S.Korea’s startups see Sept. investment surge 85%

South Korea’s startups last month saw investment rise for the first time this year.

The Seoul-based Startup Alliance, a private support organization that analyzes trends in domestic startup investment by compiling related news straight from companies, on Wednesday said such investment last month reached 717.8 billion won ($529.3 million), up 85.9% from 386.1 billion won in September last year.

Last month saw 105 investment cases, down 19.2% from 130 in September last year. The takeaway is that such funding went mostly to startups displaying market growth rather than those in the early stage, which had lower average investment.

By amount, four cases attracted over 30 billion won last month, 14 over and 22 under 1 billion won, and 65 under 1 billion won or undisclosed.

Write to Joo-Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com