●[Edaily Marketin Song Seung-Hyeon Reporter] There was a college student who learned watch appraisal skills under a master watchmaker in Jongno, Seoul. The discerning eye he developed by buying and selling over 200 watches since middle school turned into a business. That business is Taming Lab, a luxury watch resale startup. Just over a year after launching its service, venture capital (VC) firms began investing in the company one after another.

According to the VC industry on the 14th, Taming Lab secured a pre-Series A investment last August from 500 Global, ZD Ventures, and Mashup Ventures. This is the company’s second round of funding, following a seed round last February in which Kakao Ventures, Mashup Ventures, and the Seoul National University Startup Network (SNUSV) Angel Club participated. The investment amounts for both rounds were not disclosed.

Taming Lab CEO Yoo Ho-yeon, a 2022 freshman in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Seoul National University, is currently on leave to focus on the business. He is a collector who has been passionate about watches since middle school and has traded over 200 models, as well as an industry professional who received apprenticeship training in appraisal and repair from a master watchmaker in Jongno, Seoul. He also received training at an authorized appraisal agency at Incheon International Airport and has experience in ODM watch manufacturing. The founding team is also comprised of “watch lovers” who understand the lifecycle of luxury watches. Jo Hyun-ik, a senior investment manager at Kakao Ventures, cited the team’s rapid execution, customer-centric focus, and industry expertise as the reasons for the seed investment.

Taming Lab tapped into a structural gap in the market. Prices for luxury watches vary by country. Models that are undervalued in South Korea are traded at higher prices in Japan or Hong Kong. Taming Lab’s platform, “WhatTime,” has adopted this price disparity as its business model. It operates on a cross-border structure where the company directly purchases watches from individual sellers in South Korea and resells them through a network of over 20 specialized resellers across four countries: Japan, Hong Kong, the U.S., and China. This is why the company defines itself as a “global B2B watch dealer.”

Opting for direct purchasing was also a strategic choice. Unlike intermediary platforms, the company bears the inventory risk directly, but in return, it can provide sellers with same-day payment. In collaboration with an official appraisal agency commissioned by Incheon Customs, the company has also internalized authenticity verification. This explains why the repeat visit rate for individual customers exceeds 80% and a significant number of transactions are completed within an hour. Disclosing information that buyers might easily overlook—such as whether the dial has been refurbished or the number of links—is another measure to build trust. By maintaining an inventory holding period that is half that of its industry peers and increasing turnover, the company competes on low margins.

Last June, the company introduced its proprietary “Pricing AI.” This system analyzes tens of thousands of global market price data points in real time to calculate purchase prices based on the country with the highest demand and prices worldwide. The company stated that it expects pricing calculations to be 100% faster than the manual method used by professional appraisers, and the daily volume of purchase transactions to increase by more than 800%. The company also plans to introduce an appraisal AI that automatically verifies product authenticity and condition.

Growth has been rapid. According to the company, monthly revenue exceeded 1 billion won in August of last year, following the completion of its Pre-Series A funding round, and in June—after the introduction of the Pricing AI—it surpassed 2 billion won in monthly revenue just 400 days after launching its global B2B service. With subsidiaries in South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong, the company conducts import and export activities across a total of seven countries. Peer-to-peer transactions on the platform are conducted at 90–105% of market value, and the transaction success rate exceeds 70%.

The pre-owned luxury watch market is characterized by high liquidity and is considered an asset class. In South Korea, competitors include Viver, a subsidiary of Dunamu, and Watch Exchange, which partners with Naver. Unlike these competitors backed by substantial capital, Taming Lab aims to differentiate itself through a combination of direct purchasing, cross-border import and export, and AI-based purchase price assessment. It remains to be seen how much of a presence this company—founded by people who know watches best—will establish in the market.