Yoon Geon-su, VC Association Chairman: "In the AI Era... Bold Regulatory Reform and Urgent KOSDAQ Revitalization Needed"

Yoon Geon-su, chairman of the Korea Venture Capital Association (VC Association), emphasized on the 22nd that "bold regulatory reforms and revitalization of the KOSDAQ market are urgently needed to survive in the global artificial intelligence (AI) competition."

Chairman Yoon made this statement in his welcoming remarks at the '2025 Innovation Venture Industry New Year Meeting' held at EL Tower in Seocho-gu, Seoul.

First, Chairman Yoon said, "AI is sweeping the world. Last year, 65% of global investment was related to AI," adding, "I have been involved in investment for 26 years, and I have never seen investment so concentrated in one field."

Yoon Geon-su, Chairman of the Korea Venture Capital Association, is delivering a welcome speech at the New Year's meeting of the innovative venture industry held on the 22nd. Photo by Korea Venture Capital Association

He continued, "OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, received an astronomical investment of $600 million (about 862 billion KRW) in a single round last year," noting, "This amount is comparable to the total domestic investment in our country. Korea has not secured the capital strength, world-class technology, and excellent human resources to compete with the US and China," expressing concern.

Chairman Yoon stressed that bold regulatory reform is necessary for our ventures and startups not to fall behind in the global market competition. He pointed out, "Looking at industry-related regulations, the system prevents us from gaining speed," adding, "In a situation where the strong get stronger and capital concentrates in one place, what we can do is move forward at a faster pace. Innovation in the industrial structure is needed."

He also cited the success of the K-beauty industry as an example. Chairman Yoon said, "Currently, the cosmetics industry generates significant sales and profits, but originally, the government did not invest much to foster this industry," and evaluated, "The reason cosmetics recently became the top export industry following semiconductors is thanks to the bold shift from positive to negative regulation about ten years ago."

He continued, "In other fields such as law and virtual assets, regulations should also be changed to negative to provide opportunities to compete globally," emphasizing, "There may be temporary difficulties during the regulatory innovation process, but we must lift regulations ourselves and gain competitiveness. Otherwise, the barriers will be removed not by our hands but by others’."

He also emphasized the revitalization of the KOSDAQ market. Chairman Yoon said, "Currently, about 60% of KOSDAQ-listed companies have a market capitalization of less than 100 billion KRW," adding, "Globally, investments of several hundred billion KRW are made, but in Korea, due to company size and shareholding issues, investment amounts are only about 20 to 30 billion KRW. The market capitalization of KOSDAQ-listed companies needs to grow."

He added, "As good companies prefer to transfer to KOSPI, KOSDAQ has completely fallen to a secondary market," and said, "To become a technology-centered market like NASDAQ, independent operation and separation of KOSDAQ are necessary."

Meanwhile, the VC Association has set this year’s theme as 'connection and cooperation' and plans to seek cooperation measures to strengthen the competitiveness of domestic venture companies.

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