Naver Pay has partnered with South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) to officially launch “Naver Pay Startup” on July 7 — an online platform that consolidates startup information and connects companies directly to investment opportunities. Designed as a single window for everything from browsing promising company data to drafting investment proposals and conducting customized company searches, the platform aims to create an environment where institutional investors such as securities firms and venture capital firms can more easily discover and invest in startups.
Naver Pay and the FSS agreed to build a startup platform to revitalize venture capital investment in July of last year and have spent the past year on development. The newly unveiled “Naver Pay Startup” is distinguished primarily by its user-specific service specialization.
Limited partners such as securities firms can search and review pre-investment company information, and utilize AI-powered company information summaries and funding announcement features. A function for sending batch business reporting requests to portfolio companies has also been incorporated, improving post-investment management efficiency.
From the perspective of fund managers such as venture capital firms, the platform is designed to allow all funding announcements to be explored in one place at once. Pre-registered proposals can be reused across multiple funding announcements, reducing the burden of repeatedly drafting the same content, Naver Pay explained. Additionally, when IR information from startups matching pre-registered criteria is newly added to the platform, automatic notifications are sent, enabling fund managers to quickly identify companies of interest and move forward with investment proposals.
For startups, the platform allows them to directly register IR materials to seek out investors. Notably, for early-stage companies with limited fundraising experience, AI analyzes IR materials to extract key information — including corporate details, company introductions, and business models — and automatically generates a company page. Startups can also receive investor response metrics for their generated company pages, which is expected to help them gauge market interest and refine their IR strategies.
Naver Pay Startup will initially undergo a three-month pilot operation, after which the service will be enhanced. To improve the reliability of information on the platform, the company also plans to establish a system for verifying data integrity in cooperation with relevant institutions.
Lee Chan-jin, Governor of South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, said, “I hope that market participants — including securities firms, fund managers, startups, and venture companies — will actively utilize this platform so that the venture capital market can gain greater vitality.” Park Sang-jin, CEO of Naver Pay, stated, “Through ‘Naver Pay Startup,’ which serves as a catalyst connecting innovative companies with investors, we will actively support the emergence of many success stories going forward.”
The launch of this platform is being evaluated as a milestone in the digital transformation of South Korea’s startup ecosystem, which has traditionally relied on offline networks and individual contacts for fundraising. As a case where financial authorities have directly collaborated with a private platform to establish an investment intermediary window with public infrastructure characteristics, attention is focused on what impact this will have on reducing information asymmetry in the venture capital market and improving the speed of investment execution going forward.