Korean Startups Pull 87 Billion Won in One Week, Led by 65 Billion Won Proptech Deal

Korean startups raised roughly 87 billion won across seven funding rounds in the fourth week of October (the 19th–23rd), with lodging-tech firm Deuhyuksik alone securing a 65 billion won pre-IPO. Five of the seven companies work in artificial intelligence, a sector Money Today describes as highly attractive in both global securities markets and venture capital. The remaining two, Deuhyuksik and Trioer, landed mega-deals of 65 billion won and 33 billion won respectively. Trioer operates two platforms for developing antibody treatments and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).

What did Deuhyuksik's 65 billion won pre-IPO involve?

TS Investment and VIP Asset Management executed the deal through a 65 billion won project fund as co-general partners, including 15 billion won in existing-share sales. VIP Asset Management committed 20 billion won of its own capital — its largest-ever investment in an unlisted company. Deuhyuksik's cumulative funding now stands at 107.8 billion won.

Founded in 2019, the company runs one-stop IT services for the accommodation industry: data-based feasibility analysis, hotel project management, space planning and construction, outsourced operations, unmanned monitoring and IT solutions. It manages more than 300 lodging facilities nationwide, including its own brand "Aneuk," and its cloud IT solution is deployed at over 1,300 locations. On a consolidated 2025 basis, revenue hit 181.7 billion won and operating profit 20.3 billion won, up roughly 91% and 93% year-on-year — its fifth straight year of operating profit.

After signing a strategic MOU with Marriott International in 2025, the company concluded a "Series by Marriott" brand agreement in February and opened its first domestic location, "Aneuk Signature Seoul Guro," in September. It plans to invest up to 10 billion won by 2027 in three- and four-star midscale hotels, using an asset-light model targeting Seoul, the metropolitan area and Busan. The IPO target is 2028.

TS Investment executive director Lee Dae-yeol credited the company with "the rare capability to directly apply extensive on-site data to planning and value-add initiatives" and called it a "unique offline comprehensive platform." Co-CEO Shin Hyun-wook said: "Building on the competitiveness we have proven in small and mid-sized hotels, we will strengthen our collaboration with global chains to leap forward as a leading player in the 3rd- to 4-star hotel market."

Which AI startups raised money?

Nation A, an AI video production company, closed an 8.5 billion won Series A on the 21st, bringing cumulative funding to 11.7 billion won. Hana Securities reinvested; KDB Industrial Bank, Hyundai Investment Partners and Ilshin Venture Capital joined. The company will launch a renewed platform chaining image, audio, voice generation, video creation and editing into one workflow, running on its own GPU infrastructure. CEO Yoo Su-yeon said: "If cost is the first concern, there are limits to the mass adoption of AI video production," adding the company will "change the cost structure of the global market." Nation A was selected for the Super Gap Startup 1000+ Project and Scale-up TIPS.

MyBenefit, a digital healthcare firm, raised 3 billion won in Series A funding on the 19th from InBody and the Sports Industry Fund of Funds. Cumulative funding now totals 7 billion won. MyBenefit's "Virtual Mate" uses 3D motion recognition to analyze joint movements and fitness in real time, with 579 exercise programs covering four chronic conditions including sarcopenia and prediabetes. CEO Jung Seok-mo said: "This investment is the result of the market recognizing the technological capabilities and content competitiveness we have built over time."

Olso Care, founded in 2024 by Yeouido St. Mary's Hospital orthopedic surgeon Professor Kim Jong-ho, secured 3.42 billion won in pre-Series A funding led by Daewoong Investment. Its hospital device "Anapa PS" measures range of motion (99% reliability) and muscle strength (97%), per a SCIE-indexed journal, and is adopted by 25 medical institutions. Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety approved a confirmatory clinical trial for frozen shoulder with its "Anapa ME" device.

AnyBridge, co-founded by KAIST professors Park Jong-se and Kwon Yeong-jin, raised undisclosed seed funding from The Ventures on the 22nd. Its multi-accelerator runtime assigns GPUs, NPUs and PIM chips to tasks automatically, cutting inference costs 40%–70% versus GPU-only setups. Stanford's Kunle Olukotun, SambaNova co-founder, advises the team. CEO Park Jong-se said integrated operational standards will start "with the official product launch in 2027."

Traceweave, an on-device AI startup, raised 3 billion won in seed funding on the 21st at a 30 billion won valuation, with Mirae Asset Capital, Quad Ventures, Naver D2SF and Antler Korea participating. Its post-transformer architecture "Phase-TITAN" runs with fixed-size memory without KV cache; its vehicle AI agent operated internally on a single CPU core with under 1GB of memory. It completed a paid PoC with an autonomous driving subsidiary of a global automaker group.

The week's pattern is clear: investors paid premium prices for proven revenue and clinical or technical validation, not AI labels alone.