K-Content Report

Interview with Associate Partner at Antler

In Southeast Asia, K-content and entertainment startups must move beyond short term views or fleeting

trends and establish sustainable revenue models and fandom ecosystems in order to earn investor confidence.

Digital gifting and microtransactions have already emerged as core revenue streams, but given the wide

variation in regulations, cultural contexts, and payment infrastructures across markets, localization and

strong local partnerships are essential. Looking ahead, sustainable growth in Southeast Asia will depend on

Korean companies’ ability to deploy generation and country specific strategies, pursue joint ventures and

strategic alliances, and collaborate with e commerce, telecom, and distribution platforms such as TikTok Shop,

Shopee , Lazada , and LINE to expand new fan bases and accelerate.

Few figures have observed the potential and investment opportunities within Southeast Asia’s content and

entertainment startup ecosystem as closely as Frank Kang. He began his entrepreneurial career at the age of

23 by founding a startup that secured investment from SoftBank , and went on to play a pivotal role in

localizing and scaling Twitter in Korea, building what became the country’s largest Twitter directory at the time.

He later grew LivingSocial Malaysia from a seven person startup into an organization of more than 160 employees,

and subsequently founded Althea, a Korean beauty digital native platform, successfully attracting global

institutional investors.

In this interview, Kang shares first hand insights into how K content and entertainment startups can grow

and scale across Southeast Asia, what investors are looking for, and the critical conditions required for long term

success in the region. 

※ For further details, please refer to the attached PDF file.

※ The content of this post is provided solely for the purpose of enhancing public understanding of

     overseas information related to the content industry. It does not represent the official position of

     the Korea Creative Content Agency and carries no legal effect.