DGIST Technology Holdings, the commercialisation arm of the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, has followed through on plans reported four months ago to launch a venture fund.
The ₩2 billion early-stage fund will focus on deep tech spinouts developing technologies such as AI, robotics, biotech and healthcare, and advanced semiconductors.
The fund is being positioned as a way to help get more innovations to market amid a challenging domestic venture capital environment.
In addition to capital, DGIST will help match researchers with CEOs and offer support with company building. Additionally, it will develop a “growth acceleration network” that will include local VC firms and startup centres at other science and technology institutes to help portfolio companies raise series A and B rounds.
All of these efforts will be linked with DGIST’s existing Deep-Tech Venture Studio. The fund will also help portfolio companies access South Korea’s Tech Incubator Program for Startups.
DGIST expects to grow the fund’s size, including by seeking public funding.
“The core role of a technology holding company is to ensure that outstanding deep-tech assets developed in university laboratories do not remain in the lab but bear fruit in industry,” says Choi Moon Jong, co-CEO of DGIST Holdings. “Using this first fund as a catalyst, we will firmly establish a virtuous cycle of industry-academia collaboration in which DGIST’s research achievements contribute to the Daegu–Gyeongbuk regional economy as a new growth engine.”
DGIST Holdings changed its leadership structure in March this year, appointing Choi Moon Jong as co-CEO to work alongside existing chief executive officer JaeHyung Koo.
Choi’s appointment was explicitly positioned with a focus on venture funds.
