[Exclusive] Aju IB Investment Establishes First 'AC Headquarters' Among Major VCs

Restructuring the AC Division After Five Years to Establish a One-Stop Support System
Enabling Early-Stage Founders to Focus on Technology Development

Aju IB Investment, one of Korea's first-generation venture capital (VC) firms, has completely reorganized its accelerator (AC) division into an independent AC headquarters just five years after entering the accelerator business. Among major VC firms, Aju IB Investment is the first to operate its AC organization as a separate headquarters structure, placing a strong emphasis on early-stage investments.

Photo of Kyehoon Park, Head of the Accelerator (AV) Division at AJU IB Investment. AJU IB Investment

According to the VC industry on March 23, Aju IB Investment restructured its AC division into an AC headquarters in January of this year. The company believes that maximizing returns is possible by maintaining follow-on investments grounded in relationships with founders from the earliest stages.

This reorganization was carried out to overcome the structural limitations of accelerators. While independent accelerators are steadily increasing, most remain focused on initial seed-stage investments and face challenges in connecting to follow-on funding. The nature of accelerators, which do not operate their own VC funds, leads to a high dependence on external investments.

Aju IB Investment plans to support company growth from the early stage all the way to becoming a global unicorn through a comprehensive investment pipeline managed by the AC headquarters. Going beyond the traditional VC practice of providing funding only during later growth stages, the company aims to offer a one-stop solution that covers everything from ultra-early discovery, accelerator nurturing, VC investment, pre-IPO, to post-listing fundraising.

An environment has also been established where founders can focus on technology development. To this end, Aju IB Investment has assigned dedicated early-stage investment managers and government project consulting specialists. The early-stage investment managers maintain close communication with founders to speed up investment-related decision-making, while the government project consulting team assists with fundraising work.

Aju IB Investment’s investment system is already producing results. From general TIPS to Deep Tech and Scaling Up TIPS, the number of companies selected and supported by Aju IB Investment has exceeded 50.

In particular, the impact of capital inflow stands out. The initial KRW 81.3 billion invested by Aju IB Investment attracted KRW 40 billion in external follow-on investment and KRW 49.1 billion in government grants, resulting in a total capital inflow of KRW 170.4 billion. This leveraged effect amounts to approximately 2.1 times the initial investment.

A representative company building case is Illimis Therapeutics, a dementia treatment developer based on a convergent protein platform technology. Aju IB Investment was involved from the company’s establishment, optimizing the equity structure and designing every step including the funding schedule. Following its first investment in 2021 and three subsequent follow-on investments through last year, the company’s valuation jumped by more than KRW 150 billion. This was facilitated by a global co-development pipeline contract signed with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly in October 2024.

There are also cases of growth achieved by connecting portfolio companies. For example, Aju IB Investment connected Meju, a wearable electrocardiogram sensor company facing stagnant sales, to portfolio companies with strong hospital networks, leading co-marketing efforts. As a result, Meju’s sales soared to KRW 7 billion last year, a more than threefold increase from the previous year, and the company passed the preliminary KOSDAQ technology special listing review in December, with plans to go public in the first half of this year.

Aju IB Investment also plans to provide full support for global mentoring and overseas expansion of early-stage companies through its overseas branch, Solistar Ventures. In addition, the company intends to expand its open innovation program to discover and nurture ultra-early-stage companies even before TIPS selection.

An official from Aju IB Investment stated, "As investments move to later stages, company valuations rise and competition among VCs intensifies. By having our accelerator invest in discovered companies from the outset and then linking them with our VC division, we intend to become a growth partner for startups."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.