IPO Microscope ② GM Spent 14 Trillion Won and Withdrew…189-Person Rideflux's 'Private Listing Challenge'

GM poured 14 trillion won into Cruise, its autonomous robotaxi subsidiary, only to withdraw from the business last year. Google's Waymo persists with its parent company's virtually unlimited capital, expanding its service areas. In a battlefield where the world's largest corporations are burning money like this, a Korean startup with 189 employees and 4 billion won in revenue last year says it will leap into the stock market as a listed company. Will it survive? The question that Rideflux must answer—but the company is unable to disclose the very numbers that would provide an answer.

Rideflux posted 4 billion won in revenue last year with a net loss of 31.4 billion won, in a state of complete capital depletion. On August 14 last year, the company filed for KOSDAQ preliminary listing review through the technical exception pathway. The technical exception is a system that asks investors to trust technology and growth potential rather than current financials. Given the absence of financials, evidence of technology and transparency of revenue structure essentially become the sum total of review and investment decision-making.

That evidence is shaking. First, patents. The company claimed "100 registered patents" in its press release, but this publication's search through the Korea Patent Information Search System (KIPRIS) confirmed 77 domestic registrations (96 total filings including patent and utility model applications). The company responded, "That figure combines domestic and international registered patents; KIPRIS does not reflect overseas registrations." The more fundamental question is not the number but the application. Patents are not statistics to be accumulated but technology that must be proven through products and revenue. Whether 100 or 77, if those patents cannot show how they actually function in the service, what revenue they generate, then the debate over counting methodology is only a secondary issue.

Second, revenue. Sixty percent of last year's revenue came from a single customer. The company refuses to disclose who that customer is, citing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Of the 4 billion won in revenue, 2.4 billion won depends on one transaction partner whose name remains unknown. The company claimed it is "expanding high-margin B2B recurring revenue such as middle-mile cargo transport, moving away from one-off government and local government projects," but never presented those proportions and amounts in figures. Customer concentration and revenue recurrence are first-tier variables in listing review and public offering investment decisions. If a startup is confident in its technology and stands on the brink of listing, the customer responsible for 60% of its revenue should not be hidden but featured as a reference to be promoted. Hiding behind self-imposed non-disclosure agreements does not reflect the image of an innovative technology industry where tens of trillions of won in investment flows globally.

Challenge is the company's role, and it deserves respect as such. However, technical exception listing is a gate that transfers the cost of that challenge to the public offering market and ultimately to ordinary citizens' pockets. If that gate opens with unverified numbers, when the challenge fails, it is not the company or venture capitalists who bear the loss—it is ordinary citizens who subscribed. This is a market from which the world's largest automaker withdrew after spending 14 trillion won. For a 189-person challenge to earn support, at minimum the numbers must be transparent.

If preparing for technical exception listing, the technology deserving of the exception must be disclosed. Evaluations of technology can vary from person to person. However, if among the 100-plus patents the company itself has disclosed, the company cannot even say what the most core technology is and where it is being used now because of confidentiality, the question narrows to one. For such a company, might it not be better to remain a private company rather than a publicly listed one?