Korean car-sharing startup SOCAR has filed for an IPO
- BySaksham Daga | January 6, 2022
SOCAR, a Korean car-sharing startup, applied for an IPO announced by the Korea Exchange on Wednesday. A SOCAR spokesman said the details (number of shares offered at the IPO and price range) have not yet been determined. After raising $ 50.7 million (60 billion won) in October 2020,
SOCAR is valued at about $ 834 billion (1 trillion won). A spokesman for the company confirmed that it has raised a total of about $ 275 million since its inception in 2011. SOCAR is estimated to be worth $ 2.5 billion (3 trillion won) after listing in the first half of this year, according to media reports.
Its previous investors include SK Holdings, Bain Capital, Premier Partners, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Altos Ventures, KB Investment, Stonebridge Ventures, LB Private Equity, SG Private Equity, and more.
The company plans to launch a transportation super app this year that will provide allinone mobility services like carsharing, electric bikesharing, parking lot search, carhailing, train reservation and more, Jaewook Park, CEO of SOCAR, said in early December at the company`s press conference. Park also said SOCAR would replace a fleet of its vehicles with zeroemission, including electric or hydrogenpowered cars, by 2030 and strengthen its autonomous cars business.
SOCAR will accelerate to make additional acquisitions and advance its technology with the IPO proceeds, Park said. The company already completed two acquisitions last month – South Korean online parking platform Modu Company and electric bike rental platform Elecle. In 2018, SOCAR also invested in self-driving startup RideFlux.
The 11-year-old company launched a car-sharing service with 100 rental cars in Jeju in 2011 and a mobile app in 2012. In 2018, SOCAR acquired VCNC, a mobile messaging app platform in South Korea, and operated Tada, a van hailing service. (However, because the revised Korean law limits passenger cars to only licensed taxis and rental cars, startups had to stop the van hailing service in 2020, but with 11 to 15 seats. Excluding vans.) SOCAR passed 60 last October. We will sell a% stake in the Ride Hailing business to Vivali Babelica, a Seoul-based fintech company behind Toss.
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