Ace Shim

Ace Shim is redefining identity verification. His mission stems from personal struggles as an international student in the U.S., facing constant barriers from broken identity systems.

Now, as founder and CEO of Hopae, he’s turning that frustration into innovation—securing $6.5M funding in seed to build privacy-first digital identity solutions. Previously, he founded COOV, South Korea’s official COVID-19 vaccination wallet, scaling it to 43M daily users with global interoperability. Before that, he developed blockchain identity systems at LG.
With Hopae, Ace is shaping a future where proving who you are is instant, secure, and effortless—at a time when identity fraud is at an all-time high.