Same Ingredient, Different Raw Materials: K-Beauty Competes on Ingredient Quality

* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence–based customized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six tailored news items for each reader type.

1. Song Bo-kyung, CEO of Witten Company: "In Cosmetics, Efficacy Differs by Raw Material Even With the Same Ingredient"

- Key summary: Beauty-tech startup Witten Company is targeting the ingredient-focused cosmetics market by emphasizing differences in raw material quality. In an interview with the Seoul Economic Daily on the 21st, Witten Company CEO Song Bo-kyung said that just as tap water, filtered water and bottled water differ even though all are water, cosmetics raw materials also differ in quality even when the ingredient is the same. Song and co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Kim Seo-yul both previously worked at the Brain Science Institute of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), and have released a tranexamic acid serum and a niacinamide serum under their own brand, "Organicity," as flagship products. The company has also introduced "ingredient-modular skincare" aimed at skin conditions that shift with the seasons, sleep quality and stress, and has gathered more than 60,000 reviews on its own online store without separate marketing.

2. Hana Bank to Provide 200 Billion Won in Guarantee-Backed Loans to Young Firms

- Key summary: Hana Bank, together with the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund and the Korea Technology Finance Corporation, will provide 200 billion won ($148 million) in guarantee-backed loans to young companies. Hana Bank said on the 23rd that it signed a memorandum of understanding for "Y-BRIDGE guarantee financing support for the advancement of young firms" with the two funds at its head office in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 21st. The support targets individual business owners aged 39 and under who meet the guarantee requirements, as well as companies whose chief executive officer (CEO) is a young person, with up to 300 million won per firm. The guarantee ratio is 100%, and Hana Bank fully covers the fixed guarantee fee of 0.3%.

3. [Rotary] The Second Act of the Auto Industry: Humanoids

- Key summary: U.S. technology restrictions targeting China have expanded to import curbs on China-made humanoid robots, following earlier measures on telecommunications equipment, drones and connected cars. The column argues that the United States has begun to view automobiles, robots and artificial intelligence (AI) as a single physical AI ecosystem, noting that Tesla is betting its future on the humanoid "Optimus," while Hyundai Motor Group has secured a 100% stake in Boston Dynamics and is accelerating the commercialization of "Atlas." It also points out that core technologies and supply chains for automobiles and humanoids—including drive motors, reducers, batteries, power semiconductors and sensors—overlap substantially. The column notes that some auto plants in China are operating at a level close to unmanned "dark factories," and recommends a strategy that ties together research and development, demonstration, regulatory innovation, supply chains and talent cultivation.

4. Newly Listed Stocks Fall 25% on Average in Q3 as Volatility Chills IPOs

- Key summary: As South Korea's stock market volatility widened in the third quarter of this year, most newly listed stocks are trading below their offering prices. According to the Korea Exchange on the 23rd, as of the closing price on the 21st, the shares of eight companies newly listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets since July had fallen an average of 25% from their offering prices, exceeding the KOSPI and KOSDAQ declines of 19% and 13% over the same period. HLGnomics (0156T0) posted the largest drop at 57%, followed by Lemon Healthcare (365660) and Delicious (483350), which fell 48% and 46%, respectively. The average first-day gain over the offering price was also just 2.96%, in contrast to the 133% average recorded in the second quarter. The introduction of a "3% rule" as the Financial Services Commission and the Korea Exchange finalized their plan on dual listings on the 31st of last month also fueled a wait-and-see stance.

5. "Growing Fabless Firms Hinges on Securing Early Demand, Not Just R&D"

- Key summary: An argument has emerged that fostering the fabless (chip design specialist) industry requires a procurement policy in which the public sector purchases early production volumes, beyond research and development (R&D) support. In an interview with the Seoul Economic Daily on the 23rd, Kim Kyung-ho, chairman of the Korea Fabless Industry Association, stressed that the government should serve as a reliable buyer in the early market, and that introducing a public procurement quota and tax incentives for purchasing domestic semiconductors is urgent. He also proposed that concentrated investment—capable of deploying tens of billions to hundreds of billions of won per case through a mega-scale-up fund or direct subsidies—is the right direction, rather than fragmented small-scale support. Kim said domestic startups are standing out in on-device AI chips and neural processing units (NPUs), calling the present the last golden window, and expressed concern that fabless support could be pushed to a lower priority if the budget for the semiconductor special account launching next year falls short.

6. PEFs Stuck by High Rates Look to "Continuation Funds" as an Exit

- Key summary: The long-held portfolios of U.S. private equity fund (PEF) managers are approaching 20% of the total, making delays in exiting investments clear. According to the investment banking (IB) industry on the 23rd, research firm PitchBook counted 2,536 of the 13,509 companies held by U.S. PEFs as of the end of June this year as having investment periods exceeding seven years. The buyout net asset value (NAV) held by funds past seven years reached $860 billion, accounting for about 40% of total buyout NAV. The backdrop is that investments granted high multiples during the low-rate period around 2021 have become harder to sell as borrowing rates rose from 5–6% to 9–11%. In South Korea, too, cases of long-term holdings are piling up—such as Affinity Equity Partners' Lock&Lock and Anchor Equity Partners' Solity—while continuation funds, which transfer assets to a new fund, are emerging as an alternative.