[비즈한국] It has been confirmed that Vybah CEO Moon Je-yeon has been reappointed. Vybah, a subsidiary of Dunamu, operates a luxury watch trading platform. While Vybah has shown consistent growth, it has recorded annual losses, making profitability a key concern. Attention is now focused on whether Vybah, entering the second term under CEO Moon, will succeed in improving its bottom line.
Dunamu established the luxury watch trading platform Vybah in 2021, and the business began in earnest in 2022. While Dunamu’s business has primarily been defined by the cryptocurrency exchange 'Upbit', the establishment of Vybah marked a foray into new business territory. In 2023, Vybah appointed Moon Je-yeon, former Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Kurly, as its CEO. CEO Moon previously served as CSO and Chief Operating Officer (COO) at eBay Korea before joining Kurly as CSO in 2022.
At the time of Moon’s appointment, Vybah explained that it had recruited executives from commerce platform backgrounds to accelerate the growth of its platform business. CEO Moon also stated, "Starting with high-end watches, we plan to grow Vybah into a global vertical commerce platform that surpasses WatchBox in the U.S. and Chrono24 in Europe within five years."
Following CEO Moon Je-yeon's arrival, Vybah's revenue grew from 500 million KRW in 2022 to 1.1 billion KRW in 2023, 2.3 billion KRW in 2024, and 5.4 billion KRW in 2025. Vybah recorded a cumulative trading volume of 300 billion KRW in February of this year, surpassing 400 billion KRW by July. The company stated that this represents the fastest growth rate since the service was launched.
Vybah's growth is aligned with Dunamu's mid-to-long-term strategy. Beyond cryptocurrency trading, the company is looking to expand into real-world asset (RWA) trading and potentially tokenize these assets. It is expected that as Vybah’s market share grows, it will play a significant role in expanding Dunamu’s business.
The issue is profitability. Vybah's operating losses have been widening annually: 4 billion KRW in 2022, 7 billion KRW in 2023, 9.7 billion KRW in 2024, and 13.8 billion KRW in 2025. In response, Dunamu has supported Vybah with significant capital through paid-in capital increases. In 2024, Dunamu participated in capital increases for Vybah totaling 20 billion KRW across three rounds, and invested another 16 billion KRW through a capital increase last year.
CEO Moon Je-yeon's term expired on July 10 of this year. Within the financial sector, there were various projections regarding the possibility of his reappointment. Some expected a renewal, citing that Vybah has shown performance, including revenue growth, and that the business is gradually getting on track. Conversely, there was speculation that a new leader with a background in cryptocurrency exchanges might be appointed, given the importance of collaboration with Dunamu.
Ultimately, CEO Moon Je-yeon succeeded in his reappointment. While his first term focused on expanding Vybah’s footprint, now is the time to prioritize profitability. If Vybah continues to record losses despite rising revenue, it will remain dependent on Dunamu’s financial support. This comes at a time when Dunamu’s own performance has softened, with its operating profit falling by 77.8% from 396.3 billion KRW in the first quarter of last year to 88 billion KRW in the first quarter of this year. While Dunamu’s Upbit has long held an overwhelming share of the domestic crypto exchange market, recent gains by Bithumb and Coinone suggest that Upbit’s market dominance is not what it once was.
A Vybah representative stated, "We understand that CEO Moon Je-yeon was reappointed for reasons of long-term vision, management continuity, and organizational stability, given that Vybah has maintained rapid growth. We are focused on enhancing the intrinsic value of our services, and as our competitiveness has increased significantly, we expect profitability to improve in the long term."