President Lee Jae-myung speaks at the Silicon Valley Venture Investment Meetup held at a hotel in San Francisco on Saturday (local time). [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae-myung speaks at the Silicon Valley Venture Investment Meetup held at a hotel in San Francisco on Saturday (local time). [Yonhap]

Leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms — early backers of Apple, Google and Nvidia — have pledged to expand their investment in South Korean startups. The firms plan to build a cooperative investment framework with the National Pension Service and actively seek out Korean companies in future industries such as AI and robotics.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said Sunday that it hosted a Silicon Valley Venture Investment Meetup in San Francisco on Saturday (local time), presided over by President Lee Jae-myung. At the event, the National Pension Service signed investment cooperation MOUs with the global VCs, and a roundtable was held to discuss ways to expand venture investment cooperation between South Korea and the United States.

The gathering brought together leading Silicon Valley VCs collectively managing $300 billion in assets, including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

The National Pension Service plans to use the agreements to strengthen its network with Silicon Valley VCs, identify high-quality global investment opportunities and actively support domestic startups in attracting overseas investment. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said it will also develop an overseas VC investment action plan to translate the agreements into concrete deals.

The roundtable covered global venture investment trends, promising sectors, case studies of investment in Korean startups, and ways to deepen Korea-US venture ecosystem cooperation. The participating VCs uniformly highlighted the growth potential of AI and expressed strong interest in South Korea's skilled technology workforce and startup ecosystem.

Alfred Lin, a partner at Sequoia Capital who has backed companies including Google and Nvidia over more than 50 years in Silicon Valley, said "supporting startups to foster a spirit of challenge among the younger generation is important."

Martin Casado, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said a16z has already invested in more than 20 Korean-founded companies in areas including robotics and biohealth, and recently opened a Seoul office. "Combining Korea's manufacturing competitiveness with America's AI and software capabilities will create significant opportunities for both countries," he said.

Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, said "venture investment ultimately follows talent," adding that the firm plans to expand its investment in Korea given the country's world-class talent pool.

Barry Eggers, co-founder of Lightspeed Venture Partners, called South Korea "a country with world-class technology talent and an industrial base," and said the Korea-US venture ecosystem would grow further if global and local investors work together to identify entrepreneurs and strengthen university and VC networks.

Hemant Taneja, chief executive of General Catalyst, said adequate capital supply is essential for startup growth and called for nurturing related startups and building innovation clusters, noting that South Korea operates some of the world's most advanced automated robotics factories.

Tony Florence, chief executive of NEA, said the firm is already investing in Korean startups including Twelve Labs and is continuing to evaluate competitive companies such as Rebellions.

The meetup went beyond a simple investment briefing to directly connect South Korea's venture ecosystem with global capital markets. As competition for global investment intensifies around AI and deep tech, the world's top VCs publicly declared their intent to expand cooperation with Korean startups — a development expected to help domestic companies attract overseas investment and enter global markets.

Noh Yong-seok, first vice minister of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said "it is meaningful that the world's top VCs gathered in one place to discuss cooperation with South Korea's venture ecosystem," adding that the ministry will work to create a globally competitive environment for ventures and startups and actively support Korean companies in entering overseas markets.


boo@heraldcorp.com