South Korean Messaging Giant Kakao, Irish Startup Partner for Blockchain Payment Methods

Kakao Corp, a major Internet conglomerate and service provider for popular South Korean messaging app KakaoTalk, and an Ireland-based ticketing startup have signed a partnership agreement to develop a blockchain-based payment system. Irish business news outlet Fora reported on the partnership on March 23.

The new partnership agreement will focus on applying the former's blockchain platform technology Klaytn, the brainchild of Kakao subsidiary Ground X, to both a blockchain-based payment system and on analytics applications with Irish startup Festy. In mid-March, Ground X’s Klatyn announced that they had plans to repeat their initial coin offering after already raising $90 million from investors.

Klaytn’s Medium page had first announced the Festy partnership on March 22, and through the two firms’ cooperation, Fora notes plans to launch Festy on the Klaytn platform in July 2019. Commenting on the newly signed agreement, Graham de Barra, the founder of Festy, says that it will be a fully auditable platform based on blockchain technology. He also added that the system will be privacy-oriented:  

“We can allow a more transparent system for these transactions, where the consumer can get remunerated for contributing towards the big data that’s being built around them. The more they enrich it, the more they can earn — or they can totally opt out.”

Fora notes that the agreement includes an investment in Festy, with the amount undisclosed.

Last fall, Klaytn’s testnet had been released ahead of its formal launch, which was set for the first quarter of 2019. Soon after, Kakao Corp announced a new partnership agreement with stablecoin project Terra, which will use Klaytn as a blockchain-based payment system.

As Cointelegraph reported on Feb. 14, Kakao Corp had published its its Q4 2018 report revealing that the company’s operating expenses related to new businesses, such as blockchain and AI, reached around $57.5 million.