Korean fintech firm Qara raises $3m in series A funding round

Qara, a fintech startup, announced it has raised US$3 million from Mirae Asset x Naver, Nexon’s NXC, and Kingsley Asset Management in its series A funding round.

Qara CEO Luke ChangHwan Byun and former global CEO Katie Bomi Son/ Photo Credit: Qara

The South Korea-based firm plans to launch a new global stock trading service early next year for individual users. It claims to have accumulated funds exceeding US$5 million.

Qara offers customized investment analysis to asset management firms through its AI deep learning technology platform. Its services also include weekly market forecasts for its customers.

The fintech company also announced that it has hired former JP Morgan executive Lim Jae-ho as its chief strategy officer, and that its former global CEO Katie Bomi Soni will now act as a management advisor. Luke Chang-hwan Byun will head Qara as the sole CEO.

Launched in 2014, Qara provides its robo-advisor solution Market Dreamer to a slew of local financial firms, including KB Asset Management, KB Kookmin Bank, Hanwha Asset Management, and Mirae Asset. The company claims that its platform analyzes the past 30 years of market history and uses nearly 400 million data points to provide insights on financial performance.

The global fintech market is expected to reach a value of US$158 billion by 2023, according to research conducted by The Business Research Company.

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The Korean firm released the mobile application Kosho in 2018 in 11 countries to provide weekly market forecasts and general financial information to individual investors.

It also introduced Whatisfund.ai, a search engine tool that targets general investors who require a specialized knowledge base for investment and financial information.

Qara said it will focus on hiring new talents from different backgrounds, including finance, information technology, artificial intelligence, and marketing.

The financial services startup competes with Viva Republica’s Toss, Aizen, and Rainist’s Bank Salad, among others, in South Korea’s fintech space.