Competition Rate for Second Regular Investment Project of Parent Fund Reaches 6.5 to 1

Venture Investment Industry Focuses on Fostering AI and Deep Tech Unicorns

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on August 5 that, as a result of the application process for the second regular investment project of the 2025 Parent Fund under its jurisdiction, 98 funds applied to invest approximately 1.6 trillion won in the Parent Fund. The Parent Fund plans to select and invest about 310 billion won from the applications, and, together with private capital, to create around 15 funds with a total scale of approximately 600 billion won. The competition rate based on the number of funds is 6.5 to 1.

In particular, for the 'Next Unicorn Project,' a program that focuses investment by growth stage to help promising domestic ventures and startups secure a foothold in the global market as the global AI·deep tech competition intensifies, there was a high competition rate despite being a new project established through the second supplementary budget this year.

This indicates that the domestic venture investment industry is paying close attention to the growth potential of ventures and startups in the AI·deep tech sector. In fact, last year, investment in the top 10 deep tech sectors among domestic venture investments increased by 34% compared to the previous year, and, in particular, investment in the AI sector increased by 75% year-on-year, showing the highest growth rate.

The newly established 'Next Unicorn Scale-up Fund' has increased the average investment per company to over 10 billion won to allow for more focused investment in promising companies, and has strengthened connections between projects so that outstanding companies participating in Ministry of SMEs and Startups support programs can grow through scale-up investment. With the second supplementary budget this year, the Parent Fund has launched the pilot Next Unicorn Project and plans to expand it from 2026, focusing its investment capacity on fostering AI·deep tech unicorns.

Minister Han Seong-sook of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups stated, "To foster AI·deep tech unicorns that lead the global market, it is necessary to move beyond fragmented, scattergun investments and focus on promising companies," and added, "The launch of the Next Unicorn Project through this year's second supplementary budget reflects the government's commitment to urgently support domestic ventures and startups so they can secure a position in the rapidly changing global AI·deep tech market. We will proceed swiftly with this investment project so that investment cases can be realized within this year."

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