The South Korean EdTech artificial intelligence (AI) startup Catius Inc., whose lead investors in the pre-A round include Smilegate Investments and STIC Ventures, has announced its investment by Singapore venture capital fund Farquhar VC (FVC).
In a statement released on Monday, FVC said that Catius is the second Korean startup to join its stable of high-growth businesses, which also includes food and beverage retail-tech startup Sicpama, in which it invested in February 2024 along with Infobank IAccel and the Daegu Center for Creative Economy & Innovation.
More recently, FVC signed two partnership agreements: one with Twin Ventures to facilitate and support cross-border startup collaborations between the two countries and geographical regions, and the other with the Goyang Investment Authority to support mutual advancement of startups between South Korea (Goyang Special City) and Singapore and South East Asia.
Furthermore, FVC is currently in talks about possible fund collaborations with a number of industry and government stakeholders in Korea, and its innovation-advisory subsidiary will be starting a joint accelerator program to help startups in southern South Korea investigate opportunities for international expansion.
“FVC is grateful to be entrusted for enabling startups to scale beyond domestic borders through investment and acceleration,” FVC Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer Jason Su said.
“This is made possible by having strong partners in academia, commercialization, industry, and government, such as Hanyang University Holdings, Irislab, Infobank, Twin Ventures, and Goyang Special City,
“More importantly, the fact that several of our portfolio companies (such as Tictag, MyFirst, and Spark Systems) are having ongoing commercial activities in South Korea, is proof of our ability to catalyse and sustain ties between the two countries and geographical regions,” he added.
Since its founding in 2020, FVC has provided targeted market access to over 40 international startups through its network of large and mid-sized corporations, enabling their growth.
EMERGE Group and Aevice Health are two of its most recent investments.
FVC will use its Green Future Fund to invest in high-growth Korean startups in 2024 and 2025.
