The venture investment market is experiencing a harsh winter. Last month, the new investment scale of domestic venture capital (VC) in startups was about 300 billion won, a decrease of 34% compared to a year ago. Following a 47% decline in January, the investment scale has decreased for four consecutive months up to last month.
On the 9th, according to the startup analysis platform ‘InnoForest’, domestic VCs made new investments of about 304.6 billion won in a total of 69 startups last April. This represents a 34% decrease in dollar value compared to 90 startups that received 462.5 billion won in investment during the same period last year.
Mark & Company, the operator of InnoForest and a VC, aggregated the new investments in startups by domestic VCs and institutional investors from seed stage to pre-IPO funding last month, excluding transactions of startup shares among institutional investors.
The contraction of the venture investment market continues this year. The new investment scale of domestic VCs in startups was 376.3 billion won in January, representing a 47% decrease compared to the same period last year, followed by a 28% decrease in February and a 17% decrease in March, continuing the downward trend in new investment scale.
In March, new investments exceeding 400 billion won were executed, raising market recovery prospects, but in April, the venture investment scale shrank again to the early 300 billion won level. The investment amount per startup also decreased to about 4.3 billion won, down from 5.1 billion won in the same period last year.
K-beauty startup Binau, well-known for its skincare brand ‘Numbers In’, gained attention in the market after it was reported to have secured an investment of 60 billion won at a valuation of 900 billion won, but it was identified as a transaction in which venture capital firms, including IMM Investment, purchased a portion of the founder’s equity.
The field that saw the highest volume of VC investments last month was ‘healthcare·bio’ (67.2 billion won). Biotech companies Fraser Therapeutics and ProGen secured investments of 29 billion won and 22 billion won, respectively, accounting for 75% of the total investment scale in the healthcare·bio sector.
Based on the number of investments, 14 startups in the ‘AI·deep tech·blockchain’ sector secured new investments, making it the highest, followed by healthcare·bio (8 cases) and manufacturing/hardware (6 cases). Among VCs, Korea Investment Partners executed the most investments with a total of 4 cases.
A representative from InnoForest noted, ‘The startup ecosystem still appears to be going through a period of uncertainty,’ adding that ‘the most notable among the newly funded startups last April was Dotz Corporation, which operates a supplement brand and recorded a sharp rise in the consumer transaction index.’