In addition to the recent completion of its Series B funding round, there are many other good news related to Medipixel, a cardiovascular AI company. The company was the only Korean company to be recently selected as one of the "2023 Digital Health 50" by CB Insights, a global market research firm. Medipixel won first place in the MICCAI ARCADE competition…

One of our portfolio companies, Medipixel, an AI company in the cardiovascular interventional field, has completed a series B round of 13 million USD. Unfortunately, as of now, our active fund is focused on climate and environmental sectors, so we were unable to make a follow-on investment. However, we would like to thank the new investors …

FunNow, our portfolio company that has been leading leisure activities platform in Asia, has completed a merger with its competitor Eatigo, as reported by TechCrunch. FunNow is a platform offering various leisure activities, including restaurant reservations, through its mobile app. Over time, FunNow has operated in countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, and Japan.

Last week, I was invited by my former employer, SoftBank Ventures, to attend the Fireside Chat event with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman of OpenAI. There were many interesting conversations, and many people in the industry have already shared good insights through blogs and social media.

If you are in the IT industry, you may be familiar with the name Linus Torvalds. He is a Finnish engineer who created Linux, one of the most popular operating systems for computers. Linux is one of the most widely used operating systems in all areas where computing is required, such as internet servers, network equipment, mobile devices, and edge computing devices.

We don’t deny certain realities of our portfolio companies. Doing a startup overseas = extreme difficulty and suffering. But the life of an entrepreneur is about taking one step at a time through the constant repetition of encountering difficult problems and striving to find or build solutions to them.

Coral reefs are known to serve as a kind of metropolis for marine life. Just as large cities provide people with the necessary infrastructure to eat, sleep, play, and live, such as apartments, restaurants, hospitals, play areas, and leisure, coral reefs allow marine life to gather, eat, and live through a variety of large coral communities. It provides an ecosystem infrastructure for living.

Just when it seemed that the trauma from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was easing, war between Russia and Ukraine erupted, sending shockwaves throughout the already unstable global political and economic landscape. Oil prices have skyrocketed, and Western powers who had been crying out against Russia are now showing signs of a more conciliatory stance to the aggressor nation.

On March 25th, D-Camp (operated by the Banks Foundation for Young Entrepreneurs) and Ascendo Ventures organized and hosted an event for D-Camp family startups interested in Southeast Asian business and expansion. We took the opportunity to review our portfolio companies and sharesome key points and themes that factored into the enabling their successful cross-border expansion.

“Notion almost died in 2015. We were building a product that we thought was cool — not a product that people needed. Our mission was (and still is) to give people the tools to customize their own software, but there was something missing. So my co-founder and I went back to the drawing board.”

-      Excerpt from a Notion e-mail newsletter

BeeCanvas develops and operates Allo, a SaaS collaboration product for remote education and remote work. The company recently raised a new round of funding from Korean VC investors Atinum Investment, Partners Investment, and Smilegate Investment, as well strategic investor Zoom, …

Ascendo Ventures participates in the bridge round funding of Grinergy, a battery company developing LTO (lithium titanate) cathode technology electric vehicle batteries with superior performance and safety compared to conventional lithium batteries.

Ascendo Ventures invests in the Series B round of FunNow, a leisure and entertainment commerce startup based in Taiwan, with participation from various strategic partners in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, including PChome, KKday, Westron, CDIB Capital, Darwin Ventures, Accuvest, Sanfu Travel Group, and CSV Venture Fund.

Ascendo Ventures participated in the Series B investment round of N.Thing, a container-based vertical farm company, along with KT&G, Kiwoom Investment, Intervest, SL Investment, and Aegis Asset Management.

Recently, Ascendo Ventures participated in the Pre-series A round investment of Simple Labs and Blue Whale Company.

One optimal intersection at which venture capital invests in startups is at the stage in which their target customers’ demand for, or usage of the company's technology, products, and …

Ascendo Ventures participated along with Union Investment Partners, We Ventures, and Laguna Investment in the Series A round of Adoba, a platform enabling multi-channel content management, distribution, and monetization for creators in the China market.

Ascendo Ventures closes US$ 34 million second fund, the Ascendo New Horizon Fund, targeting top-tier Korean tech startups incorporating ESG values and impacting carbon emissions reductions.