South Korea
Asia · Pop. 51.8M · #7 startup ecosystem by EV
1 Overview
* C→Unicorn and Unicorn→Decacorn rates are derived from current counts (no founding-cohort data); the four mid-funnel rates use Dealroom's cohort tracking.
2 Largest rounds
Largest funding rounds in South Korea
A live treemap of $100M+ rounds from the Dealroom API. Each cell is one round into a South Korea-headquartered company, grouped by Dealroom sector.
Largest rounds in South Korea - 2026
4 VC investment
How much venture capital flows into South Korea
VC investment into South Korea-headquartered, VC-backed companies, broken down by round size, company location, sector and funding stage.
5 Academia
South Korea's academic flywheel
Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to South Korea.
| # | University | City | Founders | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yonsei University | Seoul | 302 | 367 |
| 2 | Seoul National University | Seoul | 302 | 331 |
| 3 | Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology | Seoul | 187 | 220 |
6 Location comparison
How South Korea stacks up
Compare South Korea with similarly sized ecosystems in Asia — switch between combined EV, 5-year EV growth, and a growth × size view. Expand the table for the full ranking.
Combined enterprise value of each ecosystem.
Top ecosystems in Asia ranked by combined EV. South Korea's row is highlighted (#4).
| # | Ecosystem | Combined EV | EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | $5.8T | 3.1× | 511 | $33.9B | 24.8K |
| 2 | India | $925B | 7.5× | 129 | $14B | 13.4K |
| 3 | Israel | $598B | 5.6× | 132 | $10.5B | 4,791 |
| 4 | South Korea | $431B | 15.3× | 47 | $8.3B | 8,023 |
| 5 | Singapore | $321B | 8.6× | 40 | $4B | 3,960 |
| 6 | Japan | $227B | 5.7× | 21 | $7.1B | 7,885 |
| 7 | Hong Kong | $179B | 12.4× | 21 | $3.1B | 1,238 |
| 8 | United Arab Emirates | $76.4B | 10.2× | 22 | $3.9B | 1,586 |
| 9 | Indonesia | $64.9B | 5.0× | 12 | $485.4M | 1,215 |
| 10 | Taiwan | $61.5B | 8.1× | 10 | $209.1M | 627 |
| 11 | Türkiye | $52.6B | 16.1× | 9 | $714.6M | 2,044 |
| 12 | Vietnam | $34.3B | 15.3× | 4 | $461.5M | 616 |
7 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.
8 Premium analytics
What we don't show on this page (yet)
Sector breakdowns, founder origins, AI-talent leaderboards and live deal flow are gated to logged-in Dealroom users. Book a demo to access the full South Korea dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.
More data
Explore Dealroom data →Get the full South Korea ecosystem on Dealroom
Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.