Bang Jun-hyuk

Bang Jun-hyuk (; born December 23, 1968) is a South Korean businessman. The founder and chairman of the largest mobile gaming company in the country, Netmarble, he is among the richest people in South Korea. When Netmarble acquired Coway in 2019, he also became the chairman of Coway. In April 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$1.01 billion and ranked him 40th richest in the country.

Biography Bang was born on December 23, 1968 in Seoul, South Korea. He was born into poverty. He claimed that, while he was in elementary school, he delivered newspapers to help support the family. In 1985, he dropped out after attending two years of high school and worked to help support his family. At age 30, he founded an internet movie rental business, but the business failed. In 1999, founded an internet-related business that was popular but did not recoup its investment costs. Around this time, he heard that the video game developer Ipopsoft was in crisis. While still a company outsider, he helped the company overcome its crisis by finding investors. When the company again went into crisis, he took over the company and reorganized it into Netmarble. ), and took a hiatus for five years. He reportedly was attempting to start another gaming company before he was asked to return by CJ.

Upon his return to Netmarble, he shifted the business to focusing on the mobile gaming market. In 2015, Netmarble ranked 8th in app sales globally. In 2016, he owned around 32% of Netmarble stock. In May 2017, Netmarble went public after raising US$2.4 billion, which was the largest listing in the country in seven years. In 2017, he became the richest self-made billionaire in the country and the sixth richest in the country, then holding 24.47% of company stock.

While there were many assumptions and speculations Bang was related to Bang Si-hyuk due to sharing surnames, this was found to be untrue. Netmarble's acquisition of Big Hit shares in 2018 also fuelled these wide spread rumours.