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South Korea’s Sooho.io has received US$4.5 million in a Series A+ funding round from Woori Technology to accelerate the infrastructure company’s goal to become the SWIFT for Web3 in the Korean blockchain industry.
The firm will leverage the new funds to develop a comprehensive portfolio of highly secure blockchain solutions. That includes financial layer infrastructure solutions for Web3 such as white-labeled bridge layers, SDKs, and APIs for implementing DeFi infrastructure with ease, and constant innovation on the smart contract auditing technology side. The aim is to enable frictionless, secure exchange and movement of virtual assets across multiple public blockchains.
In South Korea, many conglomerates are launching their own mainnets. However, due to regulatory and technical issues, they’ve faced a raft of difficulties. For successful mainnet launches, bridge layers and DeFi applications are often a prerequisite. As such, SOOHO.IO plans to develop SDKs and APIs which will empower its partners to implement bridges and DeFi applications with ease. SOOHO.IO’s current partners include Wemix, Bora, and Japanese blockchain gaming firm Oasys. These partners chose SOOHO.IO for the team’s leading security knowledge, legal compliance, and operations and implementation support.
“SOOHO.IO started out as a blockchain security company for the world’s largest companies. Today, this investment from leading investors – even amid a global bear market – strategically positions us to scale our team and accelerate our partners’ development of secure DeFi products amid their transition to Web 3.0. We’re also excited to start looking beyond our own shores, at opportunities to build and expand in other countries and regions in the coming months,” said Jisu Park, CEO and Founder of SOOHO.IO.
As blockchain technology evolves in South Korea, the emerging multitude of competing networks has largely been content in their isolation, seldom fully interacting with one another. SOOHO.IO’s bridge layer aims to solidify existing DeFi infrastructure by facilitating greater interoperability between these currently fragmented networks. The goal is to drive wider blockchain adoption on behalf of mainstream companies, and their end customers.
“We are excited to offer support to SOOHO.IO’s vision to transform the landscape of Korea’s crypto industry. We are aligned with their goals to develop innovative institutional-grade DeFi infrastructure, and believe that SOOHO.IO’s smart contract auditing services are well-positioned to expand globally,” said a spokesperson from Woori Technology Investment.
On the auditing side, SOOHO.IO has achieved notable business milestones this year. With over 280,000 audit reports generated, SOOHO’s automated algorithm found over 24,000 different types of vulnerabilities in the smart contracts audited. And Kleva, SOOHO.IO’s DeFi protocol specializing in leverage yield farming, reached US$500M in total value locked (TVL) within three days of its launch, displaying its inherent potential to provide services that support the world’s largest technology firms as they launch into Web3. Furthermore, at Evmos’ inaugural Momentum Hackathon, SOOHO.IO’s engineers took home the Grand Champion award of $80,000 worth of USDC and EVMOS with their DeFi protocol, EVMOS StayKing House.
“SOOHO.IO’s services are becoming increasingly essential for the growing number of blockchains in Korea. More importantly, they’re building much-needed infrastructure that will galvanize Korea’s DeFi ecosystem and improve network security,” said a spokesperson from Woori Technology Investment. “We share SOOHO.IO’s strategic vision for wider blockchain adoption, and hope our contribution will help fuel the future of Korean financial technology projects and protocols.”
SOOHO.IO previously announced that it raised US$4.5 million from a Series A fundraising round from WeMix in April 2022, following an earlier Seed round led by Consensys. That puts the total funds SOOHO.IO has raised to date at US$9 million.
