Participants pose for a photo at the inaugural general meeting of DGIST Technology Holdings' Tech Individual Investment Association No. 1. [DGIST]
Participants pose for a photo at the inaugural general meeting of DGIST Technology Holdings' Tech Individual Investment Association No. 1. [DGIST]

DGIST (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology) is establishing its first investment fund to energize technology commercialization and the deep tech startup ecosystem, accelerating the path from research to market.

DGIST announced Friday that DGIST Technology Holdings held the inaugural general meeting of its first investment association — a fund of approximately 2 billion won ($1.39 million) — marking the subsidiary's first such fund since its incorporation and signaling the start of active investment in early-stage deep tech companies and on-campus startups.

The fund is expected to bring DGIST's world-class research outcomes to market while providing a financial lifeline for regional startups struggling with a lack of capital.

Target investments include faculty- and researcher-founded companies in future national strategic technology sectors — AI, robotics, advanced semiconductors, and biotech and healthcare — as well as promising early-stage deep tech firms. Beyond direct funding, DGIST Technology Holdings will build a "growth acceleration network" in partnership with major domestic venture capital firms and startup support organizations at science and technology institutes, designed to connect portfolio companies with follow-on investment.

To support researchers with strong technology but limited management experience, the fund will introduce a differentiated support framework. DGIST Technology Holdings will directly match portfolio companies with external professional CEOs and provide "company building" services — co-designing the entire journey from incorporation to growth. The subsidiary plans to integrate this with its own deep tech venture studio program to maximize the practical impact of each investment.

Through this inaugural fund, DGIST Technology Holdings plans to build an initial investment portfolio and then progressively expand the fund's scale by tapping government policy investment programs, including the Korea Fund of Funds. The subsidiary also plans to link its portfolio companies with TIPS — the government-backed, private investment-led technology startup support program — and provide full backing to help invested firms win selection as TIPS startup teams.

"As head of DGIST's research and industry-academic affairs office, I have long felt frustrated watching promising in-house technologies fail to clear the commercialization threshold due to lack of funding," said Koo Jae-hyeong, co-CEO of DGIST Technology Holdings. "Through this fund, the technology transfer and commercialization support functions of the Innovation Startup Institute and the investment functions of Technology Holdings will work in close coordination, allowing outstanding research outcomes on campus to move more swiftly and systematically into startups and investment."

Meanwhile, DGIST plans to leverage DGIST Technology Holdings' growing investment and startup ecosystem activities as a springboard to further energize laboratory-based startups on campus. Through these efforts, the university aims to evolve into a world-class convergence research and startup hub — strengthening national core technology competitiveness and contributing to regional economic vitality and quality job creation through the wider dissemination of advanced technologies.


nbgkoo@heraldcorp.com