Appeared on Radio Program Interview
Investments at the Time in FuriosaAI, DeepX, and Others
LucentBlock Incident: "The Public Will Not Accept It"
Former Minister of SMEs and Startups Youngsun Park stated on the 21st, "During my tenure as minister, I proposed to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix that we should nurture startups specializing in semiconductor design." She added, "The government offered to provide and match research and development (R&D) funding to work together, but SK Hynix said from the beginning that they did not have the capacity, and Samsung Electronics, after considering it for about six months, ultimately declined."
Appearing on KBS Radio's 'Jeonggyeok Sisa' that day, former Minister Park said, "Out of frustration, I made the same proposal to ARM, the semiconductor fabless subsidiary of SoftBank led by Chairman Masayoshi Son, and they immediately agreed to provide all the funding." She explained, "But that would have defeated the purpose, so the government and ARM each invested 2 billion KRW in R&D."
Former Minister of SMEs and Startups Youngsun Park is giving a lecture at the 2024 Women Leaders Forum hosted by The Asia Business Daily on October 30, 2024, at Lotte Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Hyunmin Kim
The startups that received joint investment from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and ARM at that time included five companies: FuriosaAI, DeepX, Mobilint, and Pado. FuriosaAI, which develops artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors for data center servers, is now reportedly valued at around 2 trillion KRW. DeepX, another AI semiconductor startup, has also reached a valuation in the 1 trillion KRW range and continues to grow.
Former Minister Park said, "What I always tell these startup CEOs is, 'You are the future of Korea.' I keep encouraging them to join forces, telling them that they, too, can become like Samsung or SK Hynix in the future."
Former Minister Park also strongly criticized suspicions that Lucent Block, which has operated a token securities (STO)-based fractional investment over-the-counter (OTC) exchange for seven years through the financial regulatory sandbox, is likely to be eliminated in the preliminary approval process for an OTC exchange being promoted by the Financial Services Commission. Recently, there has been talk in the financial sector that a company (or consortium) with no prior experience operating an OTC exchange could be selected as the final candidate.
She remarked, "To put it simply, it's like a dangerous mine where all the risk falls on the miners, but if they find gold, it's the bystanders who take it away." She pointed out, "Lucent Block has continued its business within the regulatory sandbox for four years, has accumulated 500,000 members, and has attracted about 30 billion KRW in investment. Yet, while the Financial Services Commission said it would proceed with the formal approval process, it ended up eliminating Lucent Block and granting approval to a new company called Nextrade."
She continued, "Startups that enter the regulatory sandbox and take risks by constantly experimenting and enduring hardships deserve to be rewarded for their efforts so that they are not treated unfairly." She added, "It is extremely unfair to grant approval to a company that has never actually done the work, and I do not think the public will accept this."
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