(Oct 20): Data-centre infrastructure company Elice Inc plunged in its trading debut in South Korea, dragged down by swirling concern about the outlook for the industry.
Shares of the Seoul-based neocloud service provider fell as much as 33% to 61,000 won in early Tuesday trading on the tech-heavy Kosdaq market, on track for the worst-ever opening day after a sizable Korean initial public offering. The company raised 201 billion won (US$151 million) in the IPO, pricing its shares at 90,500 won apiece, the top of a marketed price range, for a post-listing market capitalisation exceeding one trillion won. The retail offering was subscribed more than 400 times.
The debut is a reflection of souring investor appetite for the sector after a series of setbacks around the world. Firmus Grid Ltd cancelled its high-profile Sydney listing this month as concerns over borrowing costs, fierce competition and long-term returns from massive AI-related spending weigh on valuations. Coreweave Inc’s shares have more than halved since their May peak, AirTrunk is delaying a planned IPO of a real estate investment trust, people familiar with the matter have said, while Nscale Ltd is facing pushback over its target IPO valuation, Bloomberg News reported.
“Elice’s debut comes at a time when sentiment towards AI infrastructure companies has weakened, particularly in the US,” said Albert Yong, managing partner and chief investment officer at Petra Capital Management. “Sentiment towards AI infrastructure has been highly volatile and often disconnected from underlying fundamentals.”
In a sign of regulatory pushback in the broader industry, South Korea is examining whether a proposed US initial public offering of SK Hynix Inc’s unit Solidigm would count as a “duplicate listing,” as some lawmakers push for stronger protection of minority shareholders.
Elice was able to generate demand among South Korean retail investors, who poured roughly 10.3 trillion won into subscription deposits in hopes of buying shares. But if the 33% drop holds, it would become the worst-ever debut after a Korea IPO that raised at least US$100 million, surpassing the 30% plunge by W-Scope Chungju Plant Co in 2022.
“The healthy retail order book for Elice’s listing is a testament to investors’ eagerness to participate in what will surely be a massive need for AI infrastructure in the coming years,” said Hans Stege, head of investment research at PrePublic Equity Partners. “But that buildout will require well-functioning debt markets as well, and we are seeing a lot of pencil sharpening around cash flows and capital stacks as a result.”
To win over investors, Elice touted a 200% surge in first-half revenue to 34.4 billion won, according to its prospectus. The company swung to an operating profit of 10.3 billion won, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation jumped more than 11-fold to 23.2 billion won. The company is expected to record an 83% sales jump in 2026 and an operating margin of about 33%, analyst Douglas Kim wrote in a note on Smartkarma.
Elice’s financial structure is different from CoreWeave’s, and investors don’t need to view the company as “particularly risky,” said Kim Dojoon, chief executive officer at Zian Investment Management. But, he added, “It remains to be seen whether the company can maintain its current profitability.”
Founded in 2015 by three students in the doctorate programme of KAIST, one of the country’s top technology universities, Elice began as a coding education platform before pivoting to AI cloud infrastructure, supplying products including servers, liquid-cooled chips, cloud and networking equipment and software. The company has since developed a modular data centre platform with high-density power systems and advanced liquid cooling designed for high-performance AI chip clusters.
A successful offering could help break an IPO drought in South Korea, where the primary market has been in the doldrums as fundraising surged across Asia. First-time listings in Seoul have raised US$1.4 billion in 2026, compared with more than US$3 billion in each of the previous three years, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. Meanwhile, SK Hynix Inc completed the biggest-ever US share sale by a foreign company.
Elice’s IPO was the biggest on the Kosdaq this year and surpassed in Korea only by the US$337 million offering of K Bank Co in March.
Backed by venture capital firms including Vertex Ventures and Altos Ventures, Elice plans to use its IPO proceeds to build more AI data centres around South Korea and abroad, according to chief executive Officer Jae Won Kim. Mirae Asset Securities Co and Samsung Securities Co served as lead underwriters.
“We’re going all-in on becoming a full-stack AI infrastructure leader globally,” Kim said in an interview. “This IPO is about giving ourselves the financial firepower to execute.”
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