SoftBank Ventures Korea, the local venture capital arm of Japan’s SoftBank Group, on Wednesday announced that the company has decided to invest 3 billion won ($2.5 million) in Global Networks, an online business-to-business meat dealer. 



“Meat Box, Global Networks’ e-commerce platform, has abundant experience in livestock product distribution, on top of state-of-the-art information technology. It has secured a great deal of data and know-how already,” Edward Chung, a senior associate at the company, stated.

“We thought the company could provide the best service in the era of mobile commerce, leading the innovations in this industry,” he added.

Meat Box has differentiated itself from other similar services by disclosing daily market price of meats real time on its website and mobile phone application, in order to guarantee the company’s slogan of providing products 20 percent cheaper than off-line outlets. It also promised to secure more profits to wholesalers than other online platforms.

“We are planning to open the platform to retail consumers in the future,” Kim Ki-bong, CEO of Global Networks said.

According to a Softbank Ventures Korea official, the amount of investment is relatively high among its 77 ongoing projects.

“If Global Networks plans to start overseas operations, say, in Japan, the company will be able to use SoftBank Ventures’ global network and services,” a spokeswoman of the company said.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)