Laguna Investment Backs AI-Native Social App [fn Market Watch]

[Financial News] Laguna Investment has bet on an artificial intelligence (AI)-native social application. CRIT Ventures, Kiwoom Investment, Z Venture Capital (ZVC), and Kim Bong-jin, chairman of Grandeclip, also joined the investment in Beutbeautiful, the operator of the social app "truloop," which targets the IRL (In Real Life) space for actual face-to-face meetings.
According to the investment banking (IB) industry on the 1st, Beutbeautiful recently wrapped up a pre-Series A round led by Laguna Investment. It was a mixed round that included both financial investors (FI) and individual investors. In connection with this round, Beutbeautiful was also selected for the TIPS Research and Development (R&D) global track. The company has secured an additional 1.2 billion won in R&D funding through October 2028. Compared with the standard TIPS track, the support package is typically larger and requires overseas validation, so the deal is seen as a proactive move to secure funding for global expansion at an early stage.
Beutbeautiful is a startup founded by CEO Park Soo-man, the creator of the microblog Me2day and the executive who led planning and launch of Naver's BAND. He established a corporation in Delaware last year and launched the company with Los Angeles as its base. A notable feature is that it adopted a so-called corporate flip structure from the start, with a U.S. entity serving as the parent company rather than a domestic headquarters. The setup appears designed with future exit strategies in mind, including attracting U.S. venture capital (VC) funding and pursuing local mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
The team composition also stands out. Kim Hyeong-il, chief business officer (CBO) who led WEBTOON's intellectual property rights (IPR) One Source Multi Use (OSMU) business, global expansion, and especially growth in North America, has joined the company, along with talent from major domestic information technology (IT) firms. That background helps explain why the startup targeted global markets from the outset without first validating the business in Korea.
Truloop is an AI-native social platform that brings the entire meeting process into a single service. It focuses on the fragmented experience people go through before they actually meet, from checking a calendar and coordinating schedules through messenger apps to using maps and reservation services, and then sharing photos again afterward. AI analyzes participants' schedules to recommend the best time and helps choose venues and book restaurants. After the gathering, it automatically collects photos taken by attendees and creates personalized stories and highlight content.
Beutbeautiful will use the investment to advance its AI and community features. At the same time, it plans to accelerate its global push by securing early users at universities, clubs, and communities in the United States and Japan. Japan, in particular, is seen as a market well suited for early penetration of community-based services because club and workplace gathering cultures are well developed there.
Park Soo-man, CEO of Beutbeautiful, said, "Meetings are one of the most basic activities for building relationships, but people still have to move between multiple services to coordinate schedules, reserve venues, manage attendance, and share photos." He added, "Our goal is for Truloop to become a service that helps people meet more easily, naturally records the experiences they share, and leads them to the next meeting."
Park Young-ho, CEO of Laguna Investment, said, "Beutbeautiful is a team that has both the experience of successfully building large-scale social services such as Me2day and BAND, and the product capabilities to turn AI into a real user experience." He added, "Based on its proven execution, the company is expected to present a new social experience for the AI era and grow quickly in the global market."

[email protected] Kang Gu-gui Reporter