Kowork

What Kowork does

Kowork (legal entity: 코워크위더스(주) / KOWORK WIDERS Co., Ltd.) operates a two-sided recruitment platform serving South Korea's foreign-worker labor market. The company connects foreign job seekers with Korean employers through a web platform at kowork.kr, native iOS and Android mobile applications, and a set of supporting modules including a Resume Builder, a Visa Center with an Integrated Application Form Generator, and a community section. Job listings include E-7 visa sponsorship filtering and span diverse roles from internships to full-time engineering and part-time service positions. Geographic coverage includes Seoul, Busan, Gyeonggi, and Jeollabuk-do. On the employer side, the platform surfaces named customers across manufacturing, conglomerates, luxury retail, IT, food service, and education, indicating a cross-vertical positioning rather than industry specialization.

The company monetizes primarily through employer-facing channels: job posting fees, bundled corporate service packages (All-in-One Package), standalone Visa Issuance Support, Talent Matching, and advertising products. The paid recruitment offering is underpinned by a Paid Job Placement Business registration (2024-3220250-14-5-00017) and a Job Information Provider Business filing (J1206020200009), and the KOWORK brand is a registered Korean trademark (4020210166984). Go-to-market is hybrid: a direct-to-consumer motion drives foreign-worker acquisition through SEO, five social channels (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Naver Blog), and mobile app stores, while a sales-led motion targets Korean enterprise clients through dedicated corporate service pages and Tally-based lead-capture forms.

Kowork is privately held with no evidence of institutional backing beyond a total disclosed funding of approximately $833,142 across two seed rounds ($74,260 from JB Ventures in October 2023 and $758,882 co-led by Alois Ventures and BonAngels Venture Partners in November 2025), plus a Technology Guarantee Fund support event in July 2019. Leadership comprises Kim Jin-young (대표 / CEO) and Kim Da-un (Privacy Officer). The company self-describes as Korea's No.1 foreign recruitment platform, a positioning that is unverified by third-party benchmarks in the supplied data.

Name

Kowork

Legal name

코워크위더스(주)

Website

https://kowork.kr

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Kowork is a Seoul-based two-sided recruitment platform connecting foreign job seekers with Korean employers, offering job listings, E-7 visa sponsorship filtering, resume tools, a visa center, and mobile apps, monetizing via employer job posting fees, bundled enterprise packages, visa support, talent matching, and advertising.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Online Recruitment Platform

NAICS

Employment Placement Agencies (561311), Employment Services (5613)

SIC

Services-Employment Agencies (7361)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYBPACACAF

High-Volume / High-Turnover Temp Staffing

Business & Public Services/HR, Staffing & Recruitment Services/Staffing & Temp Agencies (Generalist)

Keywords

• Foreign recruitment platform
• E-7 visa jobs
• Talent matching services
• Korea job search
• Visa sponsorship support

Headquarters

HQ city

Seoul

HQ country

South Korea

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Job Posting Fees: Korean companies pay to post job listings on the platform targeting foreign candidates
2. Corporate Service Packages: All-in-one packages, visa issuance support services, talent matching, and advertising products sold to employers
3. Platform Advertising: Advertising products offered to companies looking to increase visibility of their job postings

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Kowork (KOWORK) is a Korea-focused online recruitment platform that connects foreign workers with Korean employers. It provides job listings, resume tools, community features, and an integrated Korean visa information center. For corporate clients, the platform sells job posting slots, talent matching services, visa issuance support, bundled All-in-One hiring packages, and advertising products, with particular emphasis on E-7 visa sponsorship roles.

Product overview

KOWORK is a platform-plus-services architecture serving as Korea's No.1 foreign recruitment platform. The core offering is the KOWORK Job Platform, complemented by the mobile app, resume builder, visa center, and community features. For corporate clients, KOWORK offers an All-in-One Package as a bundled enterprise solution, with individual add-ons including visa issuance support, talent matching, and advertising products.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• KOWORK Job Platform Web-based job search and recruitment platform connecting foreign workers with Korean employers, featuring job listings, resume management, and E-7 visa sponsorship filtering. Targeted at foreign job seekers in Korea and Korean employers hiring international staff.
• KOWORK Mobile App Native iOS and Android application providing mobile access to KOWORK job listings, resume management, and visa information for foreign workers in Korea.
• All-in-One Hiring Package Bundled enterprise hiring solution for Korean companies that combines job posting, visa issuance support, pre-screened talent matching, and advertising into a single package for recruiting foreign employees.
• Visa Issuance Support Service Corporate service that assists Korean companies with the Korean visa issuance process for foreign employees they have hired through the platform.
• Talent Matching Service Recruitment service that connects Korean employers with pre-screened foreign job candidates from KOWORK's talent pool.
• Employer Advertising Products Promotional advertising packages that allow Korean companies to increase the visibility of their job postings and employer brand among foreign candidates on KOWORK.

Named customers7 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature2 records

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Wanted: Wanted is a Korean-based talent matching platform with strong positioning in international and foreign-talent roles. It directly competes with Kowork in matching foreign candidates to Korean employers via a similar job-board and recommendation engine, and serves many of the same professional and tech-adjacent job categories.

Broad incumbents

• Saramin: Saramin is one of South Korea's largest and longest-established job platforms. While it serves all Korean job seekers broadly, it overlaps with Kowork in the foreign-worker segment and dwarfs Kowork in scale, traffic, and corporate customer base across listed categories.
• JobKorea: JobKorea is a dominant Korean job portal with broad industry coverage and a longstanding enterprise customer base. It overlaps with Kowork in serving Korean employers hiring foreign candidates and has substantially greater resources, market share, and brand recognition.
• Incruit: Incruit is a Korean online recruitment platform offering job listings across multiple industries. It overlaps with Kowork in serving Korean employers recruiting diverse talent pools, including foreign candidates, but operates at significantly larger scale.
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn operates the world's largest professional network with substantial Korean adoption. While not specialized for E-7 visa roles, it overlaps with Kowork's employer-side value proposition, competes for Korean corporate recruiting budgets, and serves many of the same multinational job seekers.
• Indeed Korea: Indeed is a global job search engine with substantial Korean operations. It competes with Kowork for both job-seeker traffic and corporate job-posting spend across all categories, including foreign-worker roles, and benefits from far greater brand awareness.
• Jobplanet: Jobplanet is a Korean HR platform combining company reviews, salary data, and job listings. While it focuses primarily on Korean domestic roles, it represents an incumbent competitor with overlapping employer-recruitment services and a materially larger user base.

Emerging players

• Wellfound: Wellfound (formerly AngelList Talent) is a global talent marketplace focused on startups and tech roles. It overlaps with Kowork's positioning as a specialized niche platform for international and remote-friendly candidates seeking roles across borders, particularly in tech and startup categories.

Others

• Deel: Deel is a global EOR and HR platform that enables companies to hire foreign workers compliantly across countries. While not a job-matching platform, it competes indirectly with Kowork's visa-support services as Korean companies adopt Deel for cross-border hiring and EOR relationships.
• Remote: Remote.com is a global HR and payroll platform specializing in international hiring and employer-of-record services. It is thematically adjacent to Kowork's foreign-worker support offering but operates at much larger scale with global infrastructure and broader category scope.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/findyourjobinkorea
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/koworkwithus
• Instagraminstagram.com/kowork_official
• TikToktiktok.com/@koworkwithus

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors4 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Kowork