Seong Sang-yeop, Chairman of the Venture Business Association, "Preparing to Design Ventures to Conquer the Global Market"

Mention of System Improvements in the "2025 New Year's Address"
Including Venture Finance Activation and Strengthening Labor Flexibility

Seong Sang-yeop, Chairman of the Korea Venture Business Association, emphasized on the 31st, “We will focus our business capabilities on institutional improvements and strengthening competitiveness that hinder the innovation of venture companies.”

In January, Seong Sang-yeop, chairman of the Korea Venture Business Association, delivered a greeting at the New Year's meeting of the innovative venture industry. Photo by Korea Venture Business Association

In the ‘2025 New Year’s Address’ announced that day, Chairman Seong stated, “We will return to the original intention from 30 years ago to diagnose the past Korean venture ecosystem and prepare to design the future Korean ventures that can dominate the global market.”

Chairman Seong explained, “The current situation and environmental factors facing venture companies are extremely severe. 2025 will be another year of challenge,” adding, “The worsening business environment, including intensified domestic political uncertainty, the continued ‘three highs’ phenomenon of inflation, interest rates, and exchange rates, the spread of nationalism following the inauguration of the second Trump administration, and changes in the trade environment, will make it difficult for our venture companies to face challenges.”

He continued, “However, I believe that in this difficult and uncertain era, companies, the government, and the National Assembly can create a turning point for Korea’s leap forward through transcendental cooperation.”

Chairman Seong also said, “The research and development (R&D) expenditure ratio relative to sales, which is 2.6 times higher than that of large corporations, is the source of venture companies’ differentiated competitiveness and sustainable growth,” and added, “We will strive to strengthen technological innovation in venture companies by expanding R&D investment and improving technological development capabilities.”

He further noted, “The export ratio of venture companies is 26.1%, meaning 7 out of 10 companies rely on the domestic market. Considering the stagnant domestic market due to low growth and consumption contraction, global expansion is survival for venture companies, and they must prepare to go overseas from the startup stage,” emphasizing, “To this end, we will strengthen cooperation networks with private overseas innovation organizations and support institutions, and actively promote the globalization of venture companies through global investment attraction and overseas expansion programs.”

Along with this, Chairman Seong mentioned the activation of venture finance, resolving regulations that block entry into new industries, and strengthening labor flexibility. He pledged, “We will do our best to secure venture finance liquidity by introducing innovative venture finance systems that can attract large-scale private funds to promote the growth of venture companies and reduce dependence on policy finance, as well as activating the merger and acquisition (M&A) market and secondary funds,” and said, “We will create a regulatory environment that meets global standards to support venture companies in entering new industries and gaining competitiveness.” He also promised to actively communicate with the government and National Assembly to improve the flexibility of the 52-hour workweek system and establish systems for attracting talent to venture companies.

Chairman Seong concluded, “This era is calling for ventures again. Ventures have always been strong in crises, and whenever the Korean economy faced great difficulties such as the IMF crisis, the global financial crisis, and COVID-19, venture companies played an important role,” adding, “We will become the cornerstone to make this year a year of preparing for the next 30 years to propel Korea to become the world’s leading innovation powerhouse.”

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