Top 10 Payments Angel Investors in South Korea in May 2025
A list of 10 angel investors that invest in Payments startups based in South korea. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Payments companies from South korea. We update this investor list every month.Top 10 Payments Angel Investors in South Korea in May 2025
Investor | Payments South Korea investments |
---|---|
Pietro Dova | 2 |
David Lee | 1 |
Naval Ravikant | 1 |
Victor Wang | 1 |
David Lee | 1 |
Do Kwon | 1 |
Michael Yang | 1 |
Jay Eum | 1 |
Sunghwan Choi | 1 |
Tim Draper | 1 |
Pietro Dova was Corporate Controller and Finance Director at Google from 2001 to 2007. He was partly responsible for the Google IPO and roadshow, and directed Google’s operational and transactional accounting responsibilities worldwide. Immediately prior to joining Google, Pietro was CFO of Employeeservice.com. From 1996 to 1999, Pietrowas VP Finance of Quote.com, an early online pioneer providing financial news and stock information to active investors. Pietro began his career in technology in 1988 at Oracle Corporation and held various executive finance positions through 1992. From 1993 to 1996, Pietro headed Fulcrum Technologies’ European finance operations based in Paris, France. Pietro received his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from Imperial College, London and his Masters in Management from M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management.
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Investment focus
- Events, Ticketing, Consumer Electronics
- Series A, Seed
- United States, South Korea
Portfolio highlights
- Korbit — Korbit provides online bitcoin exchange, wallet, and merchant processor services. Kangmo Kim, Louis Jinhwa Kim, and Tony Lyu founded it on July 5, 2013, with its headquarters in Seoul in South Korea as a subsidiary of NXC as of September 26, 2017.
- Pogoseat — Pogoseat provides innovative mobile ticketing solutions that helps live-entertainment venues sell more tickets and enhance the fan experience.
- Bluesmart — Bluesmart develops Internet connected travel products that include physical products combined with software. It offers Bluesmart app, a solution that allows users to control suitcases from their phones, receive smart alerts, and track their travel data to get insights about travel habits. Bluesmart also provides digital lock solutions for luggageand its contents; battery charging and location tracking solutions; and distance alerts and trip data. Alejo Verlini, Brian Chen, Diego Saez-Gil, Martin Diz, and Tomi Pierucci founded it on Novermber 5, 2013, with its headquarters in Mountain View in California.
David was hired at Google in 2000 as one of the first 200 employees, and was the first executive to lead their international BD, sales, and operations. He launched Google’s first international ads and founded their offices in Asia, Europe and Latam. He hired the first intl. mgmt. teams, and established Google’s overseas business. After Google,David co-founded XG Ventures, a Google alumni fund and was Co-founding Partner of SK Telecom Ventures, a $100M corp. VC fund based in Silicon Valley. His personal and VC investments include over 50 companies with 20+ acquisitions such as Tapulous (acq. by Disney), Posterous (acq. by Twitter), Scoopler (acq. by Google), ABitLucky (acq. by Zynga), Chai Labs (acq. by Facebook), Cue (acq. by Apple), Kabam (acq. by Netmarble), Chartboost, Wish, and many others. David is an LP in Y Combinator and SV Angel. In 2015, he partnered with Michael Bay (Transformers, The Rock) at 451 Media, to lead their tech and media investments and partnerships. David later formed Open Source Studios, a Stanford Business School based advisory group with prof. and two time Oscar winner Bill Guttentag, to help founders of tech & media startups such as MasterClass and Illumix. David is also a Partner at B&C Group, a leading talent mgmt. & prod. co., connecting Korea, Hollywood and Silicon Valley. He currently invests in emerging tech & media companies through his venture capital fund SLVC.David is on the advisory boards of ASES (Stanford Entrepreneurship Society), and HPAIR (Harvard Project for Asian & Intl. Relations).BloombergBusinessweek
“Google’s Real Power”
flic.kr/p/7FVJgr The Hollywood Reporter:
https://bit.ly/2UEQAujDecoding Silicon Valley:
goo.gl/ZFAefzTechcrunch:
goo.gl/9q9chzTop Angel Investors:
goo.gl/4eqfbm“New Silicon Valley Stars of Korean Descent”
goo.gl/ZwFCu6"[슈퍼리치]실리콘밸리 뉴 코리안 슈퍼리치"
goo.gl/WBQOf0“스타트업 눈앞 이익만..."
goo.gl/KB78mCSina News:
bit.ly/2QaCqAc
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Investment focus
- Software, Information Technology, E-Commerce
- Seed, Series A, Angel
- United States, Japan, South Korea
Portfolio highlights
- Bolt Labs — Bolt Labs provides instant private payments for everyday purchases. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.
- Story Protocol — Powering web3 narrative universes via story legos
- The Plug Drink — The Plug Drink is made with 100% natural ingredients. Bounce-back faster than ever.
Victor Wang is a Partner at HOF Capital. He attended the University of California Berkeley.
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Investment focus
- Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, Health Care
- Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
- United States, Singapore, India
Portfolio highlights
- Heptabase — A note-taking tool for visual learning.
- Extropic AI — The next era of computing isn't dead. It's alive. More coming soon.
- Dialect — Discover the fastest, most intuitive, and safest way to trade tokens over chat
David was hired at Google in 2000 as one of the first 200 employees, and was the first executive to lead their international BD, sales, and operations. He launched Google’s first international ads and founded their offices in Asia, Europe and Latam. He hired the first intl. mgmt. teams, and established Google’s overseas business. After Google,David co-founded XG Ventures, a Google alumni fund and was Co-founding Partner of SK Telecom Ventures, a $100M corp. VC fund based in Silicon Valley. His personal and VC investments include over 50 companies with 20+ acquisitions such as Tapulous (acq. by Disney), Posterous (acq. by Twitter), Scoopler (acq. by Google), ABitLucky (acq. by Zynga), Chai Labs (acq. by Facebook), Cue (acq. by Apple), Kabam (acq. by Netmarble), Chartboost, Wish, and many others. David is an LP in Y Combinator and SV Angel. In 2015, he partnered with Michael Bay (Transformers, The Rock) at 451 Media, to lead their tech and media investments and partnerships. David later formed Open Source Studios, a Stanford Business School based advisory group with prof. and two time Oscar winner Bill Guttentag, to help founders of tech & media startups such as MasterClass and Illumix. David is also a Partner at B&C Group, a leading talent mgmt. & prod. co., connecting Korea, Hollywood and Silicon Valley. He currently invests in emerging tech & media companies through his venture capital fund SLVC.David is on the advisory boards of ASES (Stanford Entrepreneurship Society), and HPAIR (Harvard Project for Asian & Intl. Relations).BloombergBusinessweek
“Google’s Real Power”
flic.kr/p/7FVJgr The Hollywood Reporter:
https://bit.ly/2UEQAujDecoding Silicon Valley:
goo.gl/ZFAefzTechcrunch:
goo.gl/9q9chzTop Angel Investors:
goo.gl/4eqfbm“New Silicon Valley Stars of Korean Descent”
goo.gl/ZwFCu6"[슈퍼리치]실리콘밸리 뉴 코리안 슈퍼리치"
goo.gl/WBQOf0“스타트업 눈앞 이익만..."
goo.gl/KB78mCSina News:
bit.ly/2QaCqAc
Show more
Investment focus
- Software, FinTech, Health Care
- Seed, Series A, Funding Round
- United States, South Korea, United Kingdom
Portfolio highlights
- Bolt Labs — Bolt Labs provides instant private payments for everyday purchases. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.
- Story Protocol — Powering web3 narrative universes via story legos
- The Plug Drink — The Plug Drink is made with 100% natural ingredients. Bounce-back faster than ever.
Do Kwon is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Terraform Labs. Do Kwon is the Founder & CEO at Terraform Labs . Do Kwon attended Stanford University.
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Investment focus
- Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, FinTech
- Seed, Series A, Funding Round
- United States, Singapore, United Kingdom
Portfolio highlights
- KlayCity — KlayCity is a P2E virtual world where district NFT owners can govern, explore and earn while enjoying the gaming experience.
- Fractal — Fractal is an in-game asset and virtual world marketplace where users may find, purchase, and sell gaming NFTs. Fractal is headquartered in Solana, United States and was founded in 2021.
- Treehouse — Treehouse is the decentralized fixed income layer, building yield solutions and unifying on-chain interest rates through its products, tAssets and DOR.
Michael founded users. Michael and the team successfully raised $30M in venture capital investment from investors such as Brentwood, Sprout, Intel Capital, Citigroup Venture Capital, and Transcosmos Corporation. In February of 2000, mySimon was successfully acquired by CNET for $700M.Prior to mySimon.com, Michael held positions at Xerox Corp., Intergraph Corporation, TeleVideo, Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and Jazz Multimedia, Inc. Michael has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, MS degree in Computer Science from Columbia University and MBA degree from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. He has served on the advisory board of the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) at Stanford University. Michael holds a third degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
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Investment focus
- SaaS, Bitcoin, FinTech
- Seed, Series A, Series B
- South Korea, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Become — Become, Inc. provides cloud-based performance marketing and SaaS solutions that benefit online retailers, web & mobile publishers and online shoppers (Product Ads, Channel Management, Feed Optimization, Analytics and more). Become helps merchants increase sales, publishers monetize traffic and consumers make more informed shoppingdecisions. With over 500 publishers, Become operates the world’s largest syndication network for Product Ads.A truly global company, Become, Inc. generates over 70% of its revenue outside the US. With operations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Japan, and the Philippines, we leverage our growing global footprint to provide unmatched solutions to our partners and shoppers.Become, Inc. is a profitable, privately held company with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. Key investors include TPG, Transcosmos, Inc., European Founders Fund and Ron Conway.
- Korbit — Korbit provides online bitcoin exchange, wallet, and merchant processor services. Kangmo Kim, Louis Jinhwa Kim, and Tony Lyu founded it on July 5, 2013, with its headquarters in Seoul in South Korea as a subsidiary of NXC as of September 26, 2017.
Jay Eum is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner of GFT Ventures.
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Investment focus
- Software, Mobile, Analytics
- Seed, Series A, Series B
- United States, South Korea, Israel
Portfolio highlights
- boam.ai — The easy way to find your next meal. Combines your favorite review sites, restaurant platforms, and tools in one place.
- Merit — A software platform for verified digital credentials for government, organizations, people, and communities.
- Opaper — Bikin toko online dalam 2 menit! Terima pembayaran, pesan kurir semua disatu aplikasi memudahkan penjualan manualmu yang dari WhatsApp dan sosial media.
Sunghwan Choi
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Investment focus
- Software, FinTech, Financial Services
- Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
- United States, Hong Kong, South Korea
Portfolio highlights
- Jerry — Jerry simplifies the expensive, frustrating, and time-consuming aspects of car ownership.
- CHAI — CHAI is a mobile payments dApp that allows consumers to pay for items online by simply adding their bank account.
- Sequin — Sequin is building a suite of credit products for women, starting with a debit card that builds credit.
Tim Draper is the Founding Partner of Draper Associates. He attended Harvard Business School.
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Investment focus
- Software, FinTech, Financial Services
- Seed, Series A, Series B
- United States, United Kingdom, Canada
Portfolio highlights
- QurieGen — QurieGen is a biotechnology company that accelerates drug discovery and development.
- Eywa — Founded in 2021, EYWA helps Web3 projects scale up by enabling them to operate, get listed, and traded on all connected blockchain networks with a single liquidity pool. Additionally, EYWA provides a truly decentralized data protocol for secure messaging.In partnership with Curve Finance, one of the largest decentralized exchanges, EYWA isintroducing a new paradigm of non-algorithmic cross-chain assets aimed at solving the problem of liquidity fragmentation. Their cross-chain protocol stands out as the most decentralized solution in the market.- Received 6 grants from biggest L1/L2 blockchain networks including NEAR Foundation, Aurora, Harmony One, Algorand, Boba Network, and others - Winning hackathons: Ethglobal Marketmake, Polygon’s BUIDL IT hackathon, Metis hackathon
- Aetherflux — Abundant and renewable energy, delivered virtually anywhere
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