SoftBank’s latest unicorn is a food trading platform

Source: AFP

South Korean agriculture and food trading platform Tridge Co. raised 50 billion won ($37 million) at a 3.6 trillion won valuation, becoming the latest billion-dollar startup in SoftBank Group Corp.’s stable.

DS Asset Management was the sole investor in the Seoul-based company’s Series D financing, joining earlier backers including SoftBank Ventures and Forest Partners and taking Tridge’s cumulative funding to 150 billion won.

Founded in 2015 by Shin Hoshik, a former senior portfolio manager for Korea’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, Tridge has grown into a global platform for food and commodity trading with about 28,000 sellers and 100,000 buyers. It also operates a fulfillment service that distributes food and other products in 90 countries, saying it helps customers save about 20% on logistics and trading costs. About nine-tenths of its clients are foreign retailers.

Tridge -- an amalgam of “transaction” and “bridge” -- plans to use the funds to expand overseas and establish new services, it said in a statement to Bloomberg News. It said it seeks to solve problems ranging from supply chain disruption to agricultural inflation.