Korean Tire Giant Hankook Launches Corporate Venture Capital Arm (
Hankook Tire & Technology Co. electric vehicle tires displayed at the EV Trend Korea in Seoul, South Korea. SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg.
South Korean automotive parts giant Hankook & Company Group is launching a corporate venture capital arm, with a capital investment of 15 billion won ($10.7million), to target AI, robotics, and other deeptech industries.
Hankook & Company Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hankook & Company, the holding company for the group, announced last week that they would invest in AI, robotics and aerospace technology, as well as quantum computing. The company says its first fund will support startups from Seed to Series B with a pool worth several tens billion won. Hankook’s latest effort to diversify its business away from tires is the CVC. Hanon Systems, which is the second largest automotive thermal management solution provider in the world, was acquired by the company for $1 billion in January. The acquisition increased the group’s assets to $20 billion and positioned the group as a “global high-tech leader,” according to the company at the time. It “aims to maximize the synergies by resource and technology integration.” The company reported sales of 9.4 trillion yen in 2024. Operating profit increased 32.7% from the previous year to 1.76 trillion yen. Hankook Tire was founded in 1941. Its roots go back to the 1950s when Cho Hong-jai took over a tire shop that had been destroyed after the Korean War. Hong-jai’s son, Yang Rai, became a billionaire in 2013. He died in 2024. Cho Hyun Bum, Yang-rai’s younger child, is the chairman of the group and has played a major role in leading Hankook & Company Ventures.
The launch of a CVC is the first formal VC entity for the 84-year old Hankook. However, it’s not the first time the company has invested in startups. Hankook & Company will collaborate with Seoul-based VC We Ventures in 2021 to develop a portfolio of companies that are developing autonomous mobility technology. The Hankook & Company Ventures Team will be led by Jun Jin-won. He was previously a vice president at We Ventures and has worked for Samsung Electronics. Jun Jin-won has previously worked at Samsung Venture Investment Corp. and Samsung Electronics.
In the past few years, a number of Korean conglomerates have made significant investments in venture capital. The government’s relaxation in regulations for CVCs, which took place in 2021, led to the creation of many new firms. Hyosung Ventures of Hyosung Holdings and GS Ventures of GS Holdings were launched in 2022. In 2023, the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced a CVC Alliance, with 42 firms, and pledged to create a pool of funds in excess of 8 trillion yen ($5.7 billion) by 2020. The Naver-backed motion capture startup Movin expands into AI training datasets for humanoid robotsBy John KangForbes
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