Top 30 Social Startup Investors in South Korea in July 2025

Investor	Social South Korea investments
Kakao Ventures	4
D3 Jubilee	2
Hana Financial Investment	2
Lee Seung Ho	2
Goodwater Capital	1
Base Investment	1
POSCO CAPITAL	1
Primer Sazze Partners	1
East Gate Partners	1
Mirae Asset Venture Investment	1
Stonebridge Capital	1
East Gate Partners	1
POSCO Venture Capital	1
Base Investments	1
IMM Investment	1
Z Venture Capital	1
Capstone Partners	1
SparkLabs Global Ventures	1
Stone Bridge Ventures	1
TKG VENTURES	1
Positive Investment	1
Strong Ventures	1
Square Ventures	1
Big Basin Capital	1
Neptune Investment Management	1
Kclavis	1
SV Investment Corp	1
We Ventures	1
Kaist Venture Investment Holdings	1
Alumni Partners	1

We are an independent subsidiary of Kakao Corp. & the most active, startup-friendly early stage VC of Korea. (Limited Partnerships, not strategic.).

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence
Seed, Series A, Series B
South Korea, United States, Indonesia

Portfolio highlights

Taming Lab — Taming Lab is the operator of the used luxury watchs.
Home & Co — Home & Co is a platform that can handle everything from simple home repair applications to on-site inspections and on-site construction.
Contoro Robotics — Autonomous Trailer & Container Unloading - Contoro: Reliable Unloading of Non-Palletized Boxes from Trucks with No Upfront Capital Expense

D3 is headquartered in Seoul and San Francisco, pioneering the domestic and global impact investment areas. D3 redefines the role of capital by investing in entrepreneurial innovation that improves the lives of low-income families, women, and immigrants, and creates an environmentally sustainable world.Invest in ICT start-ups with highsocio-environmental value in low-income countries such as Korea, USA and South America, Africa and India.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Software, Health Care
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
South Korea, United States, Kenya

Portfolio highlights

Geogrid — Geogrid is a building water purification plant startup. Geogrid digitizes solutions for tap water, including purification systems, pipe cleaning, water quality control, carbon emissions calculation, building water control, and environmental change monitoring.
RECO — Integrated waste and resource management platform copmany
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.

Hana Financial Investment Company Limited offers brokerage, securities dealing, underwriting, mutual funds, and online trading services

Investment focus

Information Technology, Biotechnology, Software
Series A, Series B, Funding Round
South Korea, Singapore, India

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.

Lee Seung Ho

Investment focus

Audio, Social, Sports
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
South Korea

Portfolio highlights

Bookers — Bookers provide a range of reading-related supplemental services, including reader selection and book discussions.
Space F — Space F is an application industry platform business company that researches and develops cell farming technology.
Frientrip — Bored of the same old daily life, but not sure where to begin? Or you know what you want to do, but your friends don't share that same interest? Frientrip was born to satisfy these needs. Frientrip is a social activity platform which allows people to gather and enjoy various outdoor/indoor activities together.As the biggest platformof its kind in Korea, Frientrip believes that everyone can lead a more energetic life by trying out new things and meeting new people. Therefore, we aim to create a community where people enhance their experience and share it with one another, as our slogan goes -- WE INSPIRE PEOPLE TO EXPERIENCE THE WORLD.

Goodwater empowers exceptional entrepreneurs everywhere to change the world for the better. They believe consumer technology is a force on earth, shaping culture and transforming the global economy at unprecedented speed and scale. They invest in promising entrepreneurs to solve pressing problems. As a combined force, Goodwater companies are aglobal force for change, poised to measurably improve billions of lives.

Investment focus

FinTech, Financial Services, Health Care
Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
United States, India, South Korea

Portfolio highlights

Memebox — Memebox Corporation is a consumer company that provides customers with the Asian beauty products, culture, and trends. A global company focused on forecasting trends and creating private, in-house labels inspired by K-beauty (and made for the product obsessed).
Bigger Games — Bigger Games, a dynamic mobile gaming company, is at the forefront of transforming the mobile gaming landscape. We aim for great execution and passionately work on each and every detail in our casual games to build the best experience for our players.
Stackup — Stackup is transforming how businesses manage their on-chain operations by offering a smart account platform designed to simplify and automate complex blockchain tasks. As the need for seamless, secure, and efficient crypto transactions grows, Stackup provides centralized control over decentralized assets, allowing businesses to take charge ofevery detail of their operations with ease. Our platform integrates advanced security and adaptive features to eliminate the chaos of traditional crypto wallets, empowering businesses to manage their crypto stack in real-time. Whether you’re orchestrating large-scale transactions or ensuring complete transparency, Stackup’s solution brings order and precision to blockchain management—turning crypto chaos into structured, seamless business flow.

Base Investment connects private equity, strategic buyers, and private individuals with opportunities to invest. The company works with well-known, enormous national firms that are looking to acquire a business that will help them extend their brand or make better use of their current facilities.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Food and Beverage, Information Technology
Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
South Korea, United States

Portfolio highlights

cafe nono — Gathering together for quality discussions. Making your stories stand out. Join the community here and now!
Money Walk — Money Walk is a novel pedometer program that allows users to earn money simply by walking.' Creddy,' the yellow companion who loves to walk, will look after your health and your wallet. Install the Money Walk app right now and you'll be able to catch both health and money.
Building Care — Building Care is a building care management company that provides schedule management, cloud, and building statistics services.

POSCO Capital offers financial services.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Biotechnology
Series A, Seed, Funding Round
South Korea, United States

Portfolio highlights

H Energy — H Energy provides optimal operation of distributed resources and power brokerage services.
AIDIN ROBOTICS — AIDIN ROBOTICS redefine interactive sensors. Advanced force/torque sensor, proximity sensor for human-robot collaboration.
Nanosilicon — Nano Silicon is a company that manufactures silicon anodes, which are important materials for secondary batteries in the electric vehicle sector.

Primer Sazze Partners - We like to find founders who are making the impossible happen through sheer force of will and a refusal to accept hard truths.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence
Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
South Korea, United States, Japan

Portfolio highlights

Z.Ai — Z.Ai provides personalized recommendations using AI based on user behavioral data.
Blux — Blux offers customized advertising solutions to customers.
Liberty Labs — Liberty Labs specializes in prompt engineering that allows them to build applications that showcase AI potential. Liberty Labs offers products such as Toolbuilder, regex.ai, Opencharacter, and CLN.me.

East Gate Partners

Investment focus

Social, Logistics, Social Network
Seed, Series A
South Korea

Portfolio highlights

Vroong — Mesh Korea is an IT-based logistics startup, which established Korea's first last-mile logistics network and became the primary provider of integrated logistics services with in-house logistics solutions.VROONG, Mesh Korea's logistics brand, creates new value not only by providing delivery services, but also by connecting information.Currently, VROONG provides four services; premium delivery services, 'VROONG Prime', integrated logistics management solution, 'VROONG TMS', premium fresh food delivery services, 'VROONG Fresh', and premium delivery magazine, 'VROONG Collection.'With more than 80 VROONG Stations and 13,000 riders across the nation, VROONG provides faster and more accurate delivery services.
Yea Studio — Yea Studio values positive, sensitive, and passionate attitude and is committed to sharing valuable information globally and making a creative application.

Mirae Asset Venture Investment invests in specialized enterprises and provides technology, funding and management consulting.

Investment focus

Software, Biotechnology, Information Technology
Series A, Series B, Seed
South Korea, United States, India

Portfolio highlights

Baropharm — Baropharm is an online e-commerce platform that sells pharmaceutical products for improved individual care.
HyperAccel — HyperAccel provides hardware solutions for developing AI applications.
Best Innovation — Best Innovation is a manufacturer of cosmetic products intended to offer a safe alternative to harmful skincare chemicals.

Stonebridge capital, Stonebridge ventures, Specializing in Venture Capital, Private Equity Fund Management

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Mobile
Series A, Series B, Funding Round
South Korea, United States, China

Portfolio highlights

Emocog — Emocog monitors and provides customized cognitive training to increase memory for dementia patients.
iTruck — iTruck is a transportation application that offers an integrated trading platform for used trucks.
Ace Engineering — Ace Engineering company manufactures containers for aerospace, semiconductors, military, and other industries. Its product line includes aircraft parts, cryogenic refrigeration, bulletproof containers, and energy storage containers, as well as equipment designed for marine and aviation special projects.

East Gate Partners is a venture capital firm specializing in investment for businesses.

Investment focus

Gaming, Apps, Software
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
South Korea, United States

Portfolio highlights

Biocom — Biocom is a green bio management company.
Groupware Pro — Groupware Pro is a business management company that provides software for groupware communication solution.
PEOPLE & TECHNOLOGY — PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY provides DX-based AI solutions on INDOOR GEOLOCATION AND SMART SENSING through its INDOORPLUS+ IoT, Location Based System (LBS) and Real Time Location System (RTLS) platform in the fields of healthcare, manufacturing, defense, smart cities, and the public sector.More than 100 corporate customers in various business sectorssuch as healthcare, banking, manufacturing, retail, energy and public services have already chosen PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY to deploy industry grade solutions for employee safety, asset tracking & monitoring, security & access control, flow management and process efficiency. They have gained improvements in productivity and process efficiency while reducing their corporate risks and optimizing their procurement. Since its foundation in 2013, PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY has become a leading provider in South Korea and is expanding overseas.

POSTECH Venture Capital Corporation(POSTECH VC) was founded and financed by POSCO to participate in SME(small and medium enterprise) Revitalization Policy in 1997 for the National Economy Restoration.We seek investment opportunities in diverse markets including Information Technologies, Advanced Materials, Bio Technologies, Renewable Energy,and Life Sciences.And we are to accelerate the commercialization of the valuable technologies from POSTECH(Pohang University of Science and Technology), RIST(Research institute of Industrial Science and Technology), and other institutes in Korea. More than 200 professors in POSTECH help POSTECH VC evaluate the technologiesPOSTECH VC is comprised of a team consisted of experienced venture capitalists who has previous experiences in successful startups, consulting firms, and executive management.We are currently investing from our several funds and manage over 60 billion Won.Our recent primary investment focus is on high growth opportunities in renewable energy such as bio-diesel and photovoltaic technologies.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Health Care
Series A, Funding Round, Series B
South Korea, United States, China

Portfolio highlights

OKHOME — Pembersihan tanpa ribet, Hemat Waktu, Hidup Jadi Mudah
Pluto — Pluto provides a SaaS solution that includes both discovery and academic search engines customized for the institution.
NaraSpace Technology — NaraSpace Technology specializes in the design, development, integration, and testing of CubeSats and small space systems.

Base Investments operates as an investment firm.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Information Technology, Software
Seed, Series A, Series B
South Korea, United States, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

Delivus — Delivus offers small package delivery in major U.S. cities in the shortest amount of time, with real-time delivery tracking, at the same cost as the current courier To facilitate this, we provide Delivery as a Service.
RichAlien — Rich Alien was founded with the intention of creating immersive mobile games ranging from worldwide casual social games to mid-core games based on well-known foreign animations and webtoon IPs.
Epic Corporation — The Epic One platform services will be improved, and Epic Corporation will broaden its business sectors. First, the global bidding system in four significant Asian nations will be improved overall, coupled with an update to the AI function that determines the anticipated contract price, in order to maximize the transaction completion rate for thesale of luxury assets. Additionally, there is a plan to considerably broaden its brands and product categories, which currently include luxury watches, luggage, hypercars, and artwork.

Korean alternative asset investment firm

Investment focus

Biotechnology, Software, Health Care
Series B, Funding Round, Series A
South Korea, United States, Japan

Portfolio highlights

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.
Gangnam Unni — Gangnam Unni is in the field of beauty medical services, helping users choose a treatment and a plastic surgery hospital. The difficulty of navigating the process of seeking medical treatment and choosing a hospital continues to persist. Kangnam Unni recognizes the need for change and firmly believes that a combination of transparent medicalinformation and an IT platform can foster a consumer-oriented medical service market. Their ultimate goal is to challenge negative perceptions surrounding plastic surgery and spearhead a significant transformation in the beauty and medical service industries.The Gangnam Unni team is dedicated to innovation, fueled by an unwavering desire to provide exceptional beauty and medical services. With the aim of assisting individuals in selecting a suitable hospital, they have amassed an impressive database of one million user reviews. Additionally, their efforts to promote transparency in medical information have garnered the support of 3,000 subscribers through Gangnam Sister. Furthermore, their mobile application has facilitated hospital consultations for a staggering 3.8 million individuals, resulting in 1.6 million successful cases.As the team continuously clarifies its mission and forges ahead with determination, its collective strength and resolve only grow stronger. Kangnam Unni remains committed to revolutionizing the healthcare industry, ensuring that individuals receive the highest quality of care and a positive experience throughout their medical journeys.
Healing Paper — Healing Paper is a mobile healthcare and information technology company.

Z Venture Capital is the venture capital arm of Z Holdings that invests in companies that focuses on the insurance and finance industry.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Software, Content
Seed, Series A, Series B
Japan, South Korea, United States

Portfolio highlights

Utaite — Utaite is an operator of an entertainment platform that focuses on planning, production, and development of entertainment content.
Tokyo Epic — Tokyo Epic provides planning and development of webtoon, and animation services.
Chronicle Studios — Chronicle Studios operates as an entertainment company.

Capstone Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs seeking success with fresh ideas.

Investment focus

Software, Mobile, Gaming
Series A, Seed, Series B
South Korea, United States, India

Portfolio highlights

NUUA — Reinventing a better future for the travel industry.
Aberra — Aberra is using "Dister," an AI data analysis tool, to optimize sales for Coupang, one of South Korea's largest e-commerce platforms.
Wrtn Technologies — Wrtn Technologies develops an AI-powered writing assistant through NLP-based AI.

SparkLabs Global Ventures is a venture capital firm that offers seed-stage investment services to firms in the SaaS, healthcare, education, IoT, fintech, mobile, commerce, HR, gaming, security, and VR industries. It was founded in Dec 2013 and is based in California.Exceptional entrepreneurs, that are building strong, category defining companiesat highly advantageous valuations – can be found anywhere. The company has a team that is highly experienced in finding such talent and helping our entrepreneurs to develop, grow, network, and scale into other markets throughout the world.

Investment focus

Software, Internet, Information Technology
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
United States, South Korea, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

Splab — Grow your influence and expand your network with events.
Nitra — Nitra offers expense management software that integrates with the banks to provide innovative loan products.
Tella — Service

Stone Bridge Ventures invests in entrepreneurs with bold ideas that improve and expand people's lives, industries, and markets. They provide professional assistance and a network of contacts geared towards businesses in order to help them expand.

Investment focus

Artificial Intelligence, Software, Information Technology
Series A, Seed, Series B
South Korea, United States, South Africa

Portfolio highlights

Letsur — Letsur developing automated solutions for AI development and data cleaning services.
Higher Diversity — Higher Diversity provides foreigners with a platform for administrative and convenient services.
Liberty Labs — Liberty Labs specializes in prompt engineering that allows them to build applications that showcase AI potential. Liberty Labs offers products such as Toolbuilder, regex.ai, Opencharacter, and CLN.me.

TKG VENTURES focuses on investing in new technology companies.

Investment focus

Social, Education
Funding Round
South Korea

Portfolio highlights

Underdogs — Underdogs is a company specializing in social innovation entrepreneurship education.

Positive Investment is a investment firm.

Investment focus

Social, Education
Funding Round
South Korea

Portfolio highlights

Underdogs — Underdogs is a company specializing in social innovation entrepreneurship education.

Strong Ventures is a generalist VC firm based in LA and Seoul, backing early-stage startups with a focus on Korean founders.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Software, Health Care
Seed, Series A, Series B
South Korea, United States, Poland

Portfolio highlights

Realry — Search, compare, and shop your luxury items here. Realry is your luxury fashion search engine that lets you search thousands of online fashion stores at once.
Veramore — Veramore is an online store that sells a wide range of beauty and cosmetic products.
SQUARES — SQUARES build commerce sites with no-code and use and manage them with ease.

Square Ventures operates as a venture capital firm.

Investment focus

Video, Retail, Software
Series A, Seed, Series B
South Korea

Portfolio highlights

T-Wave — T-Wave is a social fintech start-up company that operates 'I'm in', an app that collects money from all over the country.
Lunimedia — Game Platform
BLUEDOT — BLUEDOT develops cloud computing semiconductor IP applications to accelerate video processing and video encoding.

Big Basin Capital is a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, investing in early-stage startups in Korea and the United States.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Apps, Mobile Apps
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
South Korea, United States, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

Dentlink — Seamless Access to South Korean Premium Labs Using Digital Dentistry
Purple AI — Purple AI is a brain disease AI platform company.
My Herb & Healthcare — MyHerb Healthcare proivdes a specialized analysis for nutritional supplements.

Neptune is a UK-based fund management company offering a range of ISA-friendly equity funds to private investors, advisers and institutional clients.

Investment focus

Gaming, Social, Medical
Seed, Series A, Series B
South Korea, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

HAEGIN — HAEGIN is a game development company.
Bob Games — A Social casino game developer.
Barinthus Biotherapeutics — Vaccitech is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of novel immunotherapeutics and vaccines for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases and cancer. The company’s proprietary platform comprises proprietary modified simian adenoviral vectors, known as ChAdOx1 and ChAdOx2, as well as thewell-validated Modified Vaccinia Ankara, or MVA, boost vector, both with demonstrable safety profiles and without the ability to replicate in humans. The combination of a ChAdOx prime treatment with subsequent MVA boost has consistently generated significantly higher magnitudes of CD8+ T cells compared with other technologies and approaches. The company has a broad pipeline of both clinical and preclinical stage therapeutic programs in solid tumors and viral infections and prophylactic viral vaccine programs. Vaccitech co-invented a COVID-19 vaccine with the University of Oxford, now approved for use in many territories and exclusively licensed worldwide to AstraZeneca through Oxford University Innovation, or OUI. Vaccitech is entitled to receive a share of the milestones and royalty income received by OUI from AstraZeneca.

Kclavis pursues a stable return on customer assets. It provides technology-driven companies with investments and asset management services. The company was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Seoul.

Investment focus

Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical, Therapeutics
Series A, Series B, Seed
South Korea, United States

Portfolio highlights

R&R Lab — R&R Lab is a semiconductor manufacturing startup that develops heat treatment equipment.
Inkle — Inkle is a facility data platform that offers industrial software technology services for equipment makers and producers.
Nuon Media — Nuon Media is an Internet e-book store that sells famous domestic romance martial arts fantasy fantasy novels.

SV Investment Corp is a venture capital firm that provides companies with finance, strategic advice and information at critical stages of their development.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence
Series A, Series B, Seed
South Korea, United States, Germany

Portfolio highlights

Amogy — Amogy develops a novel carbon-free energy storage system using ammonia as a fuel, exhibiting unprecedented energy density
Cyclewell — Cyclewell is a provider of integrated equipment and complete solutions for intelligent directional recycling of lithium batteries. It is committed to the Research and Development of green recycling technology and equipment for waste power batteries.
Underdogs — Underdogs is a company specializing in social innovation entrepreneurship education.

we ventures is a VC industry with innovative venture capitalists, who invest in creative, honest, and outstanding entrepreneurs.

Investment focus

Software, Health Care, Information Technology
Series A, Seed, Series B
South Korea, United States, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

ASWEMAKE — ASWEMAKE is a shopping app that delivers groceries.
WASHSWAT — Washswat is a laundry service that washes and dries the laundry that is operated by specialized facilities and personnel. They innovate the market with IT technology. Laundromat started in Gangnam with the highest number of high-end cleaners in 2015 and walked step by step silently. In order to grow in the right direction even though it is alittle slower than others, they did not rush to expand the region. Now it is Korea's No. 1 mobile laundry special service at the King of Seoul, Seongnam, Hanam, Goyang, Gwangmyeong, Yongin, Suwon, Anyang, and Gwacheon.
Pin Therapeutics — Pin Therapeutics is founded in Feb 2017, fast growing stage with member composition of 25% in USA and 75% in Korea. Drug discovery leaderships are from global pharma and biotech companies along with talented scientists both in Korea and USA.* Active Focus - PinE3: E3 ligase screening cascade for identifying novel warheads - PinGLUE: Assaycascade for molecular glue degrader screening* Programs - Selective Molecular Glue Degrader (CK1α) - Molecular Glue Degrader Programs (5-6 Undisclosed) - PROTAC Program (1 Undisclosed)

Kaist Venture Investment Holdings is a startup company that invests in startups that solve social problems through innovative technologies. They invest in businesses that maximize synergy by pursuing both social and financial values at the same time. It focuses on five sectors including health, environment, education, elimination of inequality, andsocial infrastructure. Kaist Venture Investment Holdings was founded on October 31, 2014, and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Retail, Health Care
Seed, Angel, Grant
South Korea, Australia

Portfolio highlights

Podonos — Podonos evaluates the effectiveness and performance of AI models for speech and audio. You get the evaluation result within 12 hours from global evaluators.
Risorious — Risorious provide clear guidelines for prescribing neuropsychiatric drugs.
K-Work Partners — K-Work Partners provide comprehensive living support services essential to foreign workers in Korea.

Alumni Partners is a venture capital firm based in South Korea.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Bakery, Local Business
Seed, Series A
South Korea

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