The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Han Sung-sook, hereinafter referred to as the MSS) announced that 98 funds applied for approximately KRW 1.6 trillion in investments in the MSS's Mother Fund for the second round of regular investment applications in 2025. The MSS plans to selectively allocate approximately KRW 310 billion from the applications received, and together with private capital, create approximately KRW 600 billion in 15 funds. The MSS recorded a competition rate of 6.5 to 1 based on the number of funds.
In particular, in the case of the 'NEXT UNICORN Project', as the global AI and deep tech hegemony competition accelerates, it is aimed at enabling promising domestic ventures and startups to dominate the global market.
This program focuses on investment by growth stage, and despite being a new project established through this year's second supplementary budget, it showed a high level of competition.
This demonstrates that the domestic venture capital industry highly values the innovation and technological prowess of AI and deep tech ventures and startups, and is showing keen interest in their market growth potential. Indeed, in 2024, domestic venture capital investment in the top ten deep tech sectors increased by 34% year-on-year, with AI in particular showing the highest growth rate, up 75%.
The mother fund has been providing early-stage growth capital to promising AI and deep-tech ventures and startups, ranging from companies that recently achieved unicorn status with corporate values exceeding KRW 1 trillion, such as Rebellion Co., Ltd. and Furiosa AI Co., Ltd., to global AI companies selected for the 'CB Insights AI 100 2025', such as Nota Co., Ltd., Upstage Co., Ltd., and Twelve Labs Co., Ltd.
The newly established "NEXT UNICORN Project Scale-up Fund" will increase the average investment amount per company to over KRW 10 billion to enable more focused investment in promising companies. Furthermore, it will strengthen inter-business collaborations to enable excellent companies participating in the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' support programs to grow through scale-up investments. The mother fund plans to expand the "NEXT UNICORN Project," which was piloted in the second supplementary budget in 2025, starting in 2026 to focus its investment efforts on fostering AI and deep-tech unicorns.
Minister Han Seong-sook said, “In order to foster AI and deep-tech unicorns that lead the global market, it is necessary to go beyond fragmented, sprinkle-on investments and focus on investing in promising companies.” He added, “The launch of the ‘NEXT UNICORN Project’ through this year’s second supplementary budget reflects the government’s will to urgently support domestic ventures and startups so that they can take the lead in the rapidly changing global AI and deep-tech market. We will strive to quickly proceed with this investment project so that investment cases can emerge within the year.”
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