Up 86% from Previous Year
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on Sept. 28 that the startup investment in South Korea for the first eight months of this year totaled 4,615.8 billion won, up 85.8 percent from a year ago. For reference, the previous yearly high, 4,304.5 billion won, was recorded last year.
From January to August this year, a total of 3,395 investments were made in 1,588 startups. Information and communication technology service providers, biotech and medical startups, and logistics service providers attracted more investment than the others and the investments in the first and second groups topped one trillion won by a margin of 308 billion won and 93.5 billion won, respectively. The investment in the third group increased to 961.8 billion won. The investments in the first and third groups jumped 101.8 percent and 118.6 percent year on year, respectively.
The investment in younger startups increased 25.2 percent (204.1 billion won) from a year ago. Meanwhile, that in older startups more than doubled year on year. The follow-up investment for the eight months added up to 3,357.3 billion won, 72.7 percent of the total startup investment. This ratio was approximately 55 percent at the end of August 2017 and has continued to increase since then.
For the eight months, 3,947.2 billion won of startup funds were raised in South Korea. The amount increased by more than one trillion won year on year. For reference, the all-time high, 6,567.6 billion won, was recorded last year. The public sector accounted for 1,077 billion won (up 1.9 percent from a year ago) and the private sector accounted for 2,870.2 billion won (up 60 percent).