Lee Seung-Gun (“SG” for foreigners unfamiliar with Korean pronunciation) is the founder story of a classic startup that confuses tenacity, repeated failures, ultimate success, and dental treatment.
It started in 2011 when Lee left Samsung-owned private hospital and started Viva Republica. “I started as a dentist. Like all other Asian kids, parents want their children to be neurosurgeons and dentists,” he says with a laugh.
“When I was 29 or 30, I had no dreams. I just wanted to be a well-known dentist,” he recalls. But he quickly became restless just to help people on a personal scale. “I realized I had to focus on technology right away to make an impact on a large scale.”
His push to entrepreneurship has come to a difficult start. He dedicated his savings of 150 million won ($105,000) to his new venture. “In the first five years, I failed eight times,” he says. He removes some of what he calls “trash ideas”: social media, voting apps.
a Bloomberg Report Since 2018, Lee said he had only 20,000 people ($14) at the bank ($14) and had appealed to the staff’s families to continue working unpaid.
Then he found an idea that worked: a money transfer service. “The toss was another stupid idea, but we were crazy enough to do it. “And we’re here.”
Almost 15 years after its founding in 2011, Toss is now part of a larger fintech “Super App,” a single platform that combines banking, insurance, stock trading and money transfer services.
Koreans have an average of five bank accounts and four credit cards. This means many different financial accounts to juggle. Lee thinks that’s why toss proved so popular as Koreans have “more opportunities to check their finances.”
Viva Republica is currently one of South Korea’s most prominent startups, worth around $7 billion after the 2022 funding round. The company boasts supporters such as GIC, PayPal, and Qualcomm Ventures. Lee has also become one of South Korea’s latest billionaires, according to estimates for 2021. Forbes.
The Toss platform claims it has nearly 30 million registered users, which represents about 60% of South Korea’s total population. More than half of the company’s 25 million active users per month access the app at least 10 times a day.
“Our monthly active user base is actually a bit shy about it on Instagram [in Korea],” he boasts.
Super App Success
Asia is covered by the Super App. Platforms like Tencent’s WeChat include services such as messaging, payments, food delivery, news, gaming and more. Finance is a popular service for budding super apps, including Singapore’s glove and sea, and among Asian platforms with the Fintech sector, Singapore’s glove and sea.
Super apps keep users on a single platform rather than sending them to another company. This allows for mutual promotion, resource sharing and other support between the various services. It also makes it difficult to switch to another platform. If everything you need is in one app, why try something else?
But even if the model gains fans like X-owner Elon Musk, who wants to turn social media networks into a financial services platform, the super app hasn’t taken off in the West.
Lee’s theory is that super apps are suitable for the Asian internet. This initially lacked much of the digital infrastructure that underpins US startups.
In the US, new startups can rely on many other companies that provide support services. In Asia, even in wealthy countries like Korea, there are no companies. This means platforms like Toss, or more established tech peers Naver and Kakao, had to build those services themselves.
“When we launched the flagship money transfer service, it was loved by so many users, so we were able to grow very quickly. We soon realized that all the other vertical sectors weren’t covered by other players,” he explains. “There was a huge gap in the Korean market, so we were able to capture those opportunities.”
Startup Milestone
Viva Republica hit a major milestone last year when it reported First annual profit Since it was founded over 10 years ago. The company reported net profit of 21.3 billion wins ($15 million) in 2024 in Korean, compared to the previous year’s loss of 216.6 billion won ($152 million). In addition, revenues rose 43% to 1.96 trillion won ($1.4 billion).
Lee says the first-ever profits are because they focus on increasing revenues rather than building market share. “Unlike other fintech players, user growth is not actually correlated with revenue. Most of the revenue comes from business customers, not from users,” he was drawn to Toss’ POS program or its advertising opportunities.
“For the next three or five years, it will mainly be about attracting more business customers,” he says.
Viva Republica’s profits also stemmed from the significant growth of Toss Securities, the platform’s stock trading service. Lee points out that it is the only service that charges users and donates about 20% of the platform’s total revenue.
He added that Toss Extives, which grew rapidly for Toss Superapp after its launch in 2021, has grown rapidly for securities securities.
“It took me two years to get a 2 million securities account,” says Lee. “We achieved that in five days.”
Toss has a higher penetration among young Koreans, with 90% of people in their 20s using the platform. Lee doesn’t make much difference between younger and older users of toss, but one major divergence is that new generations are open to the US, primarily by investing in foreign stocks.
With Viva Republica discovering a profitable business model, is there a company on the path to a startup’s next big milestone: the public debut?
Lee said Viva Republica is set to be made public in the “close future,” but declined to provide specific details about the timing and location.
According to local media, Viva Republica We are considering US IPOabandoned plans to list it in Korea at the end of last year. The company reportedly believes that the Korean stock market will not properly evaluate fintech platforms like Toss. (Lee refused to share details when pressed.)
Competing Fintech Services stocks have lost about 70% and 80% of their value since their 2021 IPOs respectively.
Market confidence
South Korean stocks often suffer from low valuations.Korea discount”. Analysts condemn the threat posed by nearby North Korea and poor corporate governance among the country Cheborua large conglomerate that controls the economy. Country has been considered Market reform It unleashes value, just like what our neighbor Japan successfully pursued.
But reforms are stagnant due to a more pressing political crisis.
In December, then-President Yoon Sook Yeol tried to impose martial law. After extensive protests from the public and the opposition, Yoon retracted the declaration only hours later.
The lawmakers stopped quickly, blasting Yoon each, driving months of political instability. Things are beginning to come to an end after the country’s constitutional court upheld Yoon’s blast each and formally removed him from office. South Korea will hold the SNAP presidential election in early June.
Still, Lee believes the crisis shows South Korea’s strengths. “I’m more confident in the market,” he says. “It was all done by the Constitution and the process was peaceful.”
“This is a turning point where we need to focus on economic growth not only from businessmen but from politicians,” continues Lee.
South Korea is tackling disillusionment among young people, dissatisfied with high levels of debt, affordable housing and more limited social mobility. That’s part of why many people have resorted to stock retail trading or more speculative assets like cryptocurrency.
The East Asian nation, a major exporter, is desperately negotiating with the US to reduce the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, including 25% automobile fares and 26% “mutual tariffs.”
When asked whether uncertainty has a wider impact on trust among individual Koreans, Lee points out that the country’s economy is still strong in the growth of the advertising business of Toss last year.
And he remains bullish in Korea as an attractive market for anyone wanting to join Fintech.
“Even though we have a limited population,” says Lee. “The Korean market is huge.”
The interview was conducted in collaboration with Fortune Korea.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.
