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| Participants listen to presentations during the 2nd Silicon Valley International Financial Cooperation Council held at Korea Investment Corporation's (KIC's) San Francisco office in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday (local time). Courtesy of KIC |
In a move to strengthen networks with venture capitalists and startups in the U.S., the Korea Investment Corp. (KIC) hosted the second installment of the Silicon Valley International Financial Cooperation Council on Thursday afternoon, local time, at its San Francisco office in Menlo Park, California.
About 30 participants, including venture capitalists, asset managers, officials from corporate venture capitals (CVC) and investment experts from various financial companies, attended the event to share their investment expertise on state-of-the-art technologies.
Arif Janmohamed, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, gave a presentation on investment strategies in the area of software. Lightspeed Venture is one of representative venture capital firms of Silicon Valley. Since the firm's foundation in 2000, it has successfully invested in early states of Snap and Grubhub.
During his presentation, Janmohamed shared his investment insights. He said he expects software-as-a-service (SaaS), a form of cloud computing, to show solid growth, especially on the enterprise level. He also said AI technologies are expected to accelerate productivity improvement as a catalyst. Managers of software startups, invested by Lightspeed Venture, also attended the event, holding discussions with other participants.
KIC's San Francisco office launched the first installment of the Silicon Valley International Financial Cooperation Council last September, aiming to strengthen networks with venture capitalists and startup firms of the region. The event is slated to be held every six months.
"With the advent of ChatGPT opening a new era of technological revolution, KIC will continue to fully support Korean institutional investors in Silicon Valley, so that they could proactively make investments in the face of new investment environments and emerging industries," KIC CEO Jin Seoung-ho told The Korea Times on Friday.
Lee Kyung-sik, head of KIC's San Francisco office, said the local branch of the sovereign fund will continue to serve a central role in connecting investment experts in Silicon Valley with institutional investors of Korea.
KIC first began investing in venture firms in 2017, and set up its San Francisco office in March 2021 to expand direct investment into prominent venture firms and startups headquartered in Silicon Valley. KIC currently operates four overseas branches, with the other three in New York, London and Singapore.
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