For more than five years, he immersed himself in data and machine learning on the company’s YouTube and Android platforms. Ah said YouTube had about 50 engineers at the time, and they helped develop an advertising algorithm that would make the video service profitable.
Then he went out on his own, founder moloko Inc., an advertising-technology company, in 2013. Less than a decade later, the Redwood City, California-based firm
, an unlisted startup with a valuation of over $1 billion. Its latest funding round in August was led by a big-name supporter: Chase Colemans Tiger Global Management.
“When my professor told me it would take me 10 years to do my PhD, I dropped out,” Ah, 42, said in an interview during a visit to Seoul. “It was a spontaneous decision, but it was one that changed my life.”
Moloko is one of several US-based unicorns created by South Korean entrepreneurs. The others are Nome Inc., a weight-loss app, and Sendbird Inc., an in-app messaging startup.
According to the Series C funding statement, Moloko generates over 13 billion ad impressions a month on the mobile app. Its clients include video sharing platform Bytedance Ltd’s TikTok, which now has over 1 billion users every month.
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Ego’s company raised $150 million in August from a Series C funding round, valued at $1.5 billion.
“We have invested in Moloco because its machine learning algorithms have proven to be one of the best available,” John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global, said in Moloco’s funding statement. “The amount of digital data produced is growing rapidly, yet the tools available to process that data are relatively limited.”
According to AH, Moloko’s revenue has doubled every year. Last year it was about $180 million. He said the company made its first profit in the first quarter of 2020, after spending years developing its machine-learning algorithms. It has more than 200 employees.
Ahn said targeted ads can be annoying at times, but if done well they can help customers “find products or services they might not otherwise find.”
James Cooper, director of the Business of Apps, which provides insight into the app industry, says Moloko has room to expand its business.
“Moloco’s challenge is to grow its brand and sales team in multiple international markets” and in multiple sectors such as games and e-commerce, he said. But he said the company’s approach has the potential to be successful.
Moloko wants to list the shares on the Nasdaq within the next two or three years, Ah said. He said he has been traveling frequently between the company’s eight global offices even during the pandemic.
“Jet lag is quite painful sometimes,” he said. “But I don’t stress often,” he said. Moloko may be much smaller than Google and Facebook, but it has established a profitable business model and is headed in the right direction, he said.