Korean-run unicorn Moloco wants to tear the garden walls down for peak ad performance

Moloco, a Silicon Valley unicorn founded by Korean entrepreneurs, aims to expand access to digital ad optimization with its all-in-one platform that seeks to break the gatekeeping model of current advertising data power players.

Moloco CEO and co-founder Ahn Ikjin poses for a photo after an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily at Moloco Korea's office in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, in June. [PARK SANG-MOON]

[INTERVIEW]

Moloco, a Silicon Valley-based ad-tech startup, is a rarity in the high-stakes tech environment of the Valley — a unicorn founded by Korean entrepreneurs. Its co-founder and CEO, Ahn Ikjin, has bold ambitions: to scale beyond the so-called walled gardens of tech giants like Google and Meta by building an all-in-one platform that offers a panoramic, real-time view of how ads perform across apps, the open web and streaming services using AI.

The technology is progressing rapidly and the platform could arrive in “the next two or three years,” according to Ahn in a recent interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily.

In digital advertising, a walled garden refers to a closed platform where a dominant operator controls user data, ad inventory and access.

Moloco, by contrast, encourages clients to leverage their own data — while it provides the underlying technology, or “the engine,” as Ahn calls it.

“Google wants everyone to hop on to its own ecosystem, but it doesn’t offer the technology that would allow companies to make the most of the platform,” Ahn said. “Each platform needs its own AI engine — one that interprets its data and shows how to use it for sustainable growth and monetization.

“I don’t believe in the tit-for-tat method of handing over a company’s data just to stay active on a larger platform,” he added. Moloco offers three product lines based on the integration of its technology with client data — Molodo Ads, which helps app companies choose which other apps to show their ads on based on the likelihood of downloading, using and spending; Moloco Commerce Media, which outlines the effectiveness for online retailers of running ads for their products or others on their own apps or websites; and Moloco Streaming Monetization, which advises streaming services on adjustments to the kinds of content-based ads to runs based on user preferences.

The privately held company reached 54 trillion won ($39 billion) in total gross merchandise value last year and works with over 2,000 platforms and 180,000 advertisers worldwide. Within Korea, more than 60 percent of the country’s top 20 e-commerce firms use Moloco’s ad technologies, according to the company, including well-established clients such as Olive Young, Musinsa, W Concept and Kurly.

The company is rumored to be preparing for an initial public listing (IPO) on the Nasdaq, targeting a valuation of 10 trillion won. It has been profitable since 2020.

Moloco CEO and co-founder Ahn Ikjin speaks during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily at Moloco Korea's office in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, in June. [PARK SANG-MOON]

“Going public is one of the milestones that we aim to reach,” Ahn said, without specifying the IPO timeline.

Moloco ranks as the highest-valued startup founded by a Korean. Ahn formerly worked as a developer at Google in the early 2000s, part of the team that built YouTube’s machine learning algorithm, and later built foundational data systems at the Google Android team.

The ad-tech industry has long struggled to generate consistent profits, partly because it’s notoriously difficult to directly link marketing or advertising efforts to actual sales. But Moloco is trying to change that. Its product suite utilizes machine learning to analyze over 6 million ad opportunities per second in real time to determine the optimal bid price for ad space and maximize return on investment (ROI) for advertisers.

The company also states that its models make nearly 8 million predictions per second and handle 600 billion bid requests each day.

“With machine learning, platforms can now calculate the probability of actions, for instance, users’ shopping intent, from their behavioral data,” Ahn said. This allows for more flexible, dynamic bidding based on that likelihood, improving ROI.”

One example is Maeil Dairies, a major dairy product manufacturer in Korea, which reported a 1,500 percent increase in return on ad spend after adopting Moloco’s technology.

Ahn has also noticed a shift in consumer behavior with the rise of generative AI: Younger users are increasingly entering more natural, descriptive queries when shopping online — for instance, “jeans that match a weekend camping trip” rather than rigid keywords like “black jeans.”

“Especially for fashion, our clients such as W Concept and the sellers on their platform are telling us that they are actually selling a broader range of products due to our automated targeting,” Ahn said. “Instead of showing the same ads over and over again, our technology allows sellers to tailor ads to real user behavior.”

Moloco is now expanding beyond the app-based market to the open web and Connected TV, a potential global ad market that is projected to grow 10.4 percent annually to reach $42.5 billion by 2028, according to media investment firm GroupM.

“We’ve been experimenting in that area,” Ahn said. “Results that were once thought possible only on mobile are now being achieved through a combination of Connected TV, streaming and direct mobile advertising. And we’re seeing strong outcomes.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]