April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Kakao Ventures, a venture capital unit of Kakao, said on July 18 it has invested 1 billion won (US$88,723.27) in Korean startup Four Wheels, the operator of My Duty, a scheduling app for shift workers, especially for nurses at hospitals.

Nurses usually use a third party to make schedules themselves for a shift, causing a lot of paperwork and costs during the whole process.

The My Duty app helps make schedules from their phones and get an alert when openings are available. The schedules like holidays and meetings can be shared not just with colleagues but also with friends or family by creating separate groups within the app.

The app, offered in nine languages, is a global service. Since its launch in 2014, the accumulative user number has exceeded 730,000 people. About 30 percent of nurses in Korea and almost 90 percent of those in Hong Kong use the service currently.

“There is high demand for shift scheduling apps. Some of our users abroad use the app by translating it into their own language for themselves,” Four Wheels CEO Chung Seok-mo said in a statement. “The new funding will be used in upgrading user experience.”

With the latest funding, the firm has completed its series A funding campaign. The total amount was not revealed.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)