Thanks to the government’s strong commitment to fostering startups, founders have improved their eva..

Thanks to the government’s strong commitment to fostering startups, founders have improved their evaluation of the overall atmosphere of the startup ecosystem slightly for the second year. However, a majority of the founders responded negatively.

Startup Alliance (Director Lee Ki-dae) and Open Survey (CEO Hwang Hee-young) announced ‘Startup Trend Report 2025’ on the 18th.

The survey, which has been conducted by Startup Alliance and Open Survey every year since 2014 to understand the perception and reality of participants in the domestic startup ecosystem, was conducted for 11 days from September 22 to October 2 this year. A total of 800 people participated, including 200 founders, 200 start-ups, 200 large companies, and 200 job seekers.

Founders rated the overall atmosphere of the startup ecosystem at “54.5 points” this year, showing an upward trend for the second consecutive year. The number of respondents who said they had changed positively from last year also increased from 9% in 2023 and 10% in 2024 to 16% in 2025, while the number of respondents who said they had changed negatively decreased.

The main factors for the positive change were “strong policy drives in the government and public sectors (53.1%)” and “increase in active support projects in the private sector, such as start-up support agencies and accelerators (43.8%).” However, 54.5%, still more than a majority of founders, said the atmosphere of the startup ecosystem has changed negatively. The reasons for this were lukewarm investment and support of venture capital (50%) and “decrease in the new business market entry environment (42.3%), suggesting that the ecosystem is still not easy.

As the most active companies in supporting startups, founders chose Naver (46.5%) the most (1+2+3 ranking). Kakao (34%) followed by Samsung (29%).

The start-up support centers that I want to use the most were Google Startup Campus (29.5%), Creative Economy Innovation Center (29%), and Seoul Startup Hub (28%) (based on 1+2+3 ranking). Preferred factors were ‘Office space and infrastructure provision (38.2%), ‘investment attraction support (34.4%)’, and ‘networking and community formation support (32.3%).

The most preferred private accelerators were Blue Point (21.5%), Primer (18%), and Spark Lab (17.5%) in order (1+2+3 priority). The reasons for preference were “networking and community formation support (42.8%), “Humor effect through reputation and brand (38.4%), and “investor network connection and follow-up investment linkage support (33.3%).”

The most preferred venture capital (VC) was Altos Ventures (28.5%), Korea Investment Partners (23%), SBVA (14.5%), followed by 1+2+3 ranking. The preferred reasons were “Humor effect through reputation and brand (54.4%), “Network connection such as investors, experts, and global VCs (43.3%), and “support for follow-up investment and joint investment linkage (39.2%).”

Lastly, the most preferred enterprise-led venture capital (CVC) by founders were Kakao Ventures (35%), Naver D2SF (26%), and Samsung Venture Investment (23.5%) in order (1+2+3 ranking). The main reasons for preference were “Humor effect through reputation and brand (41.2%), “Providing business cooperation opportunities between startups and affiliates (37.3%), and “Support for strategic partnership establishment (34.6%).”

64.5 percent of founders expected the ecosystem to change positively about the new government’s policy direction. This year, the government’s performance score for revitalizing the startup ecosystem also rose to 60.6 points from the previous year. The items that founders responded to most urgent government tasks were “securing ecosystem-based funds and activating investment (32.5%), “easing various regulations (19.5%), and supporting M&A or IPO activation (10.5%).

Over the past year, 49.5% of startup employees, 51% of large companies, and 47% of job seekers said they had considered starting a business, a similar or slight increase from the previous year.

Meanwhile, “Toss” ranked first in all groups as the fastest-growing start-up and start-up that wants to know how to work. In addition, new AI startups such as Luton, Puriosa, Revelion, and Upstage have emerged.

Lee Ki-dae, head of the Startup Alliance Center, said, “Although there is still anxiety about the macroeconomy, more and more people are seeing the ecosystem atmosphere positively due to the efforts of the government and the private sector,” but added, “However, it is a serious problem that the satisfaction of startup employees has fallen to 35%, the lowest since the survey began, which is only half that of large companies.”