November 22, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Orbs, an Israel-headquartered blockchain company, is bringing its enterprise-focused technologies to Korea as it seeks to expand the usage by companies, the startup said on Jan. 29 as it announced a partnership with Yozma Group Korea.

“Our goal is to provide end-to-end solutions for big enterprises to successfully make a transition to blockchain,” said Orbs co-founder Uriel Peled.

Peled, who founded ORBS after selling his first startup to China’s Alibaba Group in 2017, noted that directly targeting the mass adoption of blockchain would take too much time and increasing enterprise usage is a better strategy with Orbs’ competative edge.

“Israel is called the startups nation but Korea is called the blockchain nation,” he noted. "Korea is a great test bed to test that strategy."

“Korea is forward thinking when it comes to the blockchain,” he told The Investor. “For instance, a leading messenger company in Korea plans to hire 500 blockchain engineers this year while Facebook has only three engineers. And local conglomerates are investing a lot in blockchain technologies.”

“It is very likely that the mass adoption usage of blockchain will come from Korea,” Peled said.

With support from the Korean unit of the Tel-Aviv-based venture capital firm, Orbs has already built partnerships with several Korean companies including Kakao’s blockchain unit GroundX, Terra, a blockchain platform founded by Ticket Monster founder Dainel Shin and online bookstore Hansae Yes24. 

Yozma Group Korea CEO Lee Won-jae (left) and ORBS Co-founder Uriel Pepid pose for a photo after signing an MOU on Jan. 29 in Seoul. Park Ga-young/The Investor

“The MOU today promises much closer cooperation between the two companies and Yozma will help Orbs successfully expand in Korea while we help the enterprises adopt advanced blockchain technologies of Orbs,” Lee Won-jae, managing director of Yozma Group Korea, said.

Orbs is the largest blockchain company with a valuation of US$650 million, according to Yozma Group. It acquired funding of over US$120 million in 2018. Recently, Kakao invested an undisclosed amount in Orbs as part of two companies’ partnership on blockchain applications and R&D projects.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)