Naver investment in startups at $12.5 mn, matching last year’s record level

D2SF [Source : Naver]

South Korean internet giant Naver Corp. has kept up support and investment in startups this year regardless of unfavorable financing conditions from rapid rises in interest rates, so far doling out 16.7 billion won ($12.5 million) to match last year’s record level.

According to multiple industry sources on Sunday, D2 Startup Factory (D2SF), Naver’s technology startup accelerator, is discussing investment in an e-commerce solutions provider with the innovation to guide users in fashion shopping after studying their physics and style.

D2SF has so far carried out 26 investments in startups worth 16.7 billion won this year, close to last year’s record assistance of 17.7 billion won. The startup accelerator oversaw 10 investments worth 5.2 billion won in 2019 and 20 worth 8.6 billion won in 2020.

It has sustained discovery and support program for fledgling enterprises despite unfavorable conditions from high interest rate, exchange rate, and prices environment.

According to Startup Trend Report by Startup Alliance and Opensurvey, 82 percent of startup founders evaluated that this year’s overall investment market environment has deteriorated from last year. The survey was conducted on 900 industry people including 200 startup founders.

Given current rate, this year’s investment in startups could be larger than last year,” said an unnamed official from Naver.

D2SF’s investment this year focused on technology-based startups including wellness curation platform developer Gazi Lab and artificial intelligence-based learning data solution developer GenGenAI.