Venture Investment Continues to Increase
The number of South Korean unlisted startups with estimated value of more than 1 trillion won (US$864.75 million) has risen to nine.
Cosmetics firm GP Club Co. has become the ninth unicorn company in South Korea, according to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) on June 26. Accordingly, the number of unicorn firms increased by three times from three in June last year. Unicorn companies include Coupang Corp., Krafton Inc., Yellow Mobile Inc., Woowa Brothers Corp., L&P Cosmetic Co., WeMakePrice Inc., Viva Republica Co. and Yanolja Corp.
The amount of fresh venture investments from January to May this year came to 1.49 trillion won (US$1.29 billion), up 15.2 percent from a year earlier. It is the highest figure ever for the January-May period.
The Moon Jae-in government raised the amount of investments in the Fund of Funds to 800 billion won (US$691.98 million). It also eased investment regulations by lowering the starting capital of venture capital companies from 5 billion won (US$4.32 million) to 2 billion won (US$1.73 million).