Korean venture secondaries are a buyer’s market.

The opportunity

Korean venture supply is large, it has a date, and in 2026 it moved later rather than away. Managers extended funds instead of selling them, and the commitments maturing in 2027 rose from KRW 7.10tn to KRW 10.00tn between June and October. Each maturity year to 2030 still holds about twice the capital of all Korea’s secondary funds. A buyer with capital ready meets that supply with little domestic competition.

Source Saint Clair reading of the DIVA register, 18 June and 1 October 2026

The market is large

Korean venture funds that reach term between 2026 and 2030 have KRW 46.8tn of committed capital, about USD 34.9bn, in 1,784 funds run by 426 managers. The portfolios still held in 1,643 of those funds carry KRW 29.5tn at reported carrying value.

Source DIVA register, August 2026 disclosure; DIVA fund balance sheets, 31 December 2025; USD at KRW 1,341.81

Funds extend beyond their term

A Korean venture fund runs for a fixed term, typically six to eight years. At term, the manager sells the fund’s holdings or extends the fund. Between 18 June and 1 October 2026, managers extended 3.0 funds for every fund that left the register, most of them by twelve months. An extension moves the sale to a later date.

Source Saint Clair reading of the DIVA register, four pulls

Little domestic capital is dedicated to these holdings

Korea’s 236 secondary-purpose funds have KRW 4.3tn of committed capital, less than a tenth of the capital in funds reaching term by 2030. Part of the KRW 4.3tn is already invested.

Source DIVA register, August 2026 disclosure

Only a few companies reach the Korean stock market

About 70 venture-backed companies a year now list on KOSDAQ, Korea’s exchange for growth companies: 70 in 2024, and 69 of the 94 listings in 2025. About 350 funds reach term each year to 2030. Korean startups take thirteen years on average from founding to listing, while a fund lasts seven to eight years. For most holdings, a sale is the route out.

Source Listings: Korea Venture Capital Association; DIVA VC Market Brief, May 2026

Source Funds reaching term: DIVA register, August 2026 disclosure

Source Time to listing, fund term: Money Today Broadcasting, 27 August 2026

The Saint Clair Net Supply Index

The index measures, in won, the commitments of Korean venture funds past or within two years of their original term. The index then deducts the commitments of Korea’s secondary funds. An extended fund stays in the index at its original term. The index is 100 on 18 June 2026 and 108.0 on 27 September 2026.

A reading above 100 means that more capital at or near its original term is not covered by Korea’s secondary funds than on 18 June 2026. The index rises when funds reach term faster than Korea’s secondary funds raise capital. It falls when secondary capital grows faster. An extension does not lower the index, because an extended fund stays at its original term.

Between 18 June 2026 and 27 September 2026, the capital not covered grew by KRW 1.5tn to KRW 20.8tn. Supply is reaching term faster than Korea’s secondary capital grows.

Source DIVA fund register; Saint Clair calculation; register checked to 8 October 2026

The gap

The holdings exist, and so do the buyers: secondary transactions reached USD 240bn worldwide in 2025. What stands between them in Korea is information a buyer can act on. The register carries no returns, and no one publishes the prices of the sales that already happen. An international buyer also has no repeatable route from finding a holding to buying it. International capital, which buys secondaries at scale elsewhere, holds only about 1% of Korean venture funds.

International capital is almost absent

Foreign capital is about 1% of the capital in Korean venture funds. The share is 87% in India, 84% in Singapore, 74% in the United Kingdom, 66% in Germany and 7% in the United States.

Source Korean government, joint ministries, October 2024, citing Preqin; an upper bound

Asia is a small part of the global secondary market

Secondary transactions worldwide reached USD 240bn in 2025. Asia accounts for about 3% of that volume.

Source Jefferies, Global Secondary Market Review, January 2026; Partners Group, reported by DealStreetAsia, 20 May 2026

The public record carries no returns

Korea’s fund register discloses each fund’s manager, size, registration date and term. It discloses no internal rate of return (IRR), no distributions to paid-in capital (DPI) and no total value to paid-in capital (TVPI). Without returns, a buyer can value neither a holding nor its manager from public data. The report on each Documented holding carries them.

Source DIVA, the disclosure system of the Korea Venture Capital Association

Sales happen, but today prices go unpublished

The sale of existing shares made up 54.4% of Korean venture exits in 2024. No public series records the prices of those sales, and Korea’s official statistics do not count secondary sales separately. Tesseractic’s price register exists to record them.

Source Korea Venture Capital Association, 2024 (exits); Saint Clair review of Korean official statistics (prices)

No repeatable route for an international buyer

International buyers have bought large Korean private-equity assets, one transaction at a time. Korean venture holdings have no repeatable route by which an international buyer finds a holding, reads it and buys it. In 2025, no continuation vehicle for Korean venture holdings had been raised at scale. Tesseractic is built to be that route.

Source Saint Clair market reading; Lee & Ko, Chambers Private Equity 2025 (continuation vehicles)

Tesseractic

The disclosure standard

A Documented holding carries a report that follows Tesseractic’s disclosure standard. The standard shows how each holding compares with the independent international standards that buyers already apply. The comparison covers the holding, the fund and the firm. The standard →

Confidential screening

Members read the summary and the report of each holding before any holder learns who they are. A member’s identity reaches only the holder whose data room the member requests.

The price register

The register records prices paid in Korean venture secondary transactions, labels each record by its source and groups the records by segment.