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Joint R&D project by VA Corp. and LG Electronics
Visual effects production startup VA Corporation announced Monday it received 100 billion won ($80.4 million) from private equity fund Paratus Investment Inc. Founded last Feb., VA Corp. describes itself as a one-stop virtual media platform optimized for the metaverse industry. The private company’s valuation is estimated to be above $1 billion – making it a unicorn. Thirteen months is the shortest time frame a South Korean startup has gone from founding to becoming a unicorn.Investors say the visual effects startup has a proven track record of creating metaverse contents based on three-dimensional virtual production using special effects. VA Corp. merges the physical world with computer graphics in real time for its production of visual effects. Within the first five months, the company received pre-Series A funding worth 10 billion won from NHN Corp., Com2uS Holdings Corp., and LG Electronics Inc.The fundings came after the startup was able to secure proprietary technology such as virtual scouting and in-camera visual effects. Last year, it opened a virtual production studio dubbed VA Studio Hanam sprawled across 15,000 square meters of land in Gyeonggi Province. The new facility is for creating realistic contents that can be adopted across different platforms from live commerce to movies.Lee Sang-rok, chairman of venture capital firm Standus Corporation founded VA Corp. last year.The 48 year-old is best known for founding cosmetics company Carver Korea, which has the AHC brand. Lee sold AHC to London-based global consumer goods giant Unilever for 3 trillion won.Industry insiders say trust in the founder led to the unprecedented funding amount in the early stage startup.VA Corp. plans to use the fresh injection of funds to increase the size of its virtual studio in Gyeonggi Province by 10-fold and creating metaverse-related products including AI humans.By So Hyun Leey2eonlee@hankyung.comJee Abbey Lee edited this article.
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