• funding Stage : Series A
• Raising Amount : KRW 1.5 B
• Desired Fundraising Timeframe : 3Q 2024

“We provide a no-code solution that enables even those without programming knowledge to crawl the web with ease.”

The importance of collecting, analyzing, and utilizing data is increasingly recognized across various industries. The ability to gather high-quality data swiftly and to extract meaningful insights from it has become a critical competitive factor for businesses. As the demand for technologies capable of efficiently sifting through massive amounts of data grows, UpennSolution has introduced ‘SPIDERKIM’, a user-friendly, no-code web crawling solution.

Kim Jaehoon, CEO of UpennSolutions, who holds a degree in computer engineering, realized during his college years the ease of data collection via web crawling. Drawing on his experience of swiftly collecting data and preparing reports shortly after joining the company, Kim envisioned a service that would enable data collection without coding. This idea led him to establish his own business. The company quickly gained traction, securing its first contract within a month of inception and recognizing its business potential within six months, leading to a formal launch in 2018.

UpennSolution’s services are engineered to automate comprehensive tasks such as web structure analysis, script writing, and data extraction, enabling effective large-scale data collection and processing. Utilizing parallel processing and distributed computing technologies, the company efficiently processes large datasets and ensures their security with cloud-based storage solutions.

CEO Kim Jaehoon emphasizes the importance of refining the data collected through crawling. “We’ve developed a matrix search technique to gather similar datasets and distill only the relevant information,” he explained. Addressing the legal and ethical challenges associated with web crawling, Kim noted, “Historically, some crawling practices have been unlawful. We are addressing these issues by conducting our crawls during periods of low traffic and running ongoing campaigns to ensure compliance and efficiency.”

This year, UpennSolution is aiming to achieve sales of KRW 1 billion, driven by consistent growth. The company is well on its way to meeting this target with KRW 400 million already secured in the first half of the year. Currently, the company generates KRW 25 million monthly from subscriptions with about 20 companies, and plans to double this revenue by expanding its subscriber base to KRW 50 million per month.

In efforts to attract further investment, CEO Kim stated, “Despite our considerable experience, we’ve received limited investment. This year, we’re focused on attracting more to expand globally, as our services are increasingly being adopted by international firms. With the international market being larger than the domestic one, we plan to tailor our services to better suit global needs and to hire more development staff.”

Kim concluded, “Working on numerous projects has shown me the endless growth potential of the data market. With our extensive experience, UpennSolutions is poised to lead in this area. With the right investments, we aspire to transform into a web data company that not only succeeds but also enhances Korea’s stature in the global market.“

What problem is UpennSolution trying to solve?

In today’s world, data has become as valuable as gold. Extracting it, much like mining gold, is a formidable task. UpennSolution has identified two main challenges in the data ecosystem.

First, the automation of data collection. Many businesses and professionals require data from websites, but collecting it manually is both time-consuming and inefficient.

Second, processing large volumes of data. It is nearly impossible for many companies to manually handle the vast amounts of data they need to collect and process.

UpennSolution aims to streamline the complexities involved in data collection and bulk processing, allowing companies to focus on their core operations. Through our efforts, we are paving the way for a data-centric future by enhancing data accessibility and efficiency.

How do you solve this problem?

To tackle the problems mentioned, we have developed a user-centric, no-code web scraping tool ‘SPIDERKIM’.

Automating data collection typically requires building an automatic collector using programming, which can be daunting for users in roles like marketing, planning, and product development who find coding challenging. This is where our no-code service is essential. SPIDERKIM is engineered to automatically handle all tasks, including web structure analysis, script writing, and item extraction.

We store and process the collected data efficiently using parallel processing and distributed computing techniques. We manage large-scale data securely through cloud-based storage and ensure data quality with our cleansing and transformation capabilities. Additionally, our service exports data in various formats through API integration, enabling seamless integration with other systems.

What is our competitive edge compared to our competitors? What are the technical advantages?

The standout feature of SPIDERKIM is its ease of use. We provide an intuitive user interface that enables users with no coding knowledge to easily perform web scraping tasks. This accessibility significantly widens our user base to include non-experts, providing a major competitive advantage.

Our service also boasts several technical strengths.

High-performance data processing: We utilize parallel processing and distributed computing technologies to collect and process large data volumes quickly and efficiently, facilitating real-time analysis.

Compatibility with various data sources: Our service handles multiple data formats, including HTML, XML, and JSON, and seamlessly collects content dynamically generated with JavaScript. It also easily connects with external data sources through API integration.

Automation and scheduling capabilities: Users can automate scraping tasks to run at predetermined times, allowing for continuous data updates. For example, setting a daily data collection ensures that the information remains current.

Enhanced data quality management: We ensure the quality of the data collected through data cleaning and deduplication features. Our service also includes an automatic recovery function to maintain stability in the event of errors.

What products/services does UpennSolution provide? What is the current status?

SPIDERKIM is a web-based, no-code scraping tool accessible globally via any internet-connected device. Its use is straightforward: users search for the website they want to scrape, configure basic settings, and click the registration button. The internal system automatically handles web page navigation, data extraction, scheduling, data conversion, cleansing, and exporting in various formats.

Currently, SPIDERKIM is available as a free, open service. The core modules that power SPIDERKIM are also offered in a packaged format to numerous companies both domestically and internationally for a fee. In consumer goods manufacturing, for example, it is used to monitor competitor pricing and product reviews. In marketing, it helps collect customer reviews and social media data to track brand reputation.

What is your target market size and who are your key target customers?

SPIDERKIM operates on a global scale. According to Gartner, the global data collection market is projected to reach about $52 billion by 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.3%. A significant portion of this is driven by the demand for unstructured data, such as web data.

Our main target customers are consumer goods manufacturers who need to collect data from e-commerce sites. These manufacturers monitor competitor prices to refine their own pricing strategies and maintain competitiveness. They also analyze product reviews, sales data, and market trends to understand shifts in consumer preferences and market conditions, which aids in product development and marketing strategy. Furthermore, e-commerce data assists in forecasting demand and managing inventory more efficiently to reduce costs.

Approximately 500,000 consumer goods manufacturers exist worldwide (according to Deloitte United States). It is estimated that about 10% of these manufacturers might use web scraping services, suggesting a potential customer base of about 50,000 businesses.

Assuming an average monthly subscription fee for a web scraping service is $500, and that 5,000 companies—or 10% of these potential customers—actually subscribe, this would lead to monthly sales of $2.5 million, or approximately $30 million annually (about KRW 41.7 billion).

What is our business model?

Our business operates primarily on a subscription-based software as a service (SaaS) model. Users subscribe to access web scraping services, paying either monthly or annually. This model allows customers to select from a variety of pricing plans tailored to their specific needs and usage levels.

In addition to the subscription-based model, we also offer premium features and additional services for an extra charge. Revenue is generated not only from the basic subscription fees but also from premium features such as advanced data analytics, customized data processing, and dedicated support services.

What have been our team’s achievements so far?

To date, more than 120 companies, both domestically and internationally, have utilized our solutions. Among our domestic clients are Korea & Company, NHN, Lotte Group, and Samsung Group, while our international clientele includes Adidas, Coca-Cola, Roche, and Cargill. Approximately 20 of these companies are subscribed to our monthly services, with contracts lasting from two to five years. Our greatest achievement lies in the consistent satisfaction and trust we have maintained with our customers, underscored by the fact that we have not experienced a single contract cancellation.

What is our team’s competitiveness?

We emphasize global capabilities because our ultimate goal is to become a global enterprise. Our leadership, including myself, boasts experience from top companies like Google, Yahoo, and Blizzard. Additionally, our recently appointed Chief Data Officer (CDO) was formerly a professor at Sejong University and has served as a data scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). These global experiences, coupled with our team’s creative thinking and positive mindset, form the cornerstone of our competitiveness.

Why do we need to receive investment? Three reasons:

First, despite achieving our current level of success without any dedicated marketing, we have received inquiries from an average of 200 companies annually over the past four years. Managing these inquiries has led us to develop an automated solution, culminating in the creation of SPIDERKIM. We are now poised to enhance our focus on marketing and sales to fully leverage this potential.

Second, our team is composed of accomplished visionaries, not just intelligent individuals. Our CEO, who implemented the Anti-SEO algorithm at Google; our CMO, who was instrumental in establishing Blizzard games in Korea; and our CTO, who developed Yahoo’s semantic search engine, exemplify the high level of expertise within UpennSolution. Our proven expertise and innovative mindset are ready for the next step, and investment will provide the necessary impetus to explore new markets.

Third, UpennSolution is poised to expand from a local market presence to a global one. Interest from international companies is increasing, and with the launch of SpiderKim, we enable global users to collect data from websites worldwide. To capitalize on this momentum and truly establish ourselves in the global market, we require advanced technical staff and international marketing experts. Securing investment will help us transition from a local contender to a significant global player.