New Paradigm Investment backs Thunderplex in seed round

New Paradigm Investment, an accelerator, announced on the 14th that it had made a seed investment in Thunderplex Co., Ltd., a specialized activity platform for people in their 40s and 50s.

“We decided to invest because we were impressed by Thunder’s clearly defined target audience and its virtuous cycle and systems for fostering creative, high-quality events,” said Park Je-hyun, CEO of New Paradigm Investment. “We expect Thunder to grow into the country’s only platform that meets the needs of people in their 40s and 50s.”

Founded in July this year, Thunderplex is a startup that developed Thunder, an activity platform tailored to the interests of people in their 40s and 50s. It aims to provide premium services to a target market of about 17 million people.

Thunder is led by CEO Kim Jun-young, a former executive director at Freechal, once the country’s largest community portal. After a beta launch at the end of this year, the company plans to officially launch Korea’s first platform dedicated to people in their 40s and 50s early next year.

Initially, the company plans to launch events through network marketing by group organizers and marketing that encourages participation in celebrity events. Within two years, it plans to expand internationally through social media marketing with celebrities and influencers.

The Thunder platform has no restrictions on group categories and gives group organizers maximum autonomy in running groups and events.

Thunder, an activity platform tailored to the interests of people in their 40s and 50s, was created by leveraging CEO Kim Jun-young’s experience building a community business. Even before founding the company, he had consistently maintained offline groups through Freechal, Naver Band and online cafés. Kim, who founded Thunderplex, has served as a venture capital firm CEO and successfully operated B2C services such as Fileguri at Freechal.

“Thunder is the first premium activity platform targeting customers in their 40s and 50s. Its core is a clearly defined audience of middle-aged people in this age group, and it aims to be a platform with business models spanning local activities, hobbies, culture, events, travel, socializing and special lectures, as well as the flexibility to support their expansion,” said Thunderplex CEO Kim Jun-young.

Kim added, “The core is a virtuous cycle that guarantees group organizers control over event management, along with autonomy and independence. Thunder is the only platform with a system that respects the way each group is run and its autonomy, while encouraging groups to remain active as part of a premium service.”

Thunderplex has filed and registered a patent for a “traveler matching device, method and computer program.”