S Korean cloud service provider Metanet Tplatform bags $100m from Affirma Capital

Metanet Tplatform, the cloud managed service provider under South Korea’s Metanet Group, has raised $100 million from Singapore-based private equity firm Affirma Capital.

In a statement, Affirma Capital said it made the investment through its fifth Korean fund, Ascenta V. The said fund raised $435 million this year.

The investment is the first instance in the Korean cloud computing industry of a global private equity firm directly investing in a cloud services provider.

The $100-million investment is also the single largest investment executed by a financial investor in the Korean cloud computing industry, Affirma Capital added.

Metanet Tplatform said it will use the proceeds to invest a total of $174 million in the cloud business over the next three years to accelerate both vertical and horizontal business innovation.

It seeks to invest in technological advancement in PaaS and SaaS and expand its business overseas. The company also plans to go public in 2023.

“The investment represents an opportunity for us to take a leap forward in technology advancement as well as business expansion. We will continue to grow into the world’s leading cloud-specialized company to provide digital transformation services for our customers,” said the company’s CEO Konjon Lee.

Metanet Tplatform claims to be the leading cloud managed services provider in Korea, providing optimal hybrid cloud services with the
combination of more than 20 years of on-premise O&M experience and public cloud expertise.

In particular, with differentiated end-to-end (E2E) services across the entire cloud value chain, from consulting to infrastructure, data, application modernization, and security, the company has secured a number of large customers in each industry, including finance, manufacturing, e-commerce, retail, and media.

Taeyub Kim, co-founder and head of Korea at Affirma Korea, said the PE firm will contribute to value-add initiatives of Metanet through collaborations with its portfolio companies.

“We anticipate generating synergies with our existing IT portfolios in India and Vietnam, such as Prodapt Solutions, a global finance/communications IT solution company located in India, and MoMo, the largest digital payment company in Vietnam,” Kim added.