Korea’s startup investment market is showing a clear recovery in monetary terms. However, analysts say the rebound is becoming increasingly “selective,” with capital flowing to deep tech sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, and to founding teams led by proven researchers, rather than spreading across the broader market.
According to the “May 2026 Korean Startup Investment Statistics” released Tuesday by The VC, a leading domestic startup capital market database company, investments in Korean unlisted startups and small and medium-sized enterprises totaled 88 deals worth 3.3549 trillion won in May.
Of that total, a large secondary share acquisition worth 2.216 trillion won in Dunamu, the operator of a Korean cryptocurrency exchange, accounted for a significant portion. Even excluding this deal, monthly investment reached 995 billion won, approaching the 1 trillion won mark.
This marks the first time monthly investment has surpassed 1 trillion won for three consecutive months since the investment market downturn began in earnest in 2022.
However, the warmth of the investment recovery is not spreading evenly across the entire market, observers say.
Through May this year, the number of early-stage (seed to Series A) investments of 10 billion won or more totaled 31 deals, up 41% from the same period last year. Capital deployed through these rounds during the same period surged 169% year-on-year to 829.2 billion won.
The share of large early-stage deals within total early-stage funding has also expanded significantly. This year, 75% of total early-stage investment was deployed through large early rounds, up 30 percentage points from 45% during the same period last year.
The concentration was particularly pronounced in the AI and robotics sectors.
Of all seed-stage deals, 43% were concentrated in AI and robotics. With market uncertainty persisting, investors appear to be focusing capital on deep tech companies whose technology is relatively easier to validate.
For example, AI startups Asteromorph and Configintelligence each attracted investments in the range of 40 billion won, despite being at the seed round stage.
Both companies were founded by researchers from major Korean research institutions including Seoul National University College of Medicine and KAIST. This shows that investors are evaluating the research capabilities and technology implementation skills of founding teams as core investment criteria, rather than simple business ideas, according to the analysis.
In contrast, the early-stage funding environment for non-deep tech startups has proven relatively more challenging.
The industry assessment is that while the venture investment market has entered a phase of quantitative recovery, in reality a “wheat-from-chaff” sorting process has begun in earnest, with capital concentrating on a select group of companies whose technological capabilities and founding team competitiveness have been validated.
By sector, the surge of the blockchain and digital asset segment also stood out.
Amid rising expectations for the institutionalization of digital assets and the easing of financial-industrial separation regulations, competition among financial firms to secure first-mover advantage in digital financial infrastructure is intensifying.
Representative cases include the Dunamu secondary share acquisition (approximately 2.216 trillion won), in which Samsung Securities, Hanwha Investment & Securities, and Hana Financial Group participated, and Korea Investment & Securities’ acquisition of a stake in Coinone (approximately 160 billion won).
These moves are interpreted as strategic efforts by the financial sector to seize leadership in next-generation digital financial infrastructure by securing stakes in cryptocurrency exchanges.
“The investment market is showing a recovery trend, but capital is not being supplied evenly to all companies,” The VC said. “The trend of selective investment, with capital concentrating on deep tech sectors such as AI and robotics and on validated founding teams, is being further reinforced.”
