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Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc (TAIEX: 2311, NYSE: ASX), a semiconductor assembly and test service provider, announced that its K7 manufacturing facility in Kaohsiung has received the Green Factory Label from the Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan. K7 is the sixth factory following K3, K5, K11, K12 and K15, at the ASE Kaohsiung Nantze campus to receive the label.

ASE is fully committed to corporate sustainability through actions that produce tangible results and meet our goal of co-existence with the environment. In 2009, ASE Kaohsiung green building plans were drawn up to combine nature with technology, and provide a green factory environment optimized for living, productivity and the ecology. The ASE K7 building has incorporated green innovation, eco-friendly designs, energy and water conservation, waste reduction, low carbon and various environmental benchmarks to achieve the green factory label.

‘Sustainability has always been at the core of ASE’s corporate philosophy,’ said KC Chou, senior vice president, ASE. ‘In 2014, ASE Kaohsiung implemented the EEWH-RN system and adopted ‘clean production’. Beginning with sustainable product design and production, green management, social responsibility to innovation; these four facets helped reduce resource consumption, reduce waste, lower impacts to the environment and other improvements that aim to strike a balance between economic and environmental sustainability. Our Kaohsiung facilities are constantly challenged to establish energy reduction goals and each department regularly proposes diverse programs to lower carbon footprints. This year, K7 is also working towards achieving the EEWH-RN diamond grade. At ASE, we will continuously raise the bar on our sustainability performance,’ he concluded.

About ASE Sustainability Actions and Results

ASE K7

  • Green innovation. The use of DI water to replace acetic acid reduced the usage of organic acid by 14,400 liters.
  • Green material usage. The use of boron-free developing agent reduced boron-containing agent usage by 1,830 liters and boron-containing liquid waste by 2,015 metric tons per year. The use of lead-free solder paste reduced usage of lead paste by 1,500 kg per year.
  • Energy efficient manufacturing process. Improvements made to the adsorption dryer reduced energy usage by 278,495 kWh per year.
  • Water efficiency. The use of chamber piping to control water flow resulted in water savings of 314.52 tons per year. Employing UF and RO systems further reduced wastewater discharge volume by 15,600 tons.
  • Lower carbon emissions. Converting the fixed frequency of chilled water pumps and cooling water pumps to variable frequency enabled us to reduce 625 tons of CO2 equivalent per year. Energy efficiency lights are installed throughout the factory premises, further reducing 793 tons of CO2 equivalent per year.
  • Waste reduction. Establishing a central chemical delivery system helped reduce the use of 1,208 chemical barrels per year. We also reduced photoresist coating usage by 14,400 liters per year. Gold and copper reuse amounted to 474.45 kg per year. Wafer cassette reuse amounted to 39,795 pieces per year.

Building certifications as of August 31, 2017

  • LEED rating：Kaohsiung K12, K21, K22, K23, K26；Chung Li Buildings K and L；Shanghai Headquarters
  • EEWH rating：Kaohsiung K3, K4, K5, K7, K11, K12, K14B(water recycling facility), K15, K16, K21, K26；Chung Li Building A
  • Green Factory Label：Kaohsiung K3, K5, K7, K11, K12, K15
  • In progress: The construction of our new K24 building in Kaohsiung has taken into consideration of ‘low carbon footprint building’ methodologies from the transportation of materials, equipment, type of material used, renovation, dismantling and the entire building’s life cycle.

Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) (Toshiba) is in continuing negotiations with three consortia of potential purchasers of Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC): the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, Bain Capital Private Equity LP and Development Bank of Japan consortium; a consortium that includes Western Digital; and a consortium that includes Hon Hai. At this point, Toshiba has not made any decision to reduce the pool of candidate purchasers of TMC.

There have been media reports speculating that Toshiba will make a decision on Aug 31 at Toshiba’s Board of Directors meeting. While Toshiba exercised its best efforts to reach a mutually satisfactory definitive agreement with one of the consortia seeking to purchase TMC, the negotiation with each consortium has not reached the point which will allow Toshiba’s Board of Directors could make a decision regarding the sale of TMC.

The memory business requires timely investments, accelerated product development, and the ability to quickly ramp-up large-scale production capacity; Highly reliable memory devices are essential to meet growing demand for storage. Accordingly, Toshiba is looking for a purchaser of TMC that is able to deliver flexible, rapid decision-making and enhanced financial options, and to promote further growth of TMC’s memory business, while also being capable of contributing enough value from the sale of TMC to return the Toshiba group to positive equity.

Toshiba intends to continue negotiations with possible bidders to reach a definitive agreement which meets Toshiba’s objectives at the earliest possible date, and will announce material changes in status in a timely manner.

“As TV makers struggle to trigger replacement cycles, WCG and HDR and their notable picture quality improvements are the next growth drivers for the TV industry,” announced Eric Virey, Senior Market & Technology Analyst, LED, Sapphire & Displays at Yole Développement (Yole).

Various technologies are competing to deliver those features. In the short and mid-term, the best-positioned ones are OLED and the well-established, dominant, LCD technology supercharged with narrow-band phosphor LEDs or QD color converters in the backlight unit. Yole analysts delivered a deep analysis of the WCG display and QD technologies, status and prospects, roadblocks and key players with a dedicated technology & market report titled: Quantum Dots & Wide Color Gamut Display Technologies.

What is the status and benefits of QD technologies? After QD-Vision demise, what are the companies that can answer to the demand of the fast growing LCD market? How will the competitive landscape evolve, especially with OLED solutions?

wide color gamut

The “More than Moore” market research and strategy consulting company Yole offers you a snapshot of the QD technologies, its applications and the players involved.

Quantum Dots enable drastic enhancements of display color gamut. They do so with high efficiency, giving display makers headroom to increase brightness, contrast and gamut without increasing power consumption.

Their most common implementation is as color conversion films located in the LCD backlight unit. In this form, QDs are drop-in solutions that can be easily deployed on all sizes of displays without any process change or CapEx . QDs therefore enable the LCD industry to boost the performance of its products without major investment. This contrasts with OLEDs, which require building multibillion-dollar dedicated fabs.

However, QDs do not solve some of LCD shortcomings. Mostly, LCD still lag behind OLEDs in terms of response times, black levels and viewing angles. Also, LCDs cannot deliver pixel-level dimming, the strongest selling point for OLED displays. In the near future, QDs could substitute for LCD color filters. Unlike films, this configuration requires some process changes in LCD manufacturing.

However, it would double the display efficiency, further improve color gamut and provide viewing angles similar to OLED.

In the longer term, EL-QD could deliver OLED-like characteristics and performance, with improved brightness and stability.

“QDs and related technologies will take advantage of OLED TV capacity constraints,” says Dr Eric Virey from Yole.

LG Display is currently the only OLED TV panel manufacturer. The company announced that it will stop investing in LCD and build two new OLED TV manufacturing lines in Korea and China, slated to start production in late 2019. Cost and technology barriers to entry are high, and few other companies will be able to manufacture OLED TV panels in that timeframe. Unless OLED printing technologies progress fast enough to enable cost efficient manufacturing of large, full RGB displays, OLED TV adoption will therefore remain capacity-constrained to less than 12 million units per year until 2022.

QDs will take advantage of this window of opportunity to capture the lion’s share of the WCG and HDR TV market. Rapidly improving performance and decreasing cost is already enabling adoption to spread into mid-range, sub-US$1000 models opening a high volume markets still forbidden to OLED for cost and capacity reasons. Display makers will use QDs to keep extracting more value from existing LCD fab. For the long term, many are hedging their bets and looking at both RGB printed OLED and EL-QDs.

In the mid-term however, QDCF configurations represent an attractive opportunity to close the gap with OLED in term of viewing angles and widen it in term of gamut and efficiency. QDCF however requires some LCD manufacturing process changes. Although moderate compared to a new OLED fab, not every LCD maker will want to commit the required CapEx or even develop the technology.
In the longer term, both OLED and QD-enhanced LCD could face competition from new, disruptive technologies such as the already mentioned electroluminescent QDs or even microLEDs, which could drive a potential paradigm shift, offering alternatives to OLED in self-emissive display technologies. Other technological innovations could also disrupt the QD market. For example, commercialization of a narrow-band green phosphor could eliminate the performance gap between phosphors and QD films and enable a more cost-effective solution.

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) has strengthened its ecosystem through a Partner Program that connects customers with qualified technical specialists capable of strategically supporting their projects.

The new ST Partner Program helps customers’ design teams access extra skills, products, and services to aid engineering development and shorten time-to-market for new products. While searching ST parts, solutions, and resources online, customers can at the same time identify approved Program members with competencies related to the chosen products. These competencies can be in Cloud services, associated Components or Modules, embedded Software, Engineering services, Development tools, or Training services. This info is also centralized in a dedicated partner area on the ST website at www.st.com/partners.

“The ST Partner Program provides fast introductions to trusted partners able to supply expertise to critical design projects. We evaluate program applicants to ensure that all partners are committed to offering consistently high-quality services,” said Alessandro Maloberti, Partner Ecosystem Director, STMicroelectronics. “The Program is designed to encourage product developers to choose even more components, modules, embedded software, and tools from the broad portfolio available at st.com to start their new product designs.”

Potential partners can apply to join the ST Partner Program via web registration. A complete framework covering technical, marketing, legal, and business aspects protects partners and ensures high service quality for customers. New, formalized partner benefits include enhanced marketing support from ST, which may include promotion in the ST Community and ST YouTube channel, the right to use the ST Partner Program logo and communication materials, as well as exposure to ST’s global customer base of engineers and purchasers from leading high-tech brands, manufacturing-service providers, and independent engineers and designers.

Going forward, ST will introduce more ways for its partners to engage, including co-marketing activities, sharing design opportunities, training, and networking events.

Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) and its subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:HIMX), today jointly announced a collaboration to accelerate the development and commercialization of a high resolution, low power active 3D depth sensing camera system to enable computer vision capabilities for use cases such as biometric face authentication, 3D reconstruction, and scene perception for mobile, IoT, surveillance, automotive and AR/VR.

The collaboration brings together Qualcomm Spectra™ technologies and expertise in computer vision architecture and algorithm with Himax’s complementary technologies in wafer optics, sensing, driver, and module integration capabilities to deliver a fully integrated SLiM (Structured Light Module) 3D solution. The SLiM is a turn-key 3D camera module that delivers real-time depth sensing and 3D point cloud generation with high resolution and high accuracy performance for indoor and outdoor environments. The SLiM is engineered for very low power consumption in a compact, low profile form factor, making the solution ideal for embedded and mobile device integration. Qualcomm Technologies and Himax will commercialize the SLiM 3D camera as a total camera system solution for a wide array of markets and industries with mass production targeting in Q1/2018.

“This partnership with Himax highlights the technology investments we are making with Taiwanese companies to continue leading in visual processing innovation,” said Jim Cathey, senior vice president and president, Asia Pacific and India, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “The combination of cutting edge technology licensing and collaboration with an industry leading Taiwanese partner like Himax will help create groundbreaking new products in Taiwan, strengthening the global 3D depth sensing ecosystem and boosting Taiwan’s economy.”

“As an engineer, it is gratifying to see how our technology inventions enable products that will enrich user experience for consumers around the world,” said Chienchung Chang, vice president of engineering, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “It has been a great experience collaborating with Himax on the project to enable 3D computer vision technologies in smartphones, virtual reality and augmented reality products.”

“Our 3D sensing solution will be a game changing technology for smartphones, where we will enable the Android ecosystem to provide the next generation of mobile user experience,” said Jordan Wu, President and Chief Executive Officer of Himax Technologies. “Our two companies have worked together for more than four years to design the SLiM 3D sensing solution to meet growing demands for enhanced computer vision capabilities that will enable amazing new features and use cases in a broad range of markets and applications. We are pleased to partner with Qualcomm Technologies to put together an ecosystem and to enable the revolutionary computer vision solutions for our customers globally in a timely fashion.”

Despite its age and maturity, the automotive market has witnessed many unexpected developments over the past two years. And as has always been the case, safety drives the market. Automotive OEMs and suppliers are now investing in technologies to develop autonomous and electric vehicles. Automation will spur the development of imaging and detection sensors like cameras, LiDAR, and radar, while electrification will boost the design of current and thermal sensors for battery management. And because sensors are becoming a must-have, other markets are dynamic and growing too.

Yole Développement (Yole), part of Yole Group of Companies, presents an overview of the different sensors involved in autonomous systems with its new report MEMS & Sensors for Automotive. It also describes the applications, technologies and players associated with the automotive sensors market’s impending changes. This analysis includes detailed roadmaps and market forecasts until 2022.

How will sensor technology shape the tomorrow’s automotive industry? Yole’s analysts propose you today a deep understanding of the reborn automotive sensor market.

In a global automotive market worth than US$2.3 trillion, the little world of automotive sensors has recently been shaken up by the emergence of electric and autonomous cars.

Despite just 3% growth in the volume of cars sold expected through to 2022, Yole expects an average growth rate in sensors sales volumes above 8% over the next five years, and above 14% growth in sales value. This is thanks to the expanding integration of high value sensing modules like RADAR, imaging and LiDAR. The current automotive sensing market groups MEMS and classic active sensors such as pressure, TPMS , chemical, inertial, magnetic, ultrasonic, imaging, RADAR and LiDAR. “This market is worth US$11 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach US$23 billion by 2022,” announced Guillaume Girardin, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole. “This is mainly due to the boom in imaging, RADAR and LiDAR sensors, which will respectively be worth US$7.7 billion, US$6.2 billion and US$1.4 billion by 2022,” he adds.

Among classical sensors like pressure, chemical and magnetic sensors, the impact of electric vehicles will remain small in the short term. However, the advent of electrical vehicles will greatly change the amount and the distribution of pressure and magnetic sensors within the car in the longer term. More electric cars will mean fewer pressure sensors and a surge in magnetic sensors for battery monitoring and various positioning and detection of moving pieces. Finally, the automotive world is experiencing one of the fastest-changing eras in its evolution ever. Sensor suppliers are now engaged in a race where they need to be prepared for the golden age of the automotive world.

Among all sensing technologies located in the car, three main sensors will drastically change the landscape: imaging, RADAR and LiDAR sensors.

Imaging sensors were initially mounted for ADAS purposes in high-end vehicles, with deep learning image analysis techniques promoting early adoption. It is now a well-established fact that vision-based AEB is possible and saves lives. Adoption of forward ADAS cameras will therefore accelerate.
Growth of imaging for automotive is also being fueled by the park assist application, and 360° surround view camera volumes are skyrocketing. While it is becoming mandatory in the US to have a rear view camera, that uptake is dwarfed by 360° surround view cameras, which enable a “bird’s eye view” perspective. This trend is most beneficial to companies like Omnivision at sensor level and Panasonic and Valeo, which have become the main manufacturers of automotive cameras.
RADAR sensors, which are often wrongly seen as competitors of imaging and LiDAR sensors, are increasingly adopted in high-end vehicles. They are also diffusing into mid-price cars for blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control, pushing Level 2/3 features as a common experience.

Lastly, LiDAR remains the “Holy Grail” for most automotive players, allowing 3D sensing of the environment. In this report Yole’ analysts highlight the different potential usages of this technology, which will transform the transportation industry completely.

“We expect tremendous growth of the LiDAR market within the next five years, from being worth US$300 million in 2017 to US$4.4 billion by 2022,” detailed Guillaume Girardin from Yole. LiDAR is expected to be a key technology, but sensing redundancy will still be the backbone of the automotive world where security remains the golden rule.

The MEMS & Sensors for automotive report represents the best of Yole’s automotive sensor industry and imaging sector knowledge. Yole regularly participates in industry conferences and tradeshows worldwide, and maintains close relations with market leaders.

The overall utilization rate of display panel fabrication (fab) plants is expected to remain high in the third quarter of 2017, recording similar levels for the fifth consecutive quarter, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

Figure 1

Figure 1

According to the latest Display Production & Inventory Tracker by IHS Markit, the overall fab utilization rate is expected to reach 91 percent in the third quarter, up 1.8 percentage points from the previous quarter and up 1.1 percentage points from the same period last year.

Figure 2

Figure 2

“One of the main contributing factors for higher utilization rates in the past few quarters is that display panel makers are making sure their inventories are optimized at healthy levels,” said Alex Kang, senior analyst at IHS Markit.

Production of large LCD panels, which take the majority of overall display production in terms of area, is expected to be 2.2 percent higher than actual shipments in the third quarter. This is a result of display makers wanting to build contingency, or wriggle room, in their utilization plans as part of their strategy to offset any unexpected lower utilization rates, which could trigger off higher costs.

“As a result, panel makers’ inventory will increase, but it will still remain within healthy ranges,” Kang said.

According to IHS Markit, panel makers are expected to keep high utilization rate throughout the second half of 2017. As production capacity increase has slowed down and panel makers are expected to keep managing inventory levels within healthy limits, they will still have some room to stock up from production surplus volumes.

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) and IXYS Corporation (NASDAQ:IXYS) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Littelfuse will acquire all of the outstanding shares of IXYS in a cash and stock transaction. The transaction represents an equity value of approximately $750 million and enterprise value of $655 million. Under the terms of the agreement, each IXYS stockholder will be entitled to elect to receive, per IXYS share, either $23.00 in cash or 0.1265 of a share of Littelfuse common stock, subject to proration. In total, 50% of IXYS stock will be converted into the cash election option and 50% into the stock election option.

IXYS is a global developer in the power semiconductor and integrated circuit markets with a focus on medium to high voltage power control semiconductors across the industrial, communications, consumer and medical markets. IXYS has a broad customer base, serving more than 3,500 customers through its direct salesforce and global distribution partners. IXYS reported revenues of $322 million in its fiscal 2017 with an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 13.5%.

The combined company is expected to have annual revenues of approximately $1.5 billion, with the following compelling strategic and financial benefits:

  • Broader technology platform and capability to expand growth into industrial and electronics markets
  • Increased long-term penetration of power control portfolio in automotive markets, expanding global content per vehicle
  • Heightened engineering expertise and intellectual property around high voltage and silicon carbide semiconductor technologies
  • Increased presence in the semiconductor industry, adding to our scale and volume
  • Strong relationships and complementary overlap in major global electronics distribution partnerships enabling cross-selling
  • Immediately accretive to adjusted EPS and free cash flow post transaction close(2)
  • Expect to generate more than $30 million in annualized cost savings; additional future value created from revenue synergies and tax rate reduction

“As the largest acquisition in our 90-year history, this is an exciting milestone for Littelfuse,” said Dave Heinzmann, President and Chief Executive Officer, Littelfuse. “IXYS’ extensive power semiconductor portfolio and technology expertise fit squarely within our strategy to accelerate our growth within power control and industrial OEM markets. The combination of Littelfuse and IXYS unites complementary capabilities, cultures and relationships.”

“IXYS will operate as the cornerstone of the combined companies’ power semiconductor business,” said Dr. Nathan Zommer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IXYS. “Both Littelfuse and IXYS have long histories of innovation and customer-focused product development, and together, we will embrace the entrepreneurial spirit that has contributed to IXYS’ success in the power semiconductor and integrated circuits market.”

“The combination of IXYS and Littelfuse creates a stronger player in the power semiconductor industry, with the ability to leverage our collective resources and portfolio to create increased value for our customers,” added Uzi Sasson, President and Chief Executive Officer of IXYS. “We believe that being a part of a world-class organization like Littelfuse will provide a bright future for IXYS and the talented people at our respective companies.”

Transaction highlights

The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Littelfuse’s adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow in the first full year post transaction close, excluding any acquisition and integration related costs. Littelfuse expects to achieve more than $30 million of annualized cost savings within the first two years after closing the transaction. Longer term, the combination is also expected to create significant revenue synergy opportunities given the companies’ complementary offerings, as well as benefits from future tax rate reduction.

In conjunction with the definitive agreement, Dr. Nathan Zommer, IXYS founder and currently the company’s largest stockholder with approximately 21% ownership, has entered into a voting and support agreement. Subject to the agreement’s terms and conditions, he has agreed to vote his shares in favor of the transaction. After close of the transaction, Dr. Zommer is expected to join Littelfuse’s Board of Directors, subject to the board’s governance and approval process. His technical skills and extensive experience across the semiconductor industry will benefit the combined company with its integration efforts, innovation roadmap and revenue expansion.

The transaction is expected to close in the first calendar quarter of 2018 and is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals and approval by IXYS stockholders. Littelfuse expects to finance the cash portion of the transaction consideration through a combination of existing cash and additional debt.

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC is serving as financial advisor and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is serving as legal counsel to Littelfuse. Needham & Company, LLC is serving as financial advisor and Latham & Watkins LLP is serving as legal counsel to IXYS.

The ConFab – an exclusive conference and networking event for semiconductor manufacturing and design executives from leading device makers, OEMs, OSATs, fabs, suppliers and fabless/design companies – announces the 2018 event will be held at THE COSMOPOLITAN of LAS VEGAS on May 20-23.

Pete Singer, Conference Chair of The ConFab and Editor-in-Chief of Solid State Technology had this to say, “The ConFab is a unique combination of business, technology and social interactions that make this industry gathering of influencers and leaders so valuable. In 2018, we will take a close look at the new applications driving the semiconductor industry, the technology that will be required at the device and process level to meet new demands, and – perhaps most importantly – the kind of strategic collaboration that will be required.” He also stated, “the key to continued business success for both guests and presenters will be the crucial insights that will be gained at the conference about critical market trends; and how to take advantage of emerging opportunities. Our goal is to “connect the dots” and how what’s going on in the end semiconductor application space (IoT, AI, 5G, VR, automotive, etc.) will ultimately impact semiconductor manufacturing and design.”

Keynotes, panel discussions and technical sessions on new technology needed in manufacturing will be a focal point of The ConFab 2018. Topics include: EUV, now entering volume production and ushering in a new era of patterning for the 7 and 5nm generations. And the many new materials being considered, transistors that are evolving from FinFETs to gate-all-around nanowires, on chip communication with silicon photonics emerging, and advanced packaging/heterogeneous integration as ever more critical. How semiconductors are playing an increasingly important role in the healthcare industry, will also be in the robust 2018 agenda.

The ConFab is a high-level, 3 1/2 day conference for decision-makers and influencers to connect, innovate and collaborate in multiple sessions, one-on-one private business meetings, and other daily networking activities. For more information, visit www.theconfab.com.

SparkLabs Group, a network of accelerators and funds, is launching a $50 million early-stage fund (Series A & B) primarily focused on South Korea. The fund will be led by Brian Kang, who was a founding member of Samsung’s first venture capital arm and later led Korea Venture Fund, which was Korea’s first VC fund of funds. He has over 20 years of experience as an investment professional and several years as an entrepreneur and operator. He was CEO & Chairman of the Board at Gravity, a Softbank affliated gaming company, and then went on to launch his own gaming startup.

Brian is joined by Chris Koh, Co-founder of Coupang which is the leading ecommerce player in South Korea and received $1 billion investment from Softbank in 2015. Chris started Coupang with a classmate from Harvard Business School and their friend at Harvard Law. He was vice president of the company for five years focusing on operations and growth.

“We are grateful to SeAH who was one of the first investors in SparkLabs Global Ventures, our global seed fund, and now the anchor investor along with Korea Development Bank/Multi-Asset in our new Series A fund for South Korea. We believe we have assembled the best team to service entrepreneurs in Korea since all of us have built companies from the ground up in Korea and the U.S.,” stated HanJoo Lee, co-founder of SparkLabs.

SeAH is a top 50 business group in South Korea and Korea Development Bank/Multi-Asset is subsidiary of Mirae Asset, which is the largest asset manager in South Korea with over US$100 billion assets under management.

Brian Kang and Chris Koh are joined by Venture Partners (part-time partners) Rob Das, Co-founder and former Chief Architect of Splunk, and John Suh, CEO of Legalzoom. Splunk is a $8 billion market cap company that Rob helped grow from concept to its IPO in 2012. John has served as CEO since 2007 to help grow Legalzoom into the leading provider of online legal document services in the U.S. that has serviced almost 4 million customers.

“We are excited to launch this new early-stage fund to help Korea’s rapidly growing startup ecosystem. I believe the venture capital business must evolve as the startup environment is changing fast in Korea. Finding companies of global capacity, generating rich deal flow, adding real values post investment are becoming more and more critical to the success of venture investments. Chris and I look forward to working with other investors to help nurture the next generation of impact entrepreneurs in South Korea,” said Brian Kang, Co-founder and Managing Partner of SparkLabs Ventures.

SparkLabs Ventures is also supported by a heavy hitting advisory board that includes former Congressman Mike Honda, who served in the U.S. Congress from 2001 to 2017 (represented Silicon Valley in the 17th congressional district from 2013 to 2017); David Lee, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Refactor Capital; and Nadiem Makarim, Co-founder and CEO of Go-Jek, which recently raised $1.2 billion from Tencent and others.

The fund will focus primarily on South Korea startups at their Series A or B rounds, and will not be limited to graduates of SparkLabs accelerator in Seoul. The fund will focus its investments on companies that have potential to expand abroad to different markets and have the ability to take advantage of the global reach of the SparkLabs’ network. A secondary target region is SE Asia, so the fund will be open to startups within this region who have global ambitions.