[StartupRecipe] The 15 most funded female-led startups in Korea

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#Weekly Funding Overview

[Nov. 22~ Nov. 26]

The total funds raised by Korean startups of this week is KRW 163.5 billion.

Company	Industry	Amount	Round	Investors
Rsquare	Prophtech	85 billion		Stic Investment
Webtoontoday	Webtoon	-	GRANT	TIPS
VESSL AI	Machinelearning operation	5 billion	Pre-Series A	KB Investment, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, A Ventures, Springcamp, D Ventures Private Investment Fund
Triple labs	Jewelry	-	Seed	Bass Investment
Okhome	Homecare	3.3 billion	Series A	Posco Capital, A Ventures, ES Investor, Honest Ventures, Enlight Ventures
Livicon	PDLCD	15 billion		Korea Develpoment Bank, Vision Asset Management, Vision Ventures
Tunib	NLP AI	3 billion	Seed	Pearl Abyss Capital, Naver D2SF, DSC Investment
MR.MIND	AI Care robot	-		EPI LAB, Coms
NoTag	Crossborder	-	Seed	Mashupangels
O2Medi	healthcare	-	Seed	Series Ventures
Habit Factory	Insuretech	2.5 billion	Series B	Insight equity partners,
Share&Service	Digital therapeutics	-	Seed	Busan Technology Holdings, MYSC
Winkstone partners	P2P	2 billion	Series A	Shinhan Investment
ODG	Content Production	-	M&A	Adapt
Solfa	Content Production	-	M&A	adapt
Netspa	Social venture	3 billion	Series A	MAGNA Investment, IMPACT SQUARE, TBT
noutecompany	Digital Contents	500 million	GRANT	TIPS
bettermonday	coffee franchise	-	Seed	Spark lab, CJ
Elroilab	AI	-	Seed	Korea Science & Technology holdings, Sparklabs, Joshua partners
Itgreen	Zero Waste Solution	-	Seed	Sparklabs, CJ
Onuii	Education	14 billion	Series A	Strong Ventures, KB Investment, Stic Ventures, Aju IB Investment, Hana Ventures
Neutune	Music searching platform	-	Seed	Kakao Ventures, Shinhan Capital,
Korea Credit Data	Data	40 billion		"GS Group, Kookmin Bank, Kakao Ventures, Kclavis Investment, RYUKYUNG PSG KB Securities"
OGQ	Creator Market	67 billion	Series B	DS Asset Management, Africa TV, Daishin Securities, Partners Investment
Littlesongmusic	Music content	2 billion	Series A	Michigan Venture Capital, SB Partners, Eugene Investment
Tart	Fintech	-	Seed	CNT Tech
Kmbio	Healthcare	-	Seed	New Paradigm Investment
NDotLight	3D content	-	GRANT	TIPS

Major Funding

• Medical AI company Lunit raised 72 billion won in the pre-IPO round from domestic and foreign VCs. The funds will be used for R&D and global expansion of AI products. The company will apply for the KOSDAQ preliminary review this month.
• Humanscape, a blockchain medical data provider, secured a 15 billion won investment from Kakao. It operates a platform for personalized information on rare and incurable diseases, giving coin compensation to the patients who provide their medical data. It plans to discover healthcare services targeting the global market in cooperation with Kakao.
• High-tech materials startup TFJ Global attracted an investment of 12.5 billion won. This investment will help the company build a factory only for flame-retardant textiles and focus on global expansion.

#Trend Analysis

With the recent increase in female-led startups that succeed in attracting large-scale investment, it has been easier to find female representatives in the market. A case in point is Kurly, an operator of Market Kurly. Having become a unicorn worth more than 1 trillion won this year, Kurly is set to go public next year. If it succeeds in the listing, it is expected to become the most successful female-founded startup in Korea. Style Share, which was acquired by Musinsa for 300 billion won this year, is also considered a successful exit case of a woman-led startup.

According to the Startup Recipe data in 2020, the investment attracted by female-led startups accounted for about 6% of the total investment. The gender of the entrepreneur is hardly a deciding factor in the fundraising and success of the startup. However, if you look at the ratio, the number of women entrepreneurs who succeeded in securing funds is still small. The proportion of women is also low in the VCs which execute investment. Fortunately, the female ratio is expected to increase slightly this year thanks to the investment ecosystem that has more than doubled compared to last year.

Looking at the number and amount of investment in female-founded companies from January to October this year, you can see that volatility is high every month. There was a large amount of investment concentrated in some months, while there was only a little in other months. The reason is that when some startups have secured large-scale funds, it has a huge impact on the total women-led investment.  If you look at the most funded companies from January to October, you can see that a few specific startups drove the overall investment to rise.

However, the overall trend shows that the amount of funding raised by women is on the rise. The positive thing is that the number of female founders is increasing, and the fields where female-led startups belong are gradually diversifying. In the past, many were focused on the areas where women could have strengths, such as beauty, fashion, and children. However, now women entrepreneurs can be found in almost all fields, and technology-based startups with women leaders have increased significantly.

In recent years, there have been female series entrepreneurs as well who sold their first company and founded their second company. Examples include children’s fintech platform Lemon Tree and creator platform Bigc. They are achieving good results, securing large investments at the seed stage before the product is released.

The industry responded positively to the gradual increase in the percentage of female entrepreneurs but found it still low. It doesn’t mean that the gender ratio should be 50-50, but there is indeed an uneven playing field with male dominance. Many say in unison that the government, support organizations, and startup members should focus on creating business startup opportunities regardless of gender. VCs are also increasing female participation in investment screening by increasing the proportion of female judges. We look forward to seeing more female founders next year with these joint efforts.

Company Name	Field	Investment Amount (Unit 100 million won.)
Kurly	E-commerce	2,254
8%	P2P Finance	453
Zikooin	Cultured Meat	380
Upstage	AI Technology	316
Class101	Online Class	300
Lifelab	Cleaning Service Platform	220
Washswat	Laundry Service Platform	175
Music Cow	Copyright Sharing Platform	170
Publy	Career Content	135
Onul-siktak	Fresh Delivery	120
Finda	Paperless Loan Platform	115
Triple	Travel Platform	100
S-Alpha Therapeutics	Digital Therapeutics	100
Mfort	Childcare	100