Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Toss operator Viva Republica's pre-IPO valuation rises to W20 tril.
Lee Seung-gun, CEO and founder of Viva Republica, speaks during a press conference in March 2019. Yonhap
By Anna J. Park
By Anna J. Park
Toss operator Viva Republica plans to attract pre-IPO investments early next year and the financial company is expected to see its corporate valuation rise to 20 trillion won ($16.7 billion).
Given that the company was valued at an estimated eight trillion won in its previous investment round in June of this year, Viva Republica's financial worth more than doubled in just six months.
In June, Viva Republica attracted about 460 billion won in Series G investments from Korea Development Bank (KDB), as well as a few venture capital firms, including Alkeon Capital Management, Altos Ventures and Greyhound Capital. KDB invested about 100 billion won, the largest portion, in the Series G round.
It remains to be seen just how much money the financial company will be able to attract in this Series H round or in the de-facto pre-IPO round of investments. But the company aims to spend the raised capital to strengthen its IT infrastructure and recruit new workers.
Founded in 2015 by dentist-turned-CEO Lee Seung-gun, Viva Republica started Toss, a mobile-based payment service. Toss expanded into the brokerage and banking sectors by launching Toss Securities and Toss Bank in February and October of this year. The company also advanced into the mobility business by acquiring a 60-percent stake in Tada ― a startup operated by VCNC ― from SOCAR in October.
Viva Republica is currently the largest shareholder of Toss Bank, with a 34-percent stake as of the end of last year. The company also holds a 100-percent stake in Toss Insurance, Toss Securities and Toss Payments, as well as Viva Republica Vietnam.
During the past investment rounds from Series A to G, the firm raised more than one trillion won in investments.
As the firm's corporate value has risen around 2.5 times this year alone, some of the overseas shareholders of Viva Republica have also been aiming to sell a part of their stakes. They plan to sell about 800,000 shares, or about 0.5 percent of Toss' entire shares, as they contact venture capital firms, private equity funds and brokerages.