K-Startups Win Over Sequoia, Grow Presence in Silicon Valley

*Editor’s Note: ‘AI PRISM’ (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an “AI-based personalized news recommendation and summary service” developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six customized news items by reader type.

1. U.S. Top VCs Eye K-Deep Tech… “Support Should Consider Korea Contribution, Not Nationality”

– Key Summary: Overseas-founded companies established by Korean entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are successively attracting investment from top global venture capital (VC) firms such as Mayfield, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Representative examples include Pensieve, a university exam grading AI company; Soom, a video production AI company; and Pickle, an AI avatar company. According to Startup Alliance, the number of newly founded Korean-affiliated startups in the United States rose from 16 in 2022 to around 40 in 2025. As a result, voices are growing within the venture industry calling for the expansion of government support based on actual contribution to the Korean economy rather than corporate location or founder nationality.

2. Earned in the U.S., Spent in Korea… K-Startups Growing in Silicon Valley

– Key Summary: Korean-affiliated startups born in Silicon Valley are channeling funds earned overseas back into domestic hiring and research and development (R&D) investment. The Korea branch of Moloco, an AI advertising company valued at more than 4 trillion won, signed a contract with its U.S. headquarters last year, generated 62.7 billion won in service revenue, and employed around 180 people. Sendbird and Twelvelabs also maintain R&D organizations in Korea under similar structures, and according to Startup Alliance data, Korean-affiliated startups headquartered in the United States reached 193 companies as of April this year. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups is also supporting this trend, having opened a Startup Venture Campus (SVC) in Menlo Park, Silicon Valley, in January this year.

3. Four Institutions Gather at SVC ’10 Minutes from Meta’… A ‘One-Stop Hub’ for Incubation, Guarantees and Investment

– Key Summary: Four institutions—Korea Venture Investment Corp., Korea Technology Finance Corp., Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development, and Korea SMEs and Startups Agency—have moved into the Startup Venture Campus (SVC) Silicon Valley located in Menlo Park, United States, building a one-stop support system. On the 13th of this month, 20 Korean startups that visited the U.S. together with Smilegate Orange Planet participated in a startup support program, while domestic bio startups attended a lecture at Stanford University’s Center for Innovation and Design Research (SCIDR) and also held investor relations (IR) sessions targeting local venture capital (VC) firms. Lee Jong-min, head of Korea Venture Investment Corp.’s U.S. office, said, “The greatest competitiveness of SVC is that companies can receive the support they need throughout their life cycle under one roof.” Lee Ki-dae, CEO of Startup Alliance, explained that establishing U.S. headquarters for AI and deep tech startups is “close to an inevitable decision for global business.”

4. [Exclusive] Seoul City to Create 4 Trillion Won Fund for AI, Bio, K-Culture

– Key Summary: The Seoul Metropolitan Government is moving to create a venture fund worth 4 trillion won to nurture future growth industries such as AI, bio, and K-culture. The “Next Economy Seoul Fund” is one of Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s pledges for the June 3 local elections and is the largest single venture investment fund ever created by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Seoul City aims to nurture regional specialized industry hubs—bio and high-tech in the northeast, K-content in the northwest, AI and robotics in the southeast, and advanced manufacturing and AI in the southwest—to create 100 future advanced technology startups and 10,000 jobs. The city plans to contribute a total of 200 billion won, investing 50 billion won each year for four years starting next year, with the remainder raised through private contributions.

5. Mom’s Touch Captivates Japan, to Add 10 More Stores

– Key Summary: Mom’s Touch is aggressively expanding its local stores about three years after entering Japan. The company plans to add more than 10 stores to operate over 15 by the second half of this year, and its Tokyo Shibuya branch recorded cumulative visitors of 1.44 million and cumulative sales of about 10.4 billion won two years after opening. It is also expanding stores through the master franchise (MF) method in Laos, Mongolia, Thailand and elsewhere, and operates 19 stores in Mongolia—the most among its overseas markets. Along with this, it is broadening its expansion into Southeast Asia and Central Asia, including a plan to open a total of 60 stores in Uzbekistan.

6. “Much Cheaper Than Anthropic”… Eyes Turn to Moonshot’s Listing Push

– Key Summary: Chinese AI startup Moonshot is preparing for a listing on the Hong Kong stock market. According to Bloomberg, Moonshot recently distributed a resolution to shareholders to approve a Hong Kong listing, and is reported to have judged the timing ripe as its annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached $300 million (about 450 billion won) in June this year. In its ongoing funding round, Moonshot’s corporate value is expected to be assessed at more than $30 billion (about 45 trillion won), which is one-32nd of the $965 billion valuation of rival Anthropic. Meanwhile, demand for Moonshot’s new model “Kimi K3,” unveiled on the 17th of this month, surged, temporarily suspending new subscriptions, while Alibaba also launched its new model “Qwen 3.8 Max” the same day, heating up the AI competition.