Carlyle invests $200 million in South Korea Kakao Mobility, valuing at $3.1 billion

Carlyle Group agreed to invest $200 million in South Korea’s Kakao Mobility, valuing the firm at 3.42 trillion won ($3.09 billion), Kakao Mobility said on Thursday.

Kakao Mobility is the transportation unit of Kakao Corp, operator of the country’s most popular chat app, spun-off in 2017.

Its app, Kakao T, has 28 million registered users, and offers South Korea’s most popular taxi-hailing service as well as other transportation services such as bus ticket reservations, shuttles and bicycles.

Carlyle’s investment was the first Kakao Mobility received since 2017, when private equity firm TPG Capital invested 500 billion won in investment, valuing the firm at around 1.6 trillion won, a Kakao Mobility spokeswoman said.

Source: Reuters