Former Hyundai engineer builds childcare business from scratch, steps up Asia expansion

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Engineers who design automobiles assume even extreme scenarios. They verify through vast amounts of data how a passenger's body moves in the event of a collision and what impact small structural differences have on safety.

Lee Hyung-moo, CEO of Poled, is a former engineer who was in charge of automotive design at Hyundai Motor's Namyang Research Institute. During his tenure at the institute, he led such work. Although his focus had been solely on automobiles, his perspective shifted to the childcare field as he raised three children.

Every time he took his child out in a car or went out pulling a stroller, he noticed inconveniences that existing childcare products failed to resolve. The idea that combining his expertise as an engineer with his experience as a father could lead to better products became the starting point of his business.

Lee started his business with car seats through Hyundai Motor's in-house venture program in 2016, but has since grown into a multi-brand group encompassing infant ventilation seats, bottle sterilizers, formula makers, bottle washers, and household cleaning and skincare products. Based on this growth trajectory, the company also successfully listed on KOSDAQ last May.

CEO Lee determined that it was difficult to build a large business with just one product category: car seats. This is because product replacement cycles are long, offline experiential sales account for a high proportion, and heavy dependence on a specific product category can cause the entire company to waver in response to seasonality and changes in consumer trends.

Lee described Poled's product development principle as having a "reason to be chosen." He judged that merely releasing products similar to those of already well-known brands would make it difficult to win the choice of parent consumers.

"If the product is the same, consumers choose the brand they have used extensively in the past," he said. "We must either create a product that does not exist in the world or clearly demonstrate which function is better than existing products. Differentiating the product itself takes priority over marketing or sales."

Poled focused on changes in consumer criteria rather than quantitative market expansion. It identified a trend where, as the number of children per family has decreased to one or two, parents are carefully selecting products that substantially improve child safety and reduce parental childcare burdens.

In line with these criteria, Poled expanded its product lineup to include childcare appliances such as automated formula makers and bottle washers by acquiring the bottle sterilizer brand 'Yupang' in 2024 and 'IVE이지 (IVG),' the domestic distributor of U.S.-based Baby Brezza.

Yupang’s strength lies in the brand trust it has built through its domestic production facilities and baby bottle sterilizers. IVE Eji is responsible for discovering and distributing overseas brands, including Baby Brezza. Although all three companies operate in the same baby products market, their growth strategies differ.

Fold plans and develops its own brands, including car seats and baby dish soap. Yoopang manufactures bottle sterilizers directly at its domestic production facilities. IVE Easy supplies overseas brand products, such as formula makers and bottle washers, to both domestic and international markets.

While the company combines direct production and outsourced production depending on the product, it directly controls key value chain elements ranging from planning and design to quality control, sales, logistics, and customer service (after-sales service). This structure is designed to reduce dependence on specific hit products or a single external distributor.

Representative Lee stated, "Fold develops products that have never existed before or adds new value to existing products through in-house development," adding, "Yupang is a brand that has built long-standing customer trust in the baby bottle sterilizer field, while IVEeji specializes in discovering and distributing global brands."

Park Dong-hyun, CEO of Yupang, also played a significant role in Poled's transition from a technology-centric product company to a multi-brand strategy. A certified public accountant by profession, Park was responsible for Poled's first institutional investor investment while working as an investment reviewer.

Even after the investment, Park visited Poled one or two times a week to assist with finance, accounting, and business operations. His visits became so frequent that employees began saying, "Isn't he actually one of our company's staff?"

Lee proposed to Park that he "just switch jobs." After joining Poled as CFO (Chief Financial Officer) in April 2022, Park organized the finance and accounting systems and cost management framework, and took charge of IPO (initial public offering) preparations. He later moved to the position of Yupang CEO, leading post-acquisition integration and growth.

"From the moment I first met Poled as a reviewer, I did not see it as just an infant products company," Park said. "It had the capability to develop products directly and an organizational culture that executed quickly, but it needed financial and management systems commensurate with its growth speed."

He added, "I viewed the company from the perspective of an external investor before joining internally as CFO, and now I am directly operating Yupang, which we acquired. My current role is not limited to managing financial figures; it involves connecting the strengths each brand possesses to actual growth."

Poled's strategy is to break through the limitations of the stagnant domestic market caused by low birth rates by expanding overseas. The core market is Japan. Last year, sales in Japan were approximately 13.1 billion won, accounting for 83.9% of total overseas revenue. Poled used Japan not merely as a market for exporting products, but as a hub to verify its localization strategy.

To this end, the company established a local subsidiary in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and hired local personnel to directly handle sales and customer service. This choice was made to go beyond simply exporting products and leaving them to general distributors, allowing Poled to directly observe local consumer reactions and the distribution environment.

Poled plans to expand the operational experience gained in Japan to other Asian countries such as Taiwan, Indonesia, and Hong Kong. Lee said, "We will apply Japan's success formula to culturally and geographically close Asian countries to broaden the market for K-infant products."

The company continues its strategy of growing by combining in-house product development with brand M&A (mergers and acquisitions). This is a 'bolt-on' approach where Poled acquires companies that possess competitive products or brands but lack sales, distribution, and export capabilities, then combines them with Poled's infrastructure to increase corporate valuation.

"We do not limit M&A targets solely to infant products companies," Lee said. "We are looking at consumer goods companies in general where we can apply Poled's capabilities in product planning, D2C (direct-to-consumer), brand management, and overseas sales."

He emphasized, "While Korea has large corporations and global brands representing various industries, there is none yet in the infant products field. It is Poled's mission to continue creating products that solve childcare inconveniences from an engineer's perspective and grow into a K-infant company that global consumers think of first."

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