Smile Family announced yesterday that it had successfully secured 1.35 billion won in funding from Albatross Investment, Capstone Partners and Fast Track Asia. SmileFamily was founded by John Kim, former CEO and founder of Paprika Lab that developed that the hit Facebook game ‘Hero City’. The startup was eventually acquired by Japanese mobile social platform GREE last year and Kim worked as a business development director at the company until January when he left to found Smile Family.
Smile Family’s first service “Smile Mom” is a mobile social networking service designed for stressed out mothers. The service was originally created to help solve problems that the co-founders themselves were experiencing as parents. In May, the company gained second place in VentureSquare’s Superstar M competition and from July 3 began the open beta service of its app. Smile Mom is currently available on Android only, with a an iOS version expected to launched at a later time. “I think that this investment occurring at the same time as the open beta of Smile Family’s first service means a lot. By carefully preparing a service which meets the needs of mothers and families, we’ll provide a way to solve the problems that they face.” said CEO Kim. Tae-seong Kim of Albatross Investment also commented on the deal, saying, “We observed John Kim’s talent and potential for growth after he successfully grew and sold Paprika Lab which we had invested in previously, and so we decided to make the investment together with Capstone Partners and Fast Track Asia.” Smile Mom can be downloaded here.
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