DarwinKS

DarwinKS designs and manufactures its own document-scanning hardware in-house. The ComboScanner series reads Korean national ID cards, passports, and banknotes using IR and hologram-detection technology protected by Korean Patent 10-0894696. That same optical engine is integrated into the firm’s Digital ATMs, meaning the KYC step at the machine does not rely on any external credit bureau or fingerprint database—the verification is performed directly on the physical credential.

Based on all available disclosures, DarwinKS operates as a revenue-generating technology company rather than an investment fund. It earns income from hardware sales, ATM transaction fees, and platform-licensing arrangements. No public filings indicate it manages discretionary pools of outside capital; the firm has not disclosed any AUM.

The firm holds a foreign-exchange operator registration from the Korea Customs Service specifically for unmanned currency-exchange machines. In November 2023, the Ministry of Science and ICT granted ICT regulatory sandbox approval for its AI face-recognition-based non-face-to-face real-name verification service. Cryptocurrency ATM operations and crypto POS services are covered under a separate sandbox fast-track confirmation.

DTMs are installed in Homeplus locations nationwide, E-mart24 convenience stores, N Seoul Tower, and at least one Namdaemun exchange café. The ComboScanner is deployed at Incheon Airport tax-refund counters, Jeju JDC duty-free shops, Suwon District Court registry offices, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power facilities, and roughly 670 additional sites that include convenience stores, karaoke rooms, and unmanned adult-goods shops for age verification.

The firm’s CEO founded DPEC Global (USA) and Darwin Blockchain Nicaragua S.A., and served as CTO of LACENTRAL S.A., described as Nicaragua’s first digital bank. DarwinKS has signed crypto ATM supply agreements in Japan, Kazakhstan, and with several Southeast Asian partners, and attended a fintech briefing hosted by the government of El Salvador in 2022. Its DPEC platform has applied for patents via the PCT system in the United States, Singapore, Japan, China, Thailand, and Indonesia.

The firm’s public position is that because the ComboScanner performs forgery detection optically on the physical document—without extracting names, resident registration numbers, or fingerprints into a database—it avoids the personal-data storage that would trigger Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act consent and retention requirements. The AI face-authentication module operates locally on the device during the sandbox-approved non-face-to-face process, and the system issues a paper wallet QR code rather than retaining biometric templates.

DarwinKS participated in the founding of DPEC Korea Inc., a separate legal entity based in the Busan startup support center, in January 2021. DPEC Korea serves as the vehicle for the Busan blockchain special-zone public-private initiative, co-developing DTM and QR Pay solutions with Sogang University’s Intelligent Blockchain Research Center under an industry-academic cooperation agreement.