韩国私人资本崩溃（英）2026

Private Capital Contents Market overview Institutional Research Group Dealmaking Ansel TanDirector, APAC Private Capitalansel.tan@pitchbook.com Exits Melanie Tng Fundraising APAC Private Capitalmelanie.tng@pitchbook.com pbinstitutionalresearch@pitchbook.com Published on March 25, 2026 Market overview Despite the supportive public market environment, Korea’sprivate capital markets did not experience a comparablerecovery in 2025. Total private capital deal value acrossPE and VC declined to $16 billion from $24 billion in theprevious year. Aggregate PE deal value fell nearly 30%,although deal count increased slightly, reflecting a shift in South Korea’s economy expanded at a measured pace in2025, with full-year GDP growth revised up to 0.9% by theAsian Development Bank, an improvement on the 0.8% projection issued in September, following stronger-than-anticipated Q3 performance driven by fiscal stimulus and apartial recovery in domestic consumption.1Export resilience,particularly in the semiconductor and electronics sector, This divergence between public and private marketmomentum stems largely from structural pressures withinKorea’s private capital markets. Exit activity remainedsubdued across both asset classes amid persistent valuationgaps between buyers and sellers. The operating environment for domestic general partners also became more challengingfollowing the National Pension Service’s delay in launching Public equity markets staged a historic rebound in 2025,with the KOSPI surging more than 75%, marking its strongestannual performance in over two decades and the bestamong all major global indexes. The rally was driven largely Even so, Korea’s private capital market retains severalstructural characteristics that distinguish it within Asia-Pacific. In particular, the market is shaped by three The rally was also supported by a series of governancereforms aimed at addressing the “Korea Discount,” drivenby chaebol dominance, opaque governance, and weakshareholder returns. In 2024, the Financial ServicesCommission launched the Corporate Value-Up Programme,modeled on Japan’s reform agenda, which accelerated under For example, corporate restructuring among the country’slarge family-owned conglomerates, or chaebols, continuesto generate a steady pipeline of investment opportunities. dealmakers identified SK Group as the most likely M&Asource in 2026, with Lotte Group second at 81%.4Meanwhile, corporate carveouts represented almost 30% of buyoutsabove $100 million, marking the highest share of any regionalmarket. Korea’s concentrated industrial structure underpins Dealmaking Venture capital VC concentrates in later stages VC deal activity declined further in 2025, with $4.3 billioninvested across 1,186 transactions,6the lowest deal count and value in recent years. The contraction has not beenuniform across financing stages. Late-stage and venture-growth transactions proved comparatively resilient, whileseed and early-stage investment contracted more sharply.This divergence suggests more selective capital deploymentas investors prioritized companies with proven business The sustained decline in seed-stage investment carriesimportant implications for Korea’s VC markets. Early-stage deal activity typically precedes institutional growth Hardware investment has also emerged as a definingtheme within the market. For example, Rebellions, an AIsemiconductor startup, raised $243.9 million in a Series Cround, valuing the company at approximately $1.4 billion, years to come. In this sense, the current contraction couldhave knock-on effects impacting the future scale of Korea’s The median pre-money valuation rose almost 60% to $32million in 2025, indicating a growing concentration of capitalinto later-stage transactions rather than a widespreadrecovery in venture pricing. As early-stage deal activity Nondomestic participation rises in larger transactions Nondomestic investor participation increased in 2025to account for more than 20% of venture transactionsby deal count and approximately 40% of total deal value,suggesting a rising concentration in larger transactionsby nondomestic investors. For example, Arm Holdings,a UK-based semiconductor company, participated in theaforementioned Rebellions funding, a clear example of a Software and deep-tech sectors anchor venture investment Software companies accounted for roughly one-quarter ofall venture transactions in Korea in 2025, making the sectorthe most active by deal count. This dominance underscores Much of this activity has been driven by corporate demandfor productivity-enhancing technologies. Korean corporatesacross manufacturing, logistics, and financial servicesare investing heavily in automation, data infrastructure, strategically important enough to acquire outright, allowingcompanies to monitor emerging innovation while maintainingflexibility around future acquisition decisions. Because Corporate investors drive a significant s