According to Yonhap News,
(SEOUL=Yonhap News) The return on venture investments reached a record-high 1.86 trillion won (US$1.59 billion) in the first eight months of this year, thanks to robust performances by the bio and health care sector and the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, the government said Wednesday.
The figure is up 107 percent from 897.4 billion won in the same eight months of 2017, according to the Ministry of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Startups.
Under the current trend, the total is expected to top 2.8 trillion won by the end of this year, it said.
The return from the bio and health care industry was 437.7 billion won, more than five times the 82.8 billion won reported for the previous year. The ICT sector came in second with 423.7 billion won, followed by the game industry with 291.2 billion won, it said.
The ministry said the record is a sign of a virtuous circle in the country's venture financing, citing the large sums of money poured into startup companies in the first half of this year.
The investment in startups was tallied at 1.6 trillion won in the January-June period, up 61.2 percent from a year earlier.
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Source: Yonhap News (October 10, 2018)