President Lee Jae-myung convened the heads of major Silicon Valley venture capital firms — the early backers of global tech giants like Apple, Nvidia, and Google — to strengthen cooperation for Korean startups seeking to enter the global market. At the gathering, South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) declared a full-scale expansion into venture capital by signing separate investment cooperation memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with all six VC firms.
On the 25th (local time), President Lee hosted the “Silicon Valley Venture Investment Meetup” at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, USA. The meeting came just one day after he held consecutive talks with global AI titans including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and saw him sit down directly with the “kingmakers” who first discovered and nurtured those very leaders.
The meeting was attended by six prominent figures: Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures; Barry Eggers, co-founder of Lightspeed Venture Partners; Tony Florence, co-CEO of New Enterprise Associates (NEA); Alfred Lin, partner at Sequoia Capital; Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst; and Martin Casado, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The combined assets under management by these firms total $313 billion (approximately 457.6 trillion won), with some estimates exceeding $400 billion (approximately 584.8 trillion won).
These individuals are living witnesses to Silicon Valley history. Sequoia Capital made early investments in Apple in 1978, Nvidia in 1993, and Google in 1999. Khosla Ventures is renowned as an early investor in OpenAI in 2019. a16z’s portfolio includes Meta and Instagram, as well as the recent defense startup Anduril.
On this day, the NPS signed MOUs with each of the six VCs, establishing cooperative relationships to jointly identify promising innovative companies and global investment opportunities. This is interpreted as a signal that the NPS, which has historically concentrated on equities and alternative assets, is now formally broadening its investment scope into the venture capital sector.
During the meeting, President Lee emphasized, “When the capabilities of promising Korean startups and global investors converge, investors gain new growth opportunities, and startups can secure a springboard to leap onto the global stage.” This aligns with the presidential office’s vision of shifting the nation’s economic growth engine away from the traditional conglomerate-led model toward a global startup ecosystem.
Silicon Valley investors also offered a positive outlook on the Korean market. Martin Casado, general partner at a16z, stated, “South Korea possesses leading companies in manufacturing and semiconductors, along with outstanding engineering talent.” He added, “Combining Korea’s hardware and manufacturing capabilities with U.S. software and AI will be of great benefit to both countries.” a16z officially entered the domestic market last month by opening a Korean office in Seoul.
Alfred Lin, partner at Sequoia Capital, noted, “Sequoia Capital was an early investor in Coupang and maintains a long-standing relationship with Korea. We intend to continue increasing our investments in Korea going forward.” Coupang, a representative Korean company that Sequoia backed early on, has since grown into a New York Stock Exchange-listed firm.
Underpinning the meeting is the government’s strategy to fundamentally transform the structure of the Korean economy. Kim Yong-beom, Chief of Staff for Policy at the presidential office, posted on social media after the event, “The next generation of our country’s large corporations cannot grow in the manner of Samsung and SK — that is, under the government’s economic development plans.” He continued, “Big Tech companies in advanced economies start as startups, grow through VC investment, and leap onto the global stage. The people who best understand the method and speed of that growth are world-class VCs.” He stressed, “Connecting them with Korean startups is precisely the role the state must play.”
Meanwhile, the previous day’s “San Francisco ‘Kkanbu’ Gathering” at a burger joint in San Francisco included Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Microsoft Hardware President Rani Borkar, and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan. When combining the assets under management of the VC meetup attendees with the market capitalization of the companies represented at the previous day’s gathering, the astronomical sum reaches approximately 2 quadrillion won. This is being assessed as the opening of a new chapter in U.S.-Korea technology and capital cooperation.
This meeting holds significant meaning in that the government directly established a link for Korean startups to attract global investment and enter overseas markets. In particular, the NPS’s expansion into venture capital is expected to inject new vitality into the domestic venture capital market.