Support for Startups
Financial Services Commission (FSC) chairman Lim Jong-ryong said on July 28 that the KRX Startup Market will be established in the Korea Exchange in the near future so that early investment payback for crowdfunding investors can be facilitated. At present, the K-OTC BB, which is the over-the-counter stock trading platform of the Korea Financial Investment Association, is serving the same purpose but the rate of its utilization is still low.
The FSC is also planning to relax its regulation that bans stock trading for one year starting from crowdfunding investment. This is to boost the volume of trading. At the same time, more types of advertising media are to be allowed for crowdfunding intermediaries and beneficiaries, which can resort only to their official websites now when it comes to advertising.
The assistance for successful crowdfunding beneficiaries is to continue by means of four funds, worth 144.5 billion won in total, prepared by the Industrial Bank of Korea, Korea Growth Investment Corporation, Korea Credit Guarantee Fund and Korea Technology Finance Corporation.
Crowdfunding in South Korea took effect on January 25 this year so that any investor can acquire a share in a startup by investing up to two million won a year in it. As of now, the total annual investment by a single investor cannot exceed five million won (US$4,380). During the past six months, 3,557 persons made a total investment of 10.2 billion won (US$8.89 million) as a result of 64 successful investor recruitments after 133 recruitments that attracted 4,445 investors were conducted. The current number of registered crowdfunding intermediaries is 13, including Korea Asset Investment Securities