They Give 2 Billion Won, and Find Staff and Office Space Too... "The Generous Givers"

VCs "Do the Heavy Lifting" for Startup Operations
Support for HR, Office Space, and AI Infrastructure Costs
Finding Promising Founders and Boosting Company Valuations

Venture capital firms (VCs), which once simply handed over funding, have rolled up their sleeves. It is becoming the new standard in the venture investment industry for investors to take care of everything from hiring key talent, a challenge that startup founders once had to tackle on their own, to artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure costs and office space. Amid a startup drought, VCs are stepping up as “in-house outsourcing teams” to find promising founders and reduce the risks of recouping their investments.

VCs That Give Generously

According to the VC industry on Oct. 16, FuturePlay recently held the “2026 Seoul National University x FuturePlay Deep Tech Talent Recruitment Fair.” The VC set up a venue that would normally be reserved for startup teams to conduct interviews, introducing 12 portfolio companies, including FuriosaAI and Mobilint, to Seoul National University students, graduates and graduate students, and even arranging on-site interviews. In effect, the VC took on the role of a headhunter to draw tech talent away from large corporations and other employers.

Generative AI Gemini-generated images

Some firms have even established dedicated human resources (HR) support departments. Kakao Ventures set up a Growth Team this year to handle everything from talent sourcing to building organizational cultures and performance evaluation systems for its portfolio companies. It helps early-stage startups focus solely on technology development without having to expend energy on recruitment and HR conflicts. Last month, it also held a seminar for portfolio companies, offering recruitment solutions using LinkedIn, a social networking service (SNS), and marketing solutions to identify potential customers.

Corporate venture capital (CVC) firms that ease the burden of soaring fixed costs are also drawing attention. NAVER D2SF provides portfolio companies with free office space in Seocho-gu, Seoul, and Bundang-gu, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. The standard lease period is one year, but it can be extended flexibly to meet each portfolio company’s needs. More than 130 startups have used the spaces to date. In particular, the Bundang-gu office is located in a NAVER building, where portfolio company employees can receive partial support for meals when using the employee cafeteria. NAVER also provides cloud and graphics processing unit (GPU) infrastructure, along with AI credits, substantially reducing the burden of high computing costs.

This close support is rapidly spreading beyond VCs focused on early-stage investment rounds to large VCs that invest in mid- and late-stage rounds. Atinum Investment has also partnered with global tech giants such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Microsoft (MS) to provide AI credit benefits to more than 20 portfolio companies. It also connects portfolio companies in need of new offices with landlords and helps them hire chief financial officers (CFOs) to build their business models.

Why VCs Are Expanding Their Support

One major reason VCs are providing such wide-ranging support is intensifying competition to find promising founders. The number of startups continues to decline, while multiple VCs compete to invest in popular startups that attract a large share of funding. According to figures compiled by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the number of startups in the first half of this year was 565,640, down steadily from 695,891 in the first half of 2022.

Another objective is to guard against the risk of failing to recoup investments. When liquidity was abundant, VCs could simply provide funding, raise a company’s valuation and move on to the next investment round. But with the bar for an initial public offering (IPO) rising, recouping investments has become impossible without improving a company’s fundamentals. According to the Korea Exchange, there were 45 Kosdaq IPOs from January through September this year, a marked decline from 70 in 2022.

An executive at a large VC said, “VCs are expanding the scope of their support in order to increase the value of their portfolio companies.” The executive added, “At the same time, from the VC’s perspective, this support also allows us to monitor whether portfolio companies are meeting the milestones they proposed when they received investment, and whether there is any moral hazard.”

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