Coupang

Coupang is an e-commerce and technology company that operates mainly in South Korea and Taiwan, running an online retail business, a food delivery service and the Coupang Play streaming service, which it built after acquiring the assets of Singapore's HOOQ in 2020. Bom Kim founded it in 2010 and has been chief executive and a director since May 2010, after leaving Harvard Business School. He registered the company in Delaware so it could raise US capital. Coupang Inc. is headquartered in Seattle, while most of its operations and its Rocket Delivery logistics network are in Korea. The company says Rocket Delivery provides dawn and same-day delivery across millions of items.

Coupang's early institutional investors joined its board in its first year. Matthew Christensen of Rose Park Advisors has been a director since July 2010, and Neil Mehta, who later founded Greenoaks Capital, since December 2010. Altos Ventures lists Coupang among its exited portfolio companies. SoftBank invested $1 billion in 2015, and in November 2018 SVF Investments (UK), part of the SoftBank Vision Fund, bought Class J preferred units for $2 billion at $5.7008 per unit. Coupang also issued convertible notes in 2018. BlackRock, Fidelity and Maverick Holdings were other large holders before the IPO.

Coupang priced its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange at $35.00 per share under the ticker CPNG, and trading began on March 11, 2021. The company sold 100 million Class A shares for estimated net proceeds of about $3.4 billion, and selling stockholders including BlackRock entities sold additional shares. After the offering SoftBank's vehicle owned about 33.1 percent, Greenoaks entities 16.6 percent, Maverick 6.4 percent and Rose Park 5.1 percent, and Bom Kim held about 10.2 percent of the shares together with Class B stock carrying most of the voting power. Revenue grew from $4.05 billion in 2018 to $11.97 billion in 2020. The company acquired Farfetch in January 2024 and reported 2025 net revenues of about $34.5 billion and net income of $214 million. A data breach disclosed in late 2025, affecting 33.7 million customers, led to South Korean government investigations and the CEO's resignation.

For investors, Coupang is an example of growth capital at very large scale and a dual-class founder structure. Rose Park and Greenoaks entered in the company's first year and held more than 20 percent combined at the IPO, about 11 years after founding. The SoftBank Vision Fund's 2018 purchase at $5.7008 per unit converted into the largest single stake at listing. Its 2025 data breach investigation, which drew US trade officials and investors such as Greenoaks and Altimeter into a dispute with Korean regulators, shows that political risk can follow a US listing into the home market.