April 25, 2024

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SK Corp., the holding company of South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate by assets, has invested in Israeli automobile big data firm Otonomo in its latest efforts to search for new growth engines, it said in a regulatory filing on April 3.

SK Corp. has bought a 2.69 percent stake in the Israel company for 11.2 billion won ($9.98 million). Otonomo is an automotive data services platform founded in 2015. The deal was the Korean firm’s 10th investment in startups last year and the third-largest by amount. Its total investments in startups totaled 145.2 billion won. 

The holding company invested 81 billion won in Southeast Asia’s ride-sharing platform operator Grab for a 0.9 percent stake in March and 28.4 billion won in US-based battery maker SolidEnergy Systems in November.

The investment portfolio also includes LVIS, which develops neural information analysis technologies, Chinese logistics company Sino Glow.

In addition to a series of investments in startups, SK also bought a 100 percent stake in AMPAC Fine Chemicals, a US-based contract manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients, for 510 billion won.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)