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Tech worker turns hobby into a startup nearing unicorn status

InternationalDec 27. 2020Gary Kim, co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Danggeun Market, at the company’s office in Seoul, South Korea, on Nov. 18, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by SeongJoon Cho.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Sohee Kim

In his spare time, Gary Kim enjoyed trading used gadgets on an online bulletin board for employees of the South Korean messaging-app operator Kakao Corp.

Then he and a colleague realized it could become a money-making business. In 2015, with cash they got from selling Kakao stock options, they — and a former Naver Corp. engineer — launched a venue for selling second-hand goods online that’s now called Karrot.

It was initially only for people in South Korea’s Silicon Valley, the Pangyo Techno Valley outside Seoul, and has retained that localized approach even as it expanded throughout the country and beyond. Users who verify their location trade mostly face to face with others within a radius that’s usually about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles), in what’s known as a nearby marketplace.

Danggeun Market Inc., the startup behind Karrot, is planning to raise as much as 100 billion won ($90 million) in financing next summer, potentially pushing its valuation to about $1 billion, Kim said. It has — so far — been boosted by the pandemic, he said.

“We are hoping to become a unicorn,” Kim, 42, said in an interview in Seoul.

If it succeeds, Karrot would join a growing list of South Korean technology startups valued at more than $1 billion that serve the country’s deep and tech-savvy market. CB Insights, which provides analysis of private companies, has 11 Korean startups on its latest global unicorn list.

As well as buying and selling second-hand goods ranging from headphones to luxury yachts, Karrot users can share community information — on everything from job openings to lost-and-found items and housing listings — and trade with local businesses that advertise on the app.

“It’s an online gathering place for the local community,” said Kim, who serves as the company’s co-chief executive officer alongside Paul Kim, the other former Kakao employee who’s one of the co-founders. “If neighbors are gathered at a certain place, everyone wants to join.”

Karrot is now South Korea’s largest second-hand marketplace and second-biggest company in the country’s e-commerce industry after Coupang Corp., according to data-analysis company MobileIndex.

Joyce Yi, a 52-year-old English teacher, said she’s traded more than 20 items through the app since March, including a coffee-maker, books and an air-conditioner.”When I moved to Seoul from LA, I didn’t know anything about my new place and how to use the parcel delivery system — then I heard my friend bought a Louis Vuitton bag for $200 through Karrot,” she said. “Karrot is my first choice for shopping. It has cheaper and diverse options and I don’t need to go far to check out items.”

Although the Seoul-based startup is reporting losses, it’s generating tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue mainly from local advertisements, according to Kim. Monthly active users more than doubled to 12 million in October compared to January, while sales quadrupled in October from a year earlier, he said.

Until now, the covid-19 pandemic has helped the business, with users more actively selling through the app while spending more time at home, Kim said. The virus has had less impact in South Korea than in the U.S. or European countries.

“It’s a plus,” Kim said at the company’s headquarters in the Gangnam district of the capital. “Thankfully, our users don’t think there’s a risk of trading in person as everyone wears masks.”

But if the coronavirus has been a boost, it’s also a threat, according to Jay Choi, a senior associate at SoftBank Ventures Asia, which has invested in Karrot. New infections have risen to record levels in the country this month, raising the prospect of tougher social-distancing measures.

“The covid-19 pandemic poses risks and gives opportunity at the same time,” Choi said. “There was a concern that in-person trading may not survive if a city is locked down.”

Karrot is aiming to become as popular as Kakao Talk, the country’s largest messaging app, Kim said. Kakao Talk has about 36 million monthly active users, according to MobileIndex.

The company has no immediate plans to go public, but it will ultimately do so, Kim said. For now, it can stay afloat using funds from long-term investors who believe in its vision, he said.

Karrot has raised a total of 48.1 billion won from investors including SoftBank Ventures Asia, Altos Ventures, Kakao Ventures and Goodwater Capital.

Karrot will increase the number of employees to 300 in 2021 from 100 this year as it seeks to become the first Korean app that’s successful in both the U.S. and western Europe, Kim said. The company’s overseas expansion strategy is to enter cities with dense populations of environmentally conscious people who want to reuse old goods, he said. It prefers places where there isn’t a dominant market player. So far, Karrot is available in 42 areas of the U.K. and two cities in Canada, while the company is currently operating beta services in Manhattan and New Jersey.

“Our ultimate goal is to make a global local community service platform like Facebook,” Kim said.

Meanwhile, as his startup expands overseas, Kim continues his hobby of online trading in Seoul, now using his own firm’s app. Recently, he bought a table for his daughter and an electric piano for half the usual price.

“I go out by myself to trade used stuff,” he said. “Nobody recognizes that I’m the head of the company.”

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Stalled E.U.-China deal signals European unease

InternationalDec 27. 2020

By The Washington Post · Emily Rauhala

Chances looked good for the resolution of a years-in-the-making investment agreement between China and the European Commission before the end of the year. This week, that changed.

In the span of days, reports of an emerging consensus gave way to news that negotiators had hit snags, as European officials voiced concern about forced labor in China and a senior aide to President-elect Joe Biden appeared to urge Europe to pump the breaks.

China and Germany are pushing the deal, which would make it easier for European and Chinese companies to invest in each other’s economies. But voices on both sides of the Atlantic are questioning whether this is the right time for Europe to deepen ties with Beijing.

The back and forth says much about how central – and how fraught – the issue of relations with China has become, both within the European Union and between Europe and the United States.

Within the E.U., there is growing unease about Beijing’s human rights record and role in international affairs, but little agreement on what to do about it.

Biden has promised to re-engage with Europe and to rally allies to respond to an increasingly assertive China. The timing and terms of that effort are not yet clear.

Against this backdrop, the fate of the investment pact is seen as an early signal of tensions set to play out in years to come, on issues ranging from trade to tech regulation to climate change.

“This is going to be a jumping-off point for a lot of these questions,” said Andrew Small, senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

In some ways, the investment agreement, known as the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, or CAI, seems straightforward.

For years, Europe has been pressing for greater access to China’s tightly controlled market. Europe contends that Chinese companies have more access to Europe than vice versa – and they want to change that.

Negotiations started in 2014. Progress has been slow, but picked up in the second half of 2020, as Germany began a six-month E.U. presidency and a push to get the deal done.

Biden’s election win, meanwhile, gave China a new sense of urgency. With Trump on the way out, Beijing sees a window to act before Biden, who is set to take office in January, seeks European cooperation to counter China.

It is not clear Beijing’s strategy will work. Early last week, Chinese diplomats touted progress, playing up the idea an agreement could be reached before the new year.

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with ambassadors from E.U. nations in Beijing. “China and Europe are hopefully reaching consensus on the comprehensive investment agreement,” he told the ambassadors, according to the South China Morning Post.

But the same day, Jake Sullivan, a top aide to Biden, responded to a news story about the potential deal with a tweet suggesting Europe ought to wait. “The Biden-Harris administration would welcome early consultations with our European partners on our common concerns about China’s economic practices,” he wrote.

On Tuesday, Poland expressed concern about the timing. “Europe should seek a fair, mutually beneficial Comprehensive Agreement on Investment with China. We need more consultations and transparency bringing our transatlantic allies on board,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau tweeted. “A good, balanced deal is better than a premature one.”

On Wednesday, France added its voice. Franck Riester, a French trade minister, told Le Monde his country will not sign an agreement unless China addresses the issues of forced labor in Xinjiang.

By Thursday, Christmas Eve, the South China Morning Post was reporting that Li was scrambling to salvage the deal, calling up Spain and the Netherlands to try to secure support.

If the agreement comes together, it will be a major diplomatic victory for China. But the stalled progress is revealing – and could signal trouble ahead for China-E.U. ties.

A central challenge is that much has changed since the E.U. and China entered talks in 2014. Under President Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, China has become more authoritarian at home and more aggressive abroad.

In the United States, this has led to fundamental reconsideration of the practice of engaging China at all. For a while, Europe seemed to take a softer line. But China’s initial coverup of the coronavirus outbreak, repression in Xinjiang and the crackdown on Hong Kong may well change that.

“This [agreement] feels like it comes from when it was first negotiated,” said Small of the German Marshall Fund. “The overall political consensus is that the moment has passed, it fees like a tail end of the old, legacy agenda.”

Those who support the deal are trying to cast it as a practical, if imperfect step – not an endpoint for a new era in China-E.U. relations. Those who oppose it argue that it would be unwise to reward Beijing right now, especially with U.S. ties on the line.

“After this year, with China’s terrible behavior around the world, it would send a weird signal,” said Janka Oertel, director of the Asia program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“This is not about pragmatic, everyday business – it’s not something that we are just getting done,” she said. “At this critical moment, to do something like this with China, is not business as usual.”

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RV that exploded in Nashville broadcast a message warning of imminent blast, police say

InternationalDec 26. 2020Police block off Nashville, Tenn.’s Broadway while investigating an explosion Friday, Dec. 25, 2020. Photo for The Washington Post by William DeShazer

By The Washington Post, Derek Hawkins, Paulina Firozi and Michael Kranish

Hours after a recreational vehicle exploded in downtown Nashville, Tenn., on Christmas morning, law enforcement officials – still without a suspect or motive for the blast – surveyed a devastated landscape including more than 40 damaged businesses, three people hospitalized with injuries, and disruptions to Internet and cell service. Authorities grounded planes and the mayor imposed a nighttime curfew on the busy historical district near the blast site.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/6dc5c5e8-aa8c-4355-af3d-763f3c994259

On a holiday many hoped would bring a sense of calm in a chaotic year, the early-morning explosion dealt a terrifying blow.

“This is not how anybody wanted to spend Christmas morning,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper said at a news conference. “We are very lucky that there were not more injuries.”

“One more event in Nashville’s 2020,” he added.

Police and city officials called the incident an “intentional act” – Cooper, a Democrat, called it a “deliberate bomb” – and vowed to bring a plethora of local, state and federal law enforcement resources to bear to find a suspect. While there were no confirmed fatalities, Nashville’s police chief said investigators found tissue that could be human remains near the explosion that they were preparing to examine.

The chain of events began around 5:30 a.m. local time, when residents on Second Avenue, home to a row of restaurants and honky-tonk night clubs, heard what they thought were rapid-fire gunshots. Some later speculated that the sound of gunfire was an amplified recording designed to awaken them.

Then came a bizarre recorded warning from a loudspeaker on the RV, police and residents said.

“It was a computerized message of ‘Evacuate now. … This vehicle has a bomb and will explode,'” said Betsy Williams, who lives in a building adjacent to the blast site.

Soon after, the message changed to a 15-minute countdown to detonation.

Police and a bomb-sniffing dog investigate an explosion Friday, Dec. 25, 2020. Photo for The Washington Post by William DeShazer

Officers responded to the area about 6 a.m. local time after receiving a report of gunfire on Second Avenue North, said Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

When they arrived, Aaron said, they didn’t see any immediate evidence of gunshots but encountered a “suspicious” RV parked near an AT&T transmission building, heard the broadcast message coming from the vehicle and called in the police bomb squad.

Officers went door to door, telling residents to evacuate, even turning around one man who was out walking his dog, Aaron said. Moments later, at about 6:30 a.m., the RV detonated near Second Avenue North and Commerce Street, smashing windows, signs and garage doors and sending a ball of bright orange flames into the sky.

The explosion destroyed storefronts, scattered ash and debris through the streets and sent at least three people to the hospital with noncritical injuries, police said.

Cooper said the explosion was “intended to create chaos and fear in this season of hope.”

In an evening news conference, he said the city was imposing a curfew on the area around the explosion through Sunday and was working with the governor to declare a civil emergency.

At least 41 businesses were damaged, the mayor said.

“We stand with our downtown residents and business owners for whom this was a terrible day,” he said.

Nashville Police Chief John Drake said police had not identified a suspect or a motive. He said it was not clear whether anyone was inside the vehicle when it detonated.

In a video posted on social media, which The Washington Post has not independently verified, a voice can be heard saying: “This area must be evacuated now. If you can hear this message, evacuate now.” The message was followed by the sounds of an explosion, and the video of the street scene turned to a blur.

Aaron credited the officers on the scene who alerted residents to evacuate. “We think lives were saved by those officers,” he said.

Three people were injured, including one officer who was knocked off his feet, according to police. Bomb-sniffing dogs combed the area as a precaution but no other explosives were found, Aaron said.

Several of the buildings have structural damage, officials said. Police do not know whether anyone was in the RV when it exploded, “so I can’t tell you at this point whether there is a fatality in this scenario,” Aaron said.

Williams, the Second Avenue resident, said she was asleep with her wife, Kim Madlom, when they were jolted awake by the sound of gunfire a little before 5:30 a.m. and called 911. When the sound repeated in the same pattern, she figured it must have been a recording, she said.

“It was like it was being fired right next to your head almost,” Madlom told The Post. “It was unrealistically loud in retrospect, and it was the exact same pattern all three times.”

Peering out her third-story window, the 59-year-old said she could see an RV parked across the street. It was a light-colored vehicle the size of a small bus that looked at least a couple of decades old, she said.

As she surveyed the scene, a voice came booming from the camper: “It was saying, ‘This vehicle has a bomb, you must evacuate the area.'”

Then a countdown message began, telling people they had 15 minutes to leave, Madlom said. She and her three family members decided to flee. “That was the thing that made us go,” she said.

They scrambled into an elevator as the RV blared an 11-minute warning, then piled into their car to keep watch from a secure distance. After about 20 minutes, there was no explosion. Thinking the whole episode was a “sick prank,” Madlom said, they headed back.

The RV detonated just as they were rounding the corner back onto Second Avenue, according to Madlom.

“It was the biggest plume of fire that shot up,” she said. “We could see that from up the street. We were just shocked.”

From a block away, they could see that their building’s back windows were blown out. Somehow, Madlom said, their Christmas tree was still lit. Firefighters soon arrived and told them to clear the area.

Madlom, who works as a vacation property manager and hospital receptionist, says she and her family are staying in a local hotel, processing what happened and counting their blessings. Their building is badly damaged, and they don’t know what, if any, belongings they’ll be able to recover. But they’re grateful they weren’t physically harmed.

“We almost didn’t go,” she said. “We almost didn’t take it seriously. Whoever did this certainly intended for us all to leave.”

Police said the department’s hazardous-devices unit was headed to the area when the explosion happened.

“We do believe the explosion was an intentional act,” Aaron, the police department spokesman, told reporters.

Supervisory Special Agent Joel Siskovic said the FBI is leading the investigation, working with state and local authorities.

“The main thing right now is public safety to make sure that everyone in the surrounding area is accounted for and, at the same time, ensuring that the city itself is safe from any other potential incident,” said Michael Knight, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Nashville, which is also probing the incident.

Investigators are working to create a timeline of events before and after the explosion, Knight said.

The explosion was felt at nearby residential facilities, including a hostel and a condominium building called the Exchange Lofts. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic and Christmas, there were far fewer people at those buildings than usual.

Windows and doors were blown out at the hostel, a low-cost residence for travelers, and the handful of guests were evacuated. At the upscale Exchange Lofts, where condos are typically owned as second homes by business executives, the impact of the explosion was recorded by a Nest security camera in a unit owned by music executive Aaron Trevethan.

In the video, the tranquil scene of couches and chairs arrayed around a flat-screen television is suddenly interrupted by sounds of a blast, which sent bright flashes of light through the windows, caused debris to fall from the ceiling and resulted in a swaying effect captured by the camera.

Trevethan, who was at his California home when he was alerted early Christmas morning about the blast, said it is hard to tell the extent of damage from the video because “everything shook so bad.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, said on Twitter that he would “supply all of the resources needed to determine what happened and who was responsible.” He thanked first responders and called on Tennesseans to join him and his wife “in praying for those who were injured.”

The Justice Department said in a statement that acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen had been briefed on the incident and had “directed that all DOJ resources be made available to assist in the investigation.”

Hours after the blast took place, President Donald Trump left his Mar-a-Lago resort and headed to Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. The president spent at least three hours at the club, his second consecutive day there since arriving in Florida for the holidays.

Trump did not comment about the blast, but the White House said he was monitoring the situation.

“President Trump has been briefed on the explosion in Nashville, Tennessee, and will continue to receive regular updates,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. “The President is grateful for the incredible first responders and praying for those who were injured.”

The White House has said Trump is spending his time in Florida participating in calls and meetings, though officials have not provided any details on his activities.

President-elect Joe Biden was briefed on the explosion, according to his office.

“The president-elect and Dr. Biden thank all the first responders working today in response to the incident,” Biden’s office said in a statement, “and wish those who were injured a speedy recovery.”