National Pension Service Partners with Top Silicon Valley VCs to Expand Investment Opportunities

MOUs Signed with Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Others

The National Pension Service is forming strategic partnerships with top-tier venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and plans to increase its strategic investments.

On July 25 (local time), the National Pension Service announced that it had signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) for investment cooperation with major local venture capital firms at the "Silicon Valley Venture Investment Meetup" held in San Francisco, United States.

The six firms include Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and New Enterprise Associates. Their total assets under management (AUM) amount to $313 billion (approximately 450 trillion won).

Sequoia Capital made early investments in Apple (1978), Nvidia (1993), and Google (1999); Andreessen Horowitz has invested in Instagram (2010), Meta (2011), and Anduril (2019). Khosla Ventures was also an early investor in OpenAI (2019), and these firms are widely regarded as "kingmakers" in today's big tech landscape. Andreessen Horowitz has also recently established an office in Korea.

The National Pension Service regards the expansion of venture investments not as a short-term capital deployment, but as a strategic task to be carried out from a long-term perspective. Based on the cooperative relationships established with these local venture capital firms, the National Pension Service plans to thoroughly assess investment opportunities, market conditions, and risk factors, gradually increasing its investments in a phased approach.

Meanwhile, at a roundtable held jointly with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups following the signing of the MOUs, participants exchanged wide-ranging opinions on global and Silicon Valley venture investment trends, compared venture investment environments between Korea and the U.S., and discussed ways to strengthen cooperation between the two countries' venture ecosystems.

Kim Sungjoo, Chairman and CEO of the National Pension Service, stated, "We have continuously expanded our local connections with the venture capital ecosystem, centered around our San Francisco office, and this MOU will serve as an opportunity to develop those networks into active cooperation. Moving forward, while operating the people’s valuable assets with a principle of long-term stability, the National Pension Service will strive to gradually expand overseas venture investment opportunities to diversify our investments and enhance returns."

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