South Korea
Asia · Pop. 51.8M · #7 startup ecosystem by EV
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
Startup funnel
South Korea's power-law funnel
From the first cheque written to a $10B+ outcome. Each arrow shows what fraction of companies at one stage graduate to the next, tracked by founding cohort.
* 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.
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. Live from the Dealroom Next Gen API.
Notable companies
Top private companies in South Korea
Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.
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.
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 | 5-yr EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | $5.8T | 3.1× | 491 | $33.8B | 24.7K |
| 2 | India | $924B | 7.5× | 127 | $13.9B | 13.3K |
| 3 | Israel | $602B | 5.6× | 131 | $10.9B | 4,775 |
| 4 | South Korea | $430B | 15.4× | 45 | $8.2B | 7,962 |
| 5 | Singapore | $319B | 8.5× | 39 | $4B | 3,928 |
| 6 | Japan | $233B | 5.5× | 20 | $4.4B | 7,820 |
| 7 | Hong Kong | $179B | 12.4× | 20 | $3.1B | 1,233 |
| 8 | United Arab Emirates | $76.4B | 10.2× | 22 | $3.9B | 1,572 |
| 9 | Indonesia | $64.8B | 5.0× | 12 | $485.4M | 1,213 |
| 10 | Taiwan | $61.3B | 8.1× | 8 | $209.1M | 624 |
| 11 | Türkiye | $52.6B | 16.0× | 8 | $714.6M | 2,038 |
| 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)
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.
Get the full South Korea ecosystem on Dealroom
Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.