How Daniel Shin has reshaped Asia’s e-commerce industry with fintech innovations

by James · April 14, 2023

Reading time: 4 minutes

Daniel Shin’s e-commerce and payment industry ventures 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 ground-breaking payment systems and partnering with market-leading e-commerce players.

These are three companies that Daniel Shin has conceptualizedlaunched and developed demonstrating his fintech innovation:

The payment platform PortOne Globalwhich he founded in 2018.
The business builder Fast Track Asiawhich he co-founded in 2012.
One of the largest e-commerce platforms in Korea, Ticket Monster (TMON)which he founded in 2010.

Table of Contents

1. PortOne Global

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

Integrated payment API.
All-in-one payment data reconciliation.
Advice on payment optimization.
Value-adding applications such as cross-border payments, customizable checkouts and payout services.

The end-to-end payment infrastructure supports merchants from integration to invoicing. The goal is to simplify the process of connecting, deploying and managing multiple payment options – all via a single API. These payment options can 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 approximately 2,500 merchants, generates approximately $9 billion of total payment value (TPV) each year, and is backed by leading global investors such as NYCA and Softbank Ventures.

2. Fast Track Asia

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

Fast Track Asia has built companies such as:

Goodoc, an app that makes it easy to find doctors and hospitals. Yello Mobile has acquired this app.
Quick five, a leading shared office brand in Korea. The company raised capital from TS Investment, Quantum Equity Partners and ID Ventures.
Day 1 Companya leading education company providing life-changing education for professional careers.

Fast Track Asia provides the capital that companies like these need to unlock growth opportunities. With access to trusted networks, Fast Track Asia has the connections smaller businesses need to enter strategic markets and make a lasting impression. Meanwhile, Fast Track Asia’s experienced business team supports the growth of the portfolio company’s management team, sales operations and market alignment.

3. TMON

Ticket Monster (TMON) is a pioneer in mobile commerce in Korea. Although consumers can use TMON to buy all kinds of goods, Daniel Shin developed the platform in 2018 to make it easier to buy fresh groceries as well.

TMON’s roots

Daniel Shin has grown the TMON e-commerce platform into a market leader in Korea. After living in the US most of his life, he returned to his native Korea 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.

Turning TMON towards mobile commerce

After running the Groupon model for a year, Daniel Shin decided to turn TMON towards mobile commerce. Amazon had filled this market in the US, and with the advent of mobile, there was ample opportunity to capitalize on a similar opportunity in Korea.

With this approach in place, TMON grew from a team of 5 to a team of over 1,300. At this time, the company generated approximately $3.5 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV). In addition, around 20% of Korea’s population used 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 business category.

Furthermore, the World Economic Forum (WEF), Switzerland named him the 2019 Young Global Leader. 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 who want to scale across Asia. With his strategic guidance, these companies can scale quickly.

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