This article was posted on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 3:53 p.m. Nov. 11, 2025.
Forest Partners, a private equity firm that acquired mid-sized venture capital firm UTC Investment, has run into difficulties raising acquisition funds. The plan had been to cover the acquisition price with carried interest after recovering its investment in Tridge, once dubbed an "agricultural unicorn," but not only is carried interest uncertain, repayment of principal has become unclear.
According to sources in the VC industry, Forest Partners recently postponed its plan to recover Tridge investment funds, which had been scheduled for March next year. The company initially planned to sell all Tridge equity invested through funds it manages, including Pine Tree No. 1, Apple Tree No. 1 and Apple Tree No. 2, to recover 490 billion won and secure 77.4 billion won in carried interest.
Tridge's funding difficulties directly undermined the recovery plan. Although once valued as an agricultural unicorn in the 3 trillion won range, it fell into capital erosion as investors turned away amid worsening performance. On a consolidation basis, Tridge's total equity was minus 5.7 billion won at the end of 2023 and minus 28.7 billion won last year, widening the scale of capital erosion.
A VC industry official said, "If Forest Partners wants to recover the Tridge investment as planned, the only option is selling existing shares, but who would buy shares of a startup in a state of capital erosion?" and noted, "Last year an external auditor raised a significant doubt about Tridge's ability to continue as a going concern in its audit report."
Tridge, founded in 2015, operates an agricultural product trading platform. Its supply chain solutions based on global agri-food transaction data drew attention, and it was valued at 3.6 trillion won in a Series D fundraising in 2022. However, losses continued, and it has recently struggled to attract new investors even with a valuation below 500 billion won.
The problem is that Tridge's failure to recover investments could spill over into unpaid acquisition funds for UTC Investment and management instability at VCs that received policy funds such as the Korea Venture Investment Corporation. In fact, when Forest Partners acquired UTC Investment, it reportedly proposed financing the acquisition through carried interest from Tridge.
According to the "UTC Investment acquisition financing plan" obtained by ChosunBiz, Forest Partners reported that after acquiring UTC Investment last August it would liquidate seven funds currently managed with the Korea Venture Investment Corporation in March, September and December next year to recover a total of 640.4 billion won and cover the acquisition price with 112.4 billion won in carried interest from fund operations.
The UTC Investment acquisition financing plan was reportedly requested by the Korea Venture Investment Corporation, which manages the mother fund, to verify Forest Partners' financial stability after its acquisition of VC UTC Investment. The move came after it became known that Forest Partners had agreed to pay the acquisition price to the seller in installments due to insufficient financial capacity.
Tridge was considered a key asset for raising about 30 billion won needed for the UTC Investment acquisition. Of the 112.4 billion won in carried interest estimated, 70% (77.4 billion won) was expected from Tridge. Private equity firms take a set percentage of excess returns as carried interest when fund returns exceed predetermined thresholds.
Industry observers say Forest Partners may find it difficult to even recover principal from Tridge, let alone carried interest. Starting with an initial 3 billion won investment in 2018 and adding investments in 2020–2021 to reach a total of 90 billion won, Tridge's company value has continued to decline since. It is understood that only the initial 3 billion won investment was in the profit zone.
There was also a case where the value of Tridge investment equity was written down to zero. DS Asset Management is a representative example. DS Asset Management invested about 50 billion won in Tridge through funds and its own capital in 2022, but judged that listing was unlikely and selling existing shares would be difficult, so it treated the equity value as 0 won and the entire investment as a loss last year.
Another VC industry official said, "The plan to recover 490 billion won from a 90 billion won investment and secure 77 billion won in carried interest completely ignores market reality," and added, "I also heard that Tridge is seeking rescue investment by lowering its valuation to below 100 billion won to urgently raise funds."
Some expect Forest Partners will not be able to raise the 30 billion won acquisition price for UTC Investment through asset disposals and carried interest. The company claims it can secure about 35 billion won in carried interest by recovering investments in Moré and FADU in addition to Tridge, but critics say this is overly optimistic.
In fact, Moré, an AI infrastructure solution start-up that Forest Partners invested in through Sequoia Tree No. 2 in 2023, failed to show the expected increase in corporate value. Although Moré recently attracted a new investment of 30 billion–40 billion won, its corporate value remained at about 350 billion won.
So far the only asset with clear investment performance appears to be FADU, a semiconductor fabless company that listed on the KOSDAQ in August 2023. However, in the UTC Investment acquisition financing plan submitted by Forest Partners to the Korea Venture Investment Corporation, the expected recovery from FADU is only 38.5 billion won and the carried interest from excess returns is about 3.2 billion won.
Meanwhile, Forest Partners has said there is no problem financing the acquisition despite the shortfall in recovering carried interest from Tridge. A company official said, "It is true that Tridge's carried interest recovery may differ from estimates," but added, "Recovery from the FADU investment is expected to be higher than anticipated, and we also plan to pursue a partial rights offering."