Elice Group, which started as a coding-education company, is set to list on Korea's KOSDAQ market on Oct. 20. Its IPO price is 90,500 won (about $67), the top of its target range, valuing the company at 1.0054 trillion won ($749 million). Its Oct. 7-8 retail offering drew about 10.3 trillion won ($7.7 billion) in subscription deposits (money set aside to apply for shares), with 408 bids for every share available.
The usual take is "a big AI listing has arrived." The seven KOSDAQ newcomers that have listed since September closed their first day an average of 127% above their IPO prices.
But the real story is elsewhere. In the first half of this year, the customer behind two-thirds of the company's sales was not a private business but a single public agency.
- How does Elice Group make money?
Elice Group builds data centers packed with high-end AI chips (GPUs) and rents out that computing power: an AI cloud company. Think of the cloud like a rental car. Instead of buying an expensive car, you rent what you need and pay for it. The difference is that what's rented out is AI computing, not a car.
AI cloud's share of sales jumped from 6.60% in 2023 and 8.54% in 2024 to 44.18% in 2025 and 76.2% in the first half of this year. First-half sales were 34.4 billion won ($25.6 million), up 202% from a year earlier, and operating profit of 10.3 billion won ($7.7 million) already topped all of last year (about 5.2 billion won, or $3.9 million). Put simply, three of every four won in sales now come from renting out AI computers.
- Who paid for two-thirds of its sales?
According to NH Investment & Securities research, sales to the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA), a public agency, were about 22.5 billion won ($16.8 million) in the first half, or 65.6% of the total. For all of 2025, they were about 13.5 billion won ($10 million), or 34.3%. Comparing the full-year share with the half-year share, one customer's slice has nearly doubled.
Think of a neighborhood bakery that gets two-thirds of its sales from orders by one city office. Steady orders feel safe, but if the budget changes, sales can drop all at once. One difference: a city office rarely goes out of business.
Kim Hak-jun, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, said: "As the government projects that now make up most of its cloud sales shift to AI cloud contracts centered on private companies, investors will need to see the customer base actually grow."
- Is its next job government work, too?
According to the company, Elice Group was the first in Korea to win the public-sector cloud security certification (CSAP IaaS, required to supply cloud services to public agencies) for a modular data center, and that gave it a stable base for winning public-sector contracts.
Its next big job is government work, too. Korea's science ministry picked it, alongside Naver Cloud and Samsung SDS, to carry out a 2.085 trillion won ($1.55 billion) government GPU program, and it will handle 2,560 of the program's 9,704 Nvidia B300 chips.
- Where will the 201.1 billion won ($150 million) in IPO money go?
Most of the IPO money is planned for data centers: 126.263 billion won ($94 million) for new modular data centers (PMDCs) to serve private demand for high-performance computing, and 28.669 billion won ($21.3 million) for its Seoul-area center. The goal is to supply 40 megawatts (MW) in the southwest by the end of this year and 80 MW in the southeast next year.
Elice Group builds data centers with IPO money → private companies have to rent those computers → only then do they turn into sales. It's like building a new guesthouse: it only makes money when the rooms are booked. Empty rooms still cost loan interest and electricity.
Sun Yu-jin, an analyst at LS Securities, said: "After the listing, the investment focus will be on the growth of the AI cloud business and the utilization rate of the new PMDCs," adding that "whether it can quickly expand the large-scale GPU operating track record it built through government projects into the private market will be the key variable for its future value."
- What could move the stock after it lists?
Only 20.81% of all shares can be sold on the first trading day. But one month later, the sale restrictions on 1,332,886 shares held by financial investors (investors who put in money for returns rather than to run the company) expire, raising that to 32.81%.
It may need more money, too. Short-term borrowings stood at 35.5 billion won ($26.4 million) at the end of June, and Kim of Kiwoom Securities said, "Demand for funding additional infrastructure investment may continue, so investors should watch for greater volatility."
- BITPRESS Insight
In BITPRESS's view, the key to holding a 1 trillion won valuation is not the "AI" label but who fills the new data centers. Its biggest customer today is a public agency, while 126.3 billion won ($94 million) of the IPO money is planned for facilities meant for private customers.
For individuals thinking of buying on the first day, a 408-to-1 subscription ratio only tells you how popular the stock is. The key variable analysts point to is whether the next customer after the government shows up.
When you look at a newly listed stock, ask first not "what technology is this?" but "who pays more than half of its sales, and what's left if that customer buys less?"
Sources
https://www.hankyung.com/article/2026100805886
https://www.hankyung.com/article/2026100817861
https://www.hankyung.com/article/202610066474r
https://m.sedaily.com/article/20099759
https://www.ddaily.co.kr/page/view/2026100710371503738
https://www.dataeconomy.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=43100
https://www.inews24.com/view/2011587
Glossary
IPO price — The price at which a company sells newly issued shares to the public before listing, set by gathering the prices institutional investors bid.
Book building — The process of asking institutional investors, before the IPO price is set, how many shares they want and at what price.
GPU — A chip first built for graphics that can do many calculations at once, now used to train AI.
Modular data center (PMDC) — A data center that fits servers, power and water cooling into a single container, so it can be built quickly.
Lockup — A promise that existing shareholders won't sell for a set period after listing; when it ends, more shares can be sold.
BITPRESS articles are information to help your investment decisions, not a recommendation to buy or sell any stock or coin. Investment decisions and their results are your own responsibility.
