South Korean startups are moving beyond the so-called big data to more accurate and value-added ‘deep data’ to meet the evolving needs of the marketplace.

Deep data means a more select set of data that has higher quality, accuracy and relevance than big data which refers to large and complex collection of data.

Seoul-based commercial real estate brokerage Rsquare operates the country’s largest deep-data driven commercial real estate services platform.

Founded in 2019, Rsquare is dedicated to offering commercial office leasing and brokerage services based on a cloud-based nationwide commercial real estate map it has compiled. The company secured accurate and hard-to-get data by sending out its employees to survey logistics centers, offices and buildings across the country. On top of the basic building information, the company has moved onto collecting qualitative data including the tendencies and preferences of landlords and tenants.

Rsquare raised 85 billion won ($71.21 million) in revenue last year and is expected to see it nearly doubled to more than 140 billion won this year. It has recently snapped up 85 billion won in a series C funding round and is readying to advance into Southeast Asia.

Food tech startup Marketboro, operator of food materials distribution cloud service Marketbom, is also ramping up efforts to advance its business through deep data collection.

Marketboro collects food materials distribution data by looking into actual offline transactions between grocery wholesalers, distributors and end users, which has given the company a clear edge over its competitors.

Marketboro plans to establish a B2B distribution big data center and provide artificial intelligence-powered purchase optimization service, said CEO Lim Sa-sung.

Fintech startup ShopOnair collects purchase data through its self-developed receipt printer insert POS Connector, which transmits receipt data by extracting the plain text communication between a POS device and receipt printer. ShopOnair plans to widely distribute POS Connector by marketing it at a relatively cheap price and make profits by providing the receipt data to clients in need of sophisticated marketing strategies.

Drama & Company, the operator of business card-reading app Remember, has complied more than 150 million business cards data through handwritten input. The large data set has added a new driver to the company’s business. Remember plans to expand its recruitment service that connects job seekers and employers to Japan, the U.S. and India.

By Oh Dae-seok and Lee Soo-min

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