The rapidly growing start-up ecosystem in Seoul is garnering attention and investment on a global stage
Are you seeing a shift in interest from overseas investors into Korea?
As a dedicated Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) that aims to attract foreign investment to Seoul, our main focus is facilitating venture capital funding and direct investment globally into companies based in Seoul. In recent times, we have been seeing overseas LPs demonstrate a keen interest in the Korean venture capital ecosystem in order to access the attractive but otherwise unfamiliar business environment in Korea.
Seoul, with its excellent information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, efficient urban mobility, and an abundance of top talent, has been capturing global attention, especially through its soft power via cultural exports.
Over the past few years, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has been making efforts to promote Seoul as a business-friendly and investment-ready city with entrepreneurial spirit for innovation. As a result, Seoul's start-up ecosystem has achieved a valuation of approximately $211bn, propelling the city to the 12th position in the global start-up ecosystem, ranking this year with 17 unicorns in Seoul out of 22 in total.
How has Invest Seoul helped Korean start-ups attract foreign investments?
Last year, FuriosaAI, a Seoul-based start-up, visited our office to explore the possibility of receiving assistance in attracting funding from foreign investors. Upon studying the company's business model and technology, we recognized their potential and value, particularly in terms of their technological capabilities and prospects.
Their primary product, an artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor known as the Neural Processing Unit (NPU), accelerates deep neural networks that lie at the heart of many AI applications that we use daily. The company’s first-generation product, WARBOY, garnered significant global attention. The chip achieved significantly better performance-to-price ratio over NVIDIA T4 and A2 graphics processing units (GPU) in MLPerf, the industry standard benchmark, and has successfully entered mass production in line with its hyperscale datacenter commercial deployment. Additionally, their second-generation chip, designed for the specific purpose of accelerating large language models and other Generative AI applications, like ChatGPT, is anticipated to be a viable alternative to NVIDIA’s A100 and H100 GPUs.
Having selected FuriosaAI as one of our Core 100 companies, we showcased them to investors from around the world at the Seoul Investor Forum, one of the investor events we organize. During the event, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist expressed strong interest and subsequently participated in the company's Series C funding round.
What does the future of foreign investment in Seoul look like?
Starting this year, the Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to establish the Seoul Vision 2030 Fund, with a budget of about $3.9bn over the next 4 years to invest in industries of the future. In addition, Mayor Oh Se-hoon has announced a commitment to nurturing more than 1,000 start-ups and 50 unicorns by 2030, with the aim of positioning Seoul as one of the world's top five cities for start-ups.
Playing a pivotal role in realizing the city's vision, Invest Seoul is providing essential information and resources to global investors that are considering Seoul as a potential investment destination.
About
Invest Seoul is a foreign investment promotion agency established by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. It provides a range of customized services to help promote the investment environment of Seoul to attract leading global companies and link them to foreign investors. Bonhi Gu is the Director of Invest Seoul. He previously worked with Woori Bank Korea as an investment banking manager and derivative trader in London and Seoul. He was last with Woori Bank Europe GmBh in 2016 as a Founder & CEO, where he focused on corporate, IB business, and bond trading.