Founder and Chief Director of the Korean Fin Startup Viva Republica, as well as a dentist for education, Son-Gun Lee became a dollar billionaire. Forbes estimates (https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkang/2021/06/25/former-dentist-becom-a-billionaire-abotter-funding-round-boosts-his-korean-fintech-startup/ ? SH = 1CFB747D4AAF), its share in the company costs more than a billion dollars.
TOSS payment application developer on June 23 attracted $ 410 million at a round of financing (almost 30 billion rubles) and was estimated at $ 7.4 billion (more than 535 billion rubles). Among her investors, New York Alkeon Capital Management and Altos Ventures from Silicon Valley. Earlier, the Korean startup financed PayPal, Singapore GIC Welfare Fund and Venture Company Kleiner Perkins.
According to Forbes calculations, the Son-Gun Lee belongs to a little less than 18 percent of Viva Rebublica worth $ 1.2 billion (almost 87 billion rubles). This makes it one of the few independently earned billionaires in South Korea, where traditionally the economy holds conglomerates belonging to family dynasties like LG Group and Hyundai.
Before going to the anich-sphere, the son-Gun Lee worked as a dentist in the clinic with Samsung. The idea of creating your payment application came to him after an unsuccessful attempt to translate funds, which pushed to create a startup of Viva Republica in 2013. Two years later, the Korean company launched the TOSS app, which can now not only translate money, but also to take loans, evaluate creditworthiness and invest in stocks. “Toss is what the financial transactions should be,” – recognized whether in an interview with Forbes 2017.
On the official website of TOSS it is said that at the moment the service has more than 18 million people – almost half of the population of South Korea. Viva Republica reported that the company’s revenue for 2020 was tripled compared to last year and reached 390 billion van (about 24 billion rubles), and losses declined from 115 billion von to 72.5 billion.