JK

Jiho Kang

Partner at Antler Korea | YC W17 & 500 Batch0 Mountain View

Seoul

Education

Work Experience

2021

  • Partner, Korea

    2021

    Antler is a global early-stage VC enabling and investing in the world's most exceptional people. We’re the world’s largest early-stage investment platform with in 27 locations across six continents, and we have invested in 1,200+ companies globally. Every year, over 120,000 founders across the world want to work with us -- people from diverse careers such as serial entrepreneurs, engineers, product builders, subject matter pro's and PhD's.

2019 - 2021

  • Country Manager, Korea

    2019 - 2021

    Launched Binance.KR; Binance's Korea local cryptocurrency exchange and BKRW (Binance KRW), a Korean Won backed stablecoin using the Binance Chain BEP2 protocol. Binance.KR is Korea's very first Korean Won stablecoin based cryptocurrency exchange providing BKRW liquidity sharing with the worlds #1 cryptocurrency exchange; Binance.com.

2018 - 2020

  • Co-Founder, Managing Partner

    2018 - 2020

    (Acquired by Binance, ‘20) KRWb is a stable bridge from Korea to anywhere. It's the world's first, globally accessible, 1:1 stable coin backed by the Korean Won.

  • Adjunct Lecturer

    2018 - 2019

    Entrepreneurship

2016 - 2018

  • Co-founder and Chief Product Officer (CPO)

    2016 - 2018

    Building a marketplace platform that allows you to connect with local professionals for any job you need done, or services you need on demand. Soomgo is backed by Korea's top seed investors; Primer and BonAngels, as well as Silicon Valley's premier startup accelerator Y-Combinator.

2015 - 2016

  • Product Owner (Senior Product Manager)

    2015 - 2016

    South Korea's fastest growing unicorn in e-commerce. Customer loyalty program development. - Build MVP of Coupang's version of "Amazon Prime" targeted at the Korean market. - Identify key pain points in online/mobile shopping experience, conceptualise solutions. - Lead technical team to test concepts and rapidly validate assumptions. - Launched prototype within 2 months, launched open beta within 5 months. Owner of customer generated content: Product Reviews across Coupang's entire platform. - Define vision, roadmap, KPIs. - Align with corporate wide milestones in customer experience and purchase conversion. - Lead technical team to hit milestones, define technical requirements and user experience. - Develop customer engagement programs. - Develop Vendor/manufacturer support programs for customer feedback and reviews. - 4x ~ 5x customer engagement metrics. - 2x ~ 2.5x content generation metrics.

2012 - 2015

  • Project Lead (Lead Product Manager)

    2013 - 2015

    Project Lead for two social products; "Planett"​ and "Wayfare"​ as part of SK planet's in-house venture program, "Planet X"​. The latter being an iteration of the former. Planett presents virtual travel from your phone in a more "Instagram like"​ way. Conceptualised the product and built early base code for iOS. * Planett Demo: https://vimeo.com/138963204 * Planett Review: http://dottech.org/122955/ios-iphone-ipad-review-planett-app/ Wayfare is a mobile app that let’s you switch lives with someone on the other side of the globe. Wayfare has been featured by TechCrunch, The Next Web, LifeHacker, Business Insider, and the Washington Post.

  • Expansion Manager, Global HR

    2012 - 2013

    Temporary role supporting technical recruiting and acquihires for US expansion.

2011 - 2012

  • Co-Founder and CTO

    2011 - 2012

    Wander(formally YongoPal) is creating a mobile app for cultural exploration and discovery called "Wander"​. We use media(photos, videos, audio, music etc.) sharing between strangers on opposite sides of the planet as a context for conversation, mutual learning and relationship building. We give people an opportunity to experience the world through foreign eyes, and also provide English learners with a platform to use their new language to communicate with the world. Main roles include general product development, iOS, (mobile)web development, DBA, and backend engineering. Wander is a portfolio company of the 500 Startups fund and is a participant in its first accelerator class in Mountain View, California.

2008 - 2011

  • Co-Founder and CEO

    2008 - 2011

    BetaStudios Inc. is a startup based in Seoul Korea specializing in web+mobile social networking services targeted at university students in Asia. Aside from my management roles as CEO, I was also head of backend system operations and worked as a front and backend PHP/jQUery developer. Services include: 1) Online form and application management SaaS; CheckOne. 2) Light weight collaboration web service for university students; Hupod 3) University student event and competition into aggregation mobile app; SpecUp. In 2009 and 2010 BetaStudios won the rights to participate in 3 South Korean Government venture incubation programs including $70K in grants.

Brixen

2006 - 2008

  • Technical Product Manager

    2006 - 2008

    (aka GeniKids, acq. 2007, Aurora World Corp - KOSDAQ 039830:KS) Online Adobe Flash based e-learning service for children age 3 ~ 10 with major Korean content distribution partners such as Naver and Yahoo Korea. Technical Product Manager of: - Online customer service interface and tools - ESL service genienglish.com - Internal data analytics and in-house analytics tools