxes on overseas investments have been prepaid by the National Tax Service to foreign authorities and then refunded to individual investors. As the scale of individual investors' overseas investments increases, the taxes prepaid by the National Tax Service also increase. Additionally, as individual investors' overseas investments grow, brokerage commission revenues have surged, and the number of domestic securities firms with operating profits exceeding 1 trillion KRW has increased to five. This contrasts with last year when there was not a single firm in that category.