Who Owns Torriden? The Korean Company Behind Dive-In Serum, Read From Its Audit Report

The bottle this company was built on: Torriden Dive-In serum, 50ml, sold by Torriden's own Amazon storeAffiliate link. As an Amazon Associate, EpicKor earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

Quick Answer

Is Torriden Korean? Yes. Torriden Co., Ltd. (주식회사 토리든) was incorporated on 1 December 2015 and its registered head office is a second-floor unit in Doan-dong, Seo-gu, Daejeon, a city about an hour south of Seoul by train. That address is printed in its own audit report and on the footer of its American online store.

Who owns Torriden? Its founders. The audit report filed on Korea's disclosure system DART lists four individual shareholders on 31 December 2025, and the two co-CEOs, Kwon In-goo (권인구) and Lee Yoon-hee (이윤희), hold 45% and 25%. No company, fund or conglomerate appears on that list. LG Household & Health Care looked at buying Torriden in early 2026 and formally walked away on 19 May 2026. In July 2026 the K-beauty group Goodai Global — owner of Beauty of Joseon, TIRTIR and SKIN1004 — signed a strategic investment agreement to take an undisclosed minority stake, reported as existing shares. Control is not changing hands.

Where is Torriden made? In Korea, but not by Torriden. The company owns no factory; its balance sheet holds about ₩4.2 billion of fixtures and equipment and no land or buildings. The Olive Young listing for the 50ml Dive-In serum names the manufacturer as Jungcos (주식회사 정코스), a contract manufacturer in Osong, North Chungcheong, with Torriden as the "responsible seller" — the Korean legal term for the brand that answers for the product.

Do Koreans actually use it? Heavily. Torriden was one of only three brands that sold more than ₩100 billion a year inside Olive Young in 2024, and on the afternoon we checked, 2 October 2026, a Dive-In serum set was No. 9 in Olive Young's skincare ranking. Overseas sales have now overtaken Korea, but Korea is still nearly 40% of the business.

Torriden at a Glance

A Failed Soap Shop and a Phone Counter in Daejeon

The founder story is short and it is not glamorous, which is part of why it is worth telling.

Kwon In-goo was born in 1991. At 23 he started an online shop selling soap. It closed within six months. In an interview published by Daejeon's city start-up platform, he put the failure down to not understanding what customers actually wanted. He then went to work selling mobile phones, and by his own account reached the top of the Chungcheong regional sales table within three months by doing the unfashionable thing — talking to customers honestly instead of pushing.

In December 2015, aged 24, he incorporated Torriden with Lee Yoon-hee, who is co-CEO today. The company was registered in Daejeon, not Seoul, and it is still registered there. Daejeon is Korea's science and research city, home to the Daedeok research district, but it is nobody's idea of a beauty capital; the Korean cosmetics industry clusters around Seoul, Gyeonggi and the manufacturing belt in North Chungcheong.

As for the name, Korean wiki entries say it was borrowed from Torridon, a mountain-and-loch area of the Scottish Highlands, as a nod to skin and nature being protected together. We could not find Torriden saying this on its own Korean or English sites, so treat it as the commonly repeated explanation rather than a confirmed one.

What the company did next is better documented than the name. It kept the product range narrow, priced it in the middle of the market, left out fragrance and essential oils, and let Korean review apps and Olive Young shelves do the advertising. CJ Olive Young's own newsroom describes Torriden as having entered Olive Young in 2019 and grown into a mega-brand there in five years.

Who Owns Torriden?

This is the question foreign shoppers search most, usually phrased as "who owns Torriden" or "is Torriden owned by a big company", because so many K-beauty names they know have been bought: COSRX by Amorepacific, Dr.Jart+ by Estée Lauder, Round Lab and TIRTIR by Goodai Global.

On the last audited date, the answer was simple. Torriden's 2025 audit report, prepared by Yeji Accounting Corporation and filed on DART on 7 April 2026, prints the shareholder register in its first note:

The same four names and the same percentages appear in the 2024 audit report. Nobody came in or left during 2025.

Then two things happened in 2026.

LG Household & Health Care looked, and walked away. On 27 January 2026 the Seoul Economic Daily reported that LG H&H, one of Korea's two largest cosmetics groups, was considering buying Torriden. LG H&H is listed, so it had to answer the report on DART the same day. Its filing said it was "reviewing various options including acquiring stakes to strengthen the beauty business" but had decided nothing. It repeated that on 26 February. On 19 May 2026 it filed the final answer: it had decided not to proceed with the acquisition. The price was never disclosed. Korean press reports put the talk anywhere from about ₩500 billion (Bloter) to as much as ₩1 trillion (The Fact, a month after LG withdrew), which tells you mostly that nobody outside the room knew.

Goodai Global is buying in, without buying control. On 29 July 2026 Torriden and Goodai Global signed a strategic investment memorandum of understanding. Korean press report that Goodai is taking part of Torriden's existing shares — so some current shareholder is selling — and both sides stressed that Torriden keeps its independent management and its brand. Korean coverage called it Goodai's first minority investment; until then it had bought brands outright. Neither the stake nor the price has been published, and because the deal came after the 2025 balance-sheet date, it will not appear on DART until Torriden's 2026 audit report, due around April 2027.

So the honest answer today is: Torriden is controlled by its two founders, with Goodai Global agreed as a minority shareholder of unknown size. Anyone telling you that Torriden "was acquired" is ahead of the evidence.

Where Is Torriden Made?

In Korea, by contract manufacturers. This is the normal structure for a young Korean beauty brand, and Torriden is a clean example of it.

Three pieces of evidence line up:

• The label. Korean law requires every cosmetic to name its manufacturer and its responsible seller. Olive Young's listing for the 50ml Dive-In serum, read on 2 October 2026, gives "주식회사 정코스 / ㈜토리든" — Jungcos as manufacturer, Torriden as responsible seller — and "대한민국" (Republic of Korea) as the country of manufacture. Market Kurly's listing for a Dive-In set says the same.
• The manufacturer. Jungcos is a cosmetics ODM founded on 8 March 2016, with its head office and first plant in the Osong bio-cluster in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, and a second plant nearby, according to its corporate site. It is a mid-sized contract maker, not one of the "Big Four" (Kolmar, Cosmax, Cosmecca, C&C International) that make most of K-beauty.
• The balance sheet. Torriden's property, plant and equipment at the end of 2025 was ₩4.17 billion — fixtures, furniture and construction in progress, with no land or buildings. A company that made its own serum would carry a factory. What it does carry is ₩40.6 billion of finished goods in inventory, which is what you would expect from a brand that orders from a contract maker and sells through retailers.

One caution: the Jungcos name is confirmed for the Dive-In serum. Torriden does not publish a list of its suppliers, and a brand selling dozens of products may use more than one manufacturer. If you are a buyer who needs to know who makes a specific item, read that item's Korean label.

You might like: K-Beauty OEM/ODM in Korea: What Overseas Brands Should Check First

Do Koreans Actually Use Torriden?

Yes — and the evidence is better than an influencer saying so. "Do Koreans use Torriden" and "is Torriden popular in Korea" are real searches, usually from people who suspect the brand is an export creation. It is the other way round: Torriden was big in Korea first.

What it costs in Korea. On 2 October 2026 Olive Young listed the 50ml Dive-In serum at ₩22,000, discounted to ₩16,500, and marked it temporarily sold out online; a refill set with a second 50ml bottle was ₩27,000 on sale. Torriden's own Korean mall had the same bottle at ₩16,900. In practice nobody in Korea pays list — Olive Young runs Torriden on near-permanent promotion.

If you are in Korea, any large Olive Young store will stock the range; our Torriden Dive-In serum guide covers how Koreans layer it and who should skip it.

The Numbers, From the Audit Reports

Torriden is unlisted, so it does not publish quarterly results. It does file a full audited set of accounts every spring, because its size makes an external audit compulsory. These figures are from those filings, not from press releases.

2025 and 2024 from the 2025 audit report (DART, filed 7 April 2026); 2023 from the 2024 audit report (filed 7 April 2025). Separate (company-only) accounts.

Three things stand out.

The growth came in one jump. Revenue almost tripled in 2024, the year Torriden passed ₩100 billion inside Olive Young and the first full year after its US breakout on TikTok. Growth then slowed to 47.5% in 2025 — still fast, but no longer a step change.

Profit grew much less than sales in 2025. Operating profit rose only 16%, because the company doubled its advertising, nearly quadrupled sales promotion and almost doubled freight — the costs of selling abroad and on Amazon. The operating margin fell from 28% to 22%. That is still a very profitable company, and it is the clearest sign in the accounts that overseas growth is being bought, not just discovered.

The balance sheet is plain. Total assets were ₩126.3 billion, equity ₩97.1 billion, and there were no borrowings at all; cash and short-term deposits came to about ₩53.9 billion. Its 2025 accounts still apply the SME accounting relief available to firms under Korea's SME Act — a small legal footnote that captures how quickly this company outgrew the category.

For the first half of 2026, Torriden told Cosmorning it made ₩181.1 billion (+47.7%), of which about ₩112.7 billion (62%) was overseas, with the United States, Japan and China its largest markets in that order. Those are company figures and unaudited.

How a Daejeon Brand Ended Up at Sephora

Torriden's overseas story follows the now-familiar K-beauty route, but the sequence is worth seeing in order:

1. Amazon, where Torriden sells through its own storefront, carried the brand to foreign buyers who had already met it through Korean beauty content.
2. TikTok, November 2023. In its Sephora announcement, the company credits a post by creator Jessica Vu with its US breakout.
3. First US pop-up, autumn 2024, which the company says drew 2,000 people over three days — and caught Sephora's attention.
4. Sephora, summer 2025. Torriden announced in August 2025 that it was in more than 400 Sephora stores and on Sephora.com, with a four-day "Dive Into Splash" pop-up in SoHo, New York. The co-CEOs, quoted together, called it "more than just a retail partnership."
5. Export award, 2025. Korean press report that the company received the US$50 million Export Tower on Korea's Trade Day in December 2025.

By August 2026 the company was citing more than 40 countries and channels including Amazon, Costco and Sephora. The co-founders also moved their Seoul office into Lotte World Tower in December 2025, in the same building as APR, the Medicube company — a symbolic step for a firm whose registered address is still the second floor of a commercial building in Daejeon.

What We Could Not Verify, and the Honest Risks

The Goodai stake. Size, price and seller are all unpublished. Until the 2026 audit report, any percentage you read is a guess.

The valuation. Press reports around the LG H&H talks put Torriden's value between roughly ₩500 billion and ₩1 trillion, none of them sourced to a document. We would not build anything on either.

Single-product dependence. The Dive-In family is the company. The serum, mask, cream and toner all carry the same name, and the awards and rankings are almost all Dive-In. A brand this concentrated is exposed to one formula falling out of favour.

Contract manufacturing cuts both ways. It let Torriden grow from ₩67 billion to ₩274 billion in two years without building a plant. It also means production sits with the manufacturer, and Korean ODMs make similar formulas for many brands — although Torriden runs its own research lab and spent ₩1.3 billion on R&D in 2025. Torriden's moat is the brand, the review history and the retail relationships, not the factory.

Rising cost of growth. Advertising, promotion and freight together went from about ₩30 billion to ₩66 billion in a year. Finished-goods inventory rose 74% while revenue rose 47.5%. Neither is alarming on its own; together they are what to watch in the 2026 accounts.

Competition is coming from its own shareholder's stable. Goodai Global owns Round Lab, whose Dokdo line competes for the same "gentle hydrator" customer, and Beauty of Joseon and SKIN1004 compete for the same Amazon shopper. Anua, Medicube and a dozen other K-beauty brands chase the same US shopper. Being independent with a competitor on the register is an unusual arrangement, and how it works in practice is not yet visible.

What Overseas Operators Can Take From This

A Korean beauty brand does not need a factory, a Seoul address or a celebrity to reach ₩274 billion. It needs a product Korean review culture rewards, a slot at Olive Young, and a contract manufacturer that can scale with it.

Check the label before you trust a story. "Made in Korea" and "Korean brand" are separate facts. For Torriden both are true, and the label tells you exactly who made the bottle. For any K-beauty supplier you evaluate, the 제조업자 line is the fastest diligence you will do.

Read DART even for private companies. Torriden is unlisted, yet its revenue, margins, cash, inventory and shareholder register are all public, free and in Korean. The English-language picture of this company was missing almost all of it.

Minority stakes are the new K-beauty deal. Goodai, which built itself by buying brands outright, chose a minority stake here. If you are trying to partner with a fast-growing Korean brand whose founders do not want to sell, that structure is now precedent.

FAQ About Torriden

Q: Is Torriden a Korean brand?

A: Yes. Torriden Co., Ltd. was incorporated in Korea on 1 December 2015 and its registered head office is in Seo-gu, Daejeon. Its products sold in Korea are labelled as made in the Republic of Korea.

Q: Who owns Torriden?

A: Its co-founders. On 31 December 2025, according to the audit report filed on DART, co-CEO Kwon In-goo held 45% and co-CEO Lee Yoon-hee 25%, with two other individuals holding 25% and 5%. In July 2026 Goodai Global agreed to take an undisclosed minority stake. LG Household & Health Care considered an acquisition and announced on 19 May 2026 that it would not proceed.

Q: Was Torriden bought by LG or by Goodai Global?

A: No. LG H&H's talks ended without a deal. Goodai Global's July 2026 agreement is for a minority stake, reported as existing shares, and both companies said Torriden keeps independent management.

Q: Where is Torriden made?

A: In Korea, by contract manufacturers. Torriden owns no factory. The Olive Young listing for the 50ml Dive-In serum names Jungcos, a cosmetics ODM in Osong, Cheongju, as manufacturer and Torriden as the responsible seller.

Q: Is Torriden popular in Korea?

A: Yes. In 2024 it was one of three brands with more than ₩100 billion in annual sales at Olive Young, it has won an Olive Young Award every year since 2021, and on 2 October 2026 a Dive-In serum set ranked ninth in Olive Young's skincare chart.

Q: How much is the Dive-In serum in Korea?

A: On 2 October 2026 Olive Young listed the 50ml bottle at ₩22,000, on sale for ₩16,500, and Torriden's own Korean mall listed it at ₩16,900. Prices and promotions change often.

Q: What does the name Torriden mean?

A: Korean wiki sources say it comes from Torridon, an area of the Scottish Highlands, chosen to link skin care with protecting nature. We could not find the company confirming this itself.

Related Reading

• Torriden Dive-In Serum: Korea's Most-Awarded Hydrator, Explained Honestly — the product itself: what low-molecular hyaluronic acid does and who should skip it.
• APR Corporation Deep Dive: How Medicube Built a Global Beauty-Tech Flywheel — Torriden's Lotte World Tower neighbour, and the K-beauty company that went public.
• COSMAX Deep Dive: The ODM Engine Behind Global K-Beauty — the manufacturing side of the model Torriden relies on.
• Round Lab Dokdo Toner: Korea's Six-Time No.1 Toner Is Named After a Date — the Goodai Global brand that competes for the same customer.
• Korean Cosmetics Wholesale Guide: Authorized Distributors and Gray Market Risk — for buyers who want to source Korean skincare directly.

Sources

• Torriden Co., Ltd., audit report for FY2025 (Yeji Accounting Corporation), DART receipt no. 20260407003222, filed 7 April 2026 — revenue, costs, balance sheet, shareholder register, head office
• Torriden Co., Ltd., audit report for FY2024 (Hyundai Accounting Corporation), DART receipt no. 20250407002451, filed 7 April 2025 — 2023 comparatives, shareholder register
• LG Household & Health Care, rumour-response disclosures on DART, 27 January 2026 (20260127800180), 26 February 2026 (20260226800867) and 19 May 2026 (20260519800324)
• Olive Young listing, Torriden Dive-In serum 50ml — price, manufacturer and country of manufacture, read 2 October 2026; Olive Young skincare ranking read the same afternoon
• Torriden official Korean mall, Dive-In serum 50ml, read 2 October 2026
• Jungcos corporate overview — founding date and plant locations
• CJ Newsroom: Olive Young ₩10bn-club brands pass 100 (2024 results)
• Torriden, "K-Beauty Brand Torriden Launches at Sephora", PR Newswire, 25 August 2025
• The Fact, on Torriden's founders and the sale process, 18 June 2026
• The Fact, on the Lotte World Tower office move, 22 January 2026
• Cosmorning, Torriden first-half 2026 results, 6 August 2026 and 2025 results, 5 March 2026
• Bizwatch, on Goodai Global's first minority investment; Seoul Economic Daily, 29 July 2026
• Bloter, on LG H&H's withdrawal; Korea Financial Times, 19 May 2026
• Daejeon start-up platform founder interview; Beautynury on the Dive-In serum's awards

Last Updated: 2 October 2026. Financial figures for 2023–2025 come from Torriden's audited accounts on DART; first-half 2026 figures, unit sales and country counts are the company's own and unaudited. The Goodai Global stake and any valuation are undisclosed. Olive Young prices and rankings change daily. EpicKor has no commercial relationship with Torriden, Goodai Global or LG Household & Health Care, and nothing here is investment advice.