'1 Year in Office' Yoo Woong-hwan, CEO of Korea Venture Investment, "Focusing on Advanced Management of the Mother Fund"

Afternoon Meeting on the 19th
"Engineer Experience Creates Synergy in VC Field"

Yu Woong-hwan, CEO of Korea Venture Investment Corp. (KVIC), marked his first anniversary in office by stating that he has focused on "advancing the operation of the Korea Fund of Funds."

Yu Woong-hwan, CEO of Korea Venture Investment Corp., attended the '2023 London Tech Week' held in London on June 12 (local time) and actively networked with members of the UK venture ecosystem.
[Photo by Korea Venture Investment Corp.]

On the afternoon of the 19th, during a press conference held at the Kensington Hotel in Yeouido, Seoul, CEO Yu said, "This aligns with the 120 national tasks promoted during my time with the Presidential Transition Committee."

The Korea Fund of Funds has shown clear results. The leverage effect of private capital attraction by the Fund of Funds increased from 1.58 times in 2019 to 1.98 times last year, marking an all-time high. It was found that the Fund of Funds acted as a catalyst for attracting private capital, thereby increasing the inflow of private venture capital.

So far, the employment growth rate of companies that attracted venture investment was confirmed to be 40.5%, more than 12 times higher than the overall employment insurance subscriber growth rate of 3.3%. The seven-year survival rate of startups after attracting investment was recorded at 65.4%.

Recently, KVIC established the "Super-gap Fund," which focuses on concentrated investment in 10 super-gap sectors such as semiconductors, aerospace and maritime, next-generation nuclear power, and deep-tech startups. They also launched the "Venture Secondary Private Equity Fund," which invests with the purpose of acquiring limited partner shares of venture funds or purchasing existing shares of ventures and startups to activate intermediate exits through linkage with the private market.

KVIC is also leading efforts to nurture global unicorns based on overseas venture capital (VC) global funds. As of the first half of this year, it has invested 628.7 billion KRW in global funds, forming a total of 59 sub-funds worth 8.9 trillion KRW. Through this, over 1 trillion KRW in investment funds flowed into Korean companies.

As part of the government's major tasks to respond to low birth rates and aging population, the "Regional Innovation Venture Fund" was consecutively created. Regional innovation mother funds worth 315.5 billion KRW and sub-funds worth 342.1 billion KRW have been established across five regions: Chungcheong and Busan, the Southeast region (Ulsan and Gyeongnam), Daegu, Jeju, Gwangju, and Jeonbuk and Gangwon. The goal is to reach 410 billion KRW for mother funds and 606 billion KRW for sub-funds by 2025.

Efforts to practice ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) management are also accelerating. This year, an ESG Management Team and ESG Management Committee were formed.

Additionally, KVIC is promoting the advancement of Fund of Funds operations through digital transformation (DX). They are preparing an enterprise-wide digital transformation project, including building a comprehensive venture investment information platform utilizing a VC investment database (DB).

CEO Yu explained, "I believe my experience as an engineer synergizes with the VC field. Our competitiveness is already at the highest level, and we have sufficiently accumulated experience and capabilities for global market entry."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.