itemku closed its latest funding rounds from 500 Startups and undisclosed South Korean venture capitals

The itemku team

Jakarta-based Five Jack, the company behind e-commerce platform for virtual goods itemku, today announced that it has raised US$1.2 million of funding from 500 Startups and unnamed South Korean venture capitals.

The startup has previously closed investment rounds from BonAngels in 2014 and 500 Startups in 2015, bringing its accumulated total investment to US$1.7 million.

itemku plans to use the new funding to expand its operation to Southeast Asia within the second half of 2017, though the startup did not give further details on their first destination.

It first cited their regional expansion goal when itemku announced their seed funding round in January 2016.

“Virtual goods can be traded easily around the world without any logistics and customs duty … There is a big price gap of virtual game goods between emerging and developed countries, so we can take advantage of arbitrage opportunities. itemku can connect sellers in emerging countries to buyers in developed countries,” explained CEO Denis Kim in an e-mail to e27.

Also Read: “Indonesia’s gaming industry needs to be king in its own homeland”

The parent company of itemku, Five Jack, was founded in South Korea and Indonesia in 2013.

It started out as price comparison and classified ads platform when it was first launched in July 2014. Seeing the growing problem of insecure item trading amongst gamers, Five Jack then repositioned itself into purveyors of game items and currency in June 2015.

itemku itself is a platform that allows gamers to make money from their in-app purchases with a secure financial transaction system.

According to Kim, the platform has recorded average 30 per cent growth each month, and he cited it as the reason that attracted investors into the startup.

Building on its existing customer base, in March the company launched the trial version of gokil.me. The platform is a blog that focusses on topics related to virtual goods transaction, such as the items, gold, or account trading. It aims to identify “the potential development of game community in Indonesia.”

“We want to build game community beyond game commerce in the long term; we want to make every gamer can find any information and game items in our service,” Kim wrote.

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Image Credit: itemku

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The post itemku raises US$1.2M investment, wants to fuel Southeast Asian expansion appeared first on e27.