South Korea’s leading office software developer Hancom Inc. said Thursday that it drew 50 billion won ($43.8 million) in investment from Crescendo Equity Partners, a private equity firm sponsored by Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel.

The latest funding comes on top of 10 billion won it earlier secured from Lindeman Asia Global Pioneer Fund, bringing in a total 60 billion won in capital to the producer of Hangul, Korean native word processing program.

Peter Thiel, chairman of Palantir Technologies, co-founded PayPal, the global online payment service, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Thiel is a big name in Silicon Valley, having invested, either privately or through institutions, in a number of promising start-ups including Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb, SpaceX and Yelp.

Established in 2012 with Thiel’s backing, Crescendo Equity Partners is a private equity firm specializing in buyouts and growth capital investments in South Korea. In 2014, it invested 20.3 billion in communication equipment supplier Seojin System Co., whose revenue nearly quadrupled to 167 billion won in two years. In 2016, it pumped 24 billion won into Wins Co., an information security solution provider, and funded a total 74.5 billion won to Hanmi Semiconductor Co. in 2013 and 2016.

With the Hancom investment, Crescendo plans to forge global partnerships with Silicon Valley firms and propel overseas mergers and acquisitions.

Shares of Hancom closed Friday up 1.55 percent at 16,350 won.

By Cho Hee-young

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