Top 35 Restaurants Startup Investors in South Korea in May 2026

Portfolio highlights

• Herb Today — Herb Today is a supplier of vegetable, seaweed, and mushroom products for the food industry.
• Mr. Dad — Mr. Dad is a seller of food products.
• Charging Pig — Charging Pig is a mobile app that provides auxiliary battery rental services.

Portfolio highlights

• Carlet Store — Carlet Bio is a wholesale supplier of packaging solutions.
• Datumo — Selectstar got your back!Obtaining the proper data has always been the top issue for many companies using AI. To solve this problem, Selectstar provides a platform that connects your company to the crowd-workers.It's MORE than just a connection! We passionately research crowd-workers and your project to develop cutting-edge technologiesfor the optimized mobile crowd-sourcing.Keep disrupting the world! Just for your project, we are here to maintain the quality, cost-efficiency, or any other burdens related to the data. SelectStar was founded in 2018 and is based in Seoul, South Korea.
• ProxiHealthcare USA — ProxiHealthcare USA is a biotechnology research focused personal and environmental healthcare organization.

Portfolio highlights

• Mycel — IMAGINATION TRANSITION REGENERATION
• Habit Factory — Habit Factory provides financial big data analytics solutions.
• Korea Deep Learning — Korea Deep Learning is an artificial intelligence technology company that offers OCR, analytics, and 3D DX solutions.

Portfolio highlights

• Mommaeat — Mommaeat is a Korea based O2O shopping mart.
• Value Map — Value Map provides real estate information such as actual transaction amount, development information, loan information, and local news.
• Chung Dae Jung — Chung Dae Jung is a retailer and distributor of meat products.

Portfolio highlights

• Glovv — Glovv is a short-form beauty content development platform.
• Sapien Semiconductors — Sapien Semiconductors is a semiconductor design and manufacturing company that specializes in display driver ICs for micro‑LED and OLED technologies. The company develops custom ASICs and silicon‑proven IPs, including CMOS backplane drivers for AR/MR micro‑LED and pixel‑level driver ICs for TVs and digital signage. The firm also providesdisplay‑driver IP licensing and chip customization services.
• Next Level Studio — Next Level Studio is a group of creative experts dedicated to generating new value for intellectual property.

Portfolio highlights

• LumanLab — LumanLab develops digital therapeutics to solve developmental delay problems.
• Ohouse — No.1 Interior Onestop Platform
• Pure Harvest Smart Farms — Pure Harvest Smart Farms is a regional innovator in sustainable agriculture focused on the production of premium fruits and vegetables in the challenging climates of the Arab Gulf region using world-leading controlled-environment agriculture technologies. Pure Harvest seeks to leverage innovative growing technologies and horticultural bestpractices in order to pioneer year-round production of affordable, premium quality fresh produce.

Portfolio highlights

• Trustay — Trustay is a real estate asset management company.
• Kimu Studio — Kimu discovers servant artists, plans education and exhibitions with the artist's unique sensibility.
• Kuntian New Energy — Hebei Kuntian New Energy is a producer of anode materials for lithium-ion batteries.

Portfolio highlights

• Paywork — PayWal is a payment platform that provides dedicated project teaming, task execution checks, and contract management services.
• Retentics — Maximize repeat purchases with targeted user segmentation and dynamic product recommendation at Retentics, powered by AI
• Exosphere Labs — Exosphere Labs is an information technology company that offers information security services.

Portfolio highlights

• Million on Mars — Play, Build and Own with Million on Mars An MMO open sandbox city builder where you decide on your homestead's location, and build out your settlement on the highest-fidelity in-game Mars terrain! Painstakingly created from NASA/JPL topographical data, your location is as close to reality as you can get.
• Wholesum Brands — Our mission is to transform the ecommerce entrepreneur journey by discovering their brands and inspiring innovative teams who re-think brand expansion and scaling strategies to elevate independent local products into global brands.
• Shin Starr presents — Shin Starr presents create, operate, and franchise Korean cuisine-based QSR and fast-casual dining restaurants built around its proprietary robotic kitchen technology and Korean cuisine excellence.It develops and commercializes SPACE+ Technology™, a spatial technology platform brand created by SHIN STARR presents to enhance cooking and foodservicing quality and efficiency.SPACE+ combines and integrates in-house made robotic and network technologies into a flawless autonomous kitchen platform.

Portfolio highlights

• AIMMO — AIMMO is the developer of a data annotation platform with custom workflow designs, labeler analytics, and real-time communication functions. The company was founded in 2016 by SeungTaek Oh and is headquartered in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.
• AIMEDBIO — AIMEDBIO provides therapeutic solutions to patients with serious brain diseases.
• Graphene Square — Graphene Square is a pioneer in the commercialization of graphene material and graphene films for use as a transparent conductor and in other electronics applications. Established as a spin-off of the research of Prof. Byung Hee Hong at Seoul National University and with headquarters in Seoul, Korea. Graphene Square will continue to stay as theworld leader of the graphene commercialization research, also will continue to provide the best quality graphene and equipment to all over the world for the continuous development of carbon and 2D materials for the bright future of the science and technology for mankind.

Portfolio highlights

• GGQ — GGQ platform helps gamers with in-depth personalization and reports to maximize potential.
• SSMM — SSMM provides artificial intelligence-based media and mobility solutions.
• Sendy — sendy Korea is a cloud-based logistics platform that provides on-demand freight transportation services.

Portfolio highlights

• Crosshub — Crosshub is a fast-growing blockchain-based company focused on next-generation identity authentication and global payment solutions, gaining attention as a key deep-tech fintech player in the domestic market.
• Unit Lab — "Unitlab is an innovative company that offers a comprehensive, integrated platform for modular architecture, streamlining every stage of the building process—from initial planning and design to final construction.
• Driving Teacher — You may search and compare the pricing of all driving schools countrywide in Driving Teacher, and you can help students make real-time training reservations with just a few clicks without connecting to a counselor. Furthermore, it provides an online reservation management platform to driving schools in order to automate the driving school system,as well as sales growth through customized marketing.

Portfolio highlights

• User Spoon — User Spoon is a tool designed to streamline and enhance the process of user experience (UX) research by offering features that improve efficiency, such as user testing, feedback collection, and data analysis tools. It supports UX professionals in gathering insights faster and more accurately, ultimately leading to more user-centered designdecisions
• Space Oddity — Space Oddity is a music company.
• Copper Innovation Technology — CIT Co, Ltd utilizes metal single crystals and the ASE method to ensure the accurate, lossless transmission of every signal.

Portfolio highlights

• Globaleur — Thousands of travelers from around the world rely on Globaleur for travel. Leverage Globaleur's software and APIs that include dynamic destination data and AI-powered developer tools to change the way we travel the world.
• Lala Stations — Lala Stations provides customized live total solutions for brand companies from live content creation and sales centered on live SaaS.
• Contents Technologies — Content Technologies is a content IP-based company builder.

Portfolio highlights

• Aldavar — ALDAVER provides incredibly realistic personalized surgical training models using innovative biopolymer materials that closely resemble human tissues and 3D printing technology.
• TEN Inc — TEN Inc. provides an MLops platform (AI workload orchestration) for efficient operation of AI infrastructure.
• Reset Company — Reset Company specializes in building sustainable energy production and resource circulation ecosystems.

Portfolio highlights

• Rovigos — Rovigos analyzes data from your whole business to help you make better forecasts and choices.
• Welfare Union — Welfare Union focused on customized senior care meals and nutritional services.
• Phyto Research — Phyto Research offers virus-free, high-quality seedlings as OEM through tissue culture and seed manufacturing.

Portfolio highlights

• Robros — Robros is constantly creating technology to break through the barrier between people and robots in order to build a world in which everyone in the service industry can live a physically and emotionally happy life.
• Snackfor — Snackfor is a B2B company that curates and delivers snacks to offices.
• The Grit — The Grit manufactures multi-use container and collection boxes.

Portfolio highlights

• SOY MEDIA — Storytelling Opens Your world
• SCBIO — SCBIO is a pharmaceutical company that makes drugs with specialized technologies in immuno-oncology. The company discovers and develops novel therapeutics for future medicine.
• Coxwave — Coxwave provides product analytics and observability for AI applications. The Skylight platform instruments LLM prompts, responses, context, and user interactions via SDKs and ingestion APIs. It aggregates metrics such as quality, latency, token usage, and cost, and presents dashboards to monitor trends and detect regressions. Teams use it tocollect human feedback, build evaluation datasets, and compare prompt or model variants before and after releases. Tracing links events across sessions and workflows, helping correlate outcomes with inputs and application state. Integrations connect to common LLM providers, orchestration frameworks, and data pipelines, allowing data to flow into existing analytics stacks and workflows.

Portfolio highlights

• Ettifos — Ettifos provides flexible, reliable, and innovative V2X solutions to enable communication between all stakeholders on the road.
• SCBIO — SCBIO is a pharmaceutical company that makes drugs with specialized technologies in immuno-oncology. The company discovers and develops novel therapeutics for future medicine.
• AIRS Medical — AIRS Medical's AI-powered platform reduces MRI scan times by up to 50%, improves image quality, and delivers deeper clinical insights. Trusted by 1,700+ institutions across 40+ countries.

Portfolio highlights

• LumanLab — LumanLab develops digital therapeutics to solve developmental delay problems.
• Enlivex Therapeutics — Enlivex is a clinical-stage macrophage reprogramming immunotherapy company that targets diseased macrophages in patients with sepsis. The company develops an autologous and allogeneic drug pipeline for the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory conditions such as Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD), solid organ transplant rejection, Crohn'sDisease, and other autoimmune and inflammatory disorders.The company's revolutionary approach is to induce immune tolerance by injecting apoptotic cells and facilitating their interaction with dendritic cells activates the body's innate, physiologic mechanism for down-regulating inflammation and autoimmunity.Enlivex is an Israeli-based cell immunotherapy company established in October 2005 by Professor Dror Mevorach, a world-renowned expert on clearance of dying (apoptotic) cells.
• Animoca Brands — Animoca Brands is a metaverse and gaming venture capital firm that focuses on driving digital property rights to gamers and internet users through NFTs. It utilizes gamification and blockchain to develop and market a portfolio of mobile applications, games, and additional products oriented to educational learning to ensure transparency, security,and new business models.

Portfolio highlights

• HJ Wave — HJ Wave is a manufacturing comapny that designs and develops millimeter-wave RF band, including radar antennas for autonomous driving.
• Unastella — Unastella operates its own launch vehicles to provide human space travel platform services.
• Caredoc — CareDoc is an elderly care professional platform that provides information on proven elderly care facilities. Consumers looking for elderly care services were not able to find the information they wanted online or getting inaccurate information through word of mouth.On the other hand, providers of care services were having difficulty incollecting elderly customers. Caredoc solves these problems by providing verified care servise provider information on the mobile.

Portfolio highlights

• KB-Element — KB-Element is a graphene development and production company that also turns graphene into intermediate items and novel materials.
• Avelos Therapeutics — Avelos Therapeutics is a precision medicine company in the clinical stage that finds, creates, and sells targeted therapeutics.
• DewCell — Dewcell Biotherapeutics develops synthetic platelets using biomimetic technology. The company's system secures stem cell differentiation technology into megakaryocytes that generate platelets and mass-produces artificial platelets.

Portfolio highlights

• EASYWITH — Easywith is a media research and development company design and produces creative content using new visuals and ideas.
• AutoHands — AutoHands is a South Korea-based mobility company that offers comprehensive integrated mobility services including vehicle buying and selling, management, online used-car auctions, car rentals, extended warranties, residual value guarantees, mobile maintenance, and accident compensation programs.
• Shine Games — Shine Games provides mobile game software development and supply.

Portfolio highlights

• Honored — Honored is a tour operator that operates the domestic travel services.
• Milliway — Milliway is an infrastructure digitalization startup that uses vehicle sensor data to detect and manage road damage in real time. It offers solutions for monitoring city and road events and provides tools to enhance productivity in city and road management.
• AIT STUDIO — AIT Studio is a digital health startup that develops AI-powered, contactless gait analysis solutions for early detection of mobility decline and age-related conditions such as sarcopenia. Our flagship products—GAIT Studio (App) and MediStep M Pro (hardware package)—deliver full gait assessments in under 1 minute, without wearables or specializedstaff.

Portfolio highlights

• Dalol — Dalol is a bakery that sells snacks, cakes, and rice chips.
• DEEPX — DEEPX is a Korean AI hardware system solution company.
• Freshstore — We Love To Eat The Fresh Food

Portfolio highlights

• AutoHands — AutoHands is a South Korea-based mobility company that offers comprehensive integrated mobility services including vehicle buying and selling, management, online used-car auctions, car rentals, extended warranties, residual value guarantees, mobile maintenance, and accident compensation programs.
• Ride — RideNow: An app-based platform for test drives and vehicle purchases. RideCare: App-based B2B and B2C vehicle care services. RideContents: Educational services for automotive brands, aimed at enhancing the quality of manufacturers and importers. RideOn: After-sales management services for electric vehicle chargers.
• Rootfinders — RouteFinders develops an AI-based media platform to support independent living for visually impaired individuals in an increasingly digital world.

Portfolio highlights

• Playad.ai — The AI Ad Workspace
• Ohouse — No.1 Interior Onestop Platform
• Jupiter — Getting access to Jupiter before others. 100% digital banking with no pain. Zero balance accounts, no hidden fees. Master your money, reap rewards on Jupiter app - partnered with an RBI licensed bank for max trust.

Portfolio highlights

• Adriel — Adriel provides the necessary tools to handle complex campaigns and reach your advertising goals. Drive results at maximum efficiency with a centralized dashboard.
• lululab — Lumini is a personalized AI skin assistant that analyzes the user’s skin and recommends the best products and services for each user. It examines the facial skin based on six categories: wrinkles,pores, acne, sebum, melasma, and redness simply by taking a photo of the face. It also features an intelligent chatbot within the mobile app that logs andanalyzes user’s lifestyle. It then combines all relevant data to provide a comprehensive skin analysis along with accurate skincare recommendations. Lumini is the first brainchild of lululab, the 22nd spin-off company from Samsung Electronics.
• Shin Starr presents — Shin Starr presents create, operate, and franchise Korean cuisine-based QSR and fast-casual dining restaurants built around its proprietary robotic kitchen technology and Korean cuisine excellence.It develops and commercializes SPACE+ Technology™, a spatial technology platform brand created by SHIN STARR presents to enhance cooking and foodservicing quality and efficiency.SPACE+ combines and integrates in-house made robotic and network technologies into a flawless autonomous kitchen platform.

Portfolio highlights

• Umag — Umag is a music content company that provides brand channel, concerts, and advertisment services.
• Order Plus — Order Plus is a food service company that offers grocery supplies for restaurants.

Portfolio highlights

• Order Plus — Order Plus is a food service company that offers grocery supplies for restaurants.

Portfolio highlights

• AZMT — Hotel space development startup
• To-Day — To-Day is a developer of an online delivery platform to create a same day delivery service.
• Monthly kitchen — Monthly Kitchen is a digital food service platform company.

Portfolio highlights

• Balaan — Balaan is a platform that allows you to get the latest luxury goods in just 3 days at a lower price than overseas fasting by contract with European local boutique
• Modern Toy — Modern Toy is a character toy developing company that manufactures and distributes toys for infants, girls, and boys.
• Robo Arete — Robo Arete is a completely automated and robotics enables F&B servicing company with restaurants and takeaways.

Portfolio highlights

• Offermeal — Offermeal provides lunch pick-up service for office workers.

Portfolio highlights

• GrowingMom — GrowingMom is an online parenting consultation/analysis platform.
• Power Player — Natural Clean Beauty
• KOOZA — KOOZA is a kitchenware brand that offers cookware and household goods and supplies them to department stores, and live commerce companies.

Portfolio highlights

• Kueski — Kueski is the online lender for the Middle Class of Mexico and Latin America. The company uses big data and advanced analytics to approve and deliver loans in a matter of minutes. Simple, paperless and available 24/7, Kueski is the most convenient lending platform for those who need an immediate loan. The company has become the fastest growingplatform of its kind in the region and has already granted thousands of loans.
• Testlio — Tackle the most demanding software testing challenges with Testlio in any location, on any device, in any language, or on any payment system.
• Lendit — Lendit is the leading personal loan oriented marketplace lending company in Korea that operates fully online and manages a marketplace platform where investors can provide capital to people seeking loans. Through our advanced risk ranking algorithm and cost- effective operational process, borrowers can access to an appealing interest rate andinvestors can enjoy ‘high and stable’ yield. We offer borrowers an APR between 4.5% and 18.0%, and investors an average return of 10.66%. By transforming the traditional banking system, we aim to help both borrowers and investors to achieve financial goals.