This year, among unlisted startups in our country, only two corporations have reached unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion, or 1 trillion won: Rebellion Merger Corporation and Abley Corporation.
The startup sector, which enjoyed unprecedented prosperity during the COVID-19 pandemic with ultra-low interest rates and a ‘money feast,’ is currently struggling without securing investments of over 100 billion won from global 'big players.' There are concerns in the industry that such uncertainty may continue due to recent political risks.
According to data compiled by Chosun Biz through the Startup Alliance on the 13th, the new unicorn this year is Rebellion, which merged with Sapion Korea, an affiliate of SK Telecom, on the 2nd. The valuation of the merger corporation is estimated at 1.3 trillion won.
However, there is skepticism in the industry about whether Rebellion can be considered a 'pure unicorn' given that it was created through a merger with a large corporation.
On the same day, Abley Corporation, which operates fashion platforms including ‘Abley,’ ‘4910,’ and ‘amood,’ also reached unicorn status with a valuation of 3 trillion won through new investments. The Chinese Alibaba Group invested 100 billion won through a minority equity investment.
In contrast to last year when four companies—including Padu (semiconductor design), Akmedia (drama production), A.P.R (beauty tech), and Cream (Naver resale platform)—joined the unicorn ranks, this year sees a sharp decline.
Both corporations were not included in the list of Korean unicorns compiled by global market research firm CB Insights.
According to CB Insights, as of the end of this year, 13 companies, including Toss, Yellow Mobile, Kurly, Tridge, WEMAKEPRICE, Musinsa, Zigzag, Megazone Cloud, Bucketplace (Today's House), Ridi, G.P. Club, L&P Cosmetic (Medihill), and IG Works are stagnant within the Korean unicorn category.
Given this situation, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, which had been announcing its own unicorn statistics until 2022, has stopped compiling these figures as of 2023.
Industry experts point out that South Korea's unicorns are lagging in both quantity and quality. Kim Pan-geun, CEO of Future Science Technology Holdings, noted, “About half of the world's unicorns are technology or business-to-business (B2B) companies, while our unicorns tend to be soft platforms focused on domestic markets and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies,” adding, “This is why we are unable to create industries that lead the country by innovating existing markets or creating new ones.”
Lee Gi-dae, director of the Startup Alliance, stated, “AI startups are leading industrial innovation, making up 21% of the global top 100 unicorns, and 32.7% in terms of valuation,” and predicted, “Given the political and economic uncertainties, promising companies are going overseas, so it will be difficult for the atmosphere to change significantly next year.”