It found that 65% of Korean-founded startups that expanded to the United States have their headquarters in the West, including Silicon Valley and Southern California. Most of these corporations chose to found directly in the United States rather than transfer their headquarters from Korea, opting for a strategy that treats the global market as the starting stage.
Startup Alliance on Feb. 5 published a startup ecosystem trends report titled "Korean startups in the U.S." The analysis covered 165 startups founded by Korean and Korean American founders that have their headquarters in the United States.
The analysis showed that 65.4% of Korean-founded startups in the United States are concentrated in the West. By region, the distribution was ▲Silicon Valley 44.8% ▲Southern California 20.6% ▲New York 16.4%. The West's infrastructure—rich investment capital and a strong Korean network—served as a core base for founders.
By industry, there was a clear trend of choosing bases strategically to match each city's core infrastructure. In Silicon Valley, deep tech and IT service corporations were centered in the "work and productivity (27.0%)" and "health care (17.6%)" sectors. Moloco, Sendbird, and Twelve Labs are representative.
Southern California (Los Angeles and San Diego), as Asia's logistics gateway and with a Korean community base, showed strength in B2C startups such as "content and social," "food," and "e-commerce." New York concentrated "Fintech" and "fashion and beauty" corporations, while Boston and Cambridge showed a distinct industrial profile, with 70% of materials corporations belonging to health care.
In addition, 85.5% of those surveyed corporations did not use a "flip," which transfers a Korean headquarters to the United States, but were founded directly in the United States. This shows that a "born global" strategy—verifying local market fit from the early stage and securing investment and networks—has become commonplace.
A Startup Alliance official said, "Korean-founded startups see the global market not as a 'destination' but as a 'starting' stage," and predicted, "The Korean founder community in the United States will take root as a key foundation driving startups' local settlement and global growth."