How Daniel Shin Has Reshaped Asia’s E-Commerce Industry With Fintech Innovations

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Daniel Shin’s ventures in e-commerce and the payments industry have changed the face of online shopping in Asia. The serial entrepreneur has enabled the success of various companies — and revolutionized the wider e-commerce space — by developing pioneering payment systems and partnering with market-leading e-commerce players.

These are three companies that Daniel Shin has conceptualized, launched, and developed that demonstrate his financial technology innovation:

The payments platform PortOne Global, which he founded in 2018.
The company builder Fast Track Asia, which he co-founded in 2012.
One of the largest e-commerce platforms in Korea, Ticket Monster (TMON), which he founded in 2010.

1. PortOne Global

Based in Singapore, PortOne Global offers merchants a fully managed payment service with a host of benefits:

Integrated payment API.
All-in-one payment data reconciliation.
Payment optimization consultation.
Value-added applications like cross-border payments, customizable checkouts, and payout services.

The end-to-end payments infrastructure supports merchants from integration to billing. The aim is to simplify the process of connecting, deploying, and managing multiple payment options — all via a single API. These payment options might include e-wallets, credit cards, bank transfers, and A2A payments. As a result, merchants have access to over 100 payment methods across Asia.

As more and more merchants take advantage of PortOne Global, the fintech company is rapidly gaining traction across Asia.

With bases in Korea and Southeast Asia, PortOne Global works with around 2,500 merchants, generates around $9 billion of total payment value (TPV) every year, and has support from leading global investors like NYCA and Softbank Ventures.

2. Fast Track Asia

Fast Track Asia is a company builder that began by importing viable venture ideas and launching them across Asian markets. Fast Track Asia has created over $800m in equity value for its investors.

Fast Track Asia has built companies like:

Goodoc, an app that makes it easy to locate doctors and hospitals. Yello Mobile has acquired this app.
Fast Five, a leading shared office brand in Korea. The company raised capital from TS Investment, Quantum Equity Partners, and ID Ventures.
Day1 Company, a leading education company providing life-changing education for career professionals.

Fast Track Asia provides the capital that businesses like these need to unlock growth opportunities. With access to trusted networks, Fast Track Asia has the connections that smaller businesses need to enter strategic markets and make lasting impressions. Meanwhile, Fast Track Asia’s expert experienced business teams support the growth of the portfolio company’s management team, sales ops, and go-to-market adaption.

3. TMON

Ticket Monster (TMON) is a pioneer of mobile commerce in Korea. Although consumers can use TMON to buy all sorts of items, in 2018, Daniel Shin evolved the platform to make it easier to buy fresh groceries, too.

TMON’s Roots

Daniel Shin has grown the TMON e-commerce platform into a market leader in Korea. Having lived in the U.S. for most of his life, he returned to Korea, his home country, in 2010 to replicate the successful Groupon model in his business. At the time, Groupon was one of the fastest-growing companies in the world, and he saw a market for a similar model in Korea.

Pivoting TMON Toward Mobile Commerce

Having operated the Groupon model for a year, Daniel Shin decided to pivot TMON toward mobile commerce. Amazon had filled this market in the U.S., and with the advent of mobile, there was plenty of scope to leverage a similar opportunity in Korea.

With this approach underway, TMON grew from a team of 5 to a team of over 1,300. At this point, the company was generating around $3.5 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV). Plus, around 20% of Korea’s population was using the platform at least once a year.

About Daniel Shin

Daniel Shin has won various awards for his entrepreneurial innovations. “Wharton Magazine” has named him one of their “40 under 40” Wharton graduates. “Weekly People” has named him CEO of the Year. And he has won the Korea Internet Award on behalf of TMON.

On top of this, “Maeil Business Newspaper” has nominated him as the highest potential next-generation CEO. 2,200 readers of this newspaper voted for the winner in a survey that saw him take first place, both overall and in the medium-sized company category.

Furthermore, the World Economic Forum (WEF), Switzerland, named him the 2019 Young Global Leader. The WEF screens and selects talent leaders who are under the age of 40 and work in political, business, academic, media, non-profit, and cultural fields.

An Active Angel Investor

Aside from running his pioneering companies, Daniel Shin is an active angel investor who has invested in over 40 companies. His key investments include Team Blind, NBT Partners (Cashslide), Vonvon, Tosslab (Jandi), 82 Labs (Morning Recovery), Honest Fund, Marketit, Korea Credit Data, Pomelo Fashion, and Fave.

Daniel Shin is keen to support talented teams that are looking to scale across Asia. With his strategic guidance, these companies can scale rapidly.

He is also a founding partner of Bass Investments, which helps clients and their professional advisors manage their wealth with today’s global economy in mind.