Rancho's Korea Startup Story
Rancho Lee
Emerging VC | Global Innovation Acceleration | Technology with Impact | Strategy, Innovation, and Venture Capital | Diversity & Inclusion
The Drawbacks of Concentrated Innovation in South Korea?
A Seoul Dominant Startup Ecosystem?
Today, Seoul is home to a vibrant and booming startup ecosystem. Ranked 9th place in the list of best cities to launch a startup, South Korea is clearly not falling behind in the global startup innovation scene. However, the motherland of KPOP suffers from a startup ecosystem that is highly concentrated in Seoul. According to a recent report by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups the capital province is home to 81.4% of venture capital investments. Other relatively large and developed cities like Busan and Daegu were only responsible for 2% and 1% of total venture capital investments in South Korea respectively.??
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Concerns Surrounding Concentrated Innovation??
A concentrated startup ecosystem means that there is a homogenization of ideas and diversity in thinking and innovation. After all, innovation and diversity of ideas stems from a diverse pool of people with different experiences. Korea’s startup ecosystem that is centered around Seoul limits the creativity and innovation of startups as funding does not reach those who live outside the capital but want to make their innovative business ideas into a reality. This is especially a problem in South Korea as education, culture, and population density are incredibly focused in Seoul.??
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Korea’s need for expansion?
This year's?Global Startup Ecosystem Report by Startup Genome, a San Francisco-based?global?advisory and research company that evaluates the global startup environment, ranked Seoul higher than Tokyo, Shanghai and European cities such as Paris and Berlin for the best cities for launching startups. This should be celebrated. After all this attracts global investors and builds an environment where innovators can build the businesses they envision. However, in order to have a long-term healthy startup ecosystem, the foundation of said ecosystem should not be narrowed down to a single city.??
But simply incentivizing investing innovation in other areas won’t suffice. Investors and innovators still need to see a promising return in order to take that risk. Centralized startup ecosystems are a byproduct of a country’s rapid focused urbanization. Perhaps the dense startup world is an indicator of a problem that’s bigger than we thought.?
This article has been written by Rancho & Tae Kyeong Hong
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Operations Manager at Scienjoy Meta Technology LLC
2 个月Great Vision! It’s crucial to expand innovation beyond Seoul. Excited to see more support for cities like Busan and Daegu!
Freelance Writer
2 个月Thank you very much for taking the time to write these articles. I am a freelance writer for the Korea Times and I find your Korea Startup Story articles to be very helpful.
Now building businesses.
2 个月I do not see this angle agreeable or complete. Density of innovation and creativity should serve as an efficiency measure a la US Westcoast. The real conundrum of Korean startups from a global perspective is not the Demographics but KRW exposure, limited domestic market size, and will-go-global-later syndrome etc? Up for a chat but to discuss the entire ecosystem is a heavy duty task itself.