00:00います
00:03AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily
00:06If you're building a startup in Korea and wondering why early-stage capital feels scarce,
00:12today's numbers explain exactly why.
00:15Korea's venture capital pool has grown 11-fold in 20 years,
00:19but the share going to early-stage companies collapsed
00:22from 63 percent to just 14 percent.
00:26compare that to the u.s where early-stage capital still flows freely korea's entire vc market is
00:34about four percent the size of america's the good news government-backed deep tech and biotech
00:42pipelines are picking up some of the slack from a new graphene commercialization hub to an fda
00:48cleared cancer drug trial it's tuesday september 15th let's look at what this means for startups
00:55and entrepreneurs in korea korean policymakers and researchers are increasingly focused on why
01:02venture capital here still favors later stage lower risk deals even as the overall investment
01:08pool has grown dramatically part of the gap researchers argue comes from a thinner supporting
01:15ecosystem korea lacks the dense network of specialized law firms that in the u.s help very early startups
01:22structure ip and investment deals from day one that structural gap is playing out even as government
01:30programs push new deep tech and biotech ventures toward commercialization creating a mixed picture
01:37for founders deciding where and how to raise here's what the numbers show korea's total new vc investment
01:45grew more than 11 fold in 20 years from 617.7 billion won to 6.81 trillion won about 5
01:55.1 billion dollars last year
01:58within that pool the early stage share collapsed from 63.5 percent to 14.1 percent even as early stage
02:08funding itself still grew 2.4 times to 959.1 billion won about 714 million dollars the u.s national
02:19venture capital association put 2024 american vc investment at 215.4 billion dollars versus roughly
02:308.7 billion dollars in korea about four percent of the u.s total kyungbuk province and pohang launched
02:38a k-graphene commercialization consortium this week backed by 14.7 billion won about 10.9 million dollars
02:48in government funding through 2030 for shared production and testing facilities biotech firm penitrium won fda
02:57clearance this month for a phase 2 a combination trial in advanced solid tumors with results expected
03:05by september 2028 short video linked retail sales are projected to grow from 65.2 billion dollars last
03:14year to 379.5 billion dollars by 2036 a trend already boosting mobile orders at cj on style by 3
03:25.2 times
03:27so what does this mean for founders building in korea right now the structural story isn't that korean
03:34vcs turned risk averse for no reason the surrounding ecosystem from specialized ip law firms to founder
03:42friendly deal structures hasn't scaled alongside the capital earlier we said korea's early stage vc
03:50share collapsed to 14 percent here's what that actually means for you raising a seed or series a round
03:59here means leaning more on government-backed programs and strategic partners than on traditional vc alone
04:07graphene materials and clinical stage biotech look like sectors where government money is actively
04:14de-risking early bets worth watching as pohang's first consortium projects and penitrium's 12-week phase
04:22one readout come in that's today's ai prism founders this episode was produced with ai assistance based on
04:32seoul economic daily reporting and reviewed by a human editor ai prism is a wanifra award-winning series
04:40we'll be back tomorrow you've been listening to ai prism from seoul economic daily
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