– Joint investment of 50 billion won to become the 3rd largest shareholder of ‘Hagin’, the developer of the global popular game ‘Play Together’
– Accelerating investment in SK Square Next platform… SK ICT family leads future business synergy
– Strengthening SKT’s ‘AI-VERSE’ business… Game content to be applied to AI service
– Based on Hagin’s global game business capabilities, cooperation to advance into the global market and joint marketing
SK Square (CEO Park Jeong-ho) and SK Telecom (CEO Yoo Young-sang) announced on the 6th that they would jointly invest 25 billion won each in Hagin (CEO Lee Young-il), a global game developer, for a total of 50 billion won.
With this investment, SK ICT family has become Hagin’s third largest shareholder and holds the largest stake* as a strategic investor (SI).
Hagin is a company established in September 2017 by Lee Young-il, the founder of Com2us, and has been solidifying its position in the domestic and overseas markets by launching a total of four games globally. It is being reborn as a unicorn company, with the existing accumulated investment attracting more than 100 billion won.
Recently, the Korean version of Roblox, ‘Play Together’, which provides about 30 real-time mini-games with metaverse elements, is creating a sensational hit with global cumulative downloads exceeding 100 million. Recently, the maximum number of daily users (DAU) exceeded 4 million.
One of the reasons for its popularity is that multiple users can connect in real time and enjoy mini-games such as running, throwing bombs, and stealing the crown, while simultaneously using various social functions such as character customization, making friends, and chatting.
In the era of Web 3.0, which advocates decentralization and a participant-centered economic system, SK Square and SKT are concentrating their business capabilities to secure leadership in the Next Platform area that will lead future innovations such as AI, metaverse, and block chain. have.
SK Square is accelerating new investments in the next platform area for financial performance and future business synergy of the SK ICT family. Accordingly, within six months of its launch, it has made rapid investments in Korbit, a virtual asset exchange, OnMind, a 3D digital human maker, and Green Labs, the largest agricultural innovation Ag-tech company in Korea.
In particular, it is spurring the establishment of a blockchain-based economic system by linking the SK ICT family’s metaverse, membership, and point services with cryptocurrency. It plans to release a cryptocurrency white paper this year and promote cryptocurrency issuance and listing.
With this investment as an opportunity, SKT plans to further strengthen the ‘AI-VERSE (AI and Metaverse)’ business by promoting close business cooperation with Hagin.
In addition, cooperation with the concept of ‘Multiverse’, which shares avatars and spaces between SKT and Hagin’s services and holds joint events, is also expected to take place. In the mid-to-long term, the possibility of linking blockchain-based virtual economic systems with each other is also open.
Based on Hagin’s global game business capabilities, SKT plans to build an advantageous infrastructure for AI services and Metaverse to advance into the global market.
Lee Hyun-ah, SKT AI&CO manager, said, “Cooperation with global game companies will be a great help in strengthening the competitiveness of SKT’s AI-VERSE service and advancing into the global market.” “We will further advance the AI service through close cooperation with Hagin.” said.
Byung-Hoon Ryu, MD (Managing Director) of SK Square, said, “With SK Square’s next platform investment, we will lead the future business synergy of the SK ICT family and secure the leadership in the Web 3.0 era. We will focus on enhancing SK Square’s shareholder value.”
