Pience has received additional investment from Samsung Ventures for its free wifi service FreeFi. It’s the second round of venture capital for the startup following funding from The Ventures in 2015.
FreeFi operates over 130,000 FreeFi zones that give safe and unrestricted access to the web throughout Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. Non-FreeFi wifi zones that are free are also displayed on the app’s map and can be filtered by category such as café or restaurant.
Aside from free wifi zones, FreeFi can also act as your default wifi management platform and uses an algorithm to scan for signal strength, network quality and security settings. Based on this FreeFi will only show the user networks that can be used to connect to the internet, and also filters out any routers which may be set up for phishing attacks.
Other basic features you’d expect from a wifi app such as data usage statistics for both wifi and 3G/4G, and data alerts are included too — it even lets you know how much money you’ve saved by using wifi.
While free wifi is great for customers, Pience also ties in benefits for retailers and venues that operate FreeFi Zones with its new ‘Fun Deal’ coupon service. Users that are logged onto FreeFi zones are offered discount coupons depending on their location for merchants in the immediate area. The aim is to help encourage local spending and increase purchasing options for users. Pience says that it only uses wifi connection logs and that personal information and browsing data is kept secure.
At the moment, most Fun Deal areas are in popular locations like Hongdae and Sinchon, but Pience plans to expand the service to other FreeFi areas in time.
“Our business model’s potential and data science capability has been recognized with this investment, and will be the catalyst for Pience to become a specialized data science company,” says CEO Yoo Jae-hong. “Going forward, we will become a strong marketing partner for local merchants to increase their sales through services like Fun Deal.”
The company says that it will use the fresh venture capital to improve its services, boost marketing, and recruit more staff. Pience was originally founded in 2014 and since then has taken part in the TIPS acceleration program, and alsosigned MOUs with China’s WeChat and AliPay.
