Signal Early warning 6: Deep-tech ecosystem vitality

Summary

The sixth early-warning indicator measures the vitality of Korea's deep-tech ecosystem by counting technology-based unicorns and their growth, excluding e-commerce and content companies. Figures for 2024 and 2025 put the United States at more than 600 unicorns, about half the global total, China at 170, India at 70 and Korea at only 13 to 15, below 1% of the world total. The share of those Korean unicorns based on deep technology is described as extremely low. The report adds that the gap with leading innovation economies is absolute relative to Korea's GDP and R&D scale, and that the number of companies may even be declining. The indicator is therefore classified as signalling dependence.