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At the end of last month, South Korea’s DGIST Technology Holdings made good on its plans to launch a venture fund just four months after changing its leadership structure to co-CEOs precisely for this purpose.
The fund starts with ₩2 billion. That’s a modest sum (€1.2m / $1.4m), but the aim is to increase its size, including by tapping into the South Korean government’s fund of funds.
The Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology isn’t the only institute to have a fund. A year ago, UNIST Technology Holdings at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology was appointed manager of a ₩12bn fund. The Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology’s GIST Technology Holdings was accredited as a VC firm in January this year.
It’s not just about funds. What matters is that these three (together with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) are systemically removing every constraint – patient capital, external validation, and cultural permission – in lockstep.
KAIST spinout Point2 Technology, a developer of RF-based interconnect solutions for AI data centre infrastructure, proves external investors are paying attention. Its cap table includes Nvidia Ventures, UMC Capital, Arm, Bosch Ventures, and Molex. Investor appetite isn’t the bottleneck; it’s founders willing and able to focus on their ventures.
That shift is happening. Last month, the Ministry of Science and ICT established startup centres at UNIST, DGIST, and GIST, using a model pioneered at KAIST.
From September, students can apply for unlimited leaves of absence to focus on startups. At KAIST, student entrepreneurial activity will even count towards regular academic credit.
But more significantly, faculty can now take seven-year leaves of absence (up from three years) to focus on their spinouts. That is a considerable amount of time to build a company before faculty are asked to return to the university, bringing back significant learnings for their next innovation.
While South Korea is late to all of this, few have orchestrated all three interventions in parallel across an ecosystem of institutes. It turns the lateness into a critical advantage, and the seven-year leave of absence in particular is noteworthy. It means South Korea isn’t playing catch-up; it’s getting ready to leapfrog everyone else.
