• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.1-19
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this research is to improve the investment success rate for startups in the water industry for the development of the entrepreneurial environment of the Korean water industry. In this research, we identified investment determinants through prior research and stratified them, and then surveyed the investor group at the beginning of the start-up using the FGI method, and determined the order of the investment determinants of investors. At the same time, we classified 41 start-ups related to the water industry into two groups: the group that received investment and the group that did not in the early stages of the start-up. Then we investigated the understanding of the investor's investment determinants, ranked them, and compared them by using the AHP technique. Through this, this research proposes five implications. First, it is important for start-ups in the early stages to receive seed investment to revitalize investment for startups in the water industry. For this, startups need to understand investors and prepare to attract investment with the perspective of angel investors rather than the perspective of VC investors. Second, Start-ups in the water sector should consider that the characteristics of the founder are important in order to receive seed investment, and also need to define their business at the industry and market level, and provide relevant rationale to meet the expectations of investors who value industry expertise and experience, and to increase the possibility of seed investment, which is important in the early stages of a startup. Third, institutions, such as K-water(Korea Water Resources Corporation), that support water industry startups need to conduct open innovation business opportunities discovery programs linked to startups so that startups currently participating in the startup support program could have business opportunities from the business infrastructure of platform-forming companies in the water industry. In particular, such institutions should help founders develop their industrial expertise and careers by supporting this type of start-up preparation process through the participation of in-house venture founders. Fourth, when K-water uses the government start-up support fund to discover and foster founders, it should increase initial contact with seed investors, conduct more thorough verification of business plans, and develop programs that use government start-up support funds to prepare a business suitable for seed angel investors. Fifth, K-water should support seed by connecting funds for initial investment among funds operated by itself. It is also necessary to develop a program that links the company receiving the seed investment with VC investment, not angel investment in cooperation with the VC fund operation entity participating as an LP so that companies that have attracted seed investment could attract follow-up VC investment.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
• /
• v.26 no.4
• /
• pp.29-56
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this research is to examine whether investment portfolio composition affects the technological performance of corporate venture capital (CVC). The stages of investment are categorized from "start-up/seed", "early", and "expansion", to "later" stage. We posit and test that the investment stage composition in a portfolio is highly correlated with the growth potential and downside risk of the portfolio, which in turn influences an investor's innovation performance. To test this hypothesis, we used negative binomial panel regression with 21 years of deal data from 70 cases of CVC. The results show that there is an inverted U shaped relationship between investment portfolio composition and technological performance. This means that the more seed or early stage investment within the investment portfolio, the higher the innovation performance; however, if the amount of seed or early stage investment is over a certain level, the performance decreases. Further, this study finds that the external partners of a venture negatively moderate the inverted U shaped relationship between portfolio composition and innovation performance. We believe that corporate planners, venture capitalists, and policy makers will be helped by these results showing that companies can maximize their investment performance by considering the investment stage and progress of investments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
• /
• 2019.11a
• /
• pp.207-208
• /
• 2019

Currently, as the public interest for environmental issues has grown rapidly, the needs for G-SEED have also increased. However, as investment according to eco-friendly elements is inevitable to receive G-SEED certification, it is necessary to find out whether or not the sales price of apartments have increased compared to investment costs. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze the sales price of apartments according to G-SEED by using T-test. To achieve the objective, First, variables affecting on the sales price of apartments are selected. Second, the data are collected by using GIS(Geographic Information System). Third, after testing the normality, a comparison analysis is conducted on the sales price between G-SEED certified and non-certified apartments by using T-test. As a result, it is concluded that G-SEED certified apartments are more expensive than non-certified apartments. In the future, these findings can be utilized to develop of apartments price calculation model based on the G-SEED.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
• /
• v.6 no.3
• /
• pp.1-20
• /
• 2023

This study conducted an empirical analysis of whether the accelerator incubation program (mentoring, seed investment) and entrepreneur self-efficacy affect competitive advantage performance for start-up representatives who have experienced the accelerator incubation program. At this time, the mediating effect of innovation capability was also examined. As for sample collection, 334 samples collected from representatives of start-ups nurtured by national accelerators and regional centers for creative economy and innovation in Korea were tested using the Smart PLS 4.0 program, and the analysis results are as follows. First, mentoring has no significant effect on competitive advantage performance, whereas seed investment and entrepreneur self-efficacy have a positive (+) effect on competitive advantage performance. Second, mentoring, seed investment, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy have a positive (+) effect on innovation capability. Third, innovation capability has a positive (+) effect on competitive advantage performance. And fourth, it was confirmed that innovation competency has a positive (+) effect between mentoring, seed investment, entrepreneurship self-efficacy and competitive advantage, and has a mediating effect. As a result, while mentoring did not have a direct significant effect on competitive advantage performance, it was confirmed that there was a significant effect mediated by innovation capability. Seed investment, entrepreneur self-efficacy, and innovation capability directly helped competitive advantage performance, and it was confirmed that innovation capability has an effect on the competitive advantage performance as a mediating effect. It is expected that this study will be able to suggest a direction that can help start-ups improve their competitive advantage performance.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.63-73
• /
• 2016

In these days startup became one of the most hot issue in business world. The problem is many startup couldn't overcome the valley of death. For this reason many startup want to funded by venture capital. However startup's business is trade secret itself, so they have to make strategic approach to venture capital. The purpose of study is to find the way to make strategic decision for startup. By analyzing the relation between startup's characteristic and venture capital's investment portfolio. Four famous venture capital(Sequoia capital, Lightspeed venture, Firstround and Khosla venture) and their seed invested startup Dropbox, Airbnb, Snapchat, Uber and Instacart was selected for this study. As a result, each venture capital has their own invest category characteristic and their seed funding belong to their category. Moreover, between seed funded startup and 36,4% of 244 past invented company shown vertical relationship, beside 0.5% of past 244 invested company shown horizontal relationship. This result shown the importance of the relation between startup's characteristic and venture capital's portfolio. Startup have to check the venture capital's portfolio for the strategic approach for funding and venture capital have to make mutual positive portfolio for decreasing the risk.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.185-193
• /
• 2015

This paper is brought to introduce best practice case of promoting startup raising seed investment out of university startup program. In specific, Innopolise Startup Item Market Validation Program running in Hanbat National University have shown the appropriate way of cooperating between experts in university and early stage venture investors in incubating and accelerating promising startup for last three years. This paper shall be expected to provide benchmaking ground of helping other similar project teams and core networking points of future cooperation among similar entities.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.13-35
• /
• 2020

Startup accelerators are a new type of investors providing a certain amount of shares for imparting education, mentoring, networking, and providing space and seed money that can directly resolve the difficulties faced by nascent entrepreneurs (Clarysse, 2016). Startup accelerators have expanded worldwide as their influence over the startup ecosystem has increasingly been established (Pauwels et al., 2016; Cohen & Hochberg, 2014). This study was conducted to derive investment determinants of startup accelerators that are emerging as major investment players around the world. To this end, the accelerator-type determinants of investment were derived. As previous research on this topic is nonexistent, this process involved qualitative meta-synthesis, literature reviews, observation, and in-depth interviews. First, more than 30 research papers were examined for the determinants of investment for firms at an early stage of their foundation, and the categories and determinants of investment in the relevant studies were comparatively analyzed using qualitative meta-synthesis. Further, related data were investigated to identify the characteristics of accelerators, and the startup evaluation process of US accelerators was studied. The more than 100 questions raised during this process were coded to examine the determinants of investment that accelerators considered important. In-depth interviews were conducted with four US accelerators to identify the characteristics of accelerators and key determinants of investment. Ultimately, 5 categories of accelerator-type determinants of investment and 26 subordinate determinants of investment were derived. The results were verified and supplemented by consulting with seven accelerators in Korea. The results were confirmed after pilot tests and verification by seven domestic accelerators. After confirming the accelerator-type determinants, the reliability of them was verified by examining the importance and priority of each category through the quantitative survey of Korean accelerators. The research that elicited the accelerator-type investment determinants is the first research and is expected to be a major reference to the progress of subsequent studies. This research that systematically derived the investment determinants of the accelerator is expected to make major contributions to the progress of follow-up studies, the process of selecting startups, and the investment decision-making process of the accelerators.

• Korean small business review
• /
• v.43 no.1
• /
• pp.187-219
• /
• 2021

Startup accelerators, a new type of investment entity, have emerged as a way to solve the difficulties of early startups and existing investment methods with high risk. With the visible performances of these startup accelerators on the success of startups, medium and large accelerator companies have emerged, along with the increasing size of seed money they invest in. In addition, differences between small and medium&large accelerator companies are emerging. Therefore, startups need informations on what factors to prepare for attracting startup accelerators' investment. Accelerators also need determinant criteria to select startups as the amount of investment grows. However, the study on this subject is not currently being conducted. Therefore, we conducted the study through dividing the average amount of seed money into small and medium & large-sized investment groups and examined the differences in major investment determinants, investment purposes, and major accelerating programs. As the results of this study, small investment groups could be subdivided into 'consulting-oriented accelerators' and medium- and large-sized investment groups into 'investment-oriented accelerators'. In addition, major services and investment purposes and investment decision criteria vary depending on the size of the investment. I think these findings will be good standards for accelerator companies, startups in need of their help, and follow-up researchers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of International Agriculture
• /
• v.23 no.5
• /
• pp.552-559
• /
• 2011

China is a one of the largest agricultural countries in the world. China consumes around 12.5 billion kilograms of seeds each year. Suchhuge demand for seeds has made the Chinese seed market more and more attractive for investment. Through analysis on the present situation and existing problems of the seed industry in China and based on the current Chinese seed industry development, some future prospects for investments are indicated. This investigation was carried out to propose the appropriate strategies on the development of the Korea seed industry as it considers its entry into the China seed market as a new growth engine in the agricultural sector. The basic law regulating the Chinese seed industry is the PRC Seed Law that generally refers to the protection of germplasm resources, verification of varieties, seed quality issues, the import and export of seeds, seed administrative management, and various rights and obligations. The regulations were aimed at the protection of the rights concerning new varieties of plants. China has two main industry associations, the National Seed Association and the China Seed Industry IP Union, that are non-profit associations consisting of entities and people engaging in the seed scientific research, production, operation and management. The China National Seed Group Co., Ltd. ("Sino Seeds") is the market leader in China regarding the seed industry. The chinese government, however, encourages investment from multinational companies as well as importation of modern crop planting management technologies and equipment. It supports the entry of investors with proven experiences in breeding and germplasm resources expansion and R&D. There has never been a better time for multinational companies with proven seed industry experience to look at building relationships with the Chinese government and enterprises.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
• /
• v.5 no.3
• /
• pp.1-17
• /
• 2022

Entrepreneurs recognize that their passion was an important factor in driving successful entrepreneurship. However, they were often unaware of the impact that third-party passions related to startups have on them. Therefore, in this study, it was verified whether the accelerator incubation program had an effective effect on portfolios. At this time, I tried to do an empirical analysis focusing on how the third-party accelerator entrepreneur passion affects the entrepreneurial performance of portfolios. To this end, a survey was conducted on representatives of portfolios across the country who completed the accelerator incubation program, and empirical testing was conducted based on 330 valid ones. As a result of empirical analysis, it was confirmed that mentoring and networking among accelerator incubation programs had a positive (+) effect on entrepreneurial performance of portfolios. On the other hand, education and seed investment in the accelerator program did not significantly affect the entrepreneurial performance of portfolios. On the other hand, it was tested that accelerator entrepreneur passion significantly moderated both the incubation program elements (education, mentoring, network, seed investment) and the entrepreneurial performance of portfolios. The results of this study are meaningful in that they reveal that the passion of accelerator entrepreneurs is an important lynchpin of incubation programs and the key to success in startups. In addition, this study suggests that it is important for startups to go one step further from seed investment and properly identify the accelerator entrepreneur and his passion, the key man of accelerators.