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"Stop asking about schedules just to make plans"… Even Kim Bong-jin, a first-generation venture capitalist, is captivated by the AI-powered meetup app

"Stop asking about schedules just to make plans"… Even Kim Bong-jin, a first-generation venture capitalist, is captivated by the AI-powered meetup app

[This Week's Hot Deal] Truloop operator Beviewful raises pre-Series A funding

Following venture and startup investment trends provides insights into future industries and companies. We focus on analyzing the most notable venture and startup investment cases that occurred during the week.

[For more diverse corporate information on the startups mentioned in this article, visit the Unicorn Factory Big Data Platform 'Data Lab'.]

Group photo of Beviewful employees / Photo provided by Beviewful
Group photo of Beviewful employees / Photo provided by Beviewful

Meeting people, whether friends or club members, requires more effort than one might think. You must coordinate available dates, decide on a location, and make reservations. After the meeting ends, there is also the task of exchanging photos taken by each person. A service has emerged that solves these fragmented processes within a single app.

Beviewful, which developed the AI-based social app 'Truloop', recently secured pre-Series A funding. Laguna Investment led the investment, with participation from Crit Ventures, Kiwoom Investment, Jet Venture Capital (ZVC), and Kim Bong-jin, Chairman of Grande Clip. Kim Bong-jin (Chairman) is a representative first-generation Korean venture entrepreneur who founded Baemin. Beviewful was also selected for TIPS R&D Global Track based on Laguna Investment's recommendation and will receive an additional 1.2 billion won in support until October 2028.

Beviewful founder Park Su-man (CEO) is the creator of 'Mittoday', recognized as Korea's first microblogging service. Later, he led the planning and launch of Naver's 'Band'. At one point, Band surpassed 19 million monthly users. Park (CEO) established a company in Delaware, USA, in 2025 and launched Beviewful based in Los Angeles. From the start, the target was not Korea but the global market.

What Park (CEO) focused on is that the process of meeting people is scattered across multiple services. One must check a calendar to find available dates, coordinate schedules via messenger, search for locations using map apps, and use reservation apps. Especially, the process of exchanging "Are you free or not?" with the other party to arrange a schedule is often cumbersome. After the meeting ends, photos must be exchanged again through messengers or SNS.

Truloop integrates these multi-step processes into a single app. AI analyzes participants' schedules to find suitable times for meetings, recommends locations, and even assists with restaurant reservations. After the meeting ends, it automatically collects photos taken by attendees and creates them into individual stories and highlight videos.

Park Young-ho, CEO of Laguna Investment who led this funding, explained the background of investing in Beviewful: "When we wondered what kind of social service would be needed in the AI era, we resonated with Truloop's direction." He added, "As the AI era has arrived, offline meetings have become more important. We were impressed by their consideration of how AI can make these meetings more enjoyable and convenient."

Team composition also played a role in the investment decision. He stated, "Although the founder has extensive experience, the rest of the development and planning staff are mostly young members who recently graduated from university." He continued, "We judged that there is great potential for expansion because the team includes personnel who have a keen sense of Z-generation, Truloop's core target audience."

The team does not lack experienced members entirely. Kim Hyung-il, Chief Business Officer (CBO), led Naver Webtoon's business in the United States. He is evaluated as a key figure who drove Naver Webtoon's North American operations to an NASDAQ listing. He joined Naver through its first recruitment drive and worked in departments such as Business Development. After leaving Naver Webtoon, he joined Beviewful last year.

Truloop is designed so that even opponents who have not installed the app can check schedules and participate via a link alone. When existing users invite new people to a meetup, they can join the service without installing a separate app, creating a structure that naturally leads to new user acquisition. Park Yeong-ho (CEO) said, "The founding team has long experience in platform business, so they have well-defined the direction of the service."

Laguna Investment had already invested in Beviewful by the end of last year. At that time, the service had not yet been launched. Park (CEO) stated, "The round was closed as capital contributions from other investment firms were recently made," and added, "At that time, we invested after seeing Gi Hoek-gwa (CEO)'s resume and the vision of the founding team."

Based on this funding, Beviewful plans to enhance its AI and community functions and expand initial users centered around universities, clubs, and communities in the United States and Japan. Currently, Truloop is being used in various groups such as USC club in the US, music community 'Studio Jam', fitness community '1000 Calorie Club', and Yonsei University Alumni Association in North America.

Park Su-man (CEO) said, "Meetups are the most basic activity for building relationships between people, but there is still inconvenience in having to move between multiple services for schedule coordination, venue reservations, attendee management, and photo sharing." He added, "Our goal is for Truloop to be a service that makes it easier for people to meet and naturally records moments spent together, leading to future meetings."

Beviewful overview / Graphic by Kim Ji-young
Beviewful overview / Graphic by Kim Ji-young

[MoneyToday startup media platform Unicorn Factory]

"Please note that this article has been automatically translated by AI, and minor discrepancies from the original text may occur due to machine translation limits."