Korea Investment, most generous venture capitalist in H1

Korea Investment Partners Co. spent the most on local startups among venture capitalists in the first half, while South Korean game developer Smilegate’s corporate venture capital unit topped investments in newly established companies amid the sustained funding drought.

Korea Investment invested 63.1 billion won ($46.3 million) in domestic startups in the first six months of 2024, local startup and venture capital tracker The VC said on Tuesday.

LB Investment Inc. ranked second with spending of 53.8 billion won, followed by Company K Partners Ltd. with 43.1 billion won, IMM Investment Corp. with 39 billion won, Shinhan Venture Investment Co. with 38.1 billion won and Altos Ventures Management Inc. with 37 billion won.

Korea Investment topped the list in number of investments, injecting money into 21 startups, while Hana Ventures ranked second with investments in 18 companies. KB Investment Co., Shinhan Venture and Company K each invested in 14 cases companies.

The investment values of those venture capitalists shrank, however. Korea Investment’s spending in the first quarter fell 32.2% from the year earlier.

Aju IB Investment Co., which was the No. 1 venture capitalist in the first half of 2023 with spending of 137.5 billion won, was not even in the top 10 list this year.

SMILEGATE, ANGEL OF STARTUPS

Among corporate venture capitalists, Smilegate Investment Inc. injected 21.6 billion won in 15 startups.

Kolon Investment Inc. and Hyundai Investment Partners Co.tied for second place, spending 16.8 billion won each, followed by L&S Venture Capital with 14 billion won.

NVentures, the venture capital arm of the global artificial intelligence chip leader Nvidia Corp., invested 11.7 billion in Twelve Labs, a generative AI startup.

POSCO Investment and KT Investment Co. injected 10.1 billion won and 9.7 billion won, respectively.

In terms of the number of investments, Smilegate Investment topped the list, while Kakao Ventures Corp. ranked second with investments in 11 startups. L&S and POSCO  invested in eight and seven startups, respectively.

Write to Joo-Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.