이 기사는 2022년 03월 17일 07시57분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

South Korea’s biotech startup Voronoi has scrapped its plan to go public after getting lukewarm response from institutional investors in its two-day bookbuilding process.

Voronoi has cancelled its initial public offering (IPO) plan as it only drew bids from some 20 institutions in its bookbuilding, according to industry sources on Tuesday. Most of the institutions decided not to make bids at the last minute.

“The company’s growth potential was high, but many of the institutions decided not to participate in the bookbuilding amid unfavorable market conditions,” an official at one asset management firm in Seoul said. “All of the asset managers I know made their final decisions to withdraw this time.”

Voronoi had to attract bids worth 100 billion won ($80 million) based on the bottom end of its price range, but the bids drawn were worth much less than that.

Voronoi was valued at 1.2 trillion won in its 100 billion won pre-IPO funding round in 2019, but had to lower its valuation following two failures in technology evaluations.

The biotech startup could have been the first unicorn going public in the country to benefit from a special exemption for listing. This allows companies to apply for preliminary review for listing on the Kosdaq if their market capitalization exceeds 500 billion won and pass technology evaluation from one independent evaluating agency instead of two. Voronoi received an A rating from Korea Technology Finance Corporation and valued itself at as high as 860 billion won in its registration statement.

Voronoi CEO Kim Dae-kwon himself conducted IR session for the firm’s successful market debut, but failed to attract positive response amid frozen investor sentiment toward biotech firms. (Reporting by Chan-mi Oh)