IPO Microscope Elice Shock on Debut Day: -32%... Korean KOSDAQ Becomes Litmus Test for 'AI Bubble'

AI company Elice Group's debut on KOSDAQ ended with a 32% plunge compared to its offering price. After the IPO proved successful in preliminary demand forecasting and public subscription, the stock collapsed on its first day of listing, attracting more attention globally as foreign media outlets including Bloomberg and Financial Times uniformly highlighted the "return of AI bubble fears."

Elice Group listed on KOSDAQ on the 20th. The offering price was 90,500 won at the top of the desired range, the offering amount was approximately 201 billion won, and the market capitalization based on the offering price was in the 1 trillion won range. In institutional demand forecasting, 2,367 institutions participated, recording a competition ratio of 388.84 to 1, and in public subscription, 408 to 1 competition ratio with 10.2599 trillion won in subscription deposits poured in. However, from the opening price of 75,700 won, which fell 16.4% below the offering price, it closed at 61,500 won, ending with a 32.04% plunge in a single day.

Foreign media reactions were sharp. Bloomberg wrote, "With NeoCloud Elice's 32% debut debacle, AI fear has returned," and the Financial Times also significantly covered the first-day plunge. The Wall Street Journal pointed to investor caution on AI and linked the reporting with U.S. data center company Fermi Grid's withdrawal from its IPO. Barron's called it a "South Korean IPO disaster," and CNBC likened it to the sharp stock price decline of U.S. GPU cloud company CoreWeave. Elice's debut became a litmus test for gauging global AI investment sentiment.

Founded in 2015, Elice Group is led by CEO Kim Jae-won, a graduate of KAIST, beginning with an AI education platform and expanding into GPU cloud and AI data center businesses, known as "NeoCloud" operations. Although it is a profitable company with revenue of 34.4 billion won and operating profit of 10.3 billion won in the first half of this year, debt has surged from 5.1 billion won to 29.8 billion won due to data center investments, and there are also points raised that a substantial portion of revenue comes from government GPU project payments.

The stock bounced back to the upper limit (79,900 won) on the second trading day on the 21st and rose more than 20% intraday on the 22nd as well, riding a roller coaster around the offering price line. The successful IPO, first-day plunge, and subsequent two days of sharp rebounds demonstrate how tense expectations and anxieties regarding the AI sector are. Amid global AI bubble debates including CoreWeave-triggered adjustment theories and Anthropic's large-scale loss disclosure, assessments suggest that caution signals are being raised for follow-up listings of domestic AI companies.