The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said on the 9th that it held a roundtable at Korea Venture Investment Corporation to promote long-term and scale-up investment, with fund-of-funds managers, portfolio corporations, and experts in attendance.
The roundtable was organized to review investment performance at the SME scale-up stage and to discuss the role and policy direction of the fund of funds to foster next-generation unicorn corporations.
On the day, Korea Venture Investment Corporation announced its plan to operate the "Next-Generation Unicorn Fund." The fund is a key program of the "NEXT UNICORN Project," reflected in last year's supplementary budget, and is a scale-up support model that combines private investment with policy finance.
Under the structure, after private venture capital first invests in and recommends promising corporations in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep tech, Korea Venture Investment Corporation and Korea Technology Finance Corporation (KOTEC) simultaneously review investment and guarantees to provide up to 60 billion won in growth capital per corporation. This links more than 20 billion won in private investment with a 20 billion won matching investment from the fund of funds and a 20 billion won guarantee from Korea Technology Finance Corporation.
The roundtable also introduced investment cases at the scale-up stage. Illimis Therapeutics was cited as a case that entered Boston in the United States based on investment from the fund of funds. It said business expansion and overseas entry accelerated after the investment.
Bos Semiconductor also said it laid the groundwork for follow-on funding after receiving a 21.7 billion won investment through the fund-of-funds scale-up fund.
From the managers' side, they emphasized that long-term investment is essential given the nature of deep tech. Opinions were also offered that policy support should favor managers with long-term investment plans.
Participants agreed on the need not only for early-stage investment but also to expand follow-on investment at the scale-up stage and to build a system for supplying long-term capital.
No Yong-seok, first vice minister of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), said, "Unicorn corporations are difficult to build in a short period," adding, "We will expand long-term and scale-up investment centered on the fund of funds to strengthen the global growth base of innovative venture corporations."