South Korea
Asia · Pop. 51.8M · #7 startup ecosystem by EV
Adjacent ecosystems by EV
Startup hubs
Inside South Korea: top 1 startup hubs
Sub-national ecosystems ranked by combined enterprise value of all tracked startups headquartered there.
Startup funnel
South Korea's power-law funnel
From every VC-backed startup down to the biggest scale-ups. Conversion rates show what fraction of one tier graduate into the next. Capital figures (where shown) are total VC deployed at that stage.
Enterprise value · 2015–2025
South Korea grew 24.7× since 2015
Combined enterprise value of every tracked startup headquartered in South Korea that's still operating today, totalled by founding-year cohort.
Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems
How South Korea stacks up
Peers chosen from the same Asia cluster within ±70% of South Korea's combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size for the wider continent — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.
Top overview
Asia ecosystems — combined view
Top ecosystems in Asia ranked by combined EV. South Korea's row is highlighted.
| # | Ecosystem | Combined EV | 5-yr EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | $5.8T | 3.2× | 479 | $33.4B | 24.5K |
| 2 | India | $883.7B | 7.1× | 125 | $13.9B | 13.3K |
| 3 | Israel | $599.9B | 5.6× | 128 | $10.7B | 4,762 |
| 4 | South Korea | $438.6B | 15.6× | 41 | $8.2B | 7,931 |
| 5 | Singapore | $359.5B | 9.6× | 38 | $3.3B | 3,900 |
| 6 | Japan | $255.3B | 6.4× | 19 | $4.3B | 7,794 |
| 7 | Hong Kong | $185.6B | 13.0× | 21 | $3.6B | 1,222 |
| 8 | United Arab Emirates | $79.1B | 10.6× | 21 | $3.9B | 1,553 |
| 9 | Indonesia | $64.8B | 5.0× | 12 | $485.3M | 1,208 |
| 10 | Taiwan | $59.4B | 7.9× | 5 | $209.1M | 621 |
| 11 | Türkiye | $55.7B | 20.7× | 8 | $714.3M | 2,031 |
| 12 | Vietnam | $34.3B | 15.3× | 4 | $461.5M | 616 |
Patent intelligence
South Korea startup IP portfolio: 522.1K patent families
Granted patent families assigned to startups headquartered in South Korea. Aggregated across the country's hub-level filings — Bay Area, Boston, etc. roll up under the United States row, the same way Tokyo and Osaka roll up under Japan.
Premium analytics
What we don't show on this page (yet)
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