After Daum Kakao acquires Path, here’s what we know so far

The Path acquisition by Daum Kakao is big news today, yet little is known about the terms of the deal and the future of Path as a product.

Path claimed 23 million registered users in early 2014 and told Tech in Asia a few months later that at least four million of those are based in Indonesia. The social network’s relative strength in Indonesia prompted the company to open up an office in Jakarta late last year. Then William Tunggaldjaja was hired as Path’s country manager in February this year.Tunggaldjaja had left his position at Zomato to join the Path team.

It’s obvious that Indonesian users are looking to Tunggaldjaja for answers about the future of the product. When Tech in Asia reached out to Tunggaldjaja, he declined to comment, instead referring us to Path’s Indonesian PR firm.

Big transition

After consulting both Daum Kakao and Path via their PR firms, here’s what we know so far:

The financial details of the deal are not open to the public, and neither party have plans to announce these terms at a later stage.

Daum Kakao has taken over Path and Path Talk, but both products will remain as is for the time being, as will the brand. Kakao says it will focus first on strengthening the Path user base, which implies it will continue promoting the apps as standalone products. Kakao also said it will continue developing the product, with possible future updates as needed. At present, the company says it has no immediate plans to “introduce Daum Kakao factors” to [Path and Path Talk], which implies future integrations are possible, perhaps depending on the performance of the service under the new management.

A big question remains: What happens to the Path team in Indonesia? According to Path’s spokesperson, a transitional team consisting of engineers and product managers was formed as part of the sale. This team will work with Daum Kakao over the next few months to ensure a smooth transition.

According to Path, the Indonesia-based team will not become part of Daum Kakao, but remain employees of US-based Path Inc. Could this mean they will be working on pushing Path Inc’s new product, a selfie GIF app called Kong, to the Southeast Asian market?

“Daum Kakao will assess the state of the local Indonesian Path team and nothing has been determined at this time,” said the spokesperson.