SEOUL, KOREA - The Small & Medium Business Administration said on October 20 that the total investment in tech start-ups made during the first nine months of the year was 1,078 billion won in 619 cases. This is 9.5 percent higher than 984.2 billion won during the same period last year.

 

The investment in newly created firms has increased as well. The sum of investment in companies with less than three years since founding was 335.7 billion won in 301 cases, up from 249.3 billion won for 275 firms a year ago.

 

The average investment volume for each case was 1.12 billion won for those enterprises younger than three years and 2.23 billion won for those older than three years. By industry, info-tech and communications took the largest portion of 27.5 percent, followed by cultural content (23.8%), biotech (17.1%), and manufacturing (16.4%).

 

Park Jong-chan, Small & Medium Business Administration manager in charge of venture investment, said, "In a situation where the KOSDAQ market is unable to play the role of supplying necessary funds for start-up companies, the fact that tech investment rose more than 1 trillion won was a meaningful event. By the end of this year, the total investment sum would reach 1.5 trillion won."